Roland Puccetti (1993) Dennett on the Split-brain
. Psycoloquy: 4(52) Split Brain (1)
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Psycoloquy 4(52): Dennett on the Split-brain
DENNETT ON THE SPLIT-BRAIN
Target Article by Dennet on Split-Brain
Roland Puccetti
Philosophy Department
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova Scotia CANADA
DALPHIL@ac.dal.ca
Abstract
In "Consciousness Explained," Dennett (1991) denies that
split-brain humans have double consciousness: he describes the
experiments as "anecdotal." In attempting to replace the Cartesian
"Theatre of the Mind" with his own "Multiple Drafts" view of
consciousness, Dennett rejects the notion of the mind as a
countable thing in favour of its being a mere "abstraction." His
criticisms of the standard interpretation of the split-brain data
are analyzed here and each is found to be open to objections. There
exist people who have survived left ["dominant"] cerebral
hemispherectomy; by Dennett's criteria, they would not have minds.
Keywords
cartesianism, cell death, cerebral dominance,
consciousness, hemispherectomy, lateralization, mental duality,
mental unity, multiple drafts, split brain.
References
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- Dennett, D.C (1991) Consciousness Explained. Boston: Little, Brown.
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