Hilary Putnam, born Hilary Whitehall Putnam in 1926 and died in 2016, was an American philosopher who worked across philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics and epistemology and was known for repeatedly revising his own earlier positions over a long career at Harvard. In philosophy of mind he developed functionalism and the argument for multiple realizability, the idea that a mental state can be realized by many different physical substrates rather than identified with any one type of brain state, and in philosophy of language he introduced the Twin Earth thought experiment to argue for semantic externalism, the view that the meaning of a word depends partly on facts outside the speaker's own head. With Willard Van Orman Quine he formulated the Quine-Putnam indispensability argument for the reality of mathematical objects, and with Martin Davis he contributed to the Davis-Putnam algorithm used in automated theorem proving, work that has had a lasting influence in computer science as well as philosophy.
Facts
Defining MomentIntroduced the Twin Earth thought experiment in The Meaning of Meaning (1975), establishing semantic externalism and the view that meaning is not entirely determined within the head. 1 Notable PublicationReason, Truth, and History (1981) 1 Office HeldCogan University Professor, Harvard University, retired 2000 as Cogan University Professor Emeritus; earlier taught at Northwestern University, Princeton University and MIT 1 BirthplaceChicago, Illinois, United States 1 Death PlaceArlington, Massachusetts, United States 1 Connections
Associated With
Putnam's 1967 paper set out the machine-state version and its multiple-realizability argument, though he later grew critical of functionalism himself.
Source Functionalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Putnam's functionalism and computational theory of mind gave the philosophical framing, mental states as functional/computational states, that much of the field still argues from or against.
Putnam gave the scenario its contemporary form and its semantic-externalist reply in Reason, Truth and History (1981).
Source Brain in a Vat Argument (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Hilary Putnam (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIntroduction, opening sentence (birth date)
Hilary Whitehall Putnam (; July 31, 1926, March 13, 2016) was an American philosopher, mathematician, computer scientist, and figure in analytic philosophy in the second half of the 20th century.
Biography > Death (year)
Putnam died at his home in Arlington, Massachusetts, on March 13, 2016.
Biography > Death (date)
Putnam died at his home in Arlington, Massachusetts, on March 13, 2016.
Biography > Death (place)
Putnam died at his home in Arlington, Massachusetts, on March 13, 2016.
Infobox, birth_place field
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Infobox, school_tradition field
Analytic philosophy
Works list
Putnam, H. (1981). Reason, Truth, and History. Cambridge University Press.
Philosophy > Theory of meaning
His views on meaning, first laid out in Meaning and Reference (1973), then in The Meaning of "Meaning" (1975), use his "Twin Earth" thought experiment to defend this thesis.
Biography > Academic career
Putnam taught at Northwestern University (1951-52), Princeton University (1953-61), and MIT (1961-65). For the rest of his career, Putnam taught at Harvard's philosophy department, becoming Cogan University Professor.
Introduction, opening sentence (birth year)
Hilary Whitehall Putnam (; July 31, 1926, March 13, 2016) was an American philosopher, mathematician, computer scientist, and figure in analytic philosophy in the second half of the 20th century.
View the Source Brain in a Vat Argument (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Associated With: The Brain in a Vat Argument
Functionalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Associated With: Functionalism
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