Discours sans méthode

by Henri Laborit, Francis Jeanson

"La biologie contemporaine, du fait de son remarquable essor et de la diversité des instruments conceptuels qu’elle a su mettre à son service, est-elle mieux placée que d’autres disciplines scientifiques pour parler aux hommes un langage qu’ils comprennent et pour leur permettre d’acquérir de meilleures prises sur leur propre présence au monde ? La connaissance de la vie peut-elle nous aider dans nos efforts pour donner sens à notre vie ? Est-il légitime d’en attendre non point quelque métaphysique après tant d’autres, mais bien plutôt, si j’ose dire, une philophysique : une façon, pour ces hybrides que nous sommes, de nous lier à la nature et de ne pas renier notre appartenance à l’évolution tout en tenant compte de la dimension socioculturelle selon laquelle nous sommes perpétuellement contraints de la dépasser ? A de telles questions, toute réponse est assurément décevante. Mais si nous ressentons un manque, ce n’est justement pas au niveau des réponses : on nous en a plutôt abreuvés. C’est au niveau d’un mode de questionnement, d’une démarche qui puisse devenir notre propre recherche, d’une problématique ouverte et attentive qui nous permette d’échapper à l’aveugle clôture des « solutions »." Francis Jeanson

236 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Henri Laborit was a French surgeon, researcher, writer and philosopher. Animated by a robustly nonconformist spirit, he maintained an independence from academia and never sought to produce the orderly results that science requires of its adherents. His laboratory was self-funded for decades and allowed him to pursue his interdisciplinary interests. He is widely considered to be a pioneer of systems thinking and complexity theory in France.

He won the prestigious Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research in 1957. Laborit later became a research head at Boucicault Hospital in Paris.

His interests included psychotropic drugs, eutonology, and memory. He pioneered the use of dopamine antagonists to reduce shock in injured soldiers. His observation that people treated with these drugs showed reduced interest in their surroundings led to their later use as antipsychotics.

He was also the first researcher to study GHB, in the early 1960s. He hoped that it would be an orally bioavailable precursor to the neurotransmitter GABA, but it proved to have other uses and was later discovered as an endogenous neurotransmitter.

He appeared in the 1980 Alain Resnais film Mon oncle d'Amérique, which is built around the ideas of Laborit and uses the stories of three people to illustrate theories deriving from evolutionary psychology regarding the relationship of self and society. This movie includes short sequences of rat experiments that are used to illustrate the behaviors of some of the characters in different situations (such as inhibition in the action).

The French-born American market researcher Clotaire Rapaille considered Laborit to be an important influence in his work.

The 1991 Italian film Mediterraneo begins with a quote from Laborit which, translated, means "In times like these, escape is the only way to stay alive and keep dreaming."