The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World is a 2021 book of neuroscience, epistemology and metaphysics written by psychiatrist, thinker and former literary scholar[1] Iain McGilchrist.

[5] In September 2021, The Matter with Things was included in a feature article titled "Top 10 books about human consciousness", which was written by author and philosopher, Charles Foster and published in The Guardian.

[17] He is of the opinion that McGilchrist is "leading a quiet but far-reaching revolution in the understanding of who we are as human beings, one with potentially momentous consequences for many of the preoccupations – from ecology and health care to economics and artificial intelligence – that weigh on our present and darken our future.

"[18] The reviewer is of the opinion that "Following the paths of cutting-edge neurology, philosophy and physics",[18] McGilchrist offers "a vision that returns the world to life, and us to a better way of living in it: one we must embrace if we are to survive.

"[18] Writing in the New Statesman in January 2022, Ed Smith tells us that "while anchored in neuroscience, [the work] expands quickly into a treatise on philosophy, the scientific method, intuition, creativity, truth, reason and the rise and fall of civilisation itself.

But it's hard to see how huge generalisations [such as 'The West is wrong to...'] could have been avoided, partly because the kind of ideas – or supra-rational insights – under review are more often addressed by poets and composers than writers of closely argued non-fiction.

"[19] Jonathan Gaisman, writing in The Spectator in February 2022, states that "Western civilisation is in a predicament exemplified by alienation, environmental despoliation, the atrophy of value, the sterility of contemporary art, the increasing prevalence of rectilinear, bureaucratised thinking and the triumph of procedure over substance.

"[6] In March 2022, Nick Spencer writes in Prospect magazine that though left brain–right brain discourse in popular psychology has had a "bad press" and been debunked, McGilchrist's work is "altogether more sophisticated.

"[7] Framing his review around Charles Darwin's work on evolution, Nick Spencer concludes that in his opinion, "[McGilchrist's] claims may turn modern ultra-Darwinists purple, but they cannot easily be dismissed.

[7] In a lengthy and detailed review for Beshara Magazine in June 2022, Richard Gault describes McGilchrist as a gifted "renaissance man" – a polymath with an "exceptional range" of knowledge and interests.

"[20] Writing for the Los Angeles Review of Books on 8 January 2023, former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams describes McGilchrist's work as "two overwhelmingly detailed and sophisticated volumes".

[21] Generally appreciative of the "magisterial argument" that the author presents,[21] he writes that "it is precisely the fatal skewing of perception which misreads the environment we inhabit that sets us out on our self-destructive path.

There can be no denying that this, like McGilchrist’s earlier work, is a genuinely groundbreaking and exceptionally important challenge to what Mary Midgley, in a book very much in tune with this, called 'the myths we live by' in North Atlantic modernity/late modernity/postmodernity.

And he addresses this with an extraordinary blend of detailed clinical evidence, a keen eye for the illusions of popular culture, a style of exemplary simplicity and energy, and a consistent moral passion.

"[21] Writing in the Literary Review in April 2022, philosopher and cultural critic, Raymond Tallis states that the author "offers wide-ranging, indeed world-ranging, investigations ultimately anchored to the arguments he advanced in his earlier book.

However, he is not convinced that "if the hegemony of the left hemisphere remains unchallenged, Western civilisation will collapse,"[4] and he concludes that "[w]hile The Matter with Things offers some interesting insights into our nature and the world in which we find ourselves, they are devalued by being subordinated to what ironically seems a rather reductionist critique of reductionism.

"[22] Louth is concerned about the manner of McGilchrist's presentation, writing that "Besides his strictly scientific learning, he is a man of wide and deep reading who supports his case by appeal to philosophers and poets, as well as scientists, especially physicists, reflecting on the implications of their discoveries.