Completing the trilogy that began with Descartes' Error and continued with The Feeling of What Happens, eminent neuroscientist Antonio Damasio now focuses the full force of his research and wisdom on the emotions. He shows how joy and sorrow, those most defining of human feelings, are cornerstones of our survival. As he investigates the brain and mind mechanisms behind emotions and feelings, Damasio argues that the processes that evolution has designed to regulate our internal function not only preserve life within ourselves, but they create, motivate, and even shape our greatest cultural accomplishments. If Descartes declared a split between mind and body, Spinoza not only unified mind and body but intuitively understood the role of emotions in human survival and culture.
The author:Born in Portugal, Antonio Damasio is Van Allen Distinguished Professor and head of the department of neurology at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, and Adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California. He is the author of Descartes' Error :Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain and The Feeling of What Happens :Body, Emotion and the Making of Consciousness.
Text in English
A concise guide to the life and philosophy of rene descartes, one of the most controversial figures of his age, and the founder of modern rational thought.