Hilary Putnam

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Hilary Putnam bigraphy, stories - philosopher

Hilary Putnam : biography

July 31, 1926 –

Hilary Whitehall Putnam (born July 31, 1926) is an American philosopher, mathematician and computer scientist who has been a central figure in analytic philosophy since the 1960s, especially in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of science.Casati R., "Hillary Putnam" in Enciclopedia Garzanti della Filosofia, ed. Gianni Vattimo. 2004. Garzanti Editori. Milan. ISBN 88-11-50515-1 He is known for his willingness to apply an equal degree of scrutiny to his own philosophical positions as to those of others, subjecting each position to rigorous analysis until he exposes its flaws.King, P.J. One Hundred Philosophers: The Life and Work of the World’s Greatest Thinkers. Barron’s 2004, p. 170. As a result, he has acquired a reputation for frequently changing his own position. Putnam is currently Cogan University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University.

In philosophy of mind, Putnam is known for his argument against the type-identity of mental and physical states based on his hypothesis of the multiple realizability of the mental, and for the concept of functionalism, an influential theory regarding the mind-body problem. In philosophy of language, along with Saul Kripke and others, he developed the causal theory of reference, and formulated an original theory of meaning, inventing the notion of semantic externalism based on a famous thought experiment called Twin Earth.P. Clark-B. Hale (eds.), "Reading Putnam", Blackwell, Cambridge (Massachusetts)-Oxford 1995.

In philosophy of mathematics, he and his mentor W. V. Quine developed the "Quine-Putnam indispensability thesis," an argument for the reality of mathematical entities,Colyvan, Mark, , The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2004 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.) later espousing the view that mathematics is not purely logical, but "quasi-empirical".Putnam, H. Philosophy of Mathematics: Selected Readings. Edited with Paul Benacerraf. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964. 2nd ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. In the field of epistemology, he is known for his critique of the well known "brain in a vat" thought experiment. This thought experiment appears to provide a powerful argument for epistemological skepticism, but Putnam challenges its coherence.Putnam, H. (1981): in Reason, Truth, and History, Cambridge University Press; reprinted in DeRose and Warfield, editors (1999): Skepticism: A Contemporary Reader, Oxford UP. In metaphysics, he originally espoused a position called metaphysical realism, but eventually became one of its most outspoken critics, first adopting a view he called "internal realism",Putnam, H. Realism with a Human Face. Edited by James Conant. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990. which he later abandoned in favor of a pragmatist-inspired direct realism. Putnam’s "direct realism" aims to return the study of metaphysics to the way people actually experience the world, rejecting the idea of mental representations, sense data, and other intermediaries between mind and world.Putnam, H.. The Threefold Cord: Mind, Body, and World. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. In his later work, Putnam has become increasingly interested in American pragmatism, Jewish philosophy, and ethics, thus engaging with a wider array of philosophical traditions. He has also displayed an interest in metaphilosophy, seeking to "renew philosophy" from what he identifies as narrow and inflated concerns.

Outside philosophy, Putnam has contributed to mathematics and computer science. Together with Martin Davis he developed the Davis–Putnam algorithm for the Boolean satisfiability problemDavis, M. and Putnam, H. "A computing procedure for quantification theory" in Journal of the ACM, 7:201–215, 1960. and he helped demonstrate the unsolvability of Hilbert’s tenth problem. He has been at times a politically controversial figure, especially for his involvement with the Progressive Labor Party in the late 1960s and early 1970s.To appear in the "American Philosophers" edition of Literary Biography, ed. Bruccoli, Layman and Clarke