Patricia Churchland coined the term “neurophilosophy,” a word that refers to the idea that neurobiological mechanisms underpin all mental processes, including decision-making, problem-solving, and even emergent properties like consciousness.
Churchland began her graduate studies in both biology and philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh before transferring to the University of Oxford in 1966. While there, she “slowly came to the realization that psychologists and neuroscientists were actually the ones who were really interested in finding out how . . . the mind really works, in as much as the mind is a product of the way the brain works,” she says. After graduating in 1969, she took a faculty position at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg and began her foray into the world of neuroscience in earnest.
At Manitoba, Churchland attended neuroscience lectures and labs alongside medical students, attended clinical rounds in the neurology and neurosurgery departments, and worked ...
