Iain McGilchrist on the Divided Brain and the Master and His Emissary

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4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 28 May 2018

⏱️ 86 minutes

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Summary

Psychiatrist and author Iain McGilchrist talks about his book, The Master and His Emissary, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. McGilchrist argues we have misunderstand the purpose and effect of the divided brain. The left side is focused, concrete, and confident while the right side is about integration of ourselves with the complexity of the world around us. McGilchrist uses this distinction to analyze the history of western civilization. This is a wide-ranging conversation that includes discussions of poetry, philosophy, and economics.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:08.0	I'm your host, Russ Roberts, of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:12.5	Our website is econtalk.org, where you can subscribe, comment on this podcast, and find
0:17.6	links and other information related to today's conversation.
0:20.6	We'll also find our archives where you can listen to every episode we've ever done going
0:24.8	back to 2006.
0:27.0	Our email address is mailadycontalk.org.
0:29.0	We'd love to hear from you.
0:31.0	Today is May 10, 2018.
0:35.0	And my guest is psychiatrist and former teacher of English at Oxford University, Ian McGill
0:39.7	Christ.
0:40.7	He is the author of the Master and his Emissary, The Divided Brain, and the Making of the
0:45.3	Western World.
0:47.3	And that is our topic for today.
0:48.3	Ian, welcome to Econ Talk.
0:50.3	Oh, thank you.
0:52.7	You've written an extraordinary book.
0:54.7	It's 460 pages of dense print, filled with innumerable, philosophical cultural references
1:02.4	that are hard to parse.
1:03.9	There's probably over 200,000 words.
1:06.9	There's the print's small and the margins are small.
1:10.2	So I really can't recommend this book.
	...

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