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Early Life
Hilary Putnam was an American philosopher born on July 31, 1926 in Chicago, Illinois to Samuel and Riva Putnam. Hilary's father Samuel was an active communist and writer. Hilary studied Math and Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, before pursuing his graduate degree from Harvard and UCLA. He wrote his dissertation on the concept of probability and obtained his Ph.D from UCLA in 1951 (Ben-Menahem 2018). -
Functionalism
in the 1960's Putnam introduced his idea of functionalism. To simplify, functionalism is the idea that mental states are defined by the way that something functions, not by its internal composition. If something acts conscious, then it is conscious. Regardless of its internal composition (Rey 2017). Watch Video -
Semantic Externalism
Putnam's conception on meaning, which we proposed in his paper "The Meaning of 'Meaning'" in 1975, explains that meanings are not purely mental or conceptual, but are anchored in external reality. Putnam referred to this conception as semantic externalism, and it has been used to help support realism (Ben-Menahem 2018). -
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Later Years
In 1976, Putnam joined the Philosophy Department at Harvard. He remained at Harvard until his retirement as Cogan University Professor Emeritus at Harvard in 2000. Putnam died on March 13, 2016 at age 89 in his home in Arlington, Massachusetts (Weber 2016).