-
Period: to
Hilary Putnam Birthdate/Deathdate
Hilary Putnam, born on July 31, 1926 became an American philosopher, mathematician, computer scientist, and figure in analytic philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. Putnam died on March 13, 2016 Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilary_Putnam#Philosophy_of_mind -
Period: to
Bachelor's degree
In 1948 Putnam graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor's degree in philosophy and mathematics. -
Period: to
Education Background
After receiving his PhD from UCLA in 1951, while doing graduate work in Philosophy at Harvard, Putnam continued his work in philosophy by teaching at a couple institutions. He taught at Northwestern University (1951–52), Princeton University (1953–61), and MIT (1961–65). For the rest of his career, Putnam taught philosophy at Harvard's department, becoming Cogan University Professor. Reference: https://blog.oup.com/2020/01/hilary-putnam-on-mind-and-meanings/ -
Period: to
Theory of functionalism
In the 1960s through the early 1970s, Putnam worked helped to refine a theory of mind known as functionalism, according to which mental or psychological states are defined by the roles that they play and are “functional states” of an entity. And with that he proposed a theory of machine state functionalism and argued that human mental states are computational states. In my opinion the human mental states are not computational states because each person have his/her own way of thinking. -
Theory of Functionalism Video
In this video, Harvard professors, including Hilary Putnam deeper explains the theory of functionalism and other scientifical philosophies. With their scientific theories being inspired by Einstein. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH785oawwkk&list=PL59ZZdDElkGdptcZ0nPN1IAiKjJn0by_1 -
Period: to
Contribution to society
To conclude, Hilary Putnam played a big role in the society before up to this day because he argued that we don't view the world as "mind and language independent."