Neurophilosophy, or the philosophy of neuroscience, is the interdisciplinary study of neuroscience and philosophy that explores the relevance of neuroscientific studies to the arguments traditionally categorized as philosophy of mind. The term was first coined by Patricia Churchland in her book, Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind–Brain, which was published in 1986 by the MIT Press. Churchland was driven by the mind-body problem, which asks a highly-debated question of how the mind, which drives intangible, nonphysical mental processes, is related to the brain, a physical organ. This problem extends to the understanding of other relatively unknown phenomena, such as decision making, learning, consciousness, existence of free will, as well as other related topics. Churchland originally theorized that the physical brain was clearly relevant and, more importantly, necessary to discovering the nonphysical mind and its related mental processes since the only thing that exists is the physical brain. These beliefs were initially met with contention from contemporary philosophers, who typically misinterpreted her argument. Instead of understanding her argument as "necessary," many philosophers often implied that Churchland argued that a neural underpinning was both "necessary" and "sufficient." This line of thought is not without historical context as many classical philosophers, such as Plato, Descartes, and Chalmers, argued that mind and brain have no connection. Contemporary philosophers often argue that the many undiscovered problems in neuroscience will never allow a mechanism into solving cognition. Churchland argues that proponents of this belief do not understand that the field of neuroscience is relatively young and is bound by the unknowns of chemistry and physics. The philosophy of neuroscience attempts to clarify neuroscientific methods and results using the conceptual rigor and methods of philosophy of science.
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Neurophilosophy in the context of Paul 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.
Neurophilosophy in the context of Patricia Churchland
Patricia Smith Churchland (born 16 July 1943) is a Canadian-American analytic philosopher noted for her contributions to neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. She is UC President's Professor of Philosophy Emerita at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), where she has taught since 1984. She has also held an adjunct professorship at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies since 1989. She is a member of the Board of Trustees Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies of Philosophy Department, Moscow State University. In 2015, she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Educated at the University of British Columbia, the University of Pittsburgh, and Somerville College, Oxford, she taught philosophy at the University of Manitoba from 1969 to 1984 and is married to the philosopher Paul Churchland. Larissa MacFarquhar, writing for The New Yorker, observed of the philosophical couple that: "Their work is so similar that they are sometimes discussed, in journals and books, as one person."