Damasio's error: homage to a source of inspiration

Abstract

The 1980s developed the sociology of the body and the sociology of emotions. Both thematise embodiment and argue that traditional specialised social theories are not useful in understanding body or emotion as social study objects. My proposal is to consider a review of classic sociological intuitions about embodiment, taking into account the new understanding of cerebral neurobiology of emotions and feelings, personal and social. The present article refers to a study of Damasio's theory applying to social emotions, developing it to look at sociological fields, as politics of modernity. Human are mutable beings according to our special genetic ability to adapt. We adapt, as people and groups, by conquering nature, but also by transforming our bodies, our minds and our souls in manners we feel and know to be useful for each occasion. The social study of human feelings (the key of human transformism out of reductionist rational choice theory) is not only a new subject: it is a proposal for a theoretical turn in social theory. To do that we can take the same path of neural biology proposed by Damasio.