Are we losing consciousness ? / Perdons-nous connaissance ?

""Are we losing consciousness?"", that is, are we losing the meaning of what knowledge is when we proclaim ourselves a ""knowledge society""? Today, knowledge no longer scares anyone, while for three thousand years our Western culture has continued to describe it as vital and dangerous. Yes, dangerous, who still remembers it? Does this break with our heritage constitute progress or regression, a fall or an ascent? Mythology and Neurology, sources of ""knowledge of knowledge"", will offer us precious keys to resolve this unprecedented paradox in the history of thought. In this brilliant essay that explores the multiple dimensions of our existences, we understand why knowledge should not be considered as a question of ""specialists"", but as everyone's business. Lionel Naccache is a neurologist at the Piti?-Salp?tri?re hospital in Paris and a researcher in cognitive neuroscience at the Brain and Spinal Cord Institute Research Center. He is the author of The New Unconscious.