- Lived:
- 1926–2016 · Chicago, Paris, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Princeton, Cambridge (Massachusetts)
- Tradition:
- American analytic philosophy — philosophy of language, mind, mathematics, and science — ending in a revived pragmatism
- The Big Idea:
- The meanings of our words are not sealed inside our skulls; they are anchored in the world and in the community — and an honest philosopher must be willing to revise even his own most famous positions in public.
- In their words:
- "Meanings just ain't in the head."
- If you remember one thing:
- He founded the leading theory of the mind, then stood up and refuted it himself — because for Putnam, changing your mind honestly wasn't a weakness of his philosophy; it was his philosophy.