Editing Descartes' Error

{{short description|1994 book by António Damásio}}
{{Infobox book| <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels or Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books -->
| name          = Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain
| title_orig    = 
| translator    =
| image         = Descartes' Error (Paperback Cover).jpg
| caption = The original paperback edition
| author        = [[António Damásio]]
| cover_artist  =
| country       = 
| language      = English
| series        =
| genre         = 
| published     = 1994
| pages         = 312
| isbn          = 978-0-399-13894-2
}}

'''''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.{{sfn|Marg|1995}}  Damásio refers to [[René Descartes]]' separation of the mind from the body (the [[Dualism (philosophy of mind)|mind/body dualism]]) as an error because reasoning requires the guidance of emotions and feelings conveyed from the body.{{sfn|Hyyppä|1996}}{{sfn|Hughes|Harding|2014}}  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.{{sfn|Hughes|Harding|2014}}   The book provides an analysis of diverse clinical data contrasting a wide range of emotional changes following frontal lobe damage{{sfn|Panksepp|1998|p=388}} 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.

==Publication data==
*{{cite book |last1=Damásio|first1= António |title= Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain |date= 1994 |publisher=Putnam |isbn=0-399-13894-3|author1-link=António Damásio}}
**Harper Perennial, 1995 paperback: {{ISBN|0-380-72647-5}}
**Penguin, 2005 paperback reprint: {{ISBN|0-14-303622-X}}

==See also==
{{Columns-list|colwidth=30em|
* [[Gerald Edelman]]
* [[Oliver Sacks]]
* [[Mark Solms]]
* [[Triune brain]]
}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}


== Bibliography ==
* {{cite journal |last1=Hughes|first1=Tom|last2=Harding|first2=Katharine |date=2014 |title= Review: Descartes' error  |journal=Practical Neurology  |volume=14|issue=3|page=201 |doi=10.1136/practneurol-2014-000899|s2cid=219202774 }}
*{{cite journal |last1=Hyyppä |first1=Markku |title= Review: Descartes' error  |journal=Journal of Psychosomatic Research |date=October 1996 |volume=41 |issue=4 |page=386 |doi=10.1016/S0022-3999(96)00093-1}} 
* {{cite book |last1=Panksepp|first1=Jaak |title= Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions  |date=1998 |publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-517805-0|location=New York, NY|author1-link=Jaak Panksepp}}
*{{cite journal |last1=Marg|first1=Elwin |date=1995 |title= Review: Descartes' error  |journal=Optometry and Vision Science |volume=72 |issue=11 |doi=10.1097/00006324-199511000-00013 |url=https://journals.lww.com/optvissci/Citation/1995/11000/DESCARTES__ERROR__Emotion,_Reason,_and_the_Human.13.aspx |access-date=2021-09-08|url-access=subscription }}

==Further reading==
* J. Birtchnell, ''The Two of Me: The Rational Outer Me and The Emotional Inner Me'' (Psychology Press, 2003)
* J. Panksepp, ''Affective Neuroscience'' (OUP, 1998)

[[Category:Cognitive neuroscience]]
[[Category:History of neuroscience]]