Descartes\' Error by Antonio Damasio

Descartes' Error" by Antonio Damasio

Human rationality in "Descartes' Error" by Antonio Damasio

From the Industrial Revolution to the Modern Period and up until now, human society is governed by one dominant and modern philosophy that developed in civilization -- rationality. It is in rationality that humanity was able to develop society into an organized structure that puts more premium on reason, more premium even than emotions. As a result of this philosophy, the prevailing thought in human society today is the distinction between emotion and reason -- of the human mind and the human feelings.

This so-called duality of mind and body was originally proposed by the French philosopher Rene Descartes, who is also known to be the main proponent of modern philosophy. Through Descartes' philosophy, we believed that indeed, there is a dichotomy between emotion and reason, that they are different domains autonomous from each other.

The Portuguese neuroscientist Antonio Damasio posited differently when he wrote the book, "Descartes' Error." In it, Damasio discussed the neuro-biological foundations behind the concepts, "reason" and "emotion." Aptly titled, the book details how Descartes' assumption that there is a distinction between reason and emotion is contradicted and contested, with Damasio positing that in fact, both reason and emotion come from the same sources -- that is, both undergo the same neurological processes within the brain.

The most important assertion that Damasio discussed in the book is on how reason and emotion are results of neurological processes in the brain, which implies that one affects the other -- that is, reason is not entirely governed by reason (logic) alone, but also in part by what humans call emotions. A similar argument is applied in human emotions (that is, emotions are also influenced by reason). Damasio explicated, a]s organisms acquired greater complexity, 'brain-caused' actions require more immediate processing...Brains can have many intervening steps in the circuits mediating between stimulus and response, and still have no mind, if they do not meet an essential condition: the ability to display images internally and to order those images in a process called thought

In this passage, Damasio made clear that, reason or emotion, the brain undergoes the same neurological processes that make the generation of either "reason" or "emotion" as an 'objective' task.