ABSTRACT
Roger Sperry received his Nobel Prize in December 1981 for his work on split-brain patients. In a paper first published in 1988, neuropsychologist Tim Shallice reviews some of the research on split-brain patients. The chapter reviews some of the long-standing philosophical views about mind and consciousness that are in conflict with the presence of two minds. It focuses on one assumption that is rarely questioned in this context, although we have learned to ignore it in other contexts. In a 1988 paper, the neuropsychologist Tim Shallice claims that Sperry's findings about the capacities of the right hemisphere in split-brain patients "tell us little" about the right hemisphere in the intact brain. Although Shallice dismisses the evidence from split-brain patients, and denies the claim of two minds, he does at least address the evidence provided by split-brain research. For the majority of philosophers of mind it seems to be rejected out of hand because it does not fit the paradigm.
