Descartes' Error Book Summary - Descartes' Error Book explained in key points

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Descartes' Error summary

Name: Descartes' Error
Rating: 4.6 (190 reviews)
Author: Antonio Damasio

Antonio Damasio

Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain

4.6 (190 ratings)

31 mins

Table of Contents

Descartes' Error
summarized in 10 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 10

What’s in it for me? See the brain in a whole new way.

Mind and body. It’s one of the oldest dualisms in Western thought. In reality, it goes back to the ancient Greeks, so it’s unfair to pin it all on the seventeenth-century French philosopher René Descartes. But it’s become known as Cartesian Dualism, so his name is now synonymous with it.

Historically, it’s also come hand in hand with another dualism: reason and emotion. Reason, we’re told, is the province of the mind, operating at its highest, most purely logical level. Meanwhile, emotions lie in the lowly realm of the body, seething with its messy, illogical passions.

In one form or another, these dualisms continue to this day. Many scientifically minded people would disavow any belief in the mind-body division. The mind, they say, is just a product of the brain. But many of them would then split the brain from the rest of the body. And they’d also continue to split reason from emotion.

However, as we’re about to see, none of these dualisms stand up to scientific scrutiny. The brain, the body, reason, and emotions are inextricably linked together into one human web.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

one of the most important parts of the brain involved in rational decision making;
the stories of two men who lost that part of their brain; and
the surprising connection they reveal between the brain, the body, reason, and emotions.

We can understand the functions of the brain’s different parts by observing the consequences of brain damage.

Imagine you’re an engineer, and you’ve been given a complicated machine. Your job is to figure out how it works. As you examine it closer, you see that it has many different parts working together in seemingly mysterious ways. So, how would you go about it?

Well, you could start by removing one of the parts and seeing what happens. If you take out thingy X and the machine stops making sparks, you could conclude that thingy X has something to do with spark production. Repeat the same procedure with the rest of the parts, and you can gradually figure out how the machine works.

The same logic applies to understanding the machinery of the human brain – with one important caveat.

The key message here is: We can understand the functions of the brain’s different parts by observing the consequences of brain damage.

Of course, it would be extremely unethical to go into someone’s brain and remove a part just to see what happens. Fortunately, for science, we don’t need to.

Brain-damaging injuries, tumors, and diseases can sometimes affect specific regions of the brain. And, if they happen in just the right way, they can more or less wipe out a single part of the brain without damaging anything else – almost as if an evil scientist came along and scooped it out with a scalpel.

Assuming the victim survives, his brain will continue to function, but in a different way from before. For instance, damage to a part of the brain called the third frontal gyrus leads to a language disorder known as aphasia. People suffering from this condition struggle to understand or express themselves in speech. Evidently, the third frontal gyrus plays an important role in the brain’s ability to process language.

In this way, by comparing how the brain functions before and after one of its parts have been damaged, we can start mapping out the role that part normally plays in the brain’s overall machinery. This is how the field of experimental neuropsychology approaches the study of the brain. And as we’ll see in the coming blinks, it has led to some remarkable discoveries.

The story of Phineas Gage provides a dramatic example of how brain damage can provide us with scientific clues.

To study the brain through the lens of experimental neuropsychology, we first need to find some before-and-after stories of people who have suffered specific types of brain damage. There are many such stories – but few of them are as vivid, grisly, or bizarre as that of Phineas Gage.

The key message in this blink is: The story of Phineas Gage provides a dramatic example of how brain damage can provide us with scientific clues.

Gage’s story suggests that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex plays an important role in practical reasoning.

So what exactly happened to Phineas Gage?

Barring the invention of a time machine, we’ll never know for sure. Gage died in 1861, and his brain is no longer around for us to examine. But his skull has been preserved by Harvard Medical School, and we can study it for clues.

There’s more to practical reasoning than just the VPC.

Let’s sum up what we’ve learned so far: if you suffer severe damage to your VPC, you lose your ability to engage in practical reasoning. The one therefore depends on the other, right?

Yes. In fact, the correlation between the two things has been firmly established. The author and his colleagues have studied 12 other patients who exhibit the same type of brain damage and cognitive symptoms. But as the old saying goes, correlation does not equal causation, so we need to be careful in drawing conclusions here.

Further observations of Elliot’s behavior led the author to a surprising revelation.

As we continue on our journey to unravel the mystery of practical reasoning, we now have three suspects, instead of just one: the VPC, the limbic system, and the somatosensory cortex. What do these three parts of the brain have in common? To answer this question, let’s go back to the story of Elliot.

The key message here is: Further observations of Elliot’s behavior led the author to a surprising revelation.

Our emotions provide our brains with important information and guidance.

At first glance, the correlation between Elliott’s flatness of emotion and his diminished practical reasoning abilities seems pretty counterintuitive. After all, we usually think of our emotions as clouding our judgment. Without any pesky emotions getting in the way, shouldn’t Elliott be better at practical reasoning instead of worse?

As it turns out, our emotions have a lot more practical value than we usually give them credit for.

People with VPC damage can still experience primary emotions.

After suffering damage to his VPC, Elliot’s emotional life was severely diminished – but it wasn’t entirely destroyed. As we’ve seen, he could still experience occasional outbursts of anger. But they were like bolts of lightning flashing across an otherwise neutral sky.

That’s because Elliot could still experience primary emotions. These are the most basic forms of emotion, hardwired into us from birth. They include simple, short-lived states of happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust. Elliot could still feel these just like anyone else. If you hid behind a door and suddenly jumped out in front of him, he’d still get frightened.

Secondary emotions are acquired over time, and depend on the VPC.

Now imagine you come across a snake again, but this time, you’re a herpetologist – someone who studies reptiles and amphibians. You’ve been around snakes all your life, and you feel totally comfortable with them. And now you’ve just encountered a rare and harmless snake that’s been your favorite species since you were a child.

Now what emotion are you feeling? It’s no longer fear; you’re overjoyed! What you’re experiencing now is a secondary emotion.

Elliot’s story provides one final clue to the secret of practical reasoning.

We’re now almost ready to solve our case. We’ve seen how the limbic system, the somatosensory cortex, and the VPC all come together in producing secondary emotions. And we’ve also seen how emotions can provide us with important information and guidance. Now we just need to put all of these pieces of the puzzle together.

Our mystery boils down to one final question: What role do secondary emotions play in our practical reasoning? To answer this question, let’s go back to Elliot’s story one last time.

The somatic marker hypothesis can explain the role of emotions in practical reasoning.

Let’s end by returning to our final question: What role do secondary emotions play in our practical reasoning?

We’ve been pursuing a mystery in which the main suspects are the limbic system, the somatosensory cortex, and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. If you were hoping the answer would have a more melodious name, you’re going to be disappointed. It’s called the somatic marker hypothesis – but it’s a lot more interesting than it sounds!

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What is Descartes' Error about?

Descartes’ Error (1995) turns conventional wisdom about the human mind on its head. Combining sophisticated neuroscience with fascinating case studies about patients with brain damage, it shows how the traditional dualisms of Western thought do not stand up to scrutiny. Reason depends on emotion, and the brain is intimately connected with the body.

Who should read Descartes' Error?

Rationalists skeptical of emotions
Emotional people sick of being called irrational
Anyone interested in the intersections between neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy

About the Author

Antonio Damasio is a professor of psychology, philosophy, and neurology at the University of Southern California, where he is also the Director of the Brain and Creativity Institute and holds the David Dornsife Chair in Neuroscience. His previous books include The Feeling of What Happens, Looking for Spinoza, Self Comes to Mind, and The Strange Order of Things, all of which have been critically acclaimed and taught at universities around the world. He has been the recipient of the Grawemeyer Award, the Asturias Prize in Science and Technology, and the Signoret Prize, among many other distinctions.

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