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Hilary Putnam - Born
Hilary Whitehall Putnam - Born in Chicago, Illinois -
Semantic Externalism
A person's views and/or thoughts are based on their respective environment. Putnam gave the example that if you had twin planets where everything was identical except for what filled their oceans, rivers and lakes then the meanings for something as simple as "water" would differ based on their environment. We only call something water because we were taught that way. If you taught a group or kindergartener's that red and green were switched, then eventually that would become the norm. -
Brain-in-the-vat topic
Putnam attempted to bring to light an argument that disputed that "we" were brains in a vat. The idea is that our brains are connected to super computers that are feeding and receiving information for our own world/existence. His thought process was that we would not be able to discern that we were brains in a vat or even be able to discern that same idea. -
Metaphysical Realism
Putnam was considered to be an analytic philosophizer that went towards realism with a pragmatic view. A pragmatic view is an approach that evaluates theories or beliefs in terms of the success of their practical application. Whether it was one of his own works or someone else's, Putnam always looked back and scrutinized it all and sometimes changed his thoughts based on the outcomes. People tend to stick to their works in an unflinching manner and try to build upon instead of starting over. -
Hilary Putnam on Meaning & Externalism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_a0ANCypGw
Putnam was awarded The Rolf Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy in 2011 “for his contribution to the understanding of semantics for theoretical and ‘natural kind’ terms, and of the implications of this semantics for philosophy, theory of knowledge, philosophy of science, and metaphysics“. In this talk, Putnam describes the path which led to the work for which he was being honored. -
Hilary Putnam - Death
Died at the age of 89 on March 13, 2016 -
Citations
McKinsey, Michael, "Skepticism and Content Externalism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/skepticism-content-externalism/ Goldberg, Sandy. “Semantic Externalism.” Oxford Bibliographies, 10 May 2010, www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195396577/obo-9780195396577-0113.xml -
Citations Continued
Khlentzos, Drew, "Challenges to Metaphysical Realism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/realism-sem-challenge/