Paul Churchland Explained

Region:Western philosophy
Era:Contemporary philosophy
Paul Churchland
Birth Name:Paul Montgomery Churchland
Birth Date:21 October 1942
Birth Place:Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
School Tradition:Analytic philosophy
Alma Mater:University of Pittsburgh
Institutions:University of Pittsburgh
Main Interests:Neurophilosophy, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence, epistemology
Notable Ideas:Eliminative materialism, word–world relations[1]
Influences:W. V. O. Quine, Thomas Kuhn, Russell Hanson, Wilfred Sellars, Paul Feyerabend, Karl Popper, Patricia Churchland
Influenced:Patricia Churchland, Ray Brassier
Doctoral Advisor:Wilfrid Sellars
Spouse:Patricia Churchland

Paul Montgomery Churchland (born October 21, 1942) is a Canadian philosopher known for his studies in neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. After earning a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh under Wilfrid Sellars (1969), Churchland rose to the rank of full professor at the University of Manitoba before accepting the Valtz Family Endowed Chair in Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and joint appointments in that institution's Institute for Neural Computation and on its Cognitive Science Faculty.

As of February 2017, Churchland is recognised as Professor Emeritus at the UCSD, and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies of Moscow State University. Churchland is the husband of philosopher Patricia Churchland, with whom he collaborates closely.

Early life and education

Paul Montgomery Churchland was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on October 21, 1942.[2] [3] Growing up in Vancouver, Churchland's father was a high school science teacher and his mother took in sewing. As a boy, he was obsessed with science fiction; he was particularly struck by the ideas in Robert A. Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky. Churchland liked building things in his father's woodworking and metal shop in their basement, and expected to become an aerodynamical engineer.[4]

At the University of British Columbia, Churchland began with classes in math and physics, intending to pursue engineering. Conversations with fellow students in the summer before his sophomore year inspired him to begin taking philosophy classes. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1964[2]

He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in 1969,[5] his dissertation entitled "Persons and P-Predicates" written with Wilfrid Sellars as his advisor.[6] [2]

Career

In 1969, Churchland took a position at the University of Manitoba,[2] where he would teach for fifteen years, becoming a full professor in 1979.[5] [3] He spent a year at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton,[3] and joined the faculty at the University of California, San Diego in 1984.[2] There, he served as Department Chair from 1986–1990.[7]

As of this February 2017, Churchland is recognised as Professor Emeritus at the University of California, San Diego,[8] where he earlier held the Valtz Family Endowed Chair in Philosophy (through 2011),[9] [10] and continues to appear as a philosophy faculty member on the UCSD Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in Cognitive Science[11] and with the affiliated faculty of the UCSD Institute for Neural Computation.[12] As of February 2017, he is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Center for Consciousness Studies of the Philosophy Department, Moscow State University.[13]

Philosophical work

Churchland's work is in the school of analytic philosophy in western philosophy, with interests in epistemology and the philosophy of science, and specific principal interests in the philosophy of mind and in neurophilosophy and artificial intelligence. His work has been described as being influenced by the work of W. V. O. Quine, Thomas Kuhn, Russell Hanson, Wilfrid Sellars, and Paul Feyerabend.[14]

Along with his wife, Churchland is a major proponent of eliminative materialism,[15] the belief that

where by folk psychology is meant everyday mental concepts such as beliefs, feelings, and desires, which are viewed as theoretical constructs without coherent definition, and thus destined to be obviated by a scientific understanding of human nature. From the perspective of Zawidzki, Churchland's concept of eliminativism is suggested as early as his book Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind (1979), with its most explicit formulation appearing in a Journal of Philosophy essay, "Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes" (1981).[5]

Churchland believes that beliefs are not ontologically real; that is, that a future, fully matured neuroscience is likely to have no need for "beliefs" (see propositional attitudes), in the same manner that modern science discarded such notions as legends or witchcraft. According to Churchland, such concepts will not merely be reduced to more finely grained explanation and retained as useful proximate levels of description, but will be strictly eliminated as wholly lacking in correspondence to precise objective phenomena, such as activation patterns across neural networks. He points out that the history of science has seen many posits that were considered as real entities: such as phlogiston; caloric; the luminiferous ether; and vital forces that were thus eliminated.

Moreover, in The Engine of Reason, The Seat of the Soul Churchland suggests that consciousness might be explained in terms of a recurrent neural network with its hub in the intralaminar nucleus of the thalamus, and feedback connections to all parts of the cortex. He acknowledges that this proposal will likely be found in error with regard to the neurological details, but states his belief that it is on the right track in its use of recurrent neural networks to account for consciousness. This has been described as a reductionist rather than eliminativist account of consciousness.

Personal life

Churchland is the husband of philosopher Patricia Churchland, and it has been noted that, "Their work is so similar that they are sometimes discussed, in journals and books, as one person."[16]

The Churchlands are the parents of two children, Mark Churchland and Anne Churchland, both of whom are neuroscientists.[17]

Written works

Popular writing

Scholarly work

Books

Professor Churchland has authored several books in philosophy, which have been translated into many languages.[2] His works are as follows:

His book Matter and Consciousness has been frequently and extensively reprinted.[18] Both Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind and A Neurocomputational Perspective have been reprinted.[19]

Essays

Professor Churchland has written a number of published articles, some of which have been translated into other languages, including several that have had a substantial impact in philosophy. Essays which have been reprinted include:

See also

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Paul Churchland, "Conceptual progress and word/world relations: In search of the essence of natural kinds", Canadian Journal of Philosophy 15(1):1–17 (1985).
  2. Book: Keeley, Brian L. . 2006 . Introduction: Becoming Paul M. Churchland (1942–) [Ch. 1] . Paul Churchland . Keeley, Brian L. . 1-31, esp. 1-2 . Cambridge, UK . 0-521-53715-0 . Cambridge University Press . 11 February 2017 . [Quote:] PMC was born a Canadian and earned a B.A. from the University of British Columbia, and in 1969, he was awarded a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh. There, he wrote a dissertation under the direction of Wilfrid Sellars. He spent the first 15 years of his career at the University of Manitoba, taking advantage of its relative isolation to further develop his own approach to the ideas to which he was exposed during his graduate education. ... His second book, Matter and Consciousness (1984, revised and updated 1988; translated into five languages), has become one of the most popular textbooks in the philosophy of mind. . Note, this link presents only an excerpt of the chapter, the first 10 pages.
  3. Book: Shook, John R.. The Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers. A&C Black. 2005. 978-1-84371-037-0. 492. en.
  4. 0028-792X. 82. 49. 58. MacFarquhar. Larissa. Two Heads; Annals of Science. The New Yorker. 2021-05-01. 2007-02-12. .
  5. Book: Zawidzki, Tadeusz . May 2004 . Churchland, Paul . Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind . 11 February 2017.
  6. Web site: George, J. . Lugar, L. . 2011 . 2007 . Guide to the Wilfrid S. Sellars Papers, 1899-1990 ASP.1991.01 . University of Pittsburgh . 11 February 2017.
  7. Book: Harrell, Maralee. What Is the Argument?: An Introduction to Philosophical Argument and Analysis. MIT Press. 2016. 978-0-262-52927-3. 296. en.
  8. Web site: UCSD Staff . 11 February 2017. UC San Diego, Philosophy Department, Faculty . University of California–San Diego . 11 February 2017.
  9. Web site: Arneson, Richard J. . 11 February 2017. UCSD Philosophy: Richard J. Arneson . University of California–San Diego . 11 February 2017.
  10. As of February 2017, the UCSD Philosophy webpage reports Richard J. Arneson as the Valtz Chair, and Arneson reports his having assumed that position in July, 2011.
  11. Web site: UCSD Staff . 11 February 2017. UCSD Cognitive Science: IDP Faculty . University of California–San Diego . 11 February 2017.
  12. Web site: UCSD Staff . 11 February 2017. Institute for Neural Computation: Affiliated Faculty . University of California–San Diego . 11 February 2017.
  13. Web site: MCfCS Staff. 11 February 2017. The Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies: People. HardProblem.ru. 11 February 2017.
  14. Book: Keeley, Brian L. . http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/30119/excerpt/9780521830119_excerpt.pdf . Paul Churchland . Cambridge University Press . 2006 . 0-521-53715-0 . Keeley . Brian L. . Cambridge, UK . 3 . Introduction: Becoming Paul M. Churchland (1942–).
  15. Book: Ramsey, William . 2013 . 2003 . Eliminative Materialism . revision of 16 April 2013, based on 8 May 2003 original . The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Zalta, Edward N.. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/materialism-eliminative/. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. 11 February 2017 . In more recent history, eliminative materialism has received attention from a broader range of writers, including many concerned not only with the metaphysics of the mind, but also the process of theory change, the status of semantic properties, the nature of psychological explanation and recent developments in cognitive science. Much of this attention has been fostered by the husband-wife team of Paul and Patricia Churchland, whose writings have forced many philosophers and cognitive scientists to take eliminativism more seriously..
  16. MacFarquhar, Larissa. February 12, 2007 . Two Heads: A marriage devoted to the mind-body problem. . 58–69 . 17323512 . 11 February 2017.
  17. Why Should Philosophers Care About Neuroscience?. MacFarquhar. Larissa. The New Yorker. 2014-07-21. 2019-06-06. en. 0028-792X.
  18. See, for instance: (1) "Eliminative Materialism" in Introducing Philosophy (R.C. Solomon, Pages 449 - 453); (2) "Behaviorism, Materialism, and Functionalism" in Reason and Responsibility: Readings in Some Basic Problems of Philosophy, Seventh Edition (Edited by J. Feinberg, Wadsworth Press); and (3) "Eliminative Materialism" in Introductory Readings in Philosophy (Edited by J. Pojman, Wadsworth Press).
  19. See (1) "The Mind-Body Problem" in Philosophy of Mind (Polish), by the Alethia Foundation (1995); and (2) "Knowing Qualia: A Reply to Jackson" in The Nature of Consciousness: The Philosophical Debates edited by N. Block, O. Flanagan and G. Guzeldere (MIT Press - 1997).

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