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person1980s-present

Antonio Damasio

Disciplines:
philosophy of mind
neuroscience

Summary

Portuguese-American neuroscientist who argued that emotions are not opposed to reason but are biologically necessary for rational decision-making — Descartes' Error was the separation of mind and body.

Core Contribution

Descartes' Error: the somatic marker hypothesis — patients with prefrontal damage cannot make good decisions despite intact reasoning capacities because emotion is required to weight options. The Feeling of What Happens: consciousness as the feeling of a feeling. Self Comes to Mind: the autobiographical self as the highest level of consciousness.

Notable Works & Achievements

Descartes' Error

The Feeling of What Happens

Looking for Spinoza

Self Comes to Mind

Historical Influences

William James Spinoza

Intellectual Lineage

Cognitive Neuroscience Embodied Cognition

Contemporaries & Peers

Joseph LeDoux Oliver Sacks

Minds Influenced

Cognitive Science Decision Theory

Intellectual Posterity

Somatic Marker HypothesisEmotion-Reason Integration

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