Descartes' Error
Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain is a 1994 book by neuroscientist António Damásio describing the physiology of rational thought and decision, and how the faculties could have evolved through Darwinian natural selection.[1] Damásio refers to René Descartes' separation of the mind from the body (the mind/body dualism) as an error because reasoning requires the guidance of emotions and feelings conveyed from the body.[2][3] Written for the layperson, Damásio uses the dramatic 1848 railroad accident case of Phineas Gage as a reference for incorporating data from multiple modern clinical cases, enumerating damaging cognitive effects when feelings and reasoning become anatomically decoupled.[3] The book provides an analysis of diverse clinical data contrasting a wide range of emotional changes following frontal lobe damage[4] as well as lower (medulla) and anterior areas of the brain such as the anterior cingulate. Among his experimental evidence and testable hypotheses, 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.
.jpg) The original paperback edition | |
| Author | António Damásio |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Published | 1994 |
| Pages | 312 |
| ISBN | 978-0-399-13894-2 |
Publication data
edit- Damásio, António (1994). Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. Putnam. 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
editReferences
edit- ^ Marg 1995.
- ^ Hyyppä 1996.
- ^ a b Hughes & Harding 2014.
- ^ Panksepp 1998, p. 388.
Bibliography
edit- Hughes, Tom; Harding, Katharine (2014). "Review: Descartes' error". Practical Neurology. 14 (3): 201. doi:10.1136/practneurol-2014-000899. S2CID 219202774.
- Hyyppä, Markku (October 1996). "Review: Descartes' error". Journal of Psychosomatic Research. 41 (4): 386. doi:10.1016/S0022-3999(96)00093-1.
- Panksepp, Jaak (1998). Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-517805-0.
- Marg, Elwin (1995). "Review: Descartes' error". Optometry and Vision Science. 72 (11). doi:10.1097/00006324-199511000-00013. Retrieved 2021-09-08.
Further reading
editJ. Birtchnell, The Two of Me: The Rational Outer Me and The Emotional Inner Me (London 2003)
J. Panksepp, Affective Neuroscience (OUP 1998)