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Patricia Churchland article:

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Patricia Smith Churchland
Born(1943-07-16)July 16, 1943
Oliver, British Columbia, Canada
Philosophical work
Era21st-century philosophy
RegionWestern Philosophy
SchoolAnalytic Philosophy
Main interestsNeurophilosophy
Philosophy of mind
Philosophy of science
Medical and environmental ethics
Notable ideasNeurophilosophy, Eliminative Materialism

Patricia Smith Churchland (born July 16, 1943 in Oliver, British Columbia, Canada) is a Canadian-American philosopher noted for her contributions to neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. She has been a Professor at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) since 1984. Since 1999 she has been UC President's Professor of Philosophy at UCSD, and has held an adjunct professorship at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies since 1989.[1] Educated at the University of British Columbia, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Oxford (B.Phil.). She taught philosophy at the University of Manitoba from 1969 to 1984 and is the wife of philosopher Paul Churchland.[2]

Biography

Early Life and Education

Churchland was born Patricia Smith in Oliver, British Columbia,[citation needed] and raised on a farm there.[3] [4] 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 "the newspaper business" 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.[4] She took her undergraduate degree at the University of British Columbia, graduating with honors in 1965.[2] She received a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to study at the University of Pittsburgh, where she took an M.A. in 1966.[5][2] Thereafter she studied at Oxford University as a British Council and Canada Council Fellow, obtaining a B. Phil in 1969.[2]

Academic Career

Churchland's first academic appointment was at the University of Manitoba, where she was an assistant professor from 1969-1977, an associate professor from 1977-1982, and promoted to a full professorship in 1983.[2] It was here that she began to take a interest in neurobiology, and began to study it formally with the encouragement of Larry Jordan, a professor with a lab in the Department of Physiology there.[4][3][6] From 1982-1983 she was a Visiting Member in Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.[7] 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.[8] Since 1989, she has also held an adjunct professorship at the Salk Institute adjacent to UCSD's campus, where she became acquainted with the institute's founder and namesake Jonas Salk.[1] [3] 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."[4] Another important supporter Churchland found at the Salk Institute was Francis Crick.[4] [3] At the Salk Institute, Churchland has worked with Terrence Sejnowski's lab as a research collaborator.[9] 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. [10] [11] [12]

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,[4] and they were married after she completed her B.phil at Oxford University.[3] Their children are Mark M. Churchland (born 1972) and Anne K. Churchland (born 1974), both of whom are neuroscientists.[13] [14]

Work

Philosophy

Churchland first gained notoriety through her championing of eliminative materialism, a paradigm in the philosophy of mind which argues that commonsense, immediately intuitive, or "folk psychological" concepts such as thought, free will, and consciousness will need to be revised in a physically reductionistic way as neuroscientists uncover the mechanisms of brain function.[15] In keeping with her eliminitavist perspective, Churchland's Neurophilosophy: Toward A Unified Science of the Mind-Brain forcefully argued that empirical facts about the brain must play a central role in philosophy of mind. Likewise, it argued that philosophy had significant contributions to make to neuroscience. Churchland has since been an important figure in the growing interface between neuroscience and philosophy, advocating for a "co-evolution" of the two disciplines.[16] According to her, philosophers are increasingly realizing that to understand the mind one must understand the brain. [citation needed] More recently, Churchland's attention has moved to the ethical implications of neuroscientific discovery, a subject she considers in her latest work, Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us About Morality.

Influences

Churchland has cited David Hume as an influence on her thinking, in contrast to Emmanuel Kant.[citation needed] She has also cited Willard van Orman Quine as a significant influence, beginning when she took a seminar on Quine in college.[4] She has described her empirical approach to philosophy as "essentially continuing Quine's program."[citation needed] Many of her important influences are scientists, among them Francis Crick, who influenced much of her thinking on consciousness.[17] [4] [3]

Scientific Work

In complement to her purely philosophical work, Churchland has also done significant work in theoretical neuroscience.

Criticism

Of Eliminative Materialism

Of Neurophilosophy

Of Neuroethics

Awards and Honors

Works

As sole Author

  • Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain. (1986) Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
  • Brain-Wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy. (2002) Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
  • Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality. (2011) Princeton University Press.

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. Llinas 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.

Works About

In addition to her own work, Patricia Churchland and her husband Paul have been the subjects of several philosophical review works, including:

  • On the Churchlands. (2004) William Hirstein. Florence, Kentucky: Thomson Wadsworth
  • The Churchlands and Their Critics. (1996) Robert N. McCauley. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Salk Institute: Adjunct Faculty". Salk Institute. Retrieved 14 August 2011.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Churchland, Patricia. "Curriculum Vitae". Retrieved 14 August 2011.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g "University of Alberta - Fall Convocation 2007" (web page). University of Alberta. 22 November 2007. Retrieved 14 August 2011.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h "From the Engine of Reason to the Seat of the Soul: A Brain-Wise Conversation" (video). The Science Studio. The Science Network. 26 June 2006. Retrieved 30 August 2011. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  5. ^ "Fellows Of Note - Major Awards". Princeton, NJ: The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. Retrieved 30 August 2011.
  6. ^ "Faculty of Medicine - Physiology" (web page). University of Manitoba - Department of Physiology. Retrieved 30 August 2011.
  7. ^ "Social Science Only". A Community of Scholars. Princeton, NJ: Institute for Advanced Study. Retrieved 30 August 2011. Churchland, Patricia Smith [V] SocSci 1982-83
  8. ^ Churchland, Paul M. (19 January 2007). "Curriculum Vitae" (PDF). UCSD Philosophy Department. Retrieved 30 August 2011.
  9. ^ "CNL - People" (web page). Computational Neurobiology Laboratory. The Salk Institute. Retrieved 30 August 2011.
  10. ^ "Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival" (web page and video). The Science Network. 5–7 November 2006. Retrieved 14 August 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date format (link)
  11. ^ "Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0" (web page and video). The Science Network. 31 October – 2 November 2007.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date format (link)
  12. ^ "Beyond Belief: Candles in the Dark" (web page and video). The Science Network. 3–6 October 2008. Retrieved 14 August 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date format (link)
  13. ^ "Anne Churchland - Assistant Professor" (web page). Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Retrieved 15 August 2011.
  14. ^ "Neural Prosthetic Systems Laboratory - Shenoy Lab" (web page). Stanford University. 5 August 2011. Retrieved 15 August 2011.
  15. ^ Warburton, Nigel (2010). "Pat Churchland on Eliminative Materialism" (audio). Philosophy Bites. Retrieved 14 August 2011. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  16. ^ Bickle, John, Mandik, Peter and Landreth, Anthony (2010). "The Philosophy of Neuroscience". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2010 ed.). Stanford, CA: Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University. p. Before and After Neurophilosophy. Retrieved 29 August 2011.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)ISSN 1095-5054
  17. ^ Churchland, Patricia Smith (26 March 1993). "Can Neurobiology Teach Us Anything About Consciousness?" (pdf). Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association. 67 (4). American Philosophical Association: 32. Retrieved 31 August 2011. In thinking about this problem, I have been greatly influenced by Francis Crick {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |year= / |date= mismatch (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  18. ^ "MacArthur Fellows List, "C"" (web page). The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved 14 August 2011.
  19. ^ "International Academy of Humanism - Humanist Laureates" (web page). Council For Secular Humanism. Retrieved 14 August 2011.
  20. ^ "Distinguished Cognitive Scientist Award" (web page). University of California, Merced. 4 May 2011. Retrieved 14 August 2011.
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Biography

Great part in the TSN piece about how she felt about Oxonian analytic philosophy, "not very much gold in those hills" she says. Also she talks about Quine as an influence in this piece, and Francis Crick. Further there's a discussion of how she was the first of the pair to become interested in the relationship of neuroscience to philosophy, and that her husband subsequently joined in.

Also she served as Chair of UCSD's philosophy dept. from 2000-2007[1]

Philosophy

Discussion of eliminative materialism, neurophilosophy and collaboration with husband Paul Churchland. Talk about her opinion of the is/ought distinction, source "Braintrust". Also might find useful stuff at Philosophy and the Neurosciences: A Reader.

Other crap that might have a place/cut from the current version of the article

She was interviewed along with her husband Paul Churchland for the book Conversations on Consciousness by Susan Blackmore, 2006.[citation needed]

And some more sources:

[2] [3] [4]

[5]

Her opinion on Hume, Aristotle, the war on drugs, Sam Harris, morality, etc. Here she suggests that Hume would have liked her principles such as constraint satisfaction and so on.[6]

Philosophy bites: "Pat Churchland.... is a well-known and contentious critic of folk psychology." 0:36-0:43. "She say that we can't approach folk psychology uncritically. Folk psychology can be wrong. As we learn more and more about the brain, we'll need to modify some of our concepts, and even eliminate them." 0:48-0:60. Churchland on eliminative materialism, how it is informed by the history of science. "One of the things you see in the history of science is a kind of progression" of ideas, with some concepts being thrown out or replaced over time. 1:30-. (2:55-3:25) "The eliminativist part of the story was a prediction. A prediction that certain concepts might be modified, developed, might even be eliminated as neuroscience progressed." (3:25-3:39)

The Partially Examined Life:

She defines eliminative materialism as the combination of a materialist hypothesis that concepts such as consciousness, memory beliefs, desires, motivations refer only to states of the physical brain, and the eliminativist prediction that certain of these concepts might need to be modified, developed, or even eliminated as neuroscience progresses.

References

  1. ^ "UCSD Department of Philosophy - Faculty". University of California, San Diego.
  2. ^ "Patricia Smith Churchland and Mark Churchland". The Science Studio. The Science Network. Retrieved 29 August 2011.
  3. ^ "Patricia Churchland and Anne Churchland". The Science Studio. The Science Network. Retrieved 29 August 2011.
  4. ^ Hirstein, William (2004). On the Churchlands (illustrated ed.). Florence, KY: Thomson/Wadsworth. ISBN 0534576273.
  5. ^ McCauley, Robert N. (1996). The Churchlands and Their Critics. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. ISBN 0631189696. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  6. ^ "Episode 41: Pat Churchland on the Neurobiology of Morality (Plus Hume's Ethics)". The Partially Examined Life. 18 July 2011. Retrieved 30 August 2011.
  • Bechtel, W., Mandik, P., Mundale, J. (2001). Philosophy meets the neurosciences. In: Bechtel, W., Mandik, P., Mundale, J., & Stufflebeam, R. S. (2001). Philosophy and the Neurosciences: A Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell.


Beyond Belief Article

Speakers

The master of ceremonies at the event was Roger Bingham, co-founder and director of The Science Network. The speakers were:

  1. ^ "Participants" (web page). Beyond Belief: Science, Reason, Religion and Survival. The Science Network. Retrieved 31 August 2011.
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