Iain McGilchrist FRSA (born 1953[1]) is a British psychiatrist,[2] literary scholar, philosopher and neuroscientist who wrote the 2009 book The Master and His Emissary, subtitled The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.

[6] During this time, he taught English Literature while continuing research into philosophy and psychiatry, investigating specifically the mind-body relation.

He has taken part in radio sessions, television programmes, numerous podcasts and interviews via YouTube with notable figures such as Sam Harris, Rowan Williams and John Cleese.

McGilchrist's most recent work is the 2021 The Matter with Things, published by Perspectiva Press, which explores the metaphysical implications of the "hemisphere hypothesis".

His main target in this book is scientific materialism: the view that the world is nothing but inert atoms, blankly colliding against one another in a predictable pattern.

In addition to lecturing worldwide, McGilchrist has also been commissioned by Oxford University Press to write a book of reflections on the humanities and sciences, to offer a critique of contemporary culture from the standpoint of neuropsychiatry, and to deliver an investigation into what is revealed by the paintings of those with psychotic illnesses.