Talk:Hilary Putnam/Archive 1

Brain-in-a-Vat

Anyone understand Putnam on this?

My view: Seems to me like he gets himself tangled in overly complicated language. "We are brains in a vat" is rendered false by the fact that he believes that the only vats we can refer to are those in the world that we appear to be in (he disregards the possibility that we can refer to anything outside the apparent world). Since we clearly are not in vats in the apparent world – we appear to have a more substantial body – the statement is indeed necessarily false. But it does not mean that we are not in real vats, even if we cannot refer to them. More to the point, he is wrong to assume that we are unable to refer to things external to the apparent world. The fact that we are discussing the possibility of vats at all in the way we are destroys Putnam’s argument. Alternatively, Putnam could be arguing that our ability to contemplate matters outside of our apparent world is what proves that we are not in a vat. However, it is extremely unclear why brains in a vat would have such a constraint on their conceptual abilities compared to us. --129.67.114.173 12:46, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

unsourced or poorly sourced negative material about living persons should not be posted to this article or its talk page(s)--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 15:17, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Literature about Putnam

The literature listings should be ones that are reputable, and likely to be found in a typical academic library. These are ones that will likely be of use to those looking for further information on Putnam. Obscure articles should not appear in the literature list. (This is not to say that they must be in English, but sources in English clearly are necessary.)

There once was a brain in a vat that Putnam said couldn't that that it is a brain in a vat The brain pondered this thought and frew so overewrought that it fell right out of its vat

There really ought to be a section on his Philosophy of Science. Specifically, his work on Quantum Mechanics, alternative Logics, etc. 66.108.4.183 07:14, 7 September 2006 (UTC) Allen Roth

I agree. Why don't you do it?? --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 14:33, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Rewrite/Cleanup needed

The article on Putnam needs some extensive work. In general, the article is not cohesive, but here are some specific points.

-- The section on philosophy of mind is alright, but could be more informative.

Actually it was a disgrace and terrifying idiotic. That has now been remedied. --Lacatosias 13:03, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

-- The section on philosophy of language is a mess. The discussion of the twin earth thought experiment is alright. But there is a dangling one-line paragraph about the causal theory of reference. The discussion about Putnam's refutation of skepticism does not belong in the philosophy of language. And to say that internalism is the view that meaning is "inherent in the word/concept" is downright ncoherent.

Yes, I have left the Twin Earth discussion mostly intact. I have expaned on the Putnam's theory of meaning. I have divided these things into subsections, etc. I took out the Brain in the Vat and put it in a new section "epistemology". What else? Oh,, I forgot to correct that nonsense aboout internalism and I'm not sure about the adequeacy if the explanation in general.

-- The philosophy of mathematics section is a string of random facts, not all of which obviously belong in an encyclopedia entry.

This is also true. I think I will leave the section discussing "quasi-empiricism" and add something on the Putnam-Quine indispensability thesis.

-- The metaphilosophy section contains no information that warrants inclusion.

Not so sure about this. As it currently stands, I would agree. But Putna's internal realism/pragmatism need to be discussed sonewhere. I will put in a stub template for the moment. I don't know much about this aspect of Putnam.--Lacatosias 13:03, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

--Rldoan 09:00, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

"The section on Putnam's political activities is currently of a disproportionate length to other sections. It really should be much shorter (if it should be there at all!)" -- I disagree. The section is fine as it is, the other sections need to be lengthened.--droptone 01:48, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I wonder if is should not be integerated into a general biorgaphy section at the beginning of the article though??--Lacatosias 13:03, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

There really ought to be a section on his Philosophy of Science. Specifically, his work on Quantum Mechanics, alternative Logics, etc. 66.108.4.183 07:14, 7 September 2006 (UTC) Allen

This article mentioned in New Yorker

Looks like Putnam likes the article! From here:

When I showed the Harvard philosopher Hilary Putnam his entry, he was surprised to find it as good as the one in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. He was flabbergasted when he learned how Wikipedia worked. "Obviously, this was the work of experts," he said.

Take a bow, editors. Ziggurat 00:14, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWW!!!!!!!!!! Thanks to Professor Putnam for the compliment and to the others, beside my modest self (;, who also contributed to the article. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 10:36, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Only one thing though. He doesn't have an entry in the SEP yet. ??? Well, anyway. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 10:43, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I just read the article too. Congratulations to all the contributors. Ori.livneh 18:47, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

So why hasn't this been listed as a feature article? Banno 23:07, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking of self-nominating this one later on. But after the initial reception I got with Fodor, I suspect it wil be attacked for being too technical, too many commas, no picture, thin on biography... What can I tell ya??? --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 14:36, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Alright!!! now this is getting REALLLLYY interersting!! Let's try this experiment then.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 18:22, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Well done

I thought this article was of a very high standard, and one of the best philosophy pages in WP. If not the best.

It proves that good philosophy is possible in WP (I left the project in disgust some time ago, on the assumption that philosophy as such was impossible in WP). I wonder if it's worth another try? Dbuckner 09:35, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I just read the New Yorker article. Very accurate. "the vast majority of Wikipedia edits consist of deletions and additions rather than of attempts to reorder paragraphs or to shape an entry as a whole".

"The facts may be sturdy, but the connective tissue is either anemic or absent".

On the other hand, there are some remarkably good articles in the philosophy section. All of them by those who did not make random hacks to sentences, but thought carefully about how an article is crafted, and about the dependences between the different parts.

I gave up on the last philosophy project, as I said. That largely consisted of people forming lists, an obsession with pictures and maps and pointers, and other trivia. The skill of actually writing the basic material was not highly regarded. Yet this article proves me wrong. So, is there anyone else out there, apart from our good friend Franco, who can actually write articles like this? Dbuckner 09:50, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Click on "Leave comments" at the top.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 10:02, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Francesco, I started a copy edit and took the clean-up tag off, because that's reserved for the very worst of our pages. If you don't like what I'm doing for whatever reason, or if I introduce errors, please tell me to stop, and feel free to revert. I won't be offended. :-) I've done the intro, and the first para of the second section, and I'll do some more as and when time permits. I find that the refs make copy editing for flow a very slow job, so I'll be doing a little bit at a time. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:31, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I understand. The stupid in-line refs are a pain in the butt for everything. If you want to fix a ref, you have to click on the arrow at the bottom which takes you to the appropiate ref in the body of the text. Then, you have to go into that specific section

and find the damned thing, which is hopelessly entangled wih other refs and the text!! That took me about 4 hours yesterday. As User:Jon Awbrey once put it: "when the bots take over, I'm leaving." The bots have taken over, it seems. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 08:07, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

New Yorker reference

In The New Yorker's Issue of 2006-07-31 article Know It All: Can Wikipedia conquer expertise? by Stacy Schiff, this artile is referred to with:

What can be said for an encyclopedia that is sometimes right, sometimes wrong, and sometimes illiterate? When I showed the Harvard philosopher Hilary Putnam his entry, he was surprised to find it as good as the one in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. He was flabbergasted when he learned how Wikipedia worked. “Obviously, this was the work of experts,” he said. In the nineteen-sixties, William F. Buckley, Jr., said that he would sooner “live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.” On Wikipedia, he might finally have his wish. How was his page? Essentially on target, he said. All the same, Buckley added, he would prefer that those anonymous two thousand souls govern, and leave the encyclopedia writing to the experts.

Buckley's point is already interesting. Of course, it would mean the end of Wikipedia. But we should always remember that the "experts" here are self-appointed, not hired or promoted based on some set of criteria or other.

Hilary Putnam

Here is a bot-automated peer review: often, some of the points are not accurate, but it may be worth a double check just to finish polishing the aricle. This (compared to other bot reviews I've seen) looks pretty good. Sandy 13:29, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and may or may not be accurate for the article in question.

• Per WP:CONTEXT and WP:MOSDATE, months and days of the week generally should not be linked. Years, decades, and centuries can be linked if they provide context for the article.

• If this article is about a person, please add {{persondata}} along with the required parameters to the article - see Wikipedia:Persondata for more information.

Done this.

--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 15:01, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

• Per WP:MOSNUM, there should be a non-breaking space -   between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 18mm, use 18 mm, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 18 mm.

• Per WP:CONTEXT and WP:BTW, years with full dates should be linked; for example, link January 15, 2006, but do not link January 2006.

• Please alphabetize the interlanguage links.

Done this.

• There are a few occurrences of weasel words in this article- please observe WP:AWT. Certain phrases should specify exactly who supports, considers, believes, etc., such a view. For example,
  • is considered
  • are considered
  • might be weasel words, and should be provided with proper citations (if they already do, or are not weasel terms, please strike this comment).

I think I've taken care of every single one of these. I will pass throuhg one more time and then I need to take a break. PLEAAAAAAAAASE!!!

• Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.)
  • Vague terms of size often are unnecessary and redundant - “some”, “a variety/number/majority of”, “several”, “a few”, “many”, “any”, and “all”. For example, “All pigs are pink, so we thought of a number of ways to turn them green.”
• Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that the it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 2a.

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Sandy 13:29, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Francesco, none of this is urgent stuff. As bot peer review goes, this is minor stuff. There is no time pressure; it's only some ideas for fine tuning. Sandy 15:09, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Missing ref

Francesco, there's a missing ref at the top of Criticism (named ref CA). I tried to find it, but had no luck. You're just about done ! Sandy 04:05, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Got it, Sandy. Thanks.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 08:32, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Anti-Semitism

"…the pervasive atmosphere of anti-Semitism of the time…"? In mid-1960s Boston? This strikes me as a bit odd. Admittedly, Harvard, like several other elite universities, was at that time at the tail end of the period in which it had a quota severely limiting the number of Jewish students, but this is precisely the era in which that sort of thing was falling away. What exactly is this referring to? - Jmabel | Talk 04:21, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

First of all, thanks for responding to my note. Admittedely, I wrote that sentence, so I will try to explain. It now strikes me as very odd, in fact. In one of the sources I was using for the bio, it says approximately "We felt like we were defying Hilter and the anti-semites". I was trying (but failing) to get the idea across that they were rebelling against a sense of anti-semitism derived from their past. I need to say "rebelling against the anti-semitism of their past experiecne" (past lives? (bit this doesn't sound right to my ears??) How about "against the anti-semitism of their youth"!!....Ok, I'll fix it that way.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 07:44, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes. In the 1950s-1960s there was still tons of antiSemitism in cities like NY and Boston. The "street-type" of AS. I experienced plenty of it as a kid in NYC. 66.108.4.183 07:08, 7 September 2006 (UTC) Allen Roth

Well, let's keep that discussion to another page like [[anti-semitism in Boston], please. This is mainly a philosophy article. I simply changed it to past anti-semitism to avoid controversy.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 07:17, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Halberstam

Could someone elaborate on the comment about outrage at Halberstam? Halberstam (author of The Best and the Brightest) is generally thought of as a critic of the conduct of the war. According to our article on Halberstam, his NY Times reporting on Vietnam "caused U.S. president John F. Kennedy to request he be transferred to another bureau." That is to say, Halberstam was raising dissenting issues no later than November 1963, when the anti-war movement barely existed. So if we are going to go into this at all, the nature of his criticisms of Halberstam should be spelled out. - Jmabel | Talk 04:32, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

My source (listed and linked in the references) is very vague on this. I will give the exact quote here in a bit and then you can see what you can make of it (or elimiate, etc..). But it IS sourced.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 07:46, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Here'es the (only) passage on the topic:

In the midst of this prodigious output of philosophical activity, Putnam was thrown into the controversy surrounding the Vietnam War. In 1963, while he was teaching at MIT, he organized one of the first faculty and student committees against the war. He was particularly outraged by David Halberstam's reporting, especially the claim that the U. S. was "defending" the peasants of South Vietnam from the Viet Cong by poisoning their rice crop. As the war continued... from footnote #12. Hickey, Hilary Puntam, etc... Keep in mind that Putam was very radical at the time and may well have taken something that Halberstan wrote out of context, misimterpretd it, or was being misled, etc...--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 07:57, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I will search some more on this.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 15:12, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Scanning

I'm scanning through the recent edits to make sure that content, arguments, and so on are not compromised. Also, to ensure that some "bad" edits,like those made by SlimVirgin yesterday, do not inadvertently creep in. Absolutely nothing personal Slim. Now I know how Tony1 feels in a certain sense. In any case, there are two things that popped out. One is just a question: why footnotes and refercnes separately. The footnotes are the references in the srrict sense that word. Tony1 asked "AmEng or BrEng?" I'm using American English, but British forms may have crept in from elsewhere or even from myself mistakenly. I'll try to answer other in-line questions about facts and so forth.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 08:22, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm also interested in the question about separate references: I've never advocated for separately listing all the references. I tend to look for a separate listing of only the most important references. But, if I'm reading it correctly elsewhere, I think SV has a good point. If you separately list References, when an inline citation goes dead because another (subsequent) editor juggles text around or makes deletions, you can locate the citation in the References section. If that is her reasoning, I do see the point now. Sandy 12:34, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

But she has listed only the main ones,as you suggest. Not all of them. (?) --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 13:05, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Putnam unusal because philosophy is unusual

The problem with the philosophy "department" is that there are no philosophers (well...only two or three plus three or four serious graduate students and studiosi). Let me put it this way: the vast majority of the people who contribute to philosophy articles are either a) cranks, b) kids who think philosophy is just about "expressing one's opinions" or making up cool big words, c) functionally illiterate, d) fundamantalist religious fanatics or other people with an intense need to impose their POV, e) knowledgable edit-warriors who are dead set on ensuring that Ayn Rand or Daniel Denett (or whomever) will not have his views subjected to criticims. Even when they ARE knowledgable and capable folks, they do not know how to work together. I still think this is partly due to the nature of philosopy, where there are never any finished answers or final facts. The talk pages on major philosophy articles, e.g., truth, empiricism, philosophy, are infinitely longer than the pages themselves. Standards are therefore naturally very low at this point. Bad work pushed out the good the way bad money pushes out good money. You say the Putnam FAC was unusual. I came in unprepared.

(I dount that is so unusual, but if you look at my philosophy of mind FAC (sucess) and my Jerry Fodor FAC (fail), along with the latghe numnber of articles I have written almost wholly from scratch, you will see that it is unusal in another way: it is probably the onlt article I have ever written that did NOT include criticism and opposing views.

More importantly, it is unusual that that VERY unusual that a philosphy article meet the criteria that are now required. There are currenlty six Phi artciles that have achived FA. One I did myself. The other five almost certainlty do not meet the currenct criteria. The Hilary Putnam article is extraorindaily unsual now. (I'm sorry this has to be said somwhere). If it passes FAC, it will be one of the two or three FAs in all of philosphy that meet ALL of the current standards. That is part of why I took this thing so seriously. In addition, it is a biogarphy of a living philospher (there is very little material to go on) and deals mostly with his ideas . It is, in fact, one of a kind among all the FAs. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 16:17, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

A priori

In the discussion of functional isomorphism: "This is sometimes referred to as an 'a priori argument'." The referent of "This" is unclear, as is the relevance of the statement. What exactly is being characterized as a priori? - Jmabel | Talk 06:30, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

'tis indeed ambiguous. Thanks for spotting that. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 07:28, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Ways to improve artcile

• Get photograph.
• Find newly-published biography:

Ben-Menahem, Yenima. (2006) Hilary Putnam. Edited by Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Cambrige:Cambrige University Press. ISBN-13: 9780521012546. Not yet available in Italy.

• Images or photos of Brain-in-vat, Twin Earth, etc...

--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 18:12, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi FFaL,

Congratulations on successfully working through all that you have to get a successful FA (which I assume will happen at this point). I am going to make a couple of comments here so as not to further complicate an already complicated FAC page.

• When you say "According to one interpretation, Putnam's argument only shows that, although one is unable to be a brain in a vat, one is still able to be a "brain in a vat"" - the quotation marks around "brain in a vat" are obviously very important. If the quotation marks are intended to mean that the phrase should be taken as a whole, one concept... have you considered using "brain-in-a-vat"? It seems to me that the use of hyphens like that is what is often done in philosophy writing to emphasize the difference between words in a phrase, and the phrase as one entity. Note: this phrase in quotes appears in a few places.

Don't worry about that. That "argument" is not really an argument, as far as I am able to make it. I'm sure many people have been confused by it. I'm truly shocked that no philosophers or logicians seem to have even noticed it or, if so, attempted to clarify if so that to that it makes some sort of sense to ME, at the very least. I will find another, much more meaningful argument to replace that para. I aslo need to add something about Putnam's most recetn turn toward prgamatic Wittgenstianianism. But this latter will be somewhat diificult to put into layman's terms. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 07:39, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

It was part of the original text from way back in the days before I edited it-

• The image you uploaded from Flickr says "All rights reserved" at Flickr and is going to get your FAC in trouble. On the off chance the Flickr account is yours (being as the image just happened to be added on Flickr the same day you uploaded it here), you could change the licensing, otherwise I think the image should be removed from the article, and deleted.

That has been corrected.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 07:39, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Regards, Outriggr 00:14, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Question on PLP/Harvard

I find the description of the Harvard discliplinary proceedings and Putnam's role confusing in this write-up, and the linked article is incomplete and not completely supportive of the language on this page. From the Crimson article, it sounds like the administration was looking to pass some broad disciplinary guidelines without specificing who they were targeted at, and Putnam felt they were targeted at him, though it was not an explicit attck. It is unclear what the guidelines would have prohibited, and the language on the page references "procedures" without describing what they are. Could someone who knows the full story take a quick look at this part of the article and seek to clarify it? Thanks, Sam 15:30, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Picture

Why there's no picture of the man? CG 17:14, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

See the extensive discussion of this issue at the comments for FAC nonimation site. Bmorton3 17:42, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

He mailed a marvelous portrait-photo to me just this morning. I have it all ready to upload. Unfortunately, I didn't explain to him that he must explicilty release the rights on the terms of the cccls, cq.ply, GFDC, ofcl, and other such siglas. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 19:05, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Too bad

What's really unfortunate, as I've said repeatedly in other contexts,is that you can only get this kind of scrutiny and attention to an article of this nature by putting it into FAC. Look at the rest of the monstoristies that pass for philosphy articles or biographies of philosophers: Gottlob Frege, Saul Kripke, brain in a vat, folk psychology, physicalism, computational theory of mind, David Chalmers, ad infinitum.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 08:41, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

That is true of other subject areas too. Probably a consequence of a professional topic and a volunteer workforce.

I've asked about the part in "Functionalism" explaining what is a Turing machine. It doesn't seem to me to fit the flow of the article; I doubt it's anything you wrote. Could everything in "In non-technical terms, a Turning machine.... prints a 1 and remains in state three" be replaced by a one- or two-sentence definition? Gimmetrow 15:14, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, probably it could, (just take the first few sentences from the article Turing machine and pare them a little) but the danger is it might lose the point of distinguishing "machine-state functionalism" from other kinds of functionalism. You can always cut and simplify, the issue is what level of detail do you want in a page of this length on Putnam. Personally, I think that Pragmatists long before Putnam were functionalists in the broad sense, but where Putnam made innovative contributions here was to phrase this stuff in terms of Turing Machine states, rather than the far vaguer talk of earlier Pragmatists. Putnam was applying extremely rigourous formal math concepts, to philosophy of mind, and giving a small taste of the rigor, helps to convey the tone of Putnam's approach. Bmorton3 15:51, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Simple answer: No!! I did write it and I think it's fine as it is. I'm trying a very delicate (actually impossible) compromise here between the extroraindry depth and detail of an SEP article and a general-audience Wiki article. I'd like to leave in as much detail as possible wothout provoking objections of technicality, in other words. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 15:55, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

OK!! If you think it needs to be there, fine. Gimmetrow 16:21, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

(; --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 17:14, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Compare and contrast??

THIS is how this article was, and probably would have remained forever, before I touched it. Period. Fodor was even worse.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 17:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

To Outrigger

Lacatosias, I've taken some liberties with the new image. Let me know if preferable; and others let me know what rules I may have broken.)

No, I think you've got it right actually. I had forgotten that fair-use images are suppose to be low-res (or low-quality, or something like that). Thanks for the adjustment.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 06:33, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure one can crop a book cover, change it to black and white, and still use the "book cover" usage tag. At any rate, my motivation for doing so was that the book cover you uploaded was actually smaller than the size of the image used by the Philosopher template, so the image was being "blown up" and didn't look that good. Outriggr 06:47, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Let's see what the others think about that. We can always go back to the image of the full book cover, with the title and so on, if necessary. Interestingly, I just realized that that photo (in black and white) is the same photo that Putnam sent me via email!!--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 07:03, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

My understanding (probably wrong) is that "fair use" generally does not allow changes to copyrighted works. However, if you scanned the book cover yourself (rather than grabbing a copyrighted file from the web) you might have more flexibility. Gimmetrow 12:08, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Infatti, as they say over here. If it's a book cover, it should be recognizable as a book cover. I'm reverting back to the previous version. I liked the color anyway.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 13:34, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

==He will not delete the objection!!== Watch this now!! The objection has been adrdress, he knows the objection has been addresedd, he knows that I know that the obkections has been adressed. I sent him a message, two notes on the page. No response. The obection remains like an inexpungable "damned spot". --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 10:06, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Twin Earth

I think the twin earth paragraph is a bit confusing right now. It's also wrong since it is irelevant to Putnam's argument what particular liquid anyone happens to be looking at right now (as the example has it), what is key is the historical environmental factors that determine the referent of natural kind terms such as "water". I don't think the error in the article comes from any misunderstanding about Putnam, rather I think it is just the way the pargraph is currently written. How about the following:

One of Putnam's contributions to philosophy of language is the claim that "meaning is not in the head". Putnam illustrated this using his Twin Earth thought experiment to argue that environmental factors, even prior to anyone being aware of them, played a role in determining meaning. Twin Earth shows this, according to Putnam, since on Twin Earth everything is identical to Earth except they have XYZ where we have H2O. Because of this difference, when I say the word "water" in Earth-English it means something different from when my physically identical "twin" says the word "water" in Twin Earth-English. And since my "twin" and I are physically indistinguishable when we utter our respective words, and our words mean different things, meaning cannot be determined solely by what is in our heads. This led Putnam to adopt a version of semantic externalism with regard to meaning and mental content. Davkal 11:16, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Davkal, the problem with this is that you are not allowed to make up your own quotes. Unless you show that your quote ("meaning is not in the head") is correct and the one in the article ("meaning just ain't in the head") is wrong, you may rewrite the quote. Second, making the article more verbose by replacing phrases with longer ones that add nothing to the article (such as "in which he argued" instead of "to argue") is not the way to go.

This section clearly needs to be rewritten. The text speaks of "I," "my" and "our" without any indication of who is speaking these words. If it's a quote from Putnam, then it needs to be so marked. And if it is a quote, then again, you are not allowed to reword it. A quote has to be the exact words a person used, no more, no less, and no rewriting. If one wants to make someone's statement clearer, then paraphrase, do not rewrite his quote.

I think this example illustrates the problem of editors trying to rewrite material that they don't adquately understand. It is clear that the words Davkal rewrote here are in a quote from Putnam. Unless it's a misquote, the wording must not be altered. The only acceptable change would be a paraphrase. And obviously, no peremissable paraphrase would say "I," "my," or "our." Askolnick 15:42, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Askolnick: your attempts to bring our disagreement from the CSICOP talk page here are contemptible. Your points are ludicrous and show a total lack of understanding of Putnam, his arguments, and the style of philosophical writing. The "I" is not really me, it is a philosophical device commonly used for clarity and brevity. I'll let you into another secret - I don't have a twin on Twin Earth or otherwise - Twin Earth doesn't really exist. Davkal 16:04, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

People who don't understand why encyclopedia editors never write articles in the first person should not be editing an encyclopedia. Askolnick 16:58, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

That is simple false. Here is a link to the Stanford Encyloèedia of Philosophy. Click on just about any link at all and you will find that the first-perosn is contantly used. Period. But this argument does not belong here. Please take such discussions to the manual pages or to your respective user pages. "Meaning just ain't in the head" is correct, however. It will be changed back. Now please take your quarrel elsehwere, though.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 17:12, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

But this is general encyclopedia, not an encyclopedia of philosophy. Articles are supposed to be written in language people unfamiliar with the subject can easily understand. Writers of good English do not write in the first person unless they are writing from their own point of view. Wikipedia does NOT allow ANY article to be written from a first person point of view. The current language of this article is confusing to readers of normal English. It can appear as if someone has left out some quotation marks. And please, arguments about how to write Wiki articles more clearly and in better English not only belong here, they belong on the talk pages of every article! Askolnick 17:33, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Fair point. If it's Wikipedia, it not SEP. I have no time right now to get bogged down in debates about such things anyway. that section does seem to clash with the rest of the article now. It's easily adjusted. If you see other examples though, please fix them yourself. I did not add any except in that section and I don't have time to redo a thorough copyedit. The one other thing, though:t you two seem to have a loooooooongf history of conflict over other matters which should NOT be brought to every talk page. If you want to continue arguing, even after I make these changes, please take it elsewhere. This realtively calm talk page could become another gigantic forum for matters irrelevant to Hilary Putnam. That's clearly not appropriate. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 18:13, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I do not know enough about Hiliary Putnam to edit this article. But I do know enough about writing to point out where some writing needs improvement. I didn't asked you or anyone in particular to fix the problems I described. I pointed them out so that editors, who are able to, will fix them.

The fact that my constructive editorial suggestions may sometimes be met with a personal attack is no reason for me not to make them. The goal of Wiki editors should be to improve Wiki articles. Unfortunately, some editors, who lose sight of that, often respond to criticsm of their edits with name calling and other personal attacks. I can't help that. Askolnick 19:06, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Francesco, I see you've now discovered this for yourself.[1] At least you'll have a week of peace. Askolnick 04:53, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

It was never actually changed from "meaning just ain't in the head" so all is well. Davkal 17:17, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I will look at it when all the nonsense calms down.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 12:47, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok, thanks.Davkal 12:49, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

You're right. The actual problem was that the example, while pointing out that the twins are physically indistinguishable, left out the important fact that Earth and twin earth are also indistinguishable, except in the one respect.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 15:17, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

It might also be worth noting that Putnam traced the view that meaning IS in the head, prominenent in modern congnitive science/philosophy of mind, back to the Aristotelian "cryptographer" view of meaning. By doing this we might provide a context for Putnam's claim that gives it some importance since as things stand a reaction to the point about Putnam in the article might be "so what?". Davkal 15:27, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually I planned to deal with the questin of importance of extrenalism by writing up a short para about how this idea influenced Donald Davidson, among others, with appropriate cites. There are many other things I wished to, and can, add. But after the experience with FAC, I didn't want to get near this article again for the nexy fify years!! --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 15:40, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I can write up a little bit for the intro to the Twin earth stuff if you'd like (and if Askolnick takes his petty arguments elsewhere).Davkal 16:04, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I've aleardy added a para on Davidson's discussion of this in "Subjective, Intersubjetibve, etc.." we don't want to fill it up. Also, I now feel a responsbility to expand the critisims section in order to balance it. Enoguh for this day!!. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 16:07, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. Good work on this though - one of the best I have seen.Davkal 16:14, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Mister Davkal.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 16:17, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

The Twin Earth para is wrong again - the central point Putnam make is that the word "water" on Earth and the word "water" on Twin Earth have different meanings therefore to say that my twin uses "the same word" is to miss the whole point. The words "water" on Earth and "water" on Twin Earth merely look and sound and appear the same to those saying them but they are in fact different words. Davkal 01:29, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

No, no,no!! A lexical word is a syntactic unit. "Water" is the same word as "water". They have different referents in the the two different context, hence different meanings. This is basic philosophy of langauge as well as common sense.

--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 07:05, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

BTW, I hope you don't start a revert war over this. I see that you have an incredibly horrid history when it comes to such things. You seem to be seeking to be banned from Wikipedia. Take the nonsense somwhere else please.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 07:20, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand your last edit comment where you said I reintroduced first-person terms - I didn't. Whether "water" counts as the same word or not is an open question - if one individuated words according to their meaning or their referent (a perfectly plausible way to do it) then it would seem not, if words were individuated some other way then possibly. In any event I note the current version does not say they are the same word so it matters not. The only difference then, in your version, is the introduction of the names Frederick and Froderick and I am not going to revert over something like that. When you ask me to take the nonsense somewhere else I should remind you that the Twin earth section was wrong yesterday and correct today precisely on account of my involvement. I would have thought that some thanks were due rather than an unpleasant request such as this. In any event I did take the nonsense somewhere else - I took it out the section on Twin Earth and threw it away. That is why my correct version is what currently appears in the article. Davkal 15:04, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Also, there should not be quotation marks around "XYZ" and "H2O" since these are simply chemical compounds and not in any way dubious.Davkal 15:10, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Also, also, your version is now ambiguous (probabbly wrong) since it is not clear whether Froderick is speaking Twin Earth-English or English. If he is speaking English and just happens to be on Twin Earth (ie. if he is Frederick's identical Earth twin and has been transported there unbeknown to him) then the context is not enough (not according to Putnam) to change the meaning of his words and so his words would mean the same as Frederick's. This is why Putnam says an Earthling would be wrong if, after being transported to Twin Earth, said the words "there is some water" - the context not being enough to transform his Earth-English into Twin Earth-English otherwise he would have been correct to say what he did. And that is why the point was made explicitly in my last version - now removed. Davkal 15:25, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I have corrected the section on Twin earth for the last time. If you think yourself bigger than the article please please feel free to revert to an incorrect version. Either way I win - Wiki is a community of reasonable people who are willing to accept corrections; or Wiki is a bunch of pricks who wants their writing to be seen.Davkal 00:37, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for accusing people

I apologize for suggesting that people had not noicted the page-move vandalism. I looked in the history and tried to revert, but it seemed to have been there for hours. Then I realized you have to actually move the page back and that it had only been there for about 7 minutes. Good job.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 07:22, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Brain in a vat

"In the field of epistemology, he is known for the "brain in a vat" thought experiment" er... didn't that obscure continental philosopher René Descartes come up with that idea, in the seventeenth century? ElectricRay 07:39, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

No, that was the evil demon experiment. Rememeber from Philsophy 101?? Or did you even get that far?--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 08:02, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

No - I couldn't stand all the smug know-it-all dickweeds in class so I went off and did Law instead. Boy was that the right career choice. ElectricRay 17:04, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

It is probably confusing to attribute the brain-in-a-vat thought eperiment to Putnam, and certainly under the rubric of 'epistemology'. His discussion appears as ch.1 of 'reason, truth and history', and nowhere there is the problem of scepticism really relevant; his proposed solution to the (restricted) sceptical problem has very little to do with scepticism and a lot to do with reference and the attack on metaphysical realism. (it is restricted because the sceptical scenario that the argumnet considers is in an important way different from most sceptical scenarios, in that the hypothesis posits other thinking and communicating beings, albeit other vatted-brains). And insofar as the brain-in-a-vat thought experiment is a sceptical argument, it is of only insignificant difference to Descartes demon argument. ____

The introductory section implies that Putnam invented the Brain in a Vat thought experiment, which he certainly did not. He criticized this well known argument for skepticism. Treharne (talk) 10:31, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Is the terrible image in this section really necessary? It adds nothing, and looks *awful* Behemoth01 (talk) 12:00, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

The brain-in-a-vat skeptical argument (and its terrible image(!?) really is needed in making clear what Putnam is known for in epistemology. I am a professional epistemologist and when Putnam comes to mind, we first think of his externalism-about-reference argument against the brain-in-the-vat skeptical argument. The reason BIVs must be explicitly referred to here is that the BIV argument for skepticism is actually supposed to take on, in its structure, the kind of argument Descartes had in mind in books 1 and 2 of the Meditations. however, Putnam's external reference strategy exploits features of the BIV scenario--a scenario that could come about even if one rejects (a priori) supernaturalism of the sort Descartes envisions in his evil demon argument. Put another way, Putnam's external reference argument not only tries to challenge a skeptical argument with the power of Descartes' evil demon argument, but moreover, one for which the relevant thought experiment is consistent with philosophical naturalism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.147.182.50 (talk) 19:31, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Hilbert's Tenth

Wouldn't it be more appropriate to say that Putnam was involved in proving that Hilbert's Tenth Theorem is unsolvable, rather than saying he solved it? The introduction makes it sound as if he found a solution, whereas the article states that he helped demonstrate there was no solution. The Dark 12:31, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes. I'll take a look at it and see if I can fix it. Th problem has been fightint the vandals all day. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 12:43, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

a suggestion for featured articles

perhaps featured articles should be protected for a short time period during/after their featured status. If there are any glaring errors then that could be addressed by a duty-administrator who can unlock and edit. Anyone else interested enough to contribute can put something on the talk page and wait a day or so for the discussion to come up and the changes to be made. Davkal 12:53, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

There are other pages for these comments (which i agree with). Try Wikipedia Talk:Featured Article Candidates or something like that.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 12:56, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

No. See user:Raul654/protection Raul654 17:53, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

All fair points - I withdraw my suggestion.Davkal 17:55, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Important comment pulled from archive

There really ought to be a section on his Philosophy of Science. Specifically, his work on Quantum Mechanics, alternative Logics, etc. 66.108.4.183 07:14, 7 September 2006 (UTC) Allen Roth

Reply: I absolutely agree. Do you want to write it? What can you tell me about?? We need (I need!!) people who know this material and are willing to actually step up to the plate. Write it up, Man!! Can't do everything myself.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 14:52, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps I will be bold and write a brief stub-like paragraph, which others can then expand. 66.108.4.183 05:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC) Allen Roth

Let's not forget about Putnam's model-theoretic argument against metaphysical realism...the very argument which provided the impetus for his internal realism and his abandonment of semantic externalism.

I agree! I might be able to have a go at a paragraph on the MT argument... will register first and have a go

Article Problem

Wanted to read this page, all it said was something about bob and a bitch, wheres the real page gone?

Putnam's Political Activism

Hey, what happened to the great section on Hilary Putnam's political activism which used to exist in this entry? It should be noted that Putnam was involved in the anti-war movement as early as 1963 -way before it was 'popular' to protest vietnam. Also, might be cool to mention Putnam's recent appraisal of wikipedia in the New Yorker article on this subject. Teetotaler

In order to be popular with their customers, many professors oppose the military. This endears them to the youthful students whose tuition pays their salaries. Students are averse to dying in battle and will go to any extreme to stay alive. Professors know this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.82.9.90 (talk) 04:52, 4 January 2007 (UTC).

That sounds ridiculous. You are suggesting that the only reason that Hilary Putman opposed the Vietnam War was to appear as cool to his students? Putnam started one of the first MIT anti-war movements while a professor there, at Harvard he was censored for his views and he continued to teach classes on Marxism for free anyway. He handed out Maoist pamphlets in Harvard Square, he was part of the Progressive Labor Party. Not every professor was opposed to Vietnam. The wikipedia link on Richard Holfstadter says he was upset by students protesting. What is more, many professors today are not protesting the Iraq war to the extent that Putnam protested the Vietnam War. Also, Putnam taught a course at Harvard for years with Cornel West on Marxism. I will write up a section for this when I get a chance, all emotivists and non-cogntivists to the contrary. Teetotaler

So he's yet another postmodern deconstructionist who is also a left-wing nutjob? This is hardly surprising. I say go ahead, put all that stuff in, it only serves to further illuminate the true psycholofical motivations behind the advocacy of anti-realism. But if you're actually interested in having this be a good article, I'd say that his viewpoints about economics, in which he clearly isn't qualified to say much of any worth, are pretty insignificant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.92.248.171 (talk) 06:19, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Putnam a 20th Century Philosopher?

The article on Hilary Putnam has him listed as a "20th century philosopher". While it is true that Putnam was born in 1926 and most of his work was published last century, his best books are coming out now. Putnam's 2002 book, "The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy" is an amazing book which relates ethics to economics, a la Amaryta Sen. Putnam's 2004 book, "Ethics without Ontology" is an equally amazing book on ethics, mathematics and stands in the traditions of pragmatists like John Dewey and Continental philosophers such as Emmanuel Levinas. In fact, Putnam wrote the opening essays in the 2002 "Cambridge Companion to Levinas", and the 2001, "Cornel West: A Critical Reader". Remember, Moses died when he was 120. If Moses wrote the Torah, he wrote it late in life. Putnam's best work is coming out now -stuff on ethics, welfare economics, Marxism, race relations, etc... Teetotaler

I thint that is not problem to put one philosophers in two chronological categories. --89.216.117.25 (talk) 11:17, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Historical Error

"In the late 1980s and the 1990s, stimulated by results from mathematical logic and by some ideas of Quine, Putnam abandoned his long-standing defence of metaphysical realism—the view that the categories and structures of the external world are both causally and ontologically independent of the conceptualizations of the human mind. He adopted a rather different view, which he called "internal realism".[36][9]"

Are the dates in this paragraph correct? I had a look at some other resources and it looks like 'late 1970s and the 1980s' is more accurate.

Hmmm.. you may be right. I'll check into it further when I get the chance. Unless you can find the sources yourself and just fix it. Thanks. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 17:42, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

You are correct. My bad, as they say in the States these day (though I have no idea what the F it is supposed to mean).--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 08:49, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

"Cut the pie anyway you like, meaning just ain't in the head." (Putnam, 'The Meaning of Meaning') Teetotaler

The first anti-realist publication was, i think, 'realism and reason', c.1977. The first, or at least the first clear exposition of 'internal-realism' was in 'reason truth and history', (1981). I think also that Dummett deserves a mention too in influencing putnam. Also, it maybe ought to be mentioned that Putnam has significantly altered his position in his latest writings, and abandoned the 'anti-realist' aspects, and (albeit slightly inconsistently perhaps) the name, of his position (see e.g. 'the threefold cord' (1997). This whole section could do with some working on: i will see what i can come up with... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.32.115.13 (talk) 23:43, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Portal link

I am in the process of switching the bulky Template:Logic nav bars to the tiny Portal:Logic links instead. I'm pretty sure wikipedia users interested in this page will find it convenient.Gregbard 08:54, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Skepticism, Realism, and Anti-realism

I must say I'm somewhat "skeptical" of the bit, cited to some other author's work, which claims that Putnam's target in the "Brains in a Vat" (and btw, it should be brains - plural - whenever referenced, since that is critical to understanding it) was actually to undermine metaphysical realism. Historically, antirealism in all its forms is a response to skepticism. It supposedly makes the perceived identical to the real, by claiming that perceptions create reality, thereby removing the supposed gap. This is discussed by Searle in Mind, Language and Society. I fail to see how the argument would be effective against anti-realism, the explanation in the article is inadequate, and I think that given the long historical background of this debate there ought to be some elaboration or clarification of this point.

Birthplace of Hilary Putnam's wife Ruth Anna

Several publications incorrectly state that Ruth Anna was born in Munich. However, she was born on the 20th of Sep 1927 at her grandparents home in Berlin. She personally confirmed this to me. Her grandfather was Prof. Dr. Hans Kohn, after whom the "alveolar pores of Kohn" are named. 75.38.192.140 (talk) 18:03, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Jewish Religion

H. Putnam seems to have always been interested in religion (he re-joined the faith and also wrote an essay on Wittgenstein's Lectures on Religion in the mid 1970s (?), and this has itensified. There seems to be a lot of stuff from him on jewishness and jewish religion. I am a boring atheist, I think, so do not know anything about the topic, but it must be interesting, if Putnam cares about it? --Radh (talk) 19:17, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I would agree that it's interesting. I understand that your last sentence means that Putnam's interest in it has drawn your interest in it, but may I suggest that it is intrinsically interesting in and of itself? I also find Christianity, which followed from it, intrinsically interesting. Jsdy (talk) 13:32, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Pragmatic Realism?

I propose that the article, which mentions both 'direct realism' and 'internal realism' should certainly include the term 'pragmatic realism'. He says, in "Is There Anything To Say About Reality And Truth? "I should have called it pragmatic realism". The article merely talks of a 'pragmatic-inspired direct realism', which I think underplays the pragmatism behind his 'conceptual relativism'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by CharlieBBoy12345 (talk • contribs) 22:19, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I think you are right -he is even listed as an analytic philosopher in the side bar when he is in fact a pragmatist. However, he is not a conceptual relativist any longer, having broken away with it in "Ethics Without Ontology", embracing instead 'conceptual pluralism'. There is an important difference there. I'm guessing one of us should "be bold" as they say in wiki-speak and go ahead and change the article. Teetotaler 21 March, 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.67.81.197 (talk) 18:22, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Agree on realism. Disagree on the analytic label. Putnam is indeed a pragmatist but only within the context of the analytic tradition -- see for example his theory of truth. His methodology and positions are pretty cleanly analytic. Pragmatism should get a mention in the lede though. Grunge6910 (talk) 19:41, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

School (of philosophy)

At the risk of starting a turf war, I suggest adding under "School" the link to "Pragmatism" in addition to the existing "Analytic." Putnam, was an analytical philosopher through much of his career, but he also is widely known as a pragmatist. His pragmatism is mentioned in this article multiple times and he is mentioned several times in the pragmatism article. ProfGiles (talk) 02:27, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll sign off on that. The work he's done for the past 20-odd years can't be characterized as just "analytic." It's much more complex than that, as I know now after having just read Ethics without Ontology and The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy. Grunge6910 (talk) 16:27, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for that. I should also mention Hilary Putnam: Pragmatism and Realism as an excellent source for discussion of Putnam's pragmatism. ProfGiles (talk) 20:46, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Of course, Putnam is not just an analytic philosopher and I added "Pragmatism." However, I also think that the whole "school" section in the infobox is dispensable. Why should every philosopher belong to a school? Quite often, the "school" section is a strange oversimplinfication and not really useful. --David Ludwig (talk) 17:06, 7 December 2010 (UTC)