What do biologists mean when they say that to live is to react/ Why was the term abreaction invented and later abandoned by the first generation of psychoanalysts? These are but a few of the questions Jean Starobinski answers in this conceptual history of the word pair, action and reaction.

In what he calls a "polyphonic score" - a kind of mosaic - he uses his subject to offer new insights into the work of philosophers (Aristotle, Leibniz, Kant, Nietzsche, Jaspers), scientists (Newton, Bichat, Bernard, Bernheim, Freud) and writers (Diderot, Constant, Balzac, Poe, Valery). Ultimately, the book explores the power and danger of metaphorical language and questions the convergence and collapse