Hilary Putnam

Hilary Putnam (1926–2016) was an American philosopher whose work reshaped debates about mind, language, mathematics, and science. He developed functionalism and semantic externalism, then later criticized some of his own influential positions.

Functionalism (philosophy of mind): A theory that identifies mental states by their causal roles rather than by their physical composition. Putnam helped establish functionalism as an alternative to identity theories of mind.
Brain in a vat: A philosophical scenario in which a brain receives simulated experiences while disconnected from its ordinary environment. Putnam’s argument against the global skeptical scenario applies his account of reference to its own words.
Saul Kripke: An American philosopher whose work transformed modal logic, metaphysics, and theories of reference. Kripke’s account of rigid designation developed alongside Putnam’s arguments about natural-kind terms.
Type identity theory: The theory that each type of mental state is identical to a type of brain state. Putnam rejected this reduction because the same mental function may have different physical realizations.
Semantic externalism: The view that meanings or mental contents depend partly on factors outside an individual’s mind. Putnam argued that the environment helps determine what words and thoughts mean.
Scientific realism: The view that successful scientific theories describe a world existing independently of human thought. Putnam defended scientific realism before revising his account of what realism requires.
Ruth Anna Putnam: An American philosopher whose work includes ethics, pragmatism, and political philosophy. She was Putnam’s spouse and an intellectual partner in his later engagement with pragmatism.
Behaviorism: A psychological and philosophical approach that explains behavior without appeal to inner mental states. Functionalism preserves internal states while rejecting behaviorism’s equation of mind with observable behavior.
Twin Earth thought experiment: A thought experiment involving a duplicate planet where a substance superficially like water has a different chemical composition. Putnam used Twin Earth to show that a speaker’s environment can affect reference.
Metaphysical realism: The view that the world has a fixed structure entirely independent of human conceptual schemes. Putnam’s internal realism rejects this picture of a scheme-independent, uniquely correct description.

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