Patrick Lancaster Gardiner was a British academic philosopher, a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.

His father was Clive Gardiner, a landscape artist and principal of Goldsmiths College; his mother was Lilian Lancaster, an artist and a pupil of Walter Sickert. His paternal grandfather was Alfred George Gardiner, editor of The Daily News. His younger brother was the architect Stephen Gardiner. He was educated at Westminster School, and then received a First in history from Christ Church, Oxford. After Army service in Italy, North Africa and Austria, he returned to Oxford for a second B.A., in PPE (politics, philosophy and economics).

He was appointed to Wadham College, Oxford (1949), and then St Anthony's College, Oxford (1952). His first published book was The Nature of Historical Explanation in 1952 In 1958 he became a Fellow of Magdalen College, where he remained, becoming an Emeritus Fellow in 1989.

He married Susan Booth (1934–2006) in 1955, and had two daughters.