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Birth
Hilary Whitehall Putnam was one of the most influential American Philosophers of the 20th Century. Made major contributions of a wide variety of fields in Epistemology, Metaphysics, the Philosophy of Language, the Philosophy of the Mind, the Philosophy of Science, the Philosophy of Logic, the Philosophy of Mathematics, Mathematics, and Computer Science. Referred to as the Father of Computational Functionalism. -
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Computer Science: DPLL Algorithm
Originally referred to as the Davis-Putnam Algorithm was developed with Martin Davis. This algorithm manifests whether there is a series of true or false values that suffices a specified Boolean expression making it so that the whole expression becomes true. The algorithm was later refined with help provided from Donald W. Loveland and George Logemann changing the name to DPLL. -
Contributions in Mathematics: Hilbert's Tenth Problem
This problem asked for a universal algorithm to ascertain if a given Diophantine equation (typically a polynomial equation containing two or more unknown integers) has a solution integers. This was later settled by Yuri Matiyasevich in 1970 with proof that depended on research supplied by Hilary Putnam, Julia Robinson, and Martin Davis. -
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Theory of Meaning: Twin Earth Thought Experiment
Through his published works of ‘Meaning and References’ (1973) and ‘The Meaning of Meanings’ (1975), Putnam proposes his Theory of Meaning and the ‘Twin Earth’ thought experiment. This experiment was used to illustrate the argument of ‘Semantic Externalism’ or the perspective that the meanings of words are by no means purely psychological. -
Death
Hilary Whitehall Putnam died on March 13th 2016 at the age of 89 from complication stemming from metastasized mesothelioma. He is buried at the Crawford St. Cemetery in Brookline Massachusetts.
