L’arte del conoscere: emozione e ragione

Research in the field of neuroscience and biotechnology has made a considerable contribution to the investigation of the functioning of the mind and the brain, allowing a mapping of the brain activity. According to these studies “mind and body”, “reason and emotion” are part of the complexity of the human being and nothing can be taken for granted. Overcoming the Cartesian dualism, the mind is considered as the result of stratifications interrelated by innatistical dynamics and daily experience, unconscious memory and automatisms cleverly constructed by a psychogenetic evolution. In this scenery emotional experience plays a determining role in the construction of mental patterns of behavior and learning process by which the brain evaluates the role of a stimulus; from this derive physical responses, feelings, motivation to action. In this way the art of knowing becomes the right balance between emotion and reason. While the “rational behavior” appears to be of common acceptance and to it we are constantly educated to adhere to, the education to the emotion, conversely, is often made to repress. An epistemological inversion of educational paradigms based on an emotional matrix is necessary. Emotion is the root of our existence.