McGilchrist's The Matter With Things: The Right Way of Engaging Materialism

Review of Volume I and possible philosophical objections

Those of you who have followed my posts here know that I have repeatedly referred to Iain McGilchrist’s magnum opus, The Matter With Things. Time to review the first volume.

I haven’t read the second volume yet; in fact, I wrote parts of this text straight after reading the introduction. This has generally proven to be a useful strategy for me: you sort out your thoughts as you go along, when they are still fresh, connect them to other ideas, and, very much in line with a right hemisphere approach, trust your intuition.

I thought I’d mention this, not least because in this review, my thoughts are drawn towards the relationship between materialism and the hemisphere hypothesis, although I haven’t even dived into what McGilchrist has to say about these issues (he mostly addresses them in Volume II). So here we go.

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The materialist worldview can be infuriating to those of us who came to realize that our experience not only “of the world,” but our experience period, is profoundly incompatible with such notions as that we are determined by random physical forces, that consciousness either is an illusion or doesn’t really exist, that all comes down to a Darwinian struggle between genes, and similar claims.

Yes, it is true: you can look at the world like that; and in a certain limited way, it even makes sense. This is why it is so hard to argue against the materialist position, if only in our own heads: as long as you stay within that particular mode of thought, materialism seems to have an answer to everything.

—Consciousness points to so much more than dead matter floating around, you say.
—So why has nobody detected any field of consciousness, they reply.

—My experience seems to have nothing to do with genes trying to copy themselves.
—This is just because you have been deceived for their benefit.

—How can there even be goals in a materialist universe—even if these are just survival and replication?
—These are not really goals, but just the consequence of chance when certain material properties emerged and gave rise to the first primitive life forms.

And so on.

Yes, many excellent philosophical arguments have been made against the materialist position, such as A. N. Whitehead’s fallacy of misplaced concreteness that warns us of confusing an abstract model with reality; R. G. Collingwood’s point that every empirical inquiry is based on certain presuppositions that give rise to that inquiry in the first place and that therefore, empirical science cannot dispose of or override our deep metaphysical assumptions; the apparent contradictions of various materialist positions, such as that their arguing is completely pointless in light of their own theory that sees them as predetermined machines, or that it is impossible for people to live under the materialist assumptions, if they took them seriously, for even a second.

There are many more.

While I find all those arguments, especially when taken together, utterly convincing, at the end of the day, the materialist will always beat you by simply staying in his particular mode of thought, based no doubt on a conviction that arises from his own experience of the world.¹

There seem to be two ways, then, of dealing with materialists: either you try to beat them on their own materialist turf, and inevitably lose;² or you simply dismiss materialism and do your own thing, which is good, but does not help us shed the materialist assumptions that have been drilled into us from day one in this day and age.

McGilchrist’s work can be seen in part as an attempt to offer a third, more fruitful strategy: to take a holistic approach, mentally engaging both worlds simultaneously: the world of rich, all-encompassing experience as expressed in art, daily life, as well as in some works of philosophy—mostly from the time before analytic philosophy took over; and the world of intellectual abstractions and distinctions with a heavy input from empirical science. And these are precisely the two worlds that McGilchrist argues are typical expressions of the right and left brain hemnispheres, respectively.

Two worlds that represent two very different modes of experience and consciousness that are often at odds with one another, especially in the intellectual world.

To sum it up briefly: the left hemisphere thinks in terms of representation of reality. It chops up what we perceive into neat little parts, which it then classifies and equalizes, only to put them back together on an abstract plane, using and generating all kinds of theories. It favors literal interpretations, black and white thinking, and closure. It is hyper-focused on one detail, one aspect of reality, and incapable of switching gears. In fact, when we exclusively rely on the left hemisphere, our thought patterns become almost schizophrenic: we become so unhinged from reality, so trapped in the abstract world, that we believe the most absurd things as long as the logic seems sound.

The right hemisphere has a much broader vision and is in direct touch with reality, as opposed to a mere representation of it. However, it cannot put these direct apprehensions into words, theories, or symbols. Hence, in right hemisphere-mode, we perceive the world more in terms of intuition: flashes of insight, immediate understanding of the bigger picture, empathy and re-enactment of “what it’s like to be that person or to think a certain way,” of life as experienced concretely, uniquely, by the embodied creatures that we are.

We need both hemispheres—only when they work properly together can we hope not only to figure things out, but to live properly and in alignment with the higher principles of the Cosmos. “Working properly” here means that the right hemisphere takes on the role of the master that employs the left hemisphere, but never lets it run completely freely and out of control.

From this oversimplified description alone, we can see how these two modes of thinking play out in science, philosophy, religion, politics, social theory, and so on. The scope of McGilchrist’s The Matter With Things is nothing less than looking at all of these things precisely through this lense, and in spectacular detail.

It is obvious that McGilchrist attempts to practice what he preaches and that he seeks to combine left-brain and right-brain thought to gain a fuller understanding of the world and our place in it, as well as of the history of ideas. And he does a brilliant job of it. It is not only the sheer volume of references that is impressive; it is the incredibly broad and intelligent reading he has done. His style, too, fits perfectly with his picture of a right-brain approach: he is seldom polemical, and takes his time to take you on a long journey, the goal of which is more implicit than explicit.

It takes some faith to allow McGilchrist to take you with him on this journey, not least because of the sheer length of it. For me personally, after an initial phase of (left-brain?) resistance—give me the condensed argument, now!—I came to appreciate it so much that I’m now dreading the day I will have finished both volumes.

To get back to the question of materialism, I’d like to discuss two objections that came to mind when thinking about the relationship between science, psychology and truth.

Are There Philosophical Objections to McGilchrist’s Approach?

These two objections may help clarify how McGilchrist goes about his critique of the materialist program.

First, in a sense, McGilchrist’s work is an attempt to beat those advocating for a mechanistic, materialist, reductionist view with their own weapons. Most of their arguments are based on something like this: “Yes, I know you think your inner experience seems completely incompatible with the materialist view, but science shows otherwise; so you need to realize that you are under an illusion and give priority to science.”

Now, McGilchrist turns the tables on this argument: science actually shows that your materialist worldview is just an artefact of your over-reliance on your left hemnisphere; it may not seem to you that way, but that’s just because you are unconscious of this. So you can’t rely on your own thoughts and instead you should trust science: the science of the two hemispheres!

What to make of this? I think we should be careful with arguments that take this particular form.³ However, I consider McGilchrist’s approach here as an attempt to use science to bolster a deeper self-reflection based on our phenomenal experience: yes, we may not be conscious of our two hemnispheres and their differences by introspection (although in my own experience, I think it is possible to become somewhat aware of the tendencies each of the hemnispheres exhibit and notice when a particular mode is predominant), but the conclusion is not that we should “override” our experience with the acceptance of a radical theory completely at odds with it, but rather embrace our experience on a deeper level by learning not to rely too heavily on abstractions and cold reductionism in our thought.

So, although McGilchrist asks us to accept something based on science that at first may seem counter-intuitive, at least to those who rely a lot on the left hemisphere, he uses this as a springboard to get us out of our limiting reductionist assumptions and embrace a wider view of the world which is most definitely not at odds with our experience. In contrast, the materialists do the exact opposite: they use highly abstract arguments based on questionable presuppositions to make us embrace the materialist implications that our experience is ultimately worthless, should it even exist, and that their abstract theories should always take precedence over our phenomenal consciousness. Hence, I think McGilchrist cannot be accused of “pulling a Dawkins,” as I like to call it, even though he uses scientific findings to convince us that there might be more to the way we think than we are currently aware of.

(As a side note, it is rather ironic that the materialists, if they wanted to criticize McGilchrist, unless they could show his science to be wrong, would need to resort to precisely the sort of arguments that are usually employed by the anti-materialists: namely that empirical science cannot really tell us much about our experience, and if their experience and common sense point to some sort of materialist world, then that is what should take precedence over any talk about brain hemispheres.)

Second, and somewhat relatedly, one might, with R. G. Collingwood, object that psychology cannot really tell us anything about thinking. The reason is that whenever we talk about something that influences our thought, or impedes proper thought, or leads us to errors in thought, we presuppose that there is such a thing as “proper thought” in the first place and that we know what it is. That is, psychology—whether it is based on brain scans, psychological experiments, interviews, etc.—can tell us a lot about obstacles that are in the way of proper thought, but it can’t tell us what proper thought is.

Collingwood argues that only the traditional sciences of thought, namely logic and ethics (logic as understood very broadly, not limited to formal logic), can do so, and that the dethroning of these disciplines by psychology was a huge mistake and tragedy.⁴ Whether you agree with this assessment or not, the fact is that we need to establish some sort of baseline as to what proper thought is before investigating what might impede it. So, when we argue that materialism is not quite right because it is merely a reflection of too active a left hemnisphere, then we commit a fallacy: just because it might be an expression of the left hemnisphere doesn’t mean it is wrong; we are still left with the full burden of proof, so to speak, and must seek the arguments against materialism outside the neuroscientific evidence.

If we thought properly, in other words, we should be perfectly capable of coming to the conclusion that materialism is wrong, and that it is based on an over-reliance on abstract thought, even without reference to the brain. Indeed, Collingwood himself had figured it out to a high degree when he critizised the destruction logical atomism can wield with its obsession of “deconstructing” our experience and cherished metaphysical assumptions; and he showed this simply by thinking it through and offering an alternative take on logic, as well as promoting a philosophy that seeks to ground itself in experience every step of the way.

He also rejected the existence of razor-sharp distinctions in philosophy and argued that these always overlap, concluding that there is an entailment and interconnectedness in philosophical concepts and forms.⁵ This, too, speaks of the same insight, namely that the idea of philosophy as a mere shuffling around of atomistic logical puzzle pieces—what McGilchrist would call left-hemisphere thinking—is profoundly mistaken. Collingwood’s ideas show that the mind seems perfectly capable of piercing through the simplistic takes on the world, disguised as ultra-complex puzzles, if one is inclined to do so.

Indeed, the fact that even analytic philosophers seem to finally, if slowly, wake up to the unsolvable problems of materialism as it relates to consciousness, could be seen as supporting the idea that the mind can free itself from its delusions, even using the left-hemisphere, ultra-rationalistic mode of thought. Or, seeing how divided analytic philosophy still is about these issues, perhaps it is just that some of the analytic philosophers have finally stopped suppressing their right hemispheres and started refusing the pressures of a left hemisphere-dominated academic milieu?

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Anyway, I have a lot of sympathy for Collingwood’s critique of psychology: aren’t we all tired of scientists telling us how our experience of the world is just a consequence of Freudian sublimation, evolutionary pressures, or brain activity? Shouldn’t there be a way to think things through, to figure things out, without psychologists claiming that our ideas are merely a function of our temperament, our upbringing, or external stimuli? In that regard, Collingwood explicitly opposes some of William James’ takes, namely the idea that philosophical theories can, to a degree, be reduced to the psychological features of the philosopher. This is the very idea McGilchrist cites in connection with his critique of some of the overly left hemisphere-reliant, borderline schizophrenic philosophers whose theories might be better understood as consequences of a pathological mind than profound visions of the big picture.⁶

However, McGilchrist’s view, one might argue, evades the problem raised by Collingwood: the baseline for proper thought, with which defective (pathological) thought must be compared, is provided by the right brain hemisphere: the master. This means that once we can figure out what the substance of right-brain thinking is, we can use that as a yardstick to judge thoughts by others and yourself.

But that still leaves us with the problem that in this picture, “proper thought” is somewhat arbitrary: how do you know that the right hemisphere should take precedence? Another issue is that you cannot convince LH-dominant people using insights from the RH which they simply don’t have access to in the same way. McGilchrist is aware of this: he emphasizes the old wisdom that convincing people is much less about rational arguments that are intrinsincally superior, and much more about awakening knowledge in them that has been there in latent form all along.⁷

Looming in the background of this discussion, I think, is an idea that seems very disturbing to the modern Western mind: namely that not all men are created equal. Brain lesions and the like aside, there seem to be people whose very nature is locked into a fragmentary, strange mode of thought; their access to a proper apprehension of reality, to an appreciation of the whole, the transcendent, the depth of experience, seems to be blocked—or maybe it isn’t there in the first place. Seen in this light, Collingwood’s justified opposition to psychology might be a consequence of him seeing things clearly, using “proper thought,” which allowed him to see through the “improper thought” of many philosophers and psychologists. But William James might be right too: he detected the same improper thought, but ascribed it not only to intrinsic errors, but partly to the philosophers’ individual natures. The issue Collingwood had with that, perhaps, was that this might lead to a sort of psychological relativism where a person’s philosophy is just an expression of his temparament, and therfore as good or as bad as any other. But this does not have to be so. Or if it is, it doesn’t really matter much: sometimes, we just need to have faith in how we apprehend the world, based on a holistic vision and deep experience, even if we can’t fully justify the superiority of our take in purely rational ways. We should remember that part of the left hemisphere’s problems is that it seeks 100% certainty when this is impossible most of the time.

This still leaves the question open as to why certain people’s vision seems to be so limited, assuming that not all of it is a consequence of brain injury. In light of the superiority of the right-hemisphere vision, this becomes even more disturbing: it suggests that some people are inferior: not in terms of intelligence or anything like that, but on a soul-deep level, in their access to a subtle, rich, and more real view of the world, where the mind associated with this wider vision is able to direct the lower, more unhinged, more fragmented parts of the mind. In other words, if it is true that philosophies are somewhat determined by the temparament, by the character of those who came up with them, then the better characters that exhibit a subtler, deeper vision, produce the better philosophies. Which means, again, that people are not equal at all. Why? McGilchrist seems to think that societal factors play a large role, possibly in a sort of feedback loop: modern society prioritizes left-hemisphere thinking, which brings LH-dominant people to the top, who then further entrench LH-thinking, and so on. But this still doesn’t explain why there seems to be a divide between LH-dominant and more balanced individuals—or at least people who can escape LH-dominance and those who can’t. I don’t know either.

In any event, Collingwood’s critique of psychology, applied to McGilchrist, doesn’t amount to much more than saying what McGilchrist makes clear himself from the very beginning: that the insights he presents are not new at all, and therefore don’t strictly rely on his science; and he demonstrates this by citing the work of a wide variety of philosophers who have come to similar conclusions, including R. G. Collingwood. In that sense, indeed, we don’t really need the left/right hemisphere hypothesis to figure out how mistaken—not to mention damaging—LH philosophies like the materialist-reductionist package are. Clear thinking cannot be defined by empirical science, but only by, well, clear thinking.

But this is not to say that science cannot play a decisive role in the process. In that sense, McGilchrist’s use of the hemisphere hypothesis should be seen as an access key able to unlock certain truths, an attempt to “blow our minds open,” so to speak, so that we may realize how certain modes of thought can lead us into blind alleys. This also helps to disentangle oneself psychologically from the bloodshed of the abstract-intellectual battlefield between the defense of materialist presuppositions and the revulsion-fueled counterattacks that seek to debunk materialism on the same abstract plane, i.e. in left-hemisphere mode. It opens one up to different ways of seeing the world, such as exemplified by the part of philosophical tradition that sees itself somewhat closer to literature than to modern natural science, or even religious material, without feeling as a traitor to science and reason.

Perhaps even more importantly, thinking in terms of left/right hemisphere modes of thought also helps with introspection and learning to notice when we fall into this or that extreme, when this or that mode is more appropriate, and learning to gain some conscious control of the process. In that sense, the hypothesis, while in and of itself it says nothing about the truth or falseness of materialism or what constitutes “good thought,” can be of tremendous help—quite apart from the fact that it is extremely interesting in other regards as well such as in the psychological understanding of other people.

A Spectacular Book

After going through the first volume, I can already say that McGilchrist’s book is spectacular. It does nothing less than rescue the Western tradition from the clutches of over-rationalistic one-way streets that ultimately lead to moral, spiritual and intellectual doom.

In particular, McGilchrist’s work can be seen as the most comprehensive and insightful expression to date of the looming paradigm shift away from the trap of materialism and its twin-scurge, fundamentalist and literalist religion.

Speaking of which, I’m reminded of St. Paul’s profound insight, so spetacularly misunderstood by Martin Luther, that simply following moral rules—what Paul calls the Law—cannot lead to salvation: yes, they are useful as a sort of childminder to keep people from making bad mistakes even though they may not understand why, but they inevitably lead to sin themselves at some point. We all know how you can use accepted moral rules to justify every evil act, without even contradicting yourself.⁸

Salvation, then, is not about following a code of conduct. But neither is it just about “accepting the Savior” or Grace doled out on a whim by God. Rather, it is about aligning one’s being with the Highest in all its aspects, leading to a transformation that affects the totality of our experience of the world and our place in it. It is about sacrificing what we thought we knew, about ourselves and the universe, which triggers a profound journey that ultimately leads to a personal relationship with the Divine.

You might say it is about bringing left-hemisphere thinking under the watchful guidance of the right hemisphere, which alone can connect to the divine subtlety and intuitive wholeness of the universe. But perhaps, at this point, talk about brains can only get us so far. It is far enough though, and one of McGilchrist’s great achievements, as it has always been with the great sages, is that he has reformulated age-old wisdom in ways that are accessible to the beings of our time.

1. See my post about David Chalmers’ zombies for a discussion of how materialists might have a very different intuition and how that might relate to the hemisphere hypothesis.

2. However, honorary attempts have been made to critizise materialism from a strictly scientific perspective: the works of Michael Behe (Darwinism), Dean Radin (parapsychology) and Ruppert Sheldrake (parapsychology, morphogenetic fields) come to mind.

3. In my post When Common Sense Trumps Science, I gave some arguments for why I think we should be very careful indeed before giving any scientific finding priority over our intuition.

4. See R. G. Collingwood, An Autobiography (my edition is not available anymore, but there are others)

5. See R. G. Collingwood, Essay on Philosophical Method (my edition is not available anymore, but there are others)

6. See Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things, Perspectiva Press, 2021, p. 613

7. Ibid., p. 606

8. For extremely profound insights into Paul’s theology based in part on linguistic considerations, I highly recommend Timothy Ashworth, Paul's Necessary Sin: The Experience of Liberation, Routledge, 2016

Note on the cover image of this post: I happen to have a framed copy of the painting Jacob’s Ladder by William Blake on the walls of our living room, which I love for very much the same reasons as McGilchrist.