Damasio’s Error and Descartes’ Truth: An Inquiry into Consciousness, Metaphysics, and Epistemology

The question of the relationship between mind and body as posed by Descartes, Spinoza, and others remains a fundamental debate for philosophers. In Damasio’s Error and Descartes’ Truth , Andrew Gluck constructs a pluralistic response to the work of neurologist Antonio Damasio. Gluck critiques the neutral monistic assertions found in Descartes’ Error and Looking for Spinoza from a philosophical perspective, advocating an adaptive theory—physical monism in the natural sciences, dualism in the social sciences, and neutral monism in aesthetics. Gluck’s work is a significant and refreshing take on a historical debate.