Patricia Churchland is a philosopher working at the University of California, San Diego. She is the wife of philosopher Paul Churchland and particularly noted for her work in philosophy of mind and neurophilosophy.

She is particularly associated with a school of thought called eliminativism which argues that folk psychology concepts such as belief and desire have no coherent or definable brain activity associated with them and should therefore be rejected as scientific concepts.

Published books

  • Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain (MIT Press, 1986).
  • The Computational Brain, with T. J. Sejnowski (MIT Press, 1992).
  • The Mind-Brain Continuum, ed. by R. R. Llinas & P. S. Churchland (MIT Press, 1996).
  • On the Contrary, with Paul M. Churchland (MIT Press, 1998).

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