Coalescent argumentation is a normative ideal that involves the joining together of two disparate claims through recognition and exploration of opposing positions. By uncovering the crucial connection between a claim and the attitudes, beliefs, feelings, values and needs to which it is connected dispute partners are able to identify points of agreement and disagreement. These points can then be utilized to effect coalescence, a joining or merging of divergent positions, by forming the basis for a mutual investigation of non-conflictual options (...) that might otherwise have remained unconsidered. The essay proceeds by defining and discussing ‘argument’, ‘position’ and ‘understanding’. These notions are then brought together to outline the concept of coalescent reasoning. (shrink)

The publication of this book is an event in the making. All over the world scientists, psychologists, and philosophers are waiting to read Antonio Damasio's new theory of the nature of consciousness and the construction of the self. A renowned and revered scientist and clinician, Damasio has spent decades following amnesiacs down hospital corridors, waiting for comatose patients to awaken, and devising ingenious research using PET scans to piece together the great puzzle of consciousness. In his bestselling Descartes' Error, Damasio (...) revealed the critical importance of emotion in the making of reason. Building on this foundation, he now shows how consciousness is created. Consciousness is the feeling of what happens-our mind noticing the body's reaction to the world and responding to that experience. Without our bodies there can be no consciousness, which is at heart a mechanism for survival that engages body, emotion, and mind in the glorious spiral of human life. A hymn to the possibilities of human existence, a magnificent work of ingenious science, a gorgeously written book, The Feeling of What Happens is already being hailed as a classic. (shrink)

Linking the process of rational decision making to emotions, an award-winning scientist who has done extensive research with brain-damaged patients notes the dependence of thought processes on feelings and the body's survival-oriented regulators. 50,000 first printing.

The Embodied Mind provides a unique, sophisticated treatment of the spontaneous and reflective dimension of human experience.