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Field of math
At Princeton, where he became acquainted with the logical positivist Rudolf Carnap and the mathematical logician Georg Kreisel, Putnam immersed himself in mathematical logic. Among other projects, he worked on one of the 23 unsolved problems in mathematics identified by David Hilbert in 1900: that of finding a general algorithm for solving Diophantine equations https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hilary-Putnam -
Birthday
Hilary Putnam, born in Chicago Illinois, to Samuel and Riva Putnam. His father was a well-known writer and translator. Samuel was also a writer for a communist paper but, little is said on whether this played a role on them moving to France and then returning to Philadelphia in 1934 or Hilary’s up bringing.
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Graduated from school
Hilary Putnam received his Ph.D. in 1951 from UCLA where he worked with Hans Reichenbach. After graduating, he taught at Northwestern University (1951-1952) then at Princeton University (1953-1961). It was while working at Princeton that he received tenure in both Mathematics and Philosophy. -
Video of View on philosophy
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His work
Hilary proposed an attempt to dispute skepticism on the Rene Descartes’s evil demon by Gilbert Harman which, was later called the “brain in a vat” (BIV). Hilary proposed the thought that a skeptic could never know if they were a BIV. The computer would never give them the information such as, “they are a brain or vat” or even the images of brains or vats making it impossible to ever prove one is a BIV.
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2012
Putnam’s later work became increasingly focused in American pragmatism, Jewish philosophy, and ethics, thus, engaging with a wider array of philosophical traditions. He also displayed an interest in meta-philosophy, seeking to "renew philosophy" from what he identifies as narrow and inflated concerns https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hilary_Putnam -
Death of a great mind
Hilary Putnam passed away from lung cancer. Not only a teacher of science but also encompassing the wisdom that comes from aesthetics, ethics and religion