Primer: Understanding the Hemisphere Hypothesis

Many smart people think Iain McGilchrist has effected a Copernican revolution in metaphysics. I tend to agree. Here’s a summary of the revolution.

The Hemisphere Hypothesis

As a man is, so he sees. William Blake

The brain consists of two halves: the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere. In a healthy person, they work together constantly and do many of the same things. Both halves are necessary for a healthy existence (e.g., the right hemisphere controls the left hand; the left hemisphere controls the right hand).

But the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere attend to the world differently. Our attention affects the world, which in turn affects us. “[T]he nature of the attention we bring to bear on anything alters what we find there.” The Master and His Emissary (Yale, 2009), 333.

If we pay attention to the world with the left, we get a world that looks like the left. If we pay attention to the world with the right, we get a world that looks like the right. It’s a “vicious circle.” The Matter with Things (Perspectiva Press, 2022), 26.

The Tautology that Drives the Hemisphere…