Patricia Kitcher

Kitcher has recently been recognized for her work in education and in her academic field. In 2017, she won the Society of Columbia Graduates’ Great Teacher Award. The awards is given annually to an outstanding professor for their ability to make effective oral presentations, the ability to relate positively to students outside the classroom, and for their "recognized standing in their respective academic disciplines."

Kant's Thinker (2011), was called "an ambitious and challenging work" by Paul Guyer in the European Journal of Philosophy. In this book, she continues work on "a central theme of her earlier work: how to understand Kant's view of the unity of self-consciousness in the Critique of Pure Reason."

Born Patricia Williams, she attended Wellesley College and then graduate school in philosophy at Princeton where she studied with George Pitcher. Kitcher has held faculty positions at the University of Vermont, the University of Minnesota, and University of California, San Diego, and a visiting position at University of Michigan. In 1998 she went to Columbia University where she became the Mark van Doren Professor of the Humanities and chair of the philosophy department. She lives in New York City with her husband, Philip Kitcher, also a philosopher at Columbia, with whom she has two sons, Andrew and Charles.

Patricia W. Kitcher (born 1948) is the Roberta and William Campbell Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, widely known for her work on Immanuel Kant and on philosophy of psychology. She has held many positions at different universities, is a founding chair of a committee at the University of California, and has a lead role in multiple professional organizations. Kitcher's most notable interests throughout her career regard cognition and Kantian ethics. She is the author of multiple papers and two books.