Descartes' Error
.jpg) The original paperback edition | |
| Author | António Damásio |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Published | 1994 |
| Pages | 312 |
| ISBN | 978-0-399-13894-2 |
Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain is a 1994 book by neurologist António Damásio, in part a treatment of the mind/body dualism question. Damásio presents the "somatic marker hypothesis", a proposed mechanism by which emotions guide (or bias) behavior and decision-making, and positing that rationality requires emotional input. He argues that René Descartes' "error" was the dualist separation of mind and body, rationality and emotion.
Wider influence[edit]
Damasio's book was described by one reviewer as a 'work with far-reaching implications for understanding mental life'.[1]
Criticism[edit]
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Damasio uses Phineas Gage and other brain-damage cases to argue that rationality stems from emotion, and that emotion stems from bodily senses. However, the book's presentation of Gage's history and symptoms has been criticized as fictionalized.[2] Others object that in using Descartes' name Damasio was knowingly or unknowingly employing a straw man.[3]
Publication data[edit]
- Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, Putnam Publishing, 1994, hardcover: ISBN 0-399-13894-3
- Harper Perennial, 1995 paperback: ISBN 0-380-72647-5
- Penguin, 2005 paperback reprint: ISBN 0-14-303622-X
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ Goleman, p. 27
- ^
See:
- Macmillan, M. (2000). An Odd Kind of Fame: Stories of Phineas Gage. MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-13363-6. pp.118-9, 331-2.
- Macmillan, M. (2008). "Phineas Gage – Unravelling the myth The Psychologist" (PDF). British Psychological Society, 21(9): 828–831, 830-1.
- ^ Lagerlund, p. 15
Further reading[edit]
J. Birtchnell, The Two of Me: The Rational Outer Me and The Emotional Inner Me (London 2003)
J. Panksepp, Affective Neuroscience (OUP 1998)
