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Birth
Hilary Putnam was born in Chicago, Illinois on July 31st, 1926 -
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Career
Putnam was one of the leading American philosophers in metaphysics, epistemology, the mind, language, science, mathematics, and logic. He studied mathematics and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, attended graduate school at Harvard where he obtained his PhD in 1951. After getting his degree he taught philosophy at Northwestern University, Princeton University, and MIT until 1976, when he joined the Harvard department of philosophy. -
Philosophy of the Mind
Putnam is best known for his works studying the mind and the way thoughts are perceived between two different entities. Some of the most notable contributions to this field of study came from several published papers in the mid 1960's in which he set his hypothesis for Multiple Realizability. which in short, goes on to explain and argue if beings with different physical states of nervous systems experience and define the same feelings, such as pain.
https://www.iep.utm.edu/mult-rea/ -
Philosophy of Language: Semanic Eternalism
"Meaning just ain't in the head", Putnam first laid out in his writings describing his view on terms and meaning that we use, this could better be described in his experiment "Twin Earth".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE8NL9G_Fq8
In this experiment it describes how two different species of these two almost identical Earths, have different meanings for water, yet they are describing the same thing. Led Putnam to believe meaning cannot be determined solely by what is in their heads. -
"Brain in a Vat": Eternalism in Epistemology
In his experiment, Brain in a Vat, Putnam attempts to show to gap between mans concept of the world compared to what it actually is through metaphysical realistic principals. Describing how man cannot have a gods-eye view of the world but rather he is limited to his views alone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO0sSJB1TrI -
Rejection of Theory
By the end of the 1980s Putnam rejected many of his past theories, rejecting internal realism as is due to its relation with cognitive interface between the relationship with the mind and the world. Under the influence of his colleagues he had come to view philosophical problems as just concepts and problems created by taking ordinary language out of context by philosophers. -
Retirement
Putnam would retire as Cogan University Professor Emeritus at Harvard in 2000 -
Death
Putnam would die March 13th, 2016 in Arlington, Massachusetts
