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Early Life and Education
Hilary Putnam was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1926. As an adolescent, he grew up in France but later relocated with his family to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He earned his bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania and eventually completed his post-graduate education at UCLA. -
"Multiple Realizability"
In 1967, Hilary Putnam wrote a series of papers that hypothesized the theory of Multiple Realizability. He theorizes that the same mental state can be realized by different physical states. His most notable example was made by the comparison of pain is more than just the nervous system and that it can be a mental state as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WZQLmvU7TY -
His Own Worst Enemy
Later in his career, Hilary Putnam became increasingly fickle and rejected many of his own philosophical notions and original ideas even attacking several of them. Despite this, he remained committed to the idea of semantic externalism. He also conceptualized the "Twin Earth Theory" from this specific state of thought. -
"Brain in a Vat"
Hilary Putnam is most notably known for his criticism of the "Brain in a Vat" theory. In that, a mad scientist could remove someone's brain and place it into a vat of fluid and connect it to a supercomputer to replicate consciousness and its responses would effectively simulate reality with no effect on the real world. His argument is one still analyzed in modern-day.