Warren McCulloch

1898-1969

Warren McCulloch was born on November 16, 1898, in Orange, N.J.. McCulloch was educated primarily at Yale, were he received a B.A. in philosophy and psychology (1921) and a masters in psychology (1923).  He also received an M.D. from New York's College of Physicians and Surgeons  in 1927.  His first major academic appointment was at Yale, where he was first a Sterling Fellow, an instructor, and finally and assistant professor.  (1935-1941).  He moved to the University of Illinois College of Medicine in 1941 and stayed there until 1948.  During this time he coauthored what is probably his most famous paper with Walter Pitts, "A Logical Calculus Immanent in Nervous Activity" (Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics 5 (1943): 115-133).  He left Illinois for the Electronics Research Laboratory at MIT in 1949.  He died in Cambridge,  Mass., in 1969.

Dictionary of the Philosophy of Mind

Project Muse Biography

McCulloch Paper Archive

Heinz von Foerster Page