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So, playing Jerusalem against Athens? Not at all, I can’t, and I confess you worry me a little when you exclaim “any truer? (as if that were the question!).” Because, yes, that seems to me to be precisely the question, and the particular merit of Western philosophy is to have placed the question of truth center stage, sacrificed everything for it, going so far as to eventually consent to a form of suicide, reducing its own scope to that of an epistemological complement. It is Nietzsche, I think, that big subtle cat, who first recognized the dangers the sciences—having more or less killed off revealed truths—would have on philosophy itself. But it was he, consequently, who tried to taint the search for truth with suspicion. He thereby opened up in philosophy what might be called the era of disloyalty. Because what is philosophy if it relegates the search for truth to the background? We’re pretty much back to the sophists.

• • •

In animal societies, in the most evolved of animal societies (land and marine mammals, certain bird societies), a language appears, which makes it possible for members of the group to exchange information; in parallel an individual consciousness develops. The phenomenon is further developed in the primates, and in man. It is not abrupt, there is no difference in nature; it happens slowly, by degrees.

Or rather (because ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, it’s an approximate, classic expression, a gimmick): in the brain of the fetus, a number of nerve cells, once reached, form connections, create networks, begin to process the stimuli in its environment, limited at first to the womb. Very early on, images appear, memories are created.

And—classic defense mechanism—“we are only beginning to understand these phenomena.” It is true that they are among the most complex phenomena we are aware of, but that is not a license to abandon the general framework of the scientific method.

And consciousness will also appear, once they reach a certain stage of development, in machines, those entities made up of circuits, created by man; we need to prepare ourselves for that.

Consciousness, “the ghost in the machine,” as certain theoreticians of neurophysiology call it.

An evolutionary consciousness, obviously (new connections are formed every minute; new concepts, new memories; and the neurons themselves, contrary to what was long believed, can regenerate).

Of course this despiritualized conception is not without its consequences. In the first place, I absolutely reject the radical difference you establish between animal and man. Between animal and man, to state it bluntly, it is the essential that is identical; the difference is of degree but in no case of nature.

In the second place, in some more obscure and more disagreeable sense, this is not unconnected with your (political) commitment and my own reservations. It’s painful for me to admit, when I think of my atheist, politically committed friends, but I’ve never really understood the root of their commitment, it has always seemed to me to have more to do with a Christian tradition than they themselves suspected. I am speaking from pure intuition here, but in all the Christian groups I tried in vain to belong to, one of the things I completely understood was their commitment. It was very clear: they had accepted the idea that, being sons of God, all men are brothers, and behaved accordingly. To me it did not (nor does it now) seem obvious. I have a certain compassion for the needy, but it is not really very different from my attitude to an animal caught in a trap; I simply try to open the jaws of the trap because I imagine the pain. And as for the notion of human dignity, I have to say I find it completely baffling.

For my part, I don’t feel any particular dignity in myself: people could hurt me or mistreat me; they could certainly break me; they could cause me permanent physical or psychological damage. I would complain about the suffering, the mistreatment; I would complain the same way an animal complains, not specifically as