Paul Churchland

Paul Montgomery Churchland was born October 21, 1942 and is a Canadian philosopher known for his work in neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. He earned his doctorate under Wilfrid Sellars at the University of Pittsburgh in 1969, taught at the University of Manitoba, and is now Professor Emeritus at the University of California, San Diego. He is a leading proponent of eliminative materialism, the view that everyday folk psychology, the common sense talk of beliefs, desires and feelings, is a deeply flawed theory that will ultimately be eliminated in favor of a mature cognitive neuroscience rather than merely reduced to it, much as science eliminated earlier notions such as phlogiston. He is married to the philosopher Patricia Churchland, with whom he has collaborated extensively, and their children Mark and Anne Churchland are both neuroscientists.