Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling BrainJoy, sorrow, jealousy, and awe--these and other feelings are the stuff of our daily lives. Thought to be too private for science to explain and not essential for understanding cognition, they have largely been ignored. But not by Spinoza, and not by Antonio Damasio. Here, in a humane work of science, Damasio draws on his innovative research and on his experience with neurological patients to examine how feelings and the emotions that underlie them support human survival and enable the spirit's greatest creations. " Looking for Spinoza" reveals the biology of our sophisticated survival mechanisms. It rediscovers a thinker whose work prefigures modern neuroscience, not only in his emphasis on emotions and feelings, but also in his refusal to separate mind and body. Together, the scientist and the philosopher help us understand what we're made of, and what we're here for. Based on laboratory investigations but moving beyond those to society and culture, "Looking for Spinoza" is a master work of science and writing. Antonio Damasio, widely recognized as one of the world's leading neuroscientists, has for decades been investigating the neurobiological foundations of human life. In "Descartes' Error" he explored the importance of emotion in rational behavior, and in "The Feeling of What Happens" he developed the neurobiology of the self. Damasio's new book on feeling and emotion offers unexpected grounds for optimism about our survival and the human condition. |
Contents
The Hague | 8 |
Trust Shakespeare | 27 |
The Emotions of Simple Organisms | 40 |
Copyright | |
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action affect Amsterdam amygdala Antoine Bechara Antonio Damasio appetites biological body maps body-sensing brain regions brain stem Cambridge cause cells cerebellum cerebral cortex chemical cherem cingulate cited earlier cognitive complex consciousness cortices Costa damage Daniel Tranel David Hubel Descartes discussed Dutch emotion and feeling emotionally competent ethical behavior example experience frontal lobe functional Gerald Edelman Hanna Damasio homeostatic Human Brain hypothalamus ibid ideas images insula Jean Pierre Changeux Jewish Jews Journal of Neuroscience knowledge living marrano mechanism mental mind and body molecules nature nerve nervous system neural patterns neural-map neurobiology neurons Neuroscience notion noza nuclei object organism Oxford University Press pain pathways patients perception philosopher pleasure Portuguese prefrontal cortex Ralph Adolphs reactions reason religious responses result sadness Science sense sensory signals social emotions somatosensing somatosensory sorrow Spinoza Spinoza's solution Steven Steven Rose stimulus synagogue thinking thoughts tion triggering visual