Paul Churchland (born 1942) is a philosopher working at the University of California, San Diego. He earned his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh, under the direction of Wilfrid Sellars. He is the husband of philosopher Patricia Churchland and particularly noted for his work in philosophy of mind and neurophilosophy.

He is particularly associated with a school of thought called eliminative materialism which argues that folk psychology concepts such as belief and desire have no coherent or definable brain activity associated with them; we can therefore expect them to be replaced by concepts that have yet to be articulated. The analogy is to the history of such concepts as phlogiston, caloric, and the luminiferous ether.

Published books

• The Engine of Reason, The Seat of the Soul: A Philosophical Journey into the Brain, MIT Press, 1995.
• A Neurocomputational Perspective: The Nature of Mind and the Structure of Science, MIT Press, 1989.
• Images of Science: Scientific Realism versus Constructive Empiricism, University of Chicago Press, 1985.
• Matter and Consciousness, MIT Press, 1984.
• Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind, Cambridge University Press, 1979.

External links

• Paul Churchland's Homepage
• Paul Churchland entry from the Dictionary of the Philosophy of Mind

1942 births | Living people | 20th century philosophers | American philosophers | Analytic philosophers | Canadian philosophers | Materialists | Philosophers of mind | University of California, San Diego | Paul Churchland