MIT World Speakers

Patricia Churchland

Patricia Churchland is a researcher in neurophilosophy -- the interface between traditional philosophy questions concerning consciousness, knowledge, meaning, and free will and developments in neuroscience. Her best known book is Neurophilosophy(MIT Press 1986).

She served as president of the American Philosophical Association (Pacific Division) and the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and won a MacArthur Fellowship in 1991.

Churchland has a B. A. from the University of British Columbia, an M. A. from the University of Pittsburgh, and a B. Phil. from the University of Oxford. Aided by a Woodrow Wilson Faculty Development Grant (1975-76), she studied neurology at the University of Manitoba Medical School, and learned basic neuroscience in the Jordan spinal cord lab.