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Looking for Spinoza

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Damasio has leapt almost to the top of the philosophical pyramid with his books on feelings and consciousness. Unbound by consensus thinking, he shows how the brain and body collaborate in forming what we call the "mind". In this book he reaches back in time to the works of Baruch Spinoza, perhaps the first philosopher with insights on emotions and will. Spinoza roundly refuted the separation of mind and body postulated by Descartes - a thesis with amazing tenacity. Damasio wants to revive the teachings of Spinoza in light of modern research's recent findings verifying and enlarging the Dutch philosopher's ideas. He possesses a unique style in supporting his campaign, with an ability to mix conversational and clinical presentations with fluid ease. This is his finest effort.

Damasio blithely overturns traditional philosophy by giving the body a primary role in developing emotions. What the mind feels, the body has already expressed. Because the body and brain are so deeply integrated in their functions, the combined signals are manifested as "emotion". Our feelings of joy, sorrow and the host of other classifications we use in defining ourselves are the expressions of the interactions. What we say about feelings may be applied to the entire realm of what we call "awareness". In short, the mind represents the body - we react to its actions. Spinoza, without realizing it, was far in advance of his contemporaries.

Damasio uses the wealth of research he and others have obtained over many years to support his contentions. In line with those in the forefront of "neurophilosophy", Damasio attributes evolutionary roots for his proposal. Other animals, he reminds us, react in similar ways to similar stimuli. They haven't the ability to express their reactions in language, but the body language says it sufficiently. Human evolution merely took these root causes a step further. Language, however, and the urge to detach us from the rest of the animal kingdom led us to also separate mind and body. Damasio, following both Spinoza and the finds of cognitive science, seeks to restore the integration.

With an intelligible prose style, enhanced by diagrams and line drawings, this book is a treasure of information. The questions he raises, while jarring to anyone steeped in traditional philosophy, need answering. He's never above noting where more work is required and posits topics to be investigated. The extensive bibliography is valuable in understanding what we know and what remains to be revealed. These revelations, Damasio reminds us, apply further afield than academic disputes over philosophical issues. The view of mind and body underlies most of our concepts of justice, government, public education and social behaviour generally. What gives this book its ultimate value is what basis we apply in addressing these issues. If traditional philosophy's foundation is a false bulwark, we must replace it with a more rational basis. Spinoza

At times technical and complex,especially when describing neurological functioning,which requires the re-reading of some passages which frustrates progress.However the enmeshing of Spinoza's ethics and the way he preempted the findings of neuroscience more than redeems the short comings of the more technical sections.Having read the other two books in this trilogy I'd say this one offers the more complete overview of Damasio's theories of the emergent self and gives a suggestion of how these theories can benefit society as a whole,through better understanding of the processes and outcomes of feeling and emotion.

This is an excellent book, a good precursor to reading the latest work in neuroscience by the likes of Steven Rose, who is also keen on making links between neuroscience and philosophy. Ignore the reviewer at the bottom who gave it 1 star - absolutely ridiculous.

With my favourite philosopher "Spinoza" and with an interesting subject "feeling and the brain", I thought this book will be an interesting read. Boy was I wrong, it was depressing, boring...the author tried his best to make the subject sound complicated, there is no flow in the writing. Its a mind cluttering book. Avoid.