Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain

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Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain

3.94 of 5 stars 3.94 · rating details · 2,374 ratings · 110 reviews

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—"o...more

Paperback, 336 pages

Published September 27th 2005 by Penguin Books (first published 1994)

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Apr 13, 2011 Abailart rated it 5 of 5 stars

Having read and become involved with his later books, I have gone to the first in a series which explains the difference between emotion and feeling, which makes the mind and body one again, and which profoundly disturbs the comfortable idea of any but conventional separation of 'reason' and the passions.

Damasio is of the 'sufficient but not necessary' strand when it comes to looking at the relationship between brain and mind: you can't be human with the attributes of feelings, emotions, memory...more

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Jan 27, 2009 Dwight Cates rated it 4 of 5 stars

Rene Descartes was a 17th French philosopher and scientist, often called the father of modern philosophy. Descartes argued that 'mind' is an essence that exists independent of 'brain' - this is known as 'Cartesian Dualism.' In 'Descartes' Error', Antonio Damasio argues persuasively that that mind is inextricably linked to brain - when you change the physical brain in specific, measurable ways, you induce specific and measurably changes in mind - personality and behavior.
Damasio illustrates this...more

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Oct 21, 2008 Jon Stout rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fatalists, masters of their destinies

Shelves: philosophy

Antonio Damasio has written a fascinating book, taking as his point of departure a nineteenth century case of a man named Gage who had an iron spike neatly blown through his brain in a mining accident. Gage seemed to retain all of his faculties, amazingly enough, but failed in his later life due to emotional problems. Damasio, a neurologist, uses the case to explore the relationship between emotions and the neurological structure of the brain.

A friend recommended this book to me because of our m...more

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Sep 25, 2007 matt is currently reading it · review of another edition

A very intriguing book exploring the relationship between reason and emotion. Having grappled with how the two can complement each other for most of my life, I'm digging it. The author uses historical medical examples of bizarre cases of brain damage, such as the story of Phineas Gage, a construction foreman from the 1800s who survived a 3-foot metal rod passing through his head, suffering nothing but blindness in his left eye physically but a whole slew of mental and emotional problems due to t...more

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Mar 01, 2009 Corey rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: psychology

I had an unusually ambivalent reaction to this book and alternated between being fascinated and being, well, slightly bored. I'd say that the book is good and the author has some excellent insights, but he gets a little long-winded at times and tends to meander. For the curious, Descarte's "error" was the separation of mind and body, and consequently, an artificial dichotomy between rationality and emotion. Damasio makes an excellent case on neurological grounds that rationality simply doesn't w...more

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Nov 27, 2012 Sean Mcguire rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read Descartes' Error as an undergraduate. In grad school, I learned that my advisor's wife (herself a neuroscientist of some renown) had a very poor opinion of Damasio's work. However, by that point, this book had already changed my life.

Damasio provides here a popular account of research in neuroscience that started with the famous case of Phinneas Gage, who, upon having a railroad spike shoved through his head by an explosion, changed from being an upstanding, reliable citizen into a scurri...more

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May 24, 2011 Joshua Stein rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science, mind

Damasio's book is terrific, and works both as an introduction and a good guide for those studying neuroscience and cognitive science. The scientific case studies are easily accessible and thorough (it features, by far, the most thorough assessment of the Phineas Gage case that I've come across) as are the discussions of circuitry. Damasio does use some unqualified terms, but he does a reasonable job at keeping the very technical discussions brief or relatively well qualified by the context of th...more Damasio's book is terrific, and works both as an introduction and a good guide for those studying neuroscience and cognitive science. The scientific case studies are easily accessible and thorough (it features, by far, the most thorough assessment of the Phineas Gage case that I've come across) as are the discussions of circuitry. Damasio does use some unqualified terms, but he does a reasonable job at keeping the very technical discussions brief or relatively well qualified by the context of the case studies.

There are a lot of areas that Damasio glosses over, but that is largely because he is attempting to cover a fairly massive scope, in terms of science. The text really is about the science, and it is only towards the end that Damasio really begins to address the philosophical assessment, at all. There are some interesting methodological considerations for those who are approaching this book from the "philosophy of mind" bent, as I am. I strongly recommend paying attention to Damasio's relatively interchangeable use of functions usually seen as properties of mind, and the the circuitry of the brain. Damasio is a brilliant writer, and there is a lot of thought put into that particular assessment of causal relationships.

The assessments of evolutionary psychology are very interesting, though I do have some skepticism with regard to some of Damasio's claims about genetics and the development of the brain, as he is not entirely clear about the role of genetics in the emergence of structures in the brain. There's a sort of weird micro/macrostructure distinction that isn't entirely clear to me, and I wish that portion of the text had been more lucid.

That is really nit-picky, though. I think that, overall, this is one of the best books on the subject that I have come across. I really like Damasio's writing style, though the asides can be a little rough, and feel a bit disjointed. Overall, this is a terrific overview of the science and the repercussions on philosophical theories, both historical and contemporary. Damasio doesn't present this as a screed against Descartes (which would be gratuitous, as writers like Dan Dennett have already beaten that horse well to deal at this point) but instead allows his account of the brain to be taken in its proper philosophical context. Definitely a terrific text.(less)

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May 05, 2010 FiveBooks added it

Shelves: fivebooks-on-neuroscience

New York Times columnist David Brooks has chosen to discuss Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain by Antonio Damasio on FiveBooks as one of the top five on his subject – Neuroscience, saying that:

“…Damasio’s work concerns emotion and the role of emotion in decision-making. We have an idea that every day decisions are shaped by rational thinking, but Damasio worked with people who have suffered strokes, and as a result are incapable of feeling emotion. And far from making good de...more

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Nov 02, 2009 Jeremy Lent rated it 5 of 5 stars

I’ve been reading Damasio “backwards”. One of the first books I read three years ago to try to understand the neuroscientific view of consciousness was Damasio’s The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness published in 1999. That gave me a solid grounding in Damasio’s view of embodied consciousness, which has become a foundation of my thinking. Later, I came across Damasio’s paper on the somatic marker hypothesis, which powerfully rejects the idea that abstract t...more I’ve been reading Damasio “backwards”. One of the first books I read three years ago to try to understand the neuroscientific view of consciousness was Damasio’s The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness published in 1999. That gave me a solid grounding in Damasio’s view of embodied consciousness, which has become a foundation of my thinking. Later, I came across Damasio’s paper on the somatic marker hypothesis, which powerfully rejects the idea that abstract thinking can take place without a direct connection to the body’s bio-regulatory processes.

With this context, when I finally read Descartes’ Error, (probably Damasio’s most cited book), it had some of the characteristics of a quaint, historical document, making the case for embodied cognition as though it were a radical new idea: “Surprising as it may sound, the mind exists in and for an integrated organism.” I guess that shows the enormous impact Damasio himself (and others such as Edelman, LeDoux, etc.) have had in changing perceptions about consciousness in a mere fifteen years. Thanks to these ground-breaking neuroscientists, “we’ve come a long way, baby.”

I can only agree with the array of distinguished names that cite Descartes’ Error as a key book for understanding human consciousness. Through Damasio, Phineas Gage has become a household name (in certain households!) – the emblematic tragic figure whose prefrontal cortex was severely damaged in 1848, and whose consequent experiences paved the way for the neurological understanding of the prefrontal importance in regulation of emotion, complex decision-making and general executive functioning.

I think there are two fundamental take-aways from Damasio’s classic: (1) the mind is embodied and without this foundation, no approaches to higher cognitive functions or theories of consciousness have much validity, and (2) the prefrontal cortex (pfc) is the crucial mediator between our “innate regulatory circuits” and our self-aware consciousness, with its attributes of reason, willpower, symbolization, abstraction, etc.

Damasio’s work is a significant resource for my research project. However, an initial impression of my thesis of “the tyranny of the pfc” might be that it’s incompatible with Damasio. After all, if the pfc is the key bridge between bodily regulation and self-awareness, how can there be a “tyranny” of the pfc? And what sense does my distinction of conceptual and animate consciousness make if conceptual consciousness is fundamentally connected with animate consciousness? In fact, though, my approach is not only consistent with Damasio, it relies squarely on the work of Damasio and others for its evidence.

My argument is not that an individual’s prefrontal cortex is, by itself, a “tyrant” of our consciousness, but that our Western cultural milieu, imposed on an infant’s perceptions before s/he has even learned to speak, shapes the individual brain in such a way that our sense of identity and values give an inappropriate priority to pfc-mediated attributes (such as planning, reason, abstraction, logic, etc.) at the expense of a balanced self-identity emphasizing such attributes as integrated mind/body experience or full awareness of the present moment.

Here’s a key passage from the book which relates to my notion of a split between animate and conceptual consciousness:

From an evolutionary perspective, the oldest decision-making device pertains to basic biological regulation; the next, to the personal and social realm; and the most recent, to a collection of abstract-symbolic operations under which we can find artistic and scientific reasoning, utilitarian-engineering reasoning, and the developments of language and mathematics. But although ages of evolution and dedicated neural systems may confer some independence to each of these reasoning/decision-making ‘modules,’ I suspect they are all interdependent.

What Damasio describes as the “collection of abstract-symbolic operations” is essentially the same as my idea of “conceptual consciousness.” As he pointedly emphasizes, they are “interdependent.” But Plato, St. Augustine, Descartes and the whole momentum of Western civilization have idealized the conceptual consciousness as “the soul,” as the proof of our very existence, and as the foundation for science and civilization. It’s only when we begin to re-balance our values to give equal import to our bodily existence that we can begin to move towards a ‘democracy of consciousness.’

So thanks, Antonio Damasio, for your ground-breaking classic. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in gaining a serious understanding of human consciousness.(less)

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Apr 02, 2011 Greg Collver rated it 4 of 5 stars

Most of it was beyond my level of comprehension, but I'd like to read it again after I have learned more about the anatomy of the brain and about the somatosensory systems. I think his writing could be improved, but his thoughts are very important.

A paragraph in his postscript was of special interest:

[An] important target for biomedical efforts should be the alleviation of suffering in mental diseases. But how to deal with the suffering that arises from personal and social conflicts outside the...more

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Nov 04, 2011 Cameron rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: finished

Although this book is 20 years old, the major concepts are as fresh today as they were back then. The difference today is that neuroscientists know a lot more about the details of how the various parts of the brain are connected than they did 20 years ago. Damasio is definitely one to follow and his research is top notch. In this book, he explains with great clarity and depth how the mind is not simply made up of the brain, but rather is a synthesis between the body AND the brain. He opines that...more

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Jan 11, 2011 Michael Steger rated it 4 of 5 stars

An excellent book that is popular for good reason: Damasio's prose is lucid and engaging, and even occasionally literary, which is perhaps surprising in a book strictly about brain function. One of the biggest (and more controversial) ideas that Damasio puts forward here is his theory of somatic markers, which, in a nutshell states that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is a 'convergence zone' that collects and stores information (manifested in the form of neuronal circuits or neuronal disposit...more

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Mar 12, 2013 Morgan Blackledge rated it 3 of 5 stars

OMG Damasio is a hand full. I think he's trying to kill me. The book starts out very readable (which is uncharacteristic of Damasio), then (about half way through) the book becomes nearly unreadable (which is typical of Damasio). I am an educated reader. I teach affective and developmental psychology. I am not a researcher or a specialist but I can say that none of the material in this book is unfamiliar to me. But I'm often lost as to the larger point Damasio is trying to make. I attribute this...more

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Jul 17, 2012 kyle added it

Fascinating read. Think that "reasoning" requires a "cool head?" Think again. Damasio sets out to explore the relationship between emotion and reason and finds that rather than diametrically opposed, reason basically requires emotional reactions. While exploring this link he also provides the most thought provoking interpretation of "intuition" I have ever encountered. The idea that when we encounter a familiar situation (read familiar sensory stimuli) we have a somatic (i.e. body) reaction firs...more

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Jan 22, 2011 Broodingferret rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: psychology, biology, non-fiction

I found this books fascinating. In short, Descartes' Error is a summary of the data and hypotheses behind Demasio's Somatic Marker Hypothesis, which postulates that reason and emotion are intricately intertwined, to the degree that the former will not function correctly without the latter. Basically, and this is quite a simplification, Demasio argues that the brain continuously monitors/manipulates the body so that, through an awareness (either implicit or explicit) of the body's state, an indiv...more

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Mar 08, 2012 Nicholas rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: neuroscience

After having read "The Feeling of What Happens" I thought I'd give this earlier work by the same author a read,as I have recently come across numerous references to it that elevate it to somewhat of a classic in its field.
The first one hundred pages read like a dream and I mistakenly thought that the author had saved his verbose and prolix style for his later works,but then I found I had been lulled into a false sense of security,by which time I was in too deep.The rest of the book took a consi...more

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Mar 15, 2013 Susan Ferguson is currently reading it

Shelves: 2013, non-fiction, science, library-book

This is fairly heavy going. I don't understand everything, but enough to have an idea of what is going on - more or less...

The author draws a connection between feelings and rationality. Just cold rationality without the involvement of feelings is defective. People with a specific braing injury retain their rationality, but it does not involve feelings, so they made some odd choices and have "rational" reactions without emotion. They also have trouble visualizing the future of choices. The brain...more This is fairly heavy going. I don't understand everything, but enough to have an idea of what is going on - more or less...

The author draws a connection between feelings and rationality. Just cold rationality without the involvement of feelings is defective. People with a specific braing injury retain their rationality, but it does not involve feelings, so they made some odd choices and have "rational" reactions without emotion. They also have trouble visualizing the future of choices. The brain is not just thoughts - feelings and thought are bound together to result in the essential being.

Some things I found interesting:
"What worries me is the acceptance of the importance of feelings without any effort to understand their complex biological sociocultural machinery. The best example of this attitude can be found in the attempt to explain bruised feelings or irrational behavior by appealing to surface social caues or the action of neurotransmitters, two explanations that pervade the social discourse as presented in the visual and printed media; and in the attempt to correct personal and social problems with medical and nonmedical drugs. It is precisely this lack of understanding of the nature of feelings and reason (one of the hallmarks of the "culture of complaint") that is cause for alarm."

"On a practical note, the role outlined for feelings in the making of rationality has implications for some issues currently facing our society, education and violence among them. This is not the place to do justice to those issues but let me comment that educational systems might benefit from emphasizing unequivocal connections between current feelings and predicted future outcomes, and that children's overexposure to violence, in real life, newscasts, or through audiovisual fiction, downgrades the value of emotions and feelings in the acquisition and deployment of adaptive social behavior. The fact that so much vicarious violence is presented with a moral framework only compounds the desensitizing action."
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Oct 12, 2012 Lauren rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was certainly a daunting book for me because I had never read a trade science book previously to this (I chose it off a list for a report in my Biology course), but I felt that in the end, my efforts were rewarded. Not an "easy" read for non- science- inclined people, but understandable enough that the Neurobiological concepts can usually be grasped after a second or third read.

The reason that I give "Descartes' Error" 4 stars is Damasio's unique ability to transcend his scientific concept...more

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Jan 01, 2010 Tippy Jackson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: disease, medicine, science-history, neurology

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I was just finishing up chapter 8, the somatic-marker hypothesis. I find this idea fascinating! What it made me think of, interestingly enough, was my old Social Science class. My teacher had said that we are born with only a few innate behaviors and everything else is learned. Because we are learning everything we know, it is so deeply ingrained in us, that even when we actively try to be objective and to sort of turn off our cultural bias, it is impossible. He pointed to the book Return to Lau...more I was just finishing up chapter 8, the somatic-marker hypothesis. I find this idea fascinating! What it made me think of, interestingly enough, was my old Social Science class. My teacher had said that we are born with only a few innate behaviors and everything else is learned. Because we are learning everything we know, it is so deeply ingrained in us, that even when we actively try to be objective and to sort of turn off our cultural bias, it is impossible. He pointed to the book Return to Laughter as an example. He was explaining that this is one of the biggest challenges of anthropology. But after reading this hypothesis, it makes me think of that again. Not only is much of what we know and do culturally learned, but what we learn is even marked in our brain to help us make quick decisions! (Or rather our brain connected specific classes of stimuli with specific classes of somatic state, and our automated somatic-marker device is based on the "education to the standards of rationality of that [our:] culture." It is in effect a marker based on our secondary emotions) This book has really done a compelling job of explaining this hypothesis, both biologically and circumstantially. I appreciate its thoroughness and originality. I picked this book up because I've seen it referenced over and over again in many animal intelligence or animal mind books and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. That being said, I'm coming at this book from a zoologist perspective, not a neurologist perspective, so I haven't really been keeping up with current ideas in the brain science world. So far, reading what I have has made me want to go and look up more current research on this idea. This book was published in '94, but it seems that many more current books are referencing it and now I'm really curious to find out if these ideas have been tested more or what other ideas there are out there.

Also, I love that he opened with Phineas Gage and his use of case studies is very helpful.

Having finished the book now, there are a few other things he brings up which I found interesting. He distinguishes between pain and suffering, which is referenced in animals in translation. Essentially, he explains that suffering has an emotional component. Pain can be simply the physical responses, i.e. neurons firing, hormones/neurotransmitters released. He uses examples from humans who have had a leucotomy. Also, he defines the difference between feelings and emotions. He specifies that acknowledging that there is a physical (and rational) component to feelings/emotions does not mean that prescription drugs should necessarily be used for treating emotions, or performing any treatment that ignores the mind-body relationship, which he also throughly details. He explains that what we refer to as the mind cannot exist without receiving feedback from the body as he ponders the "brain hooked up to electrodes" question. (less)

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Nov 14, 2011 J Scott Shipman rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Dr. Damasio's Descartes' Error is a very readable and important contribution to our understanding of how our brain and body work on concert. Written in language accessible to the layman, Damasio provides compelling ideas of the importance of emotion and feeling in the functioning of the human brain. His effective use of diagrams to illustrate the "topography" of the brain and seemingly endless numbers of interfaces add to the books value. I selected this title as part of a study on the neurologi...more

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Aug 16, 2010 Nathan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Ignore my bias of working in a body-centered cognitive neuroscience laboratory (whose nascence was likely inspired by researchers such as Demasio), but Demasio's theory resonates as a particularly well-informed "big-level" brain theory. I've read a number of others who attempt to explain away a lot of the mysteries of the brain by big-level theories, but Demasio turns out to build one of the more compelling set of explanations based mostly on evidence from his years of research in dissociation s...more Ignore my bias of working in a body-centered cognitive neuroscience laboratory (whose nascence was likely inspired by researchers such as Demasio), but Demasio's theory resonates as a particularly well-informed "big-level" brain theory. I've read a number of others who attempt to explain away a lot of the mysteries of the brain by big-level theories, but Demasio turns out to build one of the more compelling set of explanations based mostly on evidence from his years of research in dissociation studies in neurology. Where others fail by skirting the issues of how neural structures and organization can lead to self consciousness and the link between mind and body, Demasio succeeds. His message is simple: we must not forget the entire biological organism when analyzing the brain.

The fallout from this main thesis is that proper "cool-headed reasoning", decision making, and logical thought is influenced by emotion, and vice versa. This symbiosis theme continues as we are taught to remember that the brain is part of the body, and the body is part of the brain. Forgetting the strong coupling between the two is denying the reality of the situation. A brain in a vat is no brain at all.

Stylistically, Demasio writes an engaging tale. The book is meant for a general audience, but I guess that most people unfamiliar with the brain structures, competing theories, and the general debate in philosophy of mind will find the content a bit heavy and must re-read certain passages. The book sags a bit in the middle (editor please!), but Demasio's theories of self to be found in the closing chapters are well worth the wait.

I won't delve too much into the implications for neuroscience, but Demasio's claim only makes our task to describe the brain all the more difficult. He sides with high-level theorists, pointing out that no matter how well we understand the constituent units of our neurological system, it is not sufficient to describe behavior until we account for the whole picture. This means that every high-level experiment needs to understand that behavioral results can be not only task-related but also influenced by background emotion, something difficult to measure and control.

Bref: He's successfully left me with some new ideas and has made a compelling thesis. Congrats.(less)

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Mar 31, 2009 Marc added it · review of another edition

Insights from the author's investigation into the role of emotion in the reasoning process, with discussion of the specific brain regions responsible for emotion processing. The neuroanatomy is a bit dense, and the interesting parts tend to be the anecdotal evidence he provides, in the form of patient case studies. In summary: Descartes' error was that he viewed emotion as an obstacle to "pure" reason, whereas Damasio sees emotion as an indispensable component of the reasoning process. All in al...more

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Mar 14, 2013 Karl rated it 4 of 5 stars

First of all, I'll admit it: it was a bit presumptuous of me to think I could pick up a book on neuroscience and think I could breeze my way through it. This was dense, intricate, and high-level enough in the science that I found myself consulting other sources just to make sure I was properly understanding it.

Second, some aspects of the key argument of this book have since been successfully contested through further research. That doesn't invalidate a lot of what Damasio has put forth, and is...more

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Sep 09, 2012 Geoffrey Irvin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science

Very detailed account of a neurobiologist's thesis that emotions do not detract from the act of thinking clearly, but infact are an intrinsic part of all higher level thought. Damasio gives a little too much anatomical detail for a lay audience, though mixes it well with step by step reasoning towards his conclusion. It points the way to a subtle shift in our understanding of what makes us a 'self' and also to the necessary role the emotions play in reasoning, and the physiological connections b...more

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Jun 26, 2012 Dr. George H. Elder rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was an excellent text, and showed how dubious it is to regard emotion and logic as seperate entities, at least in terms of brain science. The proof was evidence in a number of neuropsychological studies, EEG and PET surveys, and range of related data. Those not versed in basic neuroanatomy and neuropsychology might fidn the text demanding, but Damasio argues well and is is very convincing in his basic support of a logiocoemotional continuum vs a strict dualism. I have no reservation whatsoe...more

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Dec 27, 2008 Angela rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Angela by: Dr. Mark Johnson

Fascinating stuff. The cutting edge of neuroscience as applied to philosophy. Reintegrates the mind, body, emotions and reason through more than just philosophical musings. If you pick this up, it may be helpful to note that a) this is the first of three books in which he details his research findings, b) there is a lot of anatomical and neurological info - sometimes it may be necessary to skim those parts if that's not you're field of study and c) I think his concept of reason (here) can best b...more

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Mar 16, 2013 Katja rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: en, non-fiction, z-lib

I thought the book would be more about Descartes' error and the "body-mind problem" but it turned out to be different from what I expected. Mainly, because for Damasio there is no real problem: the mind *is* embodied for sure, it is not just a piece of software running on the brain, it cannot be in any way separated from the body states. Part 1 of the book is absorbing, the story of Phineas Gage reads like a novel. I am not sure I could follow all of the arguments in Part 2 (some of them I found...more

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Jun 19, 2012 Renah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: to-read-again

Fascinating. I'll be reading this again. I'd be very interested in reading the responses to this 'modern classic' in neuroscience... I'm sure lots has been written since this was published to support and criticize his ideas. But his two main ideas (really two parts of the same idea)-- that reason and emotion are intrinsically linked because emotion is essentially a body state reported to us and used to understand the world and make decisions and judgments, and that the body and brain cannot actu...more Fascinating. I'll be reading this again. I'd be very interested in reading the responses to this 'modern classic' in neuroscience... I'm sure lots has been written since this was published to support and criticize his ideas. But his two main ideas (really two parts of the same idea)-- that reason and emotion are intrinsically linked because emotion is essentially a body state reported to us and used to understand the world and make decisions and judgments, and that the body and brain cannot actually be "split" into mind and body--- both intriguing and loaded with implications.

I like Frederich Buechner's thoughts on the second of those two topics--lines up with Damasio's neurobiological theories quite nicely:
"Immortal means death-proof. To believe in the immortality of the soul is to believe that though John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave, his soul goes marching on simply because marching on is the nature of souls just the way producing apples is the nature of apple trees. Bodies die, but souls don’t. True or false, this is not the biblical view, although many who ought to know better assume it is. The biblical view differs in several significant ways... As someone has put it, the biblical understanding of man is not that he has a body but that he is a body...The Greeks spoke of (the body) as the prison house of the soul. The suggestion was that to escape it altogether was something less than a disaster. The Bible, on the other hand, sees the body in particular and the material world in general as a good and glorious invention...All the major Christian creeds affirm belief in resurrection of the body. In other words they affirm the belief that what God in spite of everything prizes enough to bring back to life is not just some disembodied echo of a human being but a new and revised version of all the things which made him the particular human being he was and which he needs something like a body to express: his personality, the way he looked, the sound of his voice, his peculiar capacity for creating and loving, in some sense his face...The idea of the immortality of the soul is based on the experience of man’s indomitable spirit. The idea of the resurrection of the body is based on the experience of God’s unspeakable love."

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Feb 10, 2013 Rob rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: cognition-neuroscience, 2013

Damasio takes on Descartes: why you cannot separate emotion from reason, the body and brain from the mind, and how brain-damaged patients provide us with these insights.

More accessible if you're well-versed with brain anatomy. Damasio explains how body and brain constantly construct the image of our "self", changes in body states we perceive (feelings), and how reason and emotion use the same equipment. The book constantly warns against any sort of reductionism.

I wasn't well-versed with brain a...more

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Nov 15, 2011 Marlan rated it 4 of 5 stars

This one took me a while to get through, probably because I deal with neuroscience on a daily basis at work, so it's not usually my first topic-of-choice when picking up a book to read. But this was a classic, and I wanted to give it a go. So I did. And it was good. The book pretty science-y, and thus not easy reading, but it was good.

Probably the biggest, most ground-breaking theory proposed in the book is the somatic marker hypothesis. This hypothesis stands on a soapbox and yells, "Hey all yo...more This one took me a while to get through, probably because I deal with neuroscience on a daily basis at work, so it's not usually my first topic-of-choice when picking up a book to read. But this was a classic, and I wanted to give it a go. So I did. And it was good. The book pretty science-y, and thus not easy reading, but it was good.

Probably the biggest, most ground-breaking theory proposed in the book is the somatic marker hypothesis. This hypothesis stands on a soapbox and yells, "Hey all you scienceheads! Listen up! Emotions are supremely important for how we make decisions. That includes ALL of us, including the hardcore logical Spock types. Just because some histrionic overemotional types can be 'irrational' doesn't mean we can poo-poo emotion as a whole. Emotion is an integral part of how the brain makes decisions with inadequate information, a critically important part of being human. Look at how screwed up are the guys that damage that part of the brain!"

It was kind of a rational attack on the uber-rational, if you will. The book goes into tons of detail as to how the brain & body use these somatic markers, so much so that I think it'd be a hard book to read without a science background. The emotion bit is only part of the book; a lot actually talks about the brain's awareness of its own body, which is useful for figuring out what consciousness is, too.

Anyway, I appreciated the book. It was solid and well-grounded. Definitely a must-read for neuroscience and philosophy-of-mind types.

Side note: I hope I don't give the impression that I'm a big Damasio-phile, because I'm not. Having trained at the University of Iowa (where he was at), I've heard plenty of stories about his many personal flaws. I even got a sense of them in the book, when he would insert short notes on art appreciation or ethics without any scientific backing at all. But I suppose he's not the first scientist to use impeccable science in his science, and poor science with his everyday life. Oh well.

I also thought it was funny (at least in the first chapter or two) when he would quote scientist after scientist in support of his proposals. Of course, having worked at Iowa, I recognized many of them as other researchers in and around his lab. :D

But anywho. Don't let those detract. The book has some phenomenally good ideas, if you're willing to dive into the science.(less)

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About António R. Damásio

Damásio studied medicine at the University of Lisbon Medical School in Portugal, where he also did his medical residency rotation and completed his doctorate. Later, he moved to the United States as a research fellow at the Aphasia Research Center in Boston. His work there on behavioral neurology was done under the supervision of Norman Geschwind.

As a researcher, Dr. Damásio's main interest is the...more Damásio studied medicine at the University of Lisbon Medical School in Portugal, where he also did his medical residency rotation and completed his doctorate. Later, he moved to the United States as a research fellow at the Aphasia Research Center in Boston. His work there on behavioral neurology was done under the supervision of Norman Geschwind.

As a researcher, Dr. Damásio's main interest is the neurobiology of the mind, especially neural systems which subserve memory, language, emotion, and decision-making. His research has helped to elucidate the neural basis for the emotions and has shown that emotions play a central role in social cognition and decision-making. Damásio has formulated the somatic markers hypothesis.

As a clinician, he and his collaborators study and treat the disorders of behavior and cognition, and movement disorders.

Damásio's books deal with the relationship between emotions and feelings, and what are their bases in the brain. His 1994 book, Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain, was nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Award and is translated in over 30 languages. His second book, The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness, was named as one of the ten best books of 2001 by New York Times Book Review, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, a Library Journal Best Book of the Year, and has thirty foreign editions. Damásio's most recent book, Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain, was published in 2003. In it, Damásio explores philosophy and its relations to neurobiology, suggesting that it might provide guidelines for human ethics.

He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine, and the European Academy of Arts and Sciences. Damásio has received many awards including the Prince of Asturias Award in Science and Technology, Kappers Neuroscience Medal, the Beaumont Medal from the American Medical Association and the Reenpaa Prize in Neuroscience. He is also in the editorial board of many important journals in the field.

His current work involves the social emotions, decision neuroscience and creativity.

Prof. Damásio is married to Dr. Hanna Damásio, his colleague and co-author of several works.

(from: Wikipedia)(less)

More about António R. Damásio...

Books by António R. Damásio

The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness

Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain

Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain

The Conscious Brain: Facts and Consequences

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Quotes from Descartes' Error: Emot...

“The distinction between diseases of "brain" and "mind," between "neurological" problems and "psychological" or "psychiatric" ones, is an unfortunate cultural inheritance that permeates society and medicine. It reflects a basic ignorance of the relation between brain and mind. Diseases of the brain are seen as tragedies visited on people who cannot be blamed for their condition, while diseases of the mind, especially those that affect conduct and emotion, are seen as social inconveniences for which sufferers have much to answer. Individuals are to be blamed for their character flaws, defective emotional modulation, and so on; lack of willpower is supposed to be the primary problem.” — 3 people liked it

“The neural basis for the self, as I see it, resides with the continuous reactivation of at least two sets of representations. One set concerns representations of key events in an individual's autobiography, on the basis of which a notion of identity can be reconstructed repeatedly, by partial activation in topologically organized sensory maps. ...
In brief, the endless reactivation of updated images about our identity (a combination of memories of the past and of the planned future) constitutes a sizable part of the state of self as I understand it.
The second set of representations underlying the neural self consists of the primordial representations of an individual's body ... Of necessity, this encompasses background body states and emotional states. The collective representation of the body constitute the basis for a "concept" of self, much as a collection of representations of shape, size, color, texture, and taste can constitute the basis for the concept of orange.” — 1 person liked it

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Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain

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