Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain - Hardcover

Damasio, Antonio R

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0330339273 ISBN 13: 9780330339278

Publisher: Picador, 1995

Synopsis

This text takes the form of a conversation between the author and imaginary listener. It journeys from the story of Phineas Gage, the 19th-century case of behavioural change that followed brain damage, to the contemporary recreation of Gage's brain; and from the doubts of young neurologist to a testable hypothesis concerning the emotions and their fundamental role in rational human behaviour. Drawing on his experiences with neurological patients affected by brain damage, Damasio shows how the absence of emotion and feeling can break down rationality. In the course of explaining how emotions and feelings contribute to reason and to adaptive social behaviour, he also offers a perspective on what emotions and feelings actually are: a direct sensing of our own body states, a link between the body and its survival-orientated regulations, on the one hand, and consciousness, on the other. Damasio concludes that human organisms are endowed from the very beginning with a passion for making choices, which the social mind can use to build rational behaviour. Hearts have reasons that reason should know of and use.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"Although I cannot tell for certain what sparked my interest in the neural underpinnings of reason, I do know when I became convinced that the traditional views on the nature of rationality could not be correct". Thus begins a book that takes the reader on a journey of discovery, from the story of Phineas Gage, the famous nineteenth-century case of behavioral change that followed brain damage, to the contemporary recreation of Gage's brain; and from the doubts of a young neurologist to a testable hypothesis concerning the emotions and their fundamental role in rational human behavior. Drawing on his experiences with neurological patients affected by brain damage (his laboratory is recognized worldwide as the foremost center for the study of such patients), Antonio Damasio shows how the absence of emotion and feeling can break down rationality. In the course of explaining how emotions and feelings contribute to reason and to adaptive social behavior, Damasio also offers a novel perspective on what emotions and feelings actually are: a direct sensing of our own body states, a link between the body and its survival-oriented regulations, on the one hand, and consciousness, on the other. Descartes' Error leads us to conclude that human organisms are endowed from the very beginning with a spirited passion for making choices, which the social mind can use to build rational behavior.

About the Author

Antonio Damasio is a University Professor, David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Neurology, and director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California. Damasio's other books include Self Comes to Mind, Looking for Spinoza and The Feeling of What Happens. He has received the Honda Prize, the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research, and, shared with his wife Hanna, the Pessoa, Signoret, and Cozzarelli prizes. Damasio is a fellow of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. He lives in Los Angeles.

Edition details

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0330339273
• ISBN 13: 9780330339278
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English