Antonio Damasio
A neurologist who rereads Spinoza: emotions and the feeling of self are states of the body and brain, not a separate mind.
Life
Portuguese-American neurologist (born 1944 in Lisbon), professor at the University of Southern California. His work with brain-damaged patients shows that emotions play a role in rational decision. He argues that mind and the feeling of self arise from the activity of body and brain, not from a separate substance, rereading Spinoza.
Main works
Emotions are necessary to reason; mind is not separate from the body.
Explains consciousness as a feeling of what happens in the body.
Links joy and sorrow to biology, with Spinoza.
Positions
click a row to see the evidenceMind is rooted in the body and brain, not in a separate substance, though feeling is more than a cold computation.
Damasio, Descartes' Error (1994)