Anthony Damasio’s: Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain introduces the reader to the interesting world of emotions. Before reading this book, one probably did not pay much attention to the science and philosophy behind emotion. In fact, few people would likely be able to properly describe and define emotion. Damasio, though, demonstrates that emotions are central to the life-regulating processes of almost all living creatures. Damásio presents the” somatic-marker hypothesis” a proposed mechanism by which emotions guide behavior and decision-making, and positing that rationality requires emotional input. He argues that Rene Descartes’ "error" was the dualist separation of mind and body, rationality and emotion.
To begin the book, Damasio explains the differences between feeling and emotion. Feeling is then defined
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Elliot is a construction worker who suffers severe head trauma following a horrific accident. Though Eliot has seemingly recovered, he is unable to reason or think critically. Elliot is unable to plan ahead; he only devotes his mind to trivial follies and cannot look at the “big picture” of life. Damasio then notes that Eliot's psychologist recommended psychotherapy, not making the connection between brain damage and personality change. He notes stigma attached to mental illness. What is so shocking to Damasio is that many of Eliot's cognitive functions remained untouched. So Damasio wonders whether social reasoning is different from abstract reasoning. Next, Damasio notes Eliot's lack of affect, which is found when Eliot demonstrates no emotional reaction to disturbing pictures. Yet, Eliot retained a conceptual understanding of social conventions. He could also generate options, assign consequences, match means to ends, predict consequences, and he was mature on a developmental scale of moral reasoning. Despite this normalcy, Eliot was still unable to make wise
Eliot’s career. He wrote this poem, he was converting from Unitarianism to Anglicanism. Because of his conversion of faith, his poems get analyzed, and are believed to have pieces of his feelings about his conversion. When you look at the poem, at least on the surface, it is not about his feelings but truly about the journey of the magi.
This paper will examine Robert C. Solomon's Emotions and Choices article, to best identify what anger is, and to what extent a rational human being is responsible for their anger. Firstly, Solomon's argument must be described. A quick summation of Solomon's argument can be found in the following four points: Emotions are judgements, emotions are chosen, emotions serve a purpose, and emotions are rational.1 To quote Solomon, he explains that “Emotions are not occurrences, and do not happen to us. They ... may be chosen like an action.”2
He also served in extreme situations in World War II, being in the war affected his life severely. Since, Elliot was a millionaire people like; mushari tries to establish that Eliot is an insane person, tries to take all of his wealth. Mushari wanted to obtain fund for himself and give some to
Through the work of his mother and grandfather TS Eliot became aware of poverty and the boring reality of peoples' lives.
Attempts to define “emotion” have proved to be rather difficult. Instead of searching for a comprehensive definition, Gross (2011) describes the three core features of emotions. First, emotions occur when an individual decides that a situation is relevant to his or her goals. Second, emotions are multi-faceted, and involve both subjective and physiological experiences, as well as behaviors. The third feature involves the authoritative nature of emotions. They have the powerful ability to interrupt ongoing processes, assert their priority over other activities, and force their way into awareness. For example, some traditions describe emotions as “disorganized interruptions of mental activity” (Salovey & Mayer, 1989). Emotions are such an
Descartes starts his distinction of mind and by writing of his senses, that he has
By looking through a critical lens at T Stearns Eliot’s poetry in light of his 20th century, modernist context, much is revealed about his personal and the rapidly evolving societal beliefs of that era. Through his repeating motif of time and fragmentation throughout his poems, Eliot reveals the prevalent feelings of isolation while in society along with the need to hide one’s feelings and emotions in this degrading society. His exploration of the use of ambiguity and stream of consciousness by Eliot, which is a characteristic of modernist artists, allows his work to resound over decades while being interpreted and differently understood by every audience that encounters them.
Eliot was living in an era that people were facing a very hard time. World War changed a lot of things for everyone. A lot of cities were destructed and a lot of people were dead and so it was basically a wasteland, and for this reason Eliot was mostly concerned about the society as a whole and how they all want to move on from this mess and not how each individual could be a better
To begin, Eliot's works provide significant examples of how racism and isolationism affected society both mentally and physically. When Eliot writes, "I should have been a pair of ragged claws/Scuttling across the floors of silent seas" (Baym, 2013, p. 824), he is saying that living in a time of racism and isolationism has caused not only him, but also other citizens of society to believe that they neither belong anywhere in the world, nor do they have one specific place to call home where there will be no trace of racism nor isolationism. In these lines from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, Eliot explains that not only is he not considered an actual person because he is not worthy enough, but neither is he considered an actual animal either because he is not worthy enough. "The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,/The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes" (Baym, 2013, p.822), a line from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, illustrates the idea
This paper will attempt to explain Descartes’ first argument for the distinction that exists between mind and body. Dualism is a necessary aspect of Descartes’ metaphysics and epistemology. This distinction is important within the larger framework of Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) because after doubting everything (body, extension, senses, etc.), Descartes comes to the conclusion that because he doubts, he must be a thinking thing and therefore exist (p.43). This means that the mind must be separate and independent from the body. One can doubt that the body exists while leaving the mind intact. To doubt that the mind exists, however, is contradictory. For if the mind does not exist, how, or with what, is that doubt being accomplished.
This essay will critically discuss and analyse how Descartes makes his argument for the separability of the mind and body in the Meditations on First Philosophy. In this text, Descartes argues for the distinction between the mind and body through reasoning that they are two very distinct and non-identical substances. Furthermore, he argues that because they are so clearly distinct from each other that the mind does not need to rely on the body to exist and that the body does not need to mind to exist, therefore, the mind and body can be separated. Firstly, he provides reasoning that they are different substances through doubting the existence of all material things around him, including his own body. Furthermore, while he can doubt the existence of his material body Descartes claims that there is no way for him to doubt the existence of his own mind. Secondly, he provides an argument that the mind and body are distinct substances due to them having other different properties; he does this by arguing that the body is divisible into parts while the mind is not. Therefore, because the mind and body do not have the same properties they are non-identical substances. Thirdly, he provides an argument that builds atop the first two, this argument is that because he can conceive so clearly that his mind and body are different they must be separable in some way.
Q5 "Much of what Eliot writes about is harsh and bleak, but he writes about it in a way that is often beautiful". Comment fully on both parts of this assertion.
As educated people, we often try to ignore the influence of emotions on decision-making. Neuroscience evidence now shows that sound and rational decision making is contingent on prior accurate emotional processing. The basis for this is the somatic marker hypothesis. The somatic marker hypothesis provides a systems level neuroanatomical and cognitive framework for decision-making, the impact, and influence on it by emotions. The key idea of this hypothesis is that decision-making is a process that is influenced by marker signals that arise in bio regulatory processes, which includes those that express themselves in emotions and feelings. This influence can occur at multiple levels of operation, some of which occur consciously and some of which occur non-consciously (Bechara & Damasio, 2000).
For many people, they live their lives based on emotions. Emotions of happiness, love, success, and many more, could possibly be the most satisfying feelings. Except we commonly experience unpleasant emotions. There are emotions of anger, hatred, sadness, and disgrace. A very important question in the understanding of the human mind and highly related to cognitive science, is how do these emotions affect human cognition and the impact on our abilities to be rational? To tackle this question, we need to understand what emotions are, but not solely in the manner we are all familiar with, we need to understand them from a cognitive nature involving our physiology, psychology, and environment. Cognition, according to the Oxford definition
“I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was I meant to be;” (Eliot line 116) I, as well as every other free thinking human being, have a side of myself that is selfish and greedy while I also am caring and thoughtful of my surroundings. It is undisputable that no matter what I do to change my ways I will always have some part of me that is selfish and I can’t change that no matter what I do. “It is impossible to say just what I mean,” (Eliot line 109) without discrediting myself or by offending someone else but the truth is everyone is selfish and that means myself included. Every day we prioritize ourselves we put our needs in front of others, no one is selfless. This outlook is beyond cynical, I will admit, but I hold these views to be true for “I have known them all already,” (Eliot line 55) during my short life on earth. There is small hope for the universe and the human spirit if you really go looking for it. For one it is possible to suppress ones selfishness by neglecting the ego until one’s “egotism is no longer nourished,” (Fitzgerald pg. 20) so that one can spend an amount of time focusing on others. Each person has their own survival mechanism that keeps their morals afloat and mine is that “I am slow thinking and fill out interior rules that act as brakes on my desires,” (Fitzgerald pg. 58) and for most of the time my brakes work. At other times they fail me and I have a whole mess of problems I must now deal with. Why can’t I just