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lifespan
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Philosophy of the Mind
Putnam’s best-known work involved philosophy of the mind. In the 1960’s he released multiple key papers revolving his hypothesis of multiple realizability. He took most of what he theorized from the animal kingdom. He was trying to find out how the brain worked and if animals with different minds can feel things the same way. -
Change of Mind
In the 1980’s Putnam abandoned functionalism and other theories of mind. He changed his mind and way of thinking. Possibly it was due to the fact that he hit a certain age and thus his though process changed. What was recorded about the subject is that the theories were not adding up so he made a change. -
Brain in a Vat
Putnam delved into epistemology and was best known for his brain in a vat experiment. This was mostly about skepticism more than anything else. I do not fully understand the entire experiment. What I do know is that at the time he was considered a mad scientist for this experiment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO0sSJB1TrI -
Acceptance
Finally in 2012 Putnam accepted functionalism again, but this time it was a modified version called liberal functionalism. Essentially this type of functionalism revolved around the fact that animals can compute things differently than others. Some animals needed to compute things others do not and therefore things were interpreted differently.