This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 131.183.81.100 (talk) at 01:50, 9 October 2002 (Putnam's contribution to Hilbert's 10th problem mentioned). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 01:50, 9 October 2002 by 131.183.81.100 (talk) (Putnam's contribution to Hilbert's 10th problem mentioned)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Hillary Putnam is a key figure in the philosophy of mind during the 20th century. He was an early and influential advocate of functionalism (roughly, the view that the human mind is analogous to a digital computer) but in "Representation and Reality" he recanted his earlier views and set out to explain why functionalism, in his revised view, would not work. He is well known for his doctrine that "meaning is not in the head". This is illustrated by examples such as the imaginary world, identical to our own in most respects, where the place of water is occupied, not by H20, but by XYZ. When Putnam from our world and Putnam from "Twin Earth" talk about a bucket of water, they are mentally and physically identical, but they are talking about different things. Putnam contributed to the resolution of Hilbert's tenth problem in mathematics.