Abstract

Damasio's criticism of the Cartesian cogito seems to deliberately ignore the cultural context and the epistemological foundations of the theory of man developed by the philosopher. Even the recent criticism has revised the Cartesian dualism setting emphasis upon the unity of the human being: in the overall framework of Cartesian thinking man is not identified with pure mind, but with the compound of thinking substance and extended substance. Therefore, the attack against Descartes seems entirely instrumental, functional only to explaining the theory on the primacy of emotions with respect to the rational sphere of the human being.