Patricia Churchland

{{Infobox philosopher

| region = Western philosophy

| era = 20th-/21st-century philosophy

| image = Patricia Churchland, 2015 (cropped).jpg

| name = Patricia Churchland

| birth_name = Patricia Smith

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1943|07|16}}

| birth_place = Oliver, British Columbia, Canada

| death_place =

| death_date =

| alma_mater = University of British Columbia
University of Pittsburgh
Somerville College, Oxford

| school_tradition = Analytic philosophy{{cite book |last=Dummett |first=Michael |date=2010 |title=The Nature and Future of Philosophy |publisher=Columbia University Press|page=33 |quote="A small number of analytic philosophers–notoriously the two Churchlands–treat the absence of any detailed correspondence [between specific mental occurrences and particular events in the brain] as an objection not to the thesis of mind/brain identity, but to reliance on our familiar mental constructs."}}{{cite book |last=Smith |first=Quentin |date=1997 |title=Ethical and Religious Thought in Analytic Philosophy of Language |publisher=Yale University Press |pages=93–94 |quote=[The postpositivist physicalism of philosophers such as the Churchlands and linguistic essentialism were the] "...two main movements of analytic philosophy of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s; no other analytic movement even compares with them in influence and acceptance."}}

| main_interests = Neurophilosophy
Philosophy of mind
Philosophy of science
Medical and environmental ethics

| notable_ideas = Neurophilosophy, Eliminative Materialism

| influences = David Hume, Willard Van Orman Quine, Francis Crick, Paul Churchland

| influenced =

| spouse = Paul Churchland

}}

Patricia Smith Churchland (born 16 July 1943){{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l1CqBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA8|title=Consciousness: Theories in Neuroscience and Philosophy of Mind|last=Cavanna, Andrea E.|others=Nani, Andrea|isbn=9783662440889|location=Heidelberg|pages=9|oclc=892914346|date=2014-09-30}} is a Canadian-American analytic philosopher{{cite book |last=Dummett |first=Michael |date=2010 |title=The Nature and Future of Philosophy |publisher=Columbia University Press|page=33 |quote="A small number of analytic philosophers–notoriously the two Churchlands–treat the absence of any detailed correspondence [between specific mental occurrences and particular events in the brain] as an objection not to the thesis of mind/brain identity, but to reliance on our familiar mental constructs."}}{{cite book |last=Smith |first=Quentin |date=1997 |title=Ethical and Religious Thought in Analytic Philosophy of Language |publisher=Yale University Press |pages=93–94 |quote=[The postpositivist physicalism of philosophers such as the Churchlands and linguistic essentialism were the] "...two main movements of analytic philosophy of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s; no other analytic movement even compares with them in influence and acceptance."}} noted for her contributions to neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. She is UC President's Professor of Philosophy Emerita at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), where she has taught since 1984. She has also held an adjunct professorship at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies since 1989.{{cite web|title=Salk Institute: Adjunct Faculty|url=http://www.salk.edu/faculty/adjunct_faculty.html|publisher=Salk Institute|access-date=14 August 2011}} She is a member of the Board of Trustees Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies of Philosophy Department, Moscow State University.{{cite web|title=People|url=http://hardproblem.ru/lang-pref/en/people/?geoloc|publisher=Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies of Philosophy Department|access-date=15 September 2014}}{{Dead link|date=May 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} In 2015, she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.{{cite web |url=https://www.amacad.org/multimedia/pdfs/alphalist2015.pdf |title=2015 Fellows and Their Affiliations at the Time of the Election |website=American Academy of Arts and Sciences |access-date=3 March 2024}} Educated at the University of British Columbia, the University of Pittsburgh, and Somerville College, Oxford, she taught philosophy at the University of Manitoba from 1969 to 1984 and is married to the philosopher Paul Churchland.{{cite web|last=Churchland|first=Patricia|title=Curriculum Vitae|url=http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/pschurchland/index_hires.html|access-date=14 August 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110814011354/http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/pschurchland/index_hires.html|archive-date=14 August 2011}} Larissa MacFarquhar, writing for The New Yorker, observed of the philosophical couple that: "Their work is so similar that they are sometimes discussed, in journals and books, as one person."{{cite web |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/02/12/two-heads |title=TWO HEADS A marriage devoted to the mind-body problem. |author=Larissa MacFarquhar|date=February 12, 2007 |website=NewYorker.com |access-date=May 14, 2017|author-link=Larissa MacFarquhar }}

Biography

=Early life and education=

Churchland was born Patricia Smith in Oliver, British Columbia, and raised on a farm in the South Okanagan valley. Both of her parents lacked a high-school education; her father and mother left school after grades 6 and 8 respectively. Her mother was a nurse and her father worked in newspaper publishing in addition to running the family farm. In spite of their limited education, Churchland has described her parents as interested in the sciences, and the worldview they instilled in her as a secular one. She has also described her parents as eager for her to attend college, and though many farmers in their community thought this "hilarious and a grotesque waste of money", they saw to it that she did so.{{cite web|title=From the Engine of Reason to the Seat of the Soul: A Brain-Wise Conversation|url=http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/the-science-studio/from-the-engine-of-reason-to-the-seat-of-the-soul-a-brain-wise-conversation|work=The Science Studio|publisher=The Science Network|access-date=30 August 2011|format=video|date=26 June 2006}} She took her undergraduate degree at the University of British Columbia, graduating with honors in 1965. She received a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to study at the University of Pittsburgh, where she took an M.A. in 1966.{{cite web|title=Fellows Of Note - Major Awards|url=http://www.woodrow.org/about_fellows/awards.php|publisher=The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation|access-date=30 August 2011|location=Princeton, NJ|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110928153453/http://www.woodrow.org/about_fellows/awards.php|archive-date=28 September 2011}} Thereafter she studied at Somerville College, Oxford as a British Council and Canada Council Fellow, obtaining a B. Phil in 1969.

=Academic career=

Churchland's first academic appointment was at the University of Manitoba, where she was an assistant professor from 1969 to 1977, an associate professor from 1977 to 1982, and promoted to a full professorship in 1983. It was here that she began to make a formal study of neuroscience with the help and encouragement of Larry Jordan, a professor with a lab in the Department of Physiology there.{{cite web|title=Faculty of Medicine - Physiology|url=http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/medicine/physiology/contacts/jordan.html|publisher=University of Manitoba - Department of Physiology|access-date=30 August 2011|format=web page}} From 1982 to 1983 she was a Visiting Member in Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.{{cite web|title=Social Science Only|url=http://www.ias.edu/people/cos/affiliation/socsci37b1.html?page=2&%24Version=1&%24Path=%2F|work=A Community of Scholars|publisher=Institute for Advanced Study|access-date=30 August 2011|location=Princeton, NJ|quote=Churchland, Patricia Smith [V] SocSci 1982-83|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120319043513/http://www.ias.edu/people/cos/affiliation/socsci37b1.html?page=2&%24Version=1&%24Path=%2F|archive-date=19 March 2012|url-status=dead}} In 1984, she was invited to take up a professorship in the department of philosophy at UCSD, and relocated there with her husband Paul, where both have remained since.{{cite web|last=Churchland|first=Paul M.|title=Curriculum Vitae|url=http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/pchurchland/cv.pdf|publisher=UCSD Philosophy Department|access-date=30 August 2011|date=19 January 2007}} Since 1989, she has also held an adjunct professorship at the Salk Institute adjacent to UCSD's campus, where she became acquainted with Jonas Salk whose name the Institute bears. Describing Salk, Churchland has said that he "liked the idea of neurophilosophy, and he gave me a tremendous amount of encouragement at a time when many other people thought that we were, frankly, out to lunch." Another important supporter Churchland found at the Salk Institute was Francis Crick. At the Salk Institute, Churchland has worked with Terrence Sejnowski's lab as a research collaborator.{{cite web|title=CNL - People|url=http://cnl.salk.edu/People/|work=Computational Neurobiology Laboratory|publisher=The Salk Institute|access-date=30 August 2011|format=web page}} Her collaboration with Sejnowski culminated in a book, The Computational Brain (MIT Press, 1993), co-authored with Sejnowski. Churchland was named the UC President's Professor of Philosophy in 1999, and served as Chair of the Philosophy Department at UCSD from 2000-2007.

She attended and was a speaker at the secularist Beyond Belief symposia in 2006, 2007, and 2008.{{cite web|title=Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival|url=http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-science-religion-reason-and-survival|publisher=The Science Network|access-date=14 August 2011|format=web page and video|date=5–7 November 2006}}{{cite web|title=Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0|url=http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-enlightenment-2-0|publisher=The Science Network|format=web page and video|date=31 October – 2 November 2007}}{{cite web|title=Beyond Belief: Candles in the Dark|url=http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-candles-in-the-dark|publisher=The Science Network|access-date=14 August 2011|format=web page and video|date=3–6 October 2008}}

=Personal life=

Churchland first met her husband, the philosopher Paul Churchland, while they were both enrolled in a class on Plato at the University of Pittsburgh, and they were married after she completed her B.Phil at Somerville College, Oxford. Their children are Mark M. Churchland (born 1972) and Anne K. Churchland (born 1974), both of whom are neuroscientists.{{cite web|title=Anne Churchland - Assistant Professor|url=http://www.cshl.edu/gradschool/research-faculty/churchland-anne|publisher=Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory|access-date=15 August 2011|format=web page|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110719101134/http://www.cshl.edu/gradschool/research-faculty/churchland-anne|archive-date=19 July 2011}}{{cite web|title=Movement Generation Laboratory - Mark Churchland|url=http://churchlandlab.neuroscience.columbia.edu/|publisher=Columbia University|access-date=2 April 2013|format=web page|date=2 April 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130316233002/http://churchlandlab.neuroscience.columbia.edu/|archive-date=16 March 2013|url-status=dead}} Churchland is considered an atheist,{{Cite book|last=Bannister|first=Andy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qPEaCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA25|title=The Atheist Who Didn't Exist: Or: the dreadful consequences of bad arguments|date=2015-07-17|publisher=Monarch Books|isbn=978-0-85721-611-3|pages=25|language=en|quote=...another atheist writer, the philosopher Patricia Churchland...}} but she identified herself as pantheist in a 2012 interview.{{Cite web|last=Todd|first=Douglas|date=February 4, 2012|title=Pat Churchland fights for supremacy of the brain|url=https://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/pat-churchland-fights-for-supremacy-of-the-brain|access-date=2021-05-04|website=Vancouver Sun|language=en-CA|quote=When I asked her how she would define herself on the spiritual-philosophical spectrum, however, she surprisingly answered: “Pantheist,” adding “I love nature." Pantheists are defined as people who view the natural world as the absolute, as the equivalent of God.”}}{{cite news|last=Todd|first=Douglas|date=February 11, 2012|title=B.C. academic star fights for beliefs|page=44|newspaper=Times Colonist (Victoria, British Columbia)|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/76849148/patricia-churchland/}}

Philosophical work

Churchland is broadly allied to a view of philosophy as a kind of 'proto-science' - asking challenging but largely empirical questions. She advocates the scientific endeavour, and has dismissed significant swathes of professional philosophy as obsessed with what she regards as unnecessary.{{Cite web|url=http://nousthepodcast.libsyn.com/patricia-churchland-on-how-we-evolved-a-conscience|title=NOUS: Patricia Churchland on How We Evolved A Conscience|website=nousthepodcast.libsyn.com|language=en|access-date=2019-10-21|archive-date=2019-09-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190918101630/http://nousthepodcast.libsyn.com/patricia-churchland-on-how-we-evolved-a-conscience|url-status=dead}}

Churchland's own work has focused on the interface between neuroscience and philosophy. According to her, philosophers are increasingly realizing that to understand the mind one must understand the brain. She applies findings from neuroscience to address traditional philosophical questions about knowledge, free will, consciousness and ethics. She is associated with a school of thought called eliminative materialism, which argues that common sense, immediately intuitive, or "folk psychological" concepts such as thought, free will, and consciousness will likely need to be revised in a physically reductionistic way as neuroscientists discover more about the nature of brain function.{{cite web|title=Pat Churchland on Eliminative Materialism|url=http://traffic.libsyn.com/philosophybites/ChurchlandMixSesNewW.mp3|publisher=Philosophy Bites|access-date=14 August 2011|author=Warburton, Nigel|author2=Edmonds, David|format=audio|year=2010}}

2014 saw a brief exchange of views on these topics with Colin McGinn in the pages of the New York Review Of Books.{{Cite magazine | url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/jun/19/brains-and-minds-exchange/ | title=Of Brains & Minds: An Exchange | Patricia Churchland | last1=McGinn | first1=Colin | last2=Churchland | first2=Patricia }}

Awards and honors

MacArthur Fellowship, 1991{{cite web|title=MacArthur Fellows List, "C"|url=http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.1139461/k.9375/Fellows_List__C.htm|publisher=The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation|access-date=14 August 2011|format=web page|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080926113515/http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.1139461/k.9375/Fellows_List__C.htm|archive-date=26 September 2008}}
Humanist Laureate, International Academy of Humanism, 1993{{cite web|title=International Academy of Humanism - Humanist Laureates|url=http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?page=index§ion=iah|publisher=Council For Secular Humanism|access-date=14 August 2011|format=web page|archive-date=2 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181002020101/https://secularhumanism.org/index.php?page=index§ion=iah|url-status=dead}}
Honorary Doctor of Letters, University of Virginia, 1996
Honorary Doctor of Law, University of Alberta, 2007{{cite web|url=http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/Senate/nav04.cfm?nav04=70714&nav03=36464&nav02=33316&nav01=12498|title=University of Alberta - Fall Convocation 2007|date=22 November 2007|publisher=University of Alberta|format=web page|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111128231837/http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/Senate/nav04.cfm?nav04=70714&nav03=36464&nav02=33316&nav01=12498|archive-date=28 November 2011|access-date=14 August 2011}}
Distinguished Cognitive Scientist, UC, Merced Cognitive and Information Sciences program, 2011{{cite web|title=Distinguished Cognitive Scientist Award|url=http://cogsci.ucmerced.edu/2.asp?uc=1&lvl2=13&contentid=10|publisher=University of California, Merced|access-date=14 August 2011|format=web page|date=4 May 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110813201048/http://cogsci.ucmerced.edu/2.asp?uc=1&lvl2=13&contentid=10|archive-date=13 August 2011}}
Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society, 2011{{cite web|last1=Leiter|first1=Brian|title=Two Philosophers Elected Fellows of the Cognitive Science Society|url=http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2011/10/two-philosophers-elected-fellows-of-the-cognitive-science-society.html|website=Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog|access-date=30 June 2017|date=7 October 2011}}

Works

=As sole author=

Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain. (1986) Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
"The Hornswoggle Problem". (1996) San Diego, La Jolla, CA. Journal of Consciousness Studies.
Brain-Wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy. (2002) Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality. (2011) Princeton University Press. eBook {{ISBN|9781400838080}}{{Cite web |date=September 2011 |title=Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells us about Morality {{!}} Patricia S. Churchland |url=https://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/What-neuroscience-tells-us-about-morality.php |access-date=2022-06-23 |website=The Montreal Review}}
Touching A Nerve: The Self As Brain. (2013) W. W. Norton & Company. {{ISBN|978-0393058321}}
Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition. (2019) W. W. Norton & Company. {{ISBN|978-1324000891}}

=As co-author or editor=

The Computational Brain. (1992) Patricia S. Churchland and T. J. Sejnowski. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
Neurophilosophy and Alzheimer's Disease. (1992) Edited by Y. Christen and Patricia S. Churchland. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
The Mind-Brain Continuum (1996). Edited by R.R. Llinás and Patricia S. Churchland: The MIT Press.
On the Contrary: Critical Essays 1987-1997. (1998). Paul M. Churchland and Patricia S. Churchland. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

References

External links

[http://patriciachurchland.com Personal Homepage]
[http://nousthepodcast.libsyn.com/patricia-churchland-on-how-we-evolved-a-conscience Interviewed on NOUS the podcast 'On How We Evolved A Conscience'] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190918101630/http://nousthepodcast.libsyn.com/patricia-churchland-on-how-we-evolved-a-conscience |date=2019-09-18 }}
[http://www.ideasroadshow.com/issues/patricia-churchland-2014-07-16 "Philosophy of Brain - A Conversation with Patricia Churchland"], Ideas Roadshow, 2014
[https://philosophybites.com/2013/12/pat-churchland-on-self-control.html Pat Churchland interviews] with Philosophy Bites on Self Control, on Eliminative Materialism, and on What Neuroscience Can Teach Us About Morality (audio)
[https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/7/8/20681558/conscience-patricia-churchland-neuroscience-morality-empathy-philosophy How your brain invents morality] Patricia Churchland interviewed by Sigal Samuel on 'her theory of how we evolved a conscience' for Vox (2019).