We are pleased to offer our readers an unpublished article by Roger Caillois, a posthumous text which takes its place alongside his other studies on the myth and the imaginary. The octopus, the praying mantis and the fulgora in the real world led Roger Caillois to reflections similar to those which he exposes here relative to the narwhal and the imaginary unicorn. The importance of the unicorn in the author's work comes from the relationship established by the narwhal's tusk between two squares on Roger Caillois’ chess board: myth and dissymmetry. (Editor's note).
So varied and complex is the world of games that there are many ways in which a study of it can be approached. Psychology, sociology, anecdotal history, pedagogy, and mathematics all share a domain whose unity ends by ceasing any longer to be perceptible. Works like Homo ludens by Huizinga, Jeu de l'enfant by Jean Chateau, and Theory of Games and Economic Behavior by J. von Neumann and O. Morgenstern are not addressed to the same readers, nor do they appear to deal with the same subject. Ultimately, this question arises: How much does one profit from the facilities or contingencies of vocabulary by continuing to act as though such different and almost incompatible inquiries are fundamentally concerned with a same specific activity? It is doubtful whether common characteristics permit one to define this specific activity and consequently whether it can legitimately constitute the object of a comprehensive study.
La condition de l'oeuvre d'art. Conférence du 6 septembre. LE ROBOT, LA BÊTE ET L'HOMME STANISLAW ULAM est né en Pologne en 1909 et a obtenu son doctorat en mathématiques à l'Institut polytechnique de Lwow (Pologne) en 1933. Après avoir enseigné en Pologne, en Angleterre et en France, il se rendit aux Etats-Unis en 1936, où il collabora à l'Institute for Advanced Study à Princeton,
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