Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain

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—"one of the world’s leading neurologists" (The New York Times)—challenged traditional ideas about the connection between emotions and rationality. In this wondrously engaging book, Damasio takes the reader on a journey of scientific discovery through a series of case studies, demonstrating what many of us have long suspected: emotions are not a luxury, they are essential to rational thinking and to normal social behavior.

• 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 Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures
• The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures
• The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life
• How to Become a Rainmaker: The Rules for Getting and Keeping Customers and Clients
• Start with NO...The Negotiating Tools that the Pros Don't Want You to Know
• Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain
• Emotions, Learning, and the Brain: Exploring the Educational Implications of Affective Neuroscience (The Norton Series on the Social Neuroscience of Education)