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Patricia Churchland Biography

Patricia Churchland

Patricia Smith Churchland (born July 16, 1943) is a Canadian-American analytical philosopher 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. She is a member of the Board of Trustees Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies of Philosophy Department, Moscow State University. In 2015, she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Educated at the University of British Columbia, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Oxford, she taught philosophy at the University of Manitoba from 1969 to 1984 and is married to the philosopher Paul Churchland. The New Yorker magazine observed regarding the philosophical couple that, "Their work is so similar that they are sometimes discussed, in journals and books, as one person."

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Patricia Churchland Quotes

I had no idea what philosophy was until I went to college at UBC. I first read Hume and Plato, so naturally I was under the misapprehension that philosophers are trying to figure out what is true, and that contemporary philosophers are mainly trying to figure out what is true about the mind. Of course Hume and Plato were trying to do that, hence my misapprehension.

College, Course, Figure, Mind, Philosophy, Plato

Many philosophers in the second half of the 20th century really seemed to think that they were laying the foundations for science by laying down the conceptual (necessary) truths.

Foundation, Half, Laying, Philosophers, Thinking, Truths

It is surely important that the differences between coma, deep sleep, being under anesthesia, on the one hand, and being alert on the other, all involve changes in the brain.

Alert, Brain, Deep, Differences, Hands, Sleep

Analyzing a concept can (perhaps) tell you what the concept means (at least means to some philosophers), but it does not tell you anything about whether the concept is true of anything in the world.

Analyzing, Doe, Mean, Philosophers, True, World

Humility bids us to take ourselves as we are; we do not have to be cosmically significant to be genuinely significant.

Bids, Cosmically, Genuinely, Humility, Significant

Given how long philosophers have been at conceptual analysis (I mean the 20th century stuff), and how many have been doing it, what can we say are the two most important concept results of all that effort?

Concept, Long, Mean, Philosophers, Two

Studies of decision-making in the monkey, where activity of single neurons in parietal cortex is recorded, you can see a lot about the time-accuracy trade-off in the monkey's decision, and you can see from the neuron's activity at what point in his accumulation of evidence he makes his decision to make a particular movement.

Decision, Movement, Neurons, Single, Studies

There are many levels of organization in nervous systems. Hence we aim to explain mechanisms at one level in terms of properties and dynamics at a lower level, and to fit that in with the properties at the higher levels.

Dynamics, Fit, Higher, Levels, Mechanisms, Organization

Being engaged in some way for the good of the community, whatever that community, is a factor in a meaningful life. We long to belong, and belonging and caring anchors our sense of place in the universe.

Atheist, Caring, Engaged, Meaningful, Way

When that theory is isolated from known facts, it is likely not to be productive.

Facts, Isolated, Likely, Theory

It seems probable that humans have been on the planet, with much the same brain, for about 250,000 years.

Brain, Planet, Planets, Probable, Years

Many mammals and birds have systems for strong self-control, and it is not difficult to see why such systems were advantageous and were selected for. Biding your time, deferring gratification, staying still, foregoing sex for safety, and so forth, is essential in getting food, in surviving, and in successful reproduction.

Safety, Sex, Staying, Strong, Successful

Although many philosophers used to dismiss the relevance of neuroscience on grounds that what mattered was the software, not the hardware, increasingly philosophers have come to recognize that understanding how the brain works is essential to understanding the mind.

Although, Brain, Essential, Mind, Understanding, Used

In all probability, mental states are processes and activities of the brain. Exactly what activities, and exactly at what level of description, remains to be seen.

Activities, Brain, Level, Levels, Seen, States

Eventually I realized that for contemporary philosophers conceptual analysis per se was an end in itself. For some, it was somehow supposed to lead to the truth about these phenomena, not just to tidy things up a bit.

Analysis, Contemporary, Ends, Philosopher, Supposed

Theorizing is of course essential to make progress in understanding, but theorizing in the absence of knowing available relevant facts is not very productive.

Essential, Facts, Knowing, Make, Progress, Understanding

I made the assumption, wrong of course, that conceptual analysis was a brief preliminary on the road to finding out about the nature of free will, consciousness, the self, the origin of values, and so forth.

Analysis, Assumption, Forth, Free, Self, Values

I am less attracted to guesses about what cannot be done, than about making progress on a problem.

Done, Guesses, Problem, Progress

Even philosophers who did not mind psychology, claimed the brain was irrelevant because it was the hardware, and we only need to know about the software.

Brain, Mind, Philosophers, Psychology, Software

It seems that the brain has a "small world" architecture - or at least the cortex does. Everything can connect to everything else in a few synaptic steps.

Brain, Cortex, Doe, Everything, World

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