Patricia Churchland facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Patricia Churchland
Born	Patricia Smith (1943-07-16) July 16, 1943 (age 81) Oliver, British Columbia, Canada
Alma mater	University of British Columbia University of Pittsburgh Somerville College, Oxford
Spouse(s)	Paul Churchland
Era	20th-/21st-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Analytic philosophy
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

Patricia Smith Churchland (born 16 July 1943) is a Canadian-American philosopher. She is known for her work in neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. These fields explore how our brains work and how that affects our thoughts and feelings. She taught at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) starting in 1984. She also worked at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, a famous research center. In 2015, she became a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Patricia Churchland is married to another philosopher, Paul Churchland. People sometimes talk about their work as if it were from one person because their ideas are so similar.

About Patricia Churchland

Her Early Life and Education

Patricia Smith Churchland was born in Oliver, British Columbia, Canada. She grew up on a farm. Her parents did not finish high school, but they loved science. They wanted her to go to college, even though some people thought it was a waste of money.

She went to the University of British Columbia and graduated in 1965. Then, she studied at the University of Pittsburgh and got her master's degree in 1966. After that, she studied at Somerville College, Oxford in England, finishing in 1969.

Her Career in Academia

Churchland started teaching at the University of Manitoba in 1969. While there, she began studying neuroscience, which is the study of the brain and nervous system. A professor named Larry Jordan helped her with this.

In 1984, she moved to the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) with her husband, Paul. They have been there ever since. Since 1989, she has also worked at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. There, she met Jonas Salk, who created the polio vaccine. He liked her ideas about neurophilosophy and encouraged her. Another important supporter at the Salk Institute was Francis Crick, who helped discover the structure of DNA.

Churchland worked with Terrence Sejnowski's lab at the Salk Institute. Their work together led to a book called The Computational Brain in 1993. From 2000 to 2007, she was the head of the Philosophy Department at UCSD.

Her Family Life

Patricia Churchland met her husband, Paul Churchland, in a class about Plato at the University of Pittsburgh. They got married after she finished her studies at Oxford. They have two children, Mark and Anne, who are both neuroscientists. This means they also study the brain!

Her Philosophical Ideas

Patricia Churchland believes that philosophy should work closely with science. She thinks that to truly understand the mind, we need to understand the brain. She uses discoveries from neuroscience to answer big questions about how we know things, if we have free will, what consciousness is, and how we decide what is right or wrong.

She is known for an idea called eliminative materialism. This idea suggests that some of our common ideas about the mind, like "thought" or "consciousness," might change a lot as scientists learn more about how the brain works. It's like how we used to think the sun went around the Earth, but science showed us a different truth.

Awards and Recognitions

• MacArthur Fellowship, 1991
• Humanist Laureate, International Academy of Humanism, 1993
• Honorary Doctor of Letters, University of Virginia, 1996
• Honorary Doctor of Law, University of Alberta, 2007
• Distinguished Cognitive Scientist, UC, Merced Cognitive and Information Sciences program, 2011
• Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society, 2011

Her Books

Books She Wrote Alone

• Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain. (1986)
• Brain-Wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy. (2002)
• Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality. (2011)
• Touching A Nerve: The Self As Brain. (2013)
• Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition. (2019)

Books She Wrote or Edited with Others

• The Computational Brain. (1992) with T. J. Sejnowski.
• Neurophilosophy and Alzheimer's Disease. (1992) Edited with Y. Christen.
• The Mind-Brain Continuum (1996). Edited with R.R. Llinás.
• On the Contrary: Critical Essays 1987-1997. (1998) with Paul M. Churchland.

See also

In Spanish: Patricia Churchland para niños