Title: A maddening book
Review: Damasio challenges his reader at every turn, and those without a solid grounding in neurology may find themselves floundering. Those who have read Daniel Stern will wonder how Damasio can use his words--proto consciousness/self, core consciousness/self--without attribution and without making the connection to Stern's research with babies (late in the book--much too late for this reader--he mentions a visitor to their lab who implied the connection). Unlike Descartes' Error, here Damasio is muddy, particular in his use of the word "emotion" for what should more properly be called "affect" (see Tompkins and, especially, Nathanson, Shame and Pride). When writing about such complex ideas, clarity is a virtue, metaphor a plus--here we have neither.
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