Patricia Churchland
contemporaryAnalytic Philosophy, Neurophilosophy, Eliminative Materialismb. 1943
Patricia Churchland (born 1943) is a Canadian-American philosopher and Professor Emerita at the University of California, San Diego, widely regarded as a founder of neurophilosophy. She argues that traditional philosophy of mind must be grounded in and constrained by the empirical findings of neuroscience, and that folk psychological concepts like 'belief' and 'desire' may ultimately be replaced by more precise neurobiological descriptions.
Notable Achievements
1
Founded the field of neurophilosophy with her landmark 1986 book of the same name
2
Developed eliminative materialism alongside Paul Churchland, arguing folk psychology is a flawed theory to be superseded
3
Argued that consciousness and moral cognition are reducible to neurobiological processes
4
Authored 'Touching a Nerve' (2013) applying neuroscience to ethics and self-knowledge
5
Recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship ('genius grant') in 1991