Roland Puccetti (1994) Narrative Richness as a Necessary Condition for the Self . Psycoloquy: 5(18) Split Brain (7)
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Psycoloquy 5(18): Narrative Richness as a Necessary Condition for the Self

NARRATIVE RICHNESS AS A NECESSARY CONDITION FOR THE SELF
Reply to Hardcastle, Leiber, Mortensen et al., Pessin & Revonsuo on
Puccetti on Split Brain

Roland Puccetti
Philosophy Department
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

DALPHIL@ac.dal.ca

Abstract

Hardcastle supports my claim that Dennett's criterion for conscious selfhood -- having a robust narrative center of gravity --is counterintuitively narrow. Revonsuo provides strong empirical evidence in favor of this same view. Leiber suggests that my defence of right-hemisphere self-consciousness depends upon my accepting mind-brain identity theory, but this is incorrect. Mortensen et al. think I need their notion of "part-persons" to describe the disconnected cerebral hemispheres: I find it simpler to extend the notion of "person" to the nonspeaking hemisphere, yielding two persons per split-brain patient. Pessin's main critical reaction rests on a confusion about Dennett's "Multiple Drafts" theory of the mind.

Keywords

cartesianism, cell death, cerebral dominance, consciousness, hemispherectomy, lateralization, mental duality, mental unity, multiple drafts, split brain.

References