Project Description
Patricia Churchland, D.Litt, B.Phil, LLD, was an early proponent of the mutual relevance of neuroscience and philosophy. In her own work she has used developments in neuroscience to clarify philosophical issues concerning consciousness, the self, free will, decision making and ethics, among other topics. In recent years she has explored the nature of morality in her award-winning book, Braintrust, and most recently she has turned her attention to issues of personal identity and spirituality in the book Touching a Nerve: the Self as Brain, of which the New York Times wrote: “It is hard to conceive of a better guide to this difficult terrain than the MacArthur-award-winning Ms. Churchland…
[She] writes with surpassing clarity, elegance, humor and modesty.” Professor Churchland has spent the last three decades at the University of California, San Diego, where she served as the UC President’s Professor of Philosophy.
Slides for this video can be found here.