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Life of Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam was an American Philosopher who contributed to the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of mathematics, and the philosophy of logic. He was part of the analytic, pragmatism, neo-pragmatism, and post-analytic philosophy schools of thought. Ben-Menahem, Yemima. Hilary Putnam. Encyclopedia Britannica. 2018. -
Machine State Functionalism
Putnam claimed that any creature with a mind can be described as a Turing Machine, whose operation can be fully specified by a set of instructions. Machine State Functionalists take the proper model for the mind to be that of a probabilistic automaton: one in which the program specifies, for each state and set of inputs, the probability which the machine will enter some subsequent state and produce some particular outputs. Levin, Janet. Functionalism. Stanford Philosophy. 2013. -
Rietdijk–Putnam–Penrose Argument
Observers with their own "plane of simultaneity" considers their set of present events to be a three dimensional universe but even the slightest movement of the head or offset in distance between observers can cause the three dimensional universes to have differing content. If each three dimensional universe exists then the existence of multiple three dimensional universes suggests that the universe is four dimensional. Savitt, Steven. Being and Becoming in Modern Physics. Stanford. 2017 -
Twin Earth Thought Experiment
The Twin Earth Thought Experiment was first proposed by Hilary Putnam in his paper "Meaning and Reference". It begins with supposing that elsewhere in the Universe there is a planet that is identical to Earth, in virtually all aspects. The one difference is that there is no water on the twin planet. Instead of H2O there is a substance composed of XYZ. When these two planets communicate and speak of "water" do they mean the same thing? Putnam claimed the psychological states were the same. -
Indispensability Argument for Mathematics
The Quine-Putnam Indispensability Argument for Mathematics argues that the indispensability of mathematics to empirical science gives us good reason to believe in the existence of mathematical entities.
(P1) We ought to have ontological commitment to all and only the entities that are indispensable to our best scientific theories.
(P2) Mathematical entities are indispensable to our best scientific theories.
(C) We ought to have ontological commitment to mathematical entities. -
