The 17th-century philosopher René Descartes’s radical new understanding of psychological phenomena is usually presented very inaccurately in psychological literature. Two extreme examples are Damasio’s (1994) Descartes’ Error and Wilson’s (2002) Strangers to Ourselves. These two much-cited books contrast the “great” philosopher’s naive mistakes with recent research on, respectively, the relation among emotions, reason, and the brain (Damasio) and the adaptive functions of unconscious processes (Wilson). Both authors do that without referring to either Descartes’s voluminous works on physiology and psychology or the extensive historical research on his works. This article shows that these distinguished scholars’ influential books are historically very misleading. Contrary to what they claim, most of Descartes’s many explanations of psychological phenomena are embodied. He was in particular engaged in understanding the relation among emotions, reason, and the brain. According to the models of understanding Descartes put forward in the 1640s, the author argues that Descartes’s Vision would have been an appropriate title for Damasio’s book. Wilson contrasts throughout his book new insights from recent research on the adaptive unconscious with the familiar caricature of Descartes’s views in the psychological literature. The author shows that Descartes, in fact, to a large extent anticipated Wilson’s argumentation for the necessity of the adaptive unconscious. He concludes that Descartes should be considered the pioneer behind many of the models of understanding presented in Wilson’s book. The author substantiates his conclusions by explicitly contrasting the argumentation and views in Descartes’s own writings with Damasio’s and Wilson’s many incorrect claims.

中文翻译：

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在情感，理性和适应性无意识上笛卡尔：漫画的开创者。

17世纪哲学家笛卡尔（RenéDescartes）对心理学现象的激进的新理解通常在心理学文献中非常不准确地提出。两个极端的例子是达马西奥（1994）的笛卡尔的错误和威尔逊（2002）的陌生人自己。这两本书广为引用，将“伟大的”哲学家的天真错误与最近关于情感，理性与大脑之间的关系（Damasio）以及无意识过程的适应功能（Wilson）的最新研究进行了对比。两位作者都没有提及笛卡尔关于生理学和心理学的大量著作，也没有提及他的著作的广泛历史研究。本文表明，这些杰出的学者的有影响力的著作在历史上极具误导性。与他们的主张相反，笛卡尔对心理现象的许多解释中的大多数都得到了体现。他尤其致力于理解情绪，理性与大脑之间的关系。根据1640年代提出的对笛卡尔的理解模型，作者认为，笛卡尔的《远见》本来是达马西奥著作的恰当标题。威尔逊在他的书中将最近关于适应性无意识的研究的新见识与笛卡尔在心理学文献中的观点的熟悉讽刺作了对比。作者表明，笛卡尔实际上在很大程度上预见了威尔逊关于适应性无意识的必要性的论点。他的结论是，笛卡尔应被视为威尔逊书中提出的许多理解模型的先驱。