European University Institute Library

The matter with things, our brains, our delusions, and the unmaking of the world, Iain McGilchrist

eng

Includes bibliographical references and indexes

platesillustrations

index present

non fiction

The matter with things

bibliography

1287050088

Iain McGilchrist

our brains, our delusions, and the unmaking of the world

Is the world essentially inert and mechanical - nothing but a collection of things for us to use? Are we ourselves nothing but the playthings of chance, embroiled in a war of all against all? Why, indeed, are we engaged in destroying everything that is valuable to us? Whitehead observed that philosophy is of urgent importance because 'as we think, we live.' This book argues that if we are wreaking havoc on ourselves and the world, and if our best intentions lead to paradoxical outcomes, it is because we have become mesmerised by a mechanistic, reductionist way of thinking, the product of a brain system which evolved not to help us understand, but merely to manipulate the world: that of the left hemisphere. We have become blind to what the subtler, more intelligent and more perceptive right hemisphere sees. Consequently we no longer seem to have the faintest idea who we are, what the world is, or how we relate to it. Indeed there is a sense in which we no longer live in a world at all, but exist in a simulacrum of our own making. This book offers a vitally necessary and radically new vision, one that is rigorously based in the science of the brain, deeply grounded in philosophy and sustained by the most up-to-date findings of physics: a vision that inverts common assumptions about what matters; sees the whole, not just the parts; and helps us break out of the hall of mirrors. In doing so it must attempt the hardest, because most fundamental, questions of all: what can we say of time, space, motion, matter, consciousness, purpose, value and the existence or otherwise of a God? The resulting world-picture is not just consistent across different disciplines, but happens to be in line with the deepest traditions of human wisdom. It is to this 'unconcealing' of a world that is rich, complex and beautiful that the reader is invited. If we are to survive - and for our survival even to matter - w need to become aware of what is, at a fundamental level, the matter with things., --, Provided by publisher

Some preliminaries : how we got here -- Attention -- Perception -- Judgment -- Apprehension -- Emotional and social intelligence -- Cognitive intelligence -- Creativity -- What schizophrenia and autism can tell us -- What is truth? -- Science's claims on truth -- The science of life : a study in left hemisphere capture -- Institutional science and truth -- Reason's claims on truth -- Reason's progeny -- Logical paradox : a further study in left hemisphere capture -- Intuition's claims on truth -- The untimely demise of intuition -- Intuition, imagination and the unveiling of the world -- The coincidentia oppositorum -- The one and the many -- Time -- Flow and movement -- Space and matter -- Matter and consciousness -- Value -- Purpose, life and the nature of the cosmos -- The sense of the sacred