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Mind, Body, and Mental Illness
- Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 5, Number 4, December 1998
- pp. 337-341
- Review
- Additional Information
This paper is a critical review of Antonio R. Damasio's recent book Descartes' Error. It is argued that although the book succeeds in showing how the emotions play a necessary role in reasoning processes, it fails in its attempt to shed new light on the mind-brain problem. It is further argued that this last failure could perhaps have been avoided if Damasio had allowed the philosophy of the French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty to inform his own thinking.