Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain
Since Descartes famously proclaimed, "I think, therefore I am," science has often overlooked emotions as the source of a person’s true being. Even modern neuroscience has tended, until recently, to concentrate on the cognitive aspects of brain function, disregarding emotions. This attitude began...
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Since Descartes famously proclaimed, "I think, therefore I am," science has often overlooked emotions as the source of a person’s true being. Even modern neuroscience has tended, until recently, to concentrate on the cognitive aspects of brain function, disregarding emotions. This attitude began to change with the publication of Descartes’ Error in 1995. Antonio Damasio—"one of the world’s leading neurologists" (The New York Times)—challenged traditional ideas about the connection between emotions and rationality. In this wondrously engaging book, Damasio takes the reader on a journey of scientific discovery through a series of case studies, demonstrating what many of us have long suspected: emotions are not a luxury, they are essential to rational thinking and to normal social behavior.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780143036227 (014303622X)
Publish date: September 27th 2005
Publisher: Penguin
Pages no: 336
Edition language: English
Category:
Non Fiction,
Academic,
European Literature,
Science,
Popular Science,
Biology,
Health,
Philosophy,
Psychology,
Medicine,
Neuroscience,
Brain,
Portuguese Literature
I have already read Damasio's 2003 book, Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain, and while it was interesting to read this book, published in 1994, it does not add to what the later book contained, the later book travels further and I preferred the more philosphical style of the mor...
(Original Review, 1994-11-17)Dave Chalmers did a great job of making consciousness popular but his own view was 400 years out of date. Descartes is the real rigorous physicist here - he was after all one of the people who devised physics. What he meant by the soul and God being 'spirit' is that they...