The Hemispheres as Dante's "Two Wheels"

A comparison of McGilchrist's hemispheres and Dante's "Chariot" for Wisdom. How to grow a more balanced and developed brain.

700 years ago, Dante explained how the right combination of the two hemispheres is key to higher wisdom.

Dante gave us a detailed and practical “how” for rebalancing and developing the brain hemispheres 700 years ago. With his example, we can gradually start changing our brain and the culture, today.

In this essay we will look at the similarities between the hemisphere model of Dr. Iain McGilchrist and the suggested vehicle or “Chariot” in Dante Alighieri’s “The Comedy” to reach higher levels of wisdom. In short, Dante’s “two wheels” as symbolic for the rational-intellectual and the more intuitive-spiritual faculties gives us a simple but helpful image to conceptualize the dynamic of our two brain hemispheres, how they should work together, and how it is ultimately the right hemisphere which is the key for the highest levels of “gestalt” and overall apprehension of wisdom and reality.

After the Pilgrim in Dante’s Comedy has gone through a series of explorations of the nature and depth of different vices and virtues, whilst climbing up the metaphorical mountain of discernment, he is ready to probe deeper and open up more wisdom and insight. And the overall metaphor that Dante is using for this process is a chariot (carro), which consists of two wheels which more or less are precisely describing our two brain hemispheres. In his example he is using the intellectual Dominicans as examples of the rational-structurally oriented thinkers, while cautioning against “straying” too much into logical doctrines and what McGilchrist would describe as a hallmark of the left hemisphere: constructing models that seem internally coherent but gradually disconnected from reality and more unfiltered perception. In other words, the warnings against the left hemispheric excesses and dominance are nearly identical in both Dante’s and McGilchrist’s expressions.

The other wheel on Dante’s Chariot is the more intuitive dimension, more infused with love and a spiritual apprehension, which is exemplified by the Franciscans. This largely corresponds to the nature of the right hemisphere, which is both more veridical and can grasp larger more overall patterns compared to the left hemisphere. And Dante’s perhaps surprising insistence here, is how the two wheels are both crucial and need to work together. Again and again Dante will be combining insights from these two dimensions and show how the unity of theses two creates even more emergent insights as a whole. And this is exactly how McGilchrist has described the “churning” of how perception should work: starting in the right hemisphere (for Dante: the intuitive wisdom), which should then be transferred to the left hemisphere for analysis, partitioning, remodeling and reflection, and then be returned to and absorbed back into the right hemisphere for a new overall and refined understanding.

In Dante’s days this was often seen as a competition or rivalry between the two camps, of which one had the “correct” approach, but Dante puts forward the proposition that neither are fully correct in themselves, and that it is only the unity of them, the “dance”, the harmony and the combination of the two, that can give you the fullest and richest picture.

Furthermore, Dante confirms McGilchrist’s idea from the book The Master and the Emissary, and insists that even as both dimensions or wheels are essential and necessary, for the highest and the most overall questions it is the Franciscans, and the right hemisphere, which is the primary. This was heavily contested in Dante’s time, just like the dominance of the left hemisphere approach is often seen as the rightfully primary today, which both McGilchrist and Dante strongly argue against. The “wheel” of the rational-intellect is indispensable and a fantastic tool, but again, it has to function within a bigger picture and unity, which only the other wheel or hemisphere has the capacity to fully perceive and apprehend.

And a slightly surprising argument from Dante is also that a pure right hemispheric thinking and experience is similarly not a correct approach for higher wisdom. Some might claim that reason and logic is a “block” for more intuitive wisdom, but for Dante this is the “threshold of consent”, and the more ineffable should always be filtered through the left hemisphere for a more solidified and valid wisdom to finally emerge.

So what is Dante adding to McGilchrist’s theory of the brain lateralization?

In many ways he gives us at least one concrete example of solving the question that McGilchrist admits he cannot answer: how to rebalance you brain and create the unity and harmony that it naturally seeks and gravitates towards. It is through a longer process (often years) which will both train and strengthen your right hemisphere, and gradually untie any “knots” and misunderstandings in your left hemisphere. Discernment is key, as is humility and having and open mind. And keeping in mind the symbol of the chariot might also help, as descriptively giving us an image of the brain as two wheels humming in harmony.

As for more specifics on the “how” we will write more essays forthcoming, a short answer is to read the Comedy, especially from book two of Purgatory. And, knowing that this was established 700 years ago could also give some relief, that the remedy was already well known in times of less pressures of modernism and scientism that now culturally dominates and tilts our brain to the left hemisphere by default. But tools like reading, new insights and learning, meditation and contemplation are all essential for the task of re-training and developing your mind again, into a balanced and Renaissance Mindset.

So to conclude - the “chariot” of Dante is a succinct and precise expression of what we now know is the biology of the two brain hemispheres, and McGilchrist has further confirmed the basic tenets of Dante’s model, that it is not an either/or for the two wheels, but a both/and, and the right hemisphere is the only one that can be overall in charge of the big picture and the highest wisdom.

With these two perspectives you can fully transform your brain, your mind, your outlook on the world, and the whole experience of life can become infinitely richer and more fulfilling. And most likely, it will feel much more natural as well. And perhaps through this transformation you might eventually yourself become a small part of and contributor to an emerging new Renaissance, this very century.