Hilary Putnam, July 31, 1926 to March 13, 2016

By elhansen01

  • Realism

    Realism
    Hilary Putnam was considered a realist. He believed science did not have any miracles, therefore most scientific theories that are produced are true, or real. He argued that scientists did not just make up theories that could not be proven. His first paper about realism was “The Meaning of Meaning.” (Chakravartt)

  • Arguing Against The Meaning of Meaning

    Arguing Against The Meaning of Meaning
    Many people thought that Putnam’s realism and the belief that there was no such things as miracles could be argued against. Van Fraasen believed that only theories that became successful were ones that people knew about and that was the reason it appeared that true theories could be proven. Basically, untrue theories are forgotten about. (Chakravartty)

  • Twin Earth's Experiment

    Twin Earth's Experiment
    In order to argue his point of realism Putnam conducted the “twin Earth’s” experiment. In this experiment, he argues that scientists had to discover that water was H2O because people needed to know what water was, but if someone from our planet Earth went to an identical planet Earth and saw what they thought was water because it had all the same characteristics, it still may not be H2O. (Norris)
    https://youtu.be/KE8NL9G_Fq8

  • The Meaning of Meaning

    The Meaning of Meaning
    Another argument Putnam had that came from “The Meaning of Meaning” is that people may have different meanings for the same word. He used gold as an example. Scientists can tell the difference between gold and fool’s gold because they know how, just as a gold miner would, but other people may not. Thus, the word may have different meanings. (Ben-Menahem)
  • Period: to

    Hilary Putnam, July 31, 1926 to March 13, 2016

    Hilary Putnam's contribution to the philosophy of science was greatly based on his idea of realism. He believed that theories are proven because they are things people need to know.

  • Works Cited 1

    Ben-Menahem, Yamima. Encyclopedia Brittanica. 21 December 2001. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hilary-Putnam. 07 December 2018.
    Chakravartty, Anjan. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 12 June 2017. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/#MiraArgu. 07 December 2018.

  • Works Cited 2

    Norris, Christopher. Philosophy Now. 2004. https://philosophynow.org/issues/49/Hilary_Putnam_on_Realism_Truth_and_Reason. 07 December 2018.
    Twin Earth (Thought Experiment). Dir. Carneades.org. Perf. Carneades.org. 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE8NL9G_Fq8.