The true, the beautiful and the good: A new neural approach

In *The True, the Beautiful, and the Good*, renowned French neurobiologist Jean-Pierre Changeux guides us through the exploration of the world's most complex machine: the human brain. Drawing on his lectures at the Collège de France, he presents his most recent reflections, revealing new areas of knowledge, such as neuroethics and neuroesthetics. Marked by multidisciplinarity, the author's thinking follows the pioneering work of Louis Pasteur, who transitioned from chemistry to medicine. From neurobiology to human history and culture, Changeux blazes a new trail based on the most recent research on the brain—morphological, physiological, chemical, and genetic—and applies the resulting discoveries to the fields of psychology, philosophy, art, and literature. As a result, he reveals unexplored territory where these disciplines intersect. "Progressively and methodically, Jean-Pierre Changeux developed the tools and biological approaches that allowed him to conceive early on, and better substantiate, the program of a neurobiology of culture and consciousness," concludes Professor Claude Debru, who wrote the foreword. Based on the Platonic notion that the Good, the True, and the Beautiful are celestial essences or ideas, independent yet so interconnected as to be inseparable, the neurobiologist situates these essences within the framework of characteristic features of the neuronal organization of the human brain.