Review of: Antonio R. Damasio: Descartes' Irrtum. Fühlen, Denken und das menschliche Gehirn, aus dem Englischen von H. Kober, München 1995

Abstract

The aim of the book is to examine the normal functioning of the brain through its disorders, that is, to find out which parts of the brain are normally responsible for which emotions. The author presents a neurobiology of practical rationality through a neurobiology of the emotions. For this, he uses the hypothesis of ‘somatic markers’, which restrict the choice of practical reasoning so that the only choices that are left open are those that have passed, so to say, the examination of these markers. When these markers are destroyed, they do not restrict any of the choices of practical reason, but they make it impossible for practical reason to make any decisions. “Descartes’ error” was to separate the soul, or conscience, from these somatic markers. The review of this book ends with a short critique of Damasio’s rather simplistic view of Descartes