# Patricia Churchland ![[50 Resources/51 Attachments/51.03 Public/2026-05-04 Patricia Churchland.jpg|400]] Patricia Churchland (born 1943) is a Canadian-American philosopher at UC San Diego and a pioneer of neurophilosophy—the view that philosophy of mind must be informed by and integrated with neuroscience. Her 1986 book *Neurophilosophy* argued that traditional folk psychology (beliefs, desires, intentions) may be replaced by neuroscientific explanations as our understanding of the brain advances—a position called eliminative materialism. Churchland, along with her husband Paul Churchland, has been a leading critic of [[Dualism]] and skeptic of irreducible [[Qualia]]. She argues that [[Consciousness]] will ultimately be explained by neuroscience, not armchair philosophy. ## Key Contributions | Concept | Description | |---------|-------------| | **Neurophilosophy** | Integration of philosophy and neuroscience | | **Eliminative materialism** | Folk psychology may be replaced | | **Neural basis of morality** | Ethics grounded in brain science | ## Quotes <!-- QueryToSerialize: LIST FROM #type/quote AND [[Patricia Churchland]] WHERE public_note = true SORT file.name ASC --> ## Books <!-- QueryToSerialize: LIST FROM #type/book AND [[Patricia Churchland]] WHERE public_note = true SORT file.name ASC --> ## References - Churchland, P.S. (1986). *Neurophilosophy* - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Churchland ## Related - [[Philosophy of Mind]] - [[Consciousness]] - [[Neuroscience]] - [[Daniel Dennett]]