-
Hilary Putnam was born July, 31 1926, in Chicago Illinois to Samuel and Riva.
-
Putnam received his Ph.D from UCLA before going to Harvard to work in 1965. He also worked at Northwestern from 1951-1952 and Princeton from 1953-1961. He received Tenure at Princeton for department of Philosophy and department of Mathematics in 1961. He spent the rest of his teaching days at Harvard. https://philosophy.fas.harvard.edu/people/hilary-putnam
. -
Putnam brings the idea that there is an earth exactly like ours aka a twin earth. He states the earth has H2O and the same substance but with different chemicals, but that both planets would thrive exactly the same. https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/25022/how-does-putnams-twin-earth-thought-experiment-disprove-functionalism
-
Putnam brings out linguistic labor theory which is, that in order for different people in different cultures to understand a meaning of a word, his example is gold, they have to be involved in the same job or work to have the same knowledge. http://www.kelemenjanos.hu/LinguisticDivision3.pdf
-
One of his philosophical works was “Philosophy and Our Mental Life”
His best contribution to philosophy Twin-Earth thought experiment The Meaning of Meaning -
Putnam suggests if a human being was a brain in a vat of nutrients all of a persons thoughts would be merely electrical impulses. He tells everyone who is skeptical of the theory " how do you know you are NOT a brain in vat. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism-content-externalism/
-
Realism with a Human Face He calls upon philosophers to attend to the gap between the present condition of their subject and the human aspirations that philosophy should and once did claim to represent. http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674749450
-
His last published article was ‘Realism’ published in the journal Philosophy and Social Criticism
-
Hilary Putnam passed away at his home in Arlington Mass. at age 89.
