See also: Putnam
Hilary Whitehall Putnam (born the July 31st 1926, with Chicago, Illinois), is a American Philosophe . It is a central figure of Western philosophy since the years 1960, and this particularly in Philosophie of the spirit, Philosophie of the language and Philosophie of sciences. It is known to apply the same degree of vigilance with regard to its own philosophical positions as with regard to those of the others, subjecting each one of enter they to a rigorous analysis until exposing the insufficiencies of them. By doing this, it acquired the reputation to frequently change position.
Its work is spread on a big part of the philosophical field: Philosophy of sciences, the logical and the mathematical ; Philosophy of the spirit, the language, and the knowledge; ethical Métaphilosophie, and political…
In Philosophy of the spirit, Putnam is especially known to have presented a frightening argument against the Thèse of identity between the mental states and the cerebral states, argument based on the assumption of the multiple Réalisibilité of the properties of mental (cf Pascal Ludwig, " The Problem of the body and the spirit. Approaches contemporaines" in Side Philosophy , n° June 4th, th and th 2004), and for its defense of the Functionalism, an influential theory relative with the problem of the body and spirit.
In Philosophy of the language, with Saul Kripke in particular, it developed the causal Théorie of the reference and proposed an original approach of the significance, named semantic Externalisme, and based on one of the most famous experiments of thought, the experiment of the Earth twins.
In Philosophie of mathematics it developed with its W.V. Quine the " Quine-Putnam thesis of indispensabilité" , an argument in favor of the reality of the mathematical entities.
In epistemology it is especially known to have presented an experiment of thought, the experiment of the Cerveaux in a tank, intended to answer the epistemological skepticism.
In Métaphysique it initially defended a position called metaphysical realism, position of which it became then one of the most severe criticisms, defending another position then, named by him internal realism, abandoned position itself in favor of a realism pragmatist (or " ordinaire" or " naïf") inherited the direct realism of William James, the writings of second Wittgenstein and those of John Langshaw Austin. According to this last position it is a question of returning the study of metaphysics to the way in which we make the experiment of the world, with the rejection of the idea of mental representation, from judicious-dated and other intermediaries between the spirit and the world.
Apart from the Philosophy, Putnam also made some contributions in Mathématiques and Informatique. It developed the Algorithme of Davis-Putnam for the Problème SAT, with Martin Davis, and helped to show the impossibility of resolution of the tenth problem of Hilbert. It has in addition in its time be a political figure discussed, and this in particular for its engagement within the Progressive Labor Party, a party Maoist, towards the end of the year 1960 until the beginning of the year 1970.
Biography
Hilary Whitehall Putnam was born with Chicago, Illinois in 1926. His/her father, Samuel Putnam, was a journalist and a translator for the Daily Worker, a publication of the Communist party of the United States of America. Because of the communist engagement of his/her father, and this although his/her mother, Rivetted, that is to say of Jewish confession, the Putnam young person received a laic education. Putnams lived in France until 1934, date on which they went back food to the United States to Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania. He studied mathematics and philosophy with the Université of the Pennsylvania where he accepted his BA and became member of the Philomathean Society, oldest of the American literary companies. He continued his studies of philosophy to Harvard then with the the University of California to Los Angeles where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1951 for an essay entitled " The Meaning off the Concept off Probability in Application to Finite Sequences".
Professors de Putnam, Hans Reichenbach (her reader) and Rudolf Carnap were important figures of the logical Positivisme.
After having briefly taught with Northwestern, he taught mathematics with Princeton of 1953 to 1961, the philosophy of sciences to the MIT of 1961 to 1965 then the Logique mathematics and philosophy with Harvard until his retirement in 2000.
He married in 1962 Ruth Anna Putnam, born in 1927 with Munich in Germany of parents political activists opposed to the party Parti national-Socialist of the German workers and which, just like Hilary, accepted an education Athéisme. Putnams, in rebellion compared to the Anti-semitism of which they made the experiment when they were young, decided to raise their children in a hearth traditional Judaïsme. They studied the ritual Jews, Hebrew and became increasingly interested and active within the Jewish community. In 1994 Hilary Putnam celebrated a service of Bar Mitzvah. Ruth Anna did one of them four years later.
Putnam was a popular professor in Harvard. While preserving its family tradition, it was politically committed. In the years 1960 and with the beginning of the year 1970, he was a burning defender of the Mouvement Afro-American of the civic rights and an enthusiast opposes to the Guerre of Vietnam. In 1963 it organized one of the first student and teaching committees of MIT against the war. After its assignment with Harvard in 1965 it organized protest movements on the campus and started to give courses on the Marxisme. He became an official representative within the movement of the students for an democratic society and, in 1968, engaged within the Progressive Labor Party (PLP).
After 1968 its political activities were concentrated on the PLP. The administration of Harvard regarded these activities as subversive and tried to censure Putnam but the procedure was criticized and stopped. In 1972 Putnam put an end to its engagement at the PLP.
In 1976, he was elected president of the American Philosophical Association. The following Anne, it was selected like " Walter Beverly Pearson Professor off Mathematical Logic" , in recognition of its contributions to the Philosophy of logic and mathematics. While breaking with its past of gauchist, forever abandoned Putnam the belief according to which the intellectuals have a political responsibility and social towards the company. It is also remained Progressisme in its ideas and skeptic with regard to the benefits of capitalism. Its political ideas can be read in texts such as " How Not To Solve Ethical Problems" (1983) and " Education for Democracy" (1993)
Professor Putnam is " Fellow off the American Academy off Arts and Sciences " , and " Corresponding Fellow off the British Academy ". It withdrew teaching in June 2000 and is from now on " Cogan University Professor Emeritus" in Harvard. Its corpus includes 5 volumes of collected work, seven books, and more than 200 articles.
Metaphilosophie and history of philosophy
Metaphysics and ontology
During its career, Putnam initially defended a metaphysical Réalisme according to which the scientific statements have a value of truth, before changing its design for an internal or pragmatic realism.
Philosophy of the spirit
Putnam is probably more known for its contributions to the philosophy of the spirit. It was one of the precursors and one of most enthusiastic lawyers of the Fonctionnalisme (coarsely, it is about the design of the human spirit as an analog of a computer). However, it re-examined its position in its work “Representation and reality” where it explains why, in its revisited version, the functionalist design cannot go.
Philosophy of the language
One of the most important contributions of Hilary Putnam to the Philosophie of the language is the idea that the Signification is not right in the head ( meaning just ain' T in the head ), argument illustrated by famous the Expérience of thought of the Ground twins.
Philosophy of logic and mathematics
Mathematics
Data processing
Epistemology
In the fields of the epistemology Putnam is especially known for the experiment of thought known as of the Cerveaux in a tank (a modernized version of the Cartesian assumption of the Malin Genius). The argument consists in saying that no one can say in a coherent way only it is a brain in a tank placed there by an insane scientist.
This is derived from the causal Théorie of the reference. The words always refer to the types of things for which one invented them so that they refers to them, in other words the type of things of which their users, or their ancestors, could make the experiment. Consequently, if a person, Marie for example, were a " brain in a cuve" , whose each experiment was created by electric impulses or other actions of an insane scientist, then the idea that Marie is done of a " cerveau" would not refer to the " vrai" brain, since she and her speech community never saw such a thing. Rather, she saw something which resembled a brain, but which was in fact an image which was transmitted to him by electric impulse. The same its idea of " cuve" would not refer to a " vraie" ferment. Consequently if, as a " brain in a cuve" , it came from there to say " I am a brain in a cuve" , she would say in fact " I am an image of brain in an image of cuve" , which is incoherent. On another side, if it is not a " brain in a cuve" , then to say " I am a brain in a cuve" is always incoherent. It is ue epistemological form of externalism: knowledge or the justification depends on factors apart from the spirit and is not only given in an internal way.
Putnam since specified that its genuine target with this argument forever be skepticism but metaphysical realism. Since N realism of this kind assumes the fossée existence of one between how the man the world conceives and how the world is really, the scenarios skeptics such as this one or that of the Malignant Genius of Descartes present a formidable challenge. Putnam, by showing that such a scenario is impossible, endeavors to show that this concept of gap between the human design of the world and the world such as it east is in oneself absurd. The man cannot have a point of view of Syrius on reality. He is limited to S conceptual designs. Metaphysical realism is thus false, according to Putnam.
Philosophy of sciences
Moral and political philosophy
Criticisms and Posterity
Trivia
In its work Hundred philosophers: the life and the work of the largest thinkers of the world , Peter King, professor of philosophy in Oxford, had judged good to devote two pages to Hilary Putnam. In the French version, the editor has, without the agreement of the author, and any mention in the text, except these two pages so replacing them by others on Derrida.
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