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Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain
"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.
Book Details
- Publisher: Penguin Books
- Publish Date: Sep 1st, 2005
- Pages: 336
- Language: English
- Edition: undefined - undefined
- Dimensions: 7.74in - 5.08in - 0.59in - 0.50lb
- EAN: 9780143036227
- Recommended age: 18-UP
- Categories: • Neuropsychology• Cognitive Psychology & Cognition• Emotions
About the Author
Antonio Damasio, a neurologist and neuroscientist, is at the University of Southern California, where he directs a new brain research institute dedicated to the study of emotion and creativity. He is also an adjunct professor at the Salk Institute. The recipient of numerous awards (several shared with his wife Hanna Damasio, also a neurologist and neuroscientist), he is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of two other widely acclaimed books, The Feeling of What Happens and Looking for Spinoza.
Praise for this book
"An ambitious and meticulous foray into the nature of being." -- The Boston Globe
"We may well be about to discover that the heart is after all in the head." -- Financial Times
"Damasio's arguments are ingenious and wide ranging...His thoughtful and modest exposition should be taken seriously...It is no mean feat to say something original and intelligible about emotion." -- Nature