.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 byneuroscientistAntónio Damásio describing the physiology of rational thought and decision, and how the faculties could have evolved through Darwinian natural selection.[1] Damásio refers toRené Descartes' separation of the mind from the body (themind/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 ofPhineas 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 theanterior 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.