Putnam, Hilary

"Reference is not a simple two-term relation between words and things."

"The context principle: meaning is determined by context, not by intrinsic properties."

"Qualia are real, but they are not mysterious in the way some philosophers think."

"Ethics requires something more than logic; it requires commitment to human flourishing."

"The naturalistic fallacy reminds us that we cannot derive 'ought' from 'is' alone."

"Pragmatism teaches that the truth of a belief lies in its successful action in the world."

"There are multiple ways of being true that are not reducible to scientific truth."

"The purpose of philosophy is not to escape the human condition, but to illuminate it."

"Conceptual relativity means that which properties an object has depends on how we describe it."

"The brain in a vat scenario shows us that content depends on causal history, not just internal states."

"Externalism about mental content is one of the most important insights of modern philosophy."

"We should reject both traditional realism and traditional anti-realism about mathematics."

"The law of excluded middle may not hold in all contexts, particularly in quantum mechanics."

"Ordinary language philosophy has deep lessons for metaphysics."

"The success of science does not guarantee that our current science is true."

"Relativism about truth is not the same as saying anything goes."

"Values are objective without being independent of human interests and concerns."

"The fact-value distinction is important, but it does not render values merely subjective."

"Thought experiments are a valuable tool of philosophical investigation, though they have limits."

"The intentionality of thought shows that consciousness is inherently relational."

"Wittgenstein's language games illuminate how meaning is embedded in practice."

"Realism can accommodate the insights of quantum mechanics without absurdity."

"The notion of a 'view from nowhere' is a valuable ideal, though we cannot achieve it."

"Holism in semantics challenges the idea that meaning is built up compositionally."

"Democratic experimentalism offers hope for pragmatic solutions to social problems."

"The mind-body problem has been with us for centuries because we frame it incorrectly."

"Artificial intelligence teaches us about the limits of mechanical computation for understanding."

"The causal theory of reference has profound implications for how we understand names and descriptions."

"Jewish thought and philosophy have resources that Western philosophy needs to engage with."

"Logical positivism was too restrictive in its criterion of meaningfulness."