The Two Cultures and Other Dualisms in David Lodge’s Thinks…
The Two Cultures and Other Dualisms in David Lodge’s Thinks…

Summary/Abstract: This article discusses several types of dualism in David Lodge’s campus novel Thinks… (2001). Underlain by a conflict between “the two cultures”, the plot and the narrative mode serve to illustrate different approaches to human consciousness, which are grounded in the humanities and the sciences, respectively. The novel brings together a novelist arguing for the uniqueness and opacity of the self and a cognitive scientist who denies the autonomy of the self and rejects the dualism of body and mind. This opposition is dramatised in the debates between the chief antagonists and in the development of their relationship, which constitutes the basis of the plot. It is argued that Lodge’s novel points to areas of convergence between the two approaches but ultimately demonstrates their disjunction while arbitrarily making a case for the humanities.

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