Doctors and Philosophers

I have long appreciated the work of Raymond Tallis and can excuse some of his philosophical oversights on the grounds that he's had plenty of other things keeping him occupied. The arguments of Merleau-Ponty, for instance, are convergent with Tallis's but M.-P. is conspicuous by his absence from Tallis's work.

Having recently come across a review by Mary Midgley of Iain McGilchrist's new book on brain hemispheres and culture, I began to think that there are a number of very interesting philosophers who are also trained doctors. Jonathan Miller's another one. As seen below, he can cram a great deal into five minutes. Contrary to what might be expected, these people tend to resist reductive accounts of human existence: something that's sorely needed in philosophy at the moment. I find the arguments of the recently fashionable 'neurophilosophers' facile and fatuous.