The Decline of the West and the Two Hemispheres of the Brain

The English psychiatrist and philosopher Iain McGilchrist connects the two in his remarkable book, The Master and his Emissary. He is committed to the idea that the mind and brain can be understood only by seeing them in the broadest possible context, that of the whole of our physical and spiritual existence, and of the wider human culture in which they arise – the culture that helps to mould, and in turn is moulded by, our minds and brains.

He looks at the relation between our two brain hemispheres in a new light, not just as an interesting neurological problem but as a crucial shaping factor in our culture. He was in Toronto last week explaining his views in a public lecture organized by the Literary Review of Canada. It will be broadcast on TVO’s Big Ideas on May 5 and 6. He also appeared on the TVO’s Agenda.

Summing up his ideas on the two brain hemispheres, Iain McGilchrist said on another occasion: “The world of the left hemisphere, dependent on denotative language and abstraction, yields clarity and the power to manipulate things that are known, fixed, static, isolated, decontextualized, explicit, general in nature, but ultimately lifeless. The right hemisphere, by contrast, yields a world of individual, changing, evolving, interconnected, implicit, incarnate, living beings within the context of the lived world, but in the nature of things never fully graspable, never perfectly known, and to this world it exists in a certain relationship. The knowledge that is mediated by the left hemisphere is, however, in a closed system. It has the advantage of perfection, but the perfection is bought ultimately at the price of emptiness.”

The Master, McGilchrist concludes, i.e., the right hemisphere, has been betrayed and overtaken by his Emissary, the left hemisphere, with disastrous consequences for the humanistic tradition of the West.

How does he knows this? By meticulous research over many years with the help of neuro-imaging and other techniques unavailable to previous generations of brain researchers.

In The Guardian, the philosopher Mary Midgley writes that The Master and His Emissary is “a very remarkable book.” She is of the opinion that “It is not…just one more glorification of feeling at the expense of thought. Rather, it points out the complexity, the divided nature of thought itself and asks about its connection with the structure of the brain.” Going on to describe in detail the theories behind the book, she concludes that “though neurologists may well not welcome it because it asks them new questions, the rest of us will surely find it splendidly thought-provoking” and describes the explanations as “penetrating, lively, thorough and fascinating.”