Putnam, Hilary

"Modal properties are real, though they present special philosophical challenges."

"The analytic synthetic distinction, while useful, is not as sharp as some believed."

"Kant was right that we contribute forms to experience, but he was too restrictive about what they are."

"Metaphysical realism claims that there is a world independent of us, and this is defensible."

"The physicalist cannot dismiss mental properties as merely subjective."

"Normativity is real, but it is not metaphysically extravagant."

"The self is not a substance, but neither is it an illusion."

"Buddhism and analytic philosophy have unexpected convergences on the nature of the self."

"Logic is not infallible; it is a tool that we refine through use."

"The hard problem of consciousness is real, but not necessarily insoluble."

"We should be pluralists about truth, not relativists or absolutists."

"Objectivity requires acknowledging our entanglement with the world we study."

"The doctrine of internal relations suggests that every object is defined by its relations."

"Aesthetic judgments are not merely expressions of personal preference; they can be evaluated."

"The categorical imperative is a powerful idea, but it needs supplementation from virtue ethics."

"Consequentialist ethics has insights, but it cannot be the whole story about morality."

"The role of the conceptual scheme is not to distort reality, but to make it intelligible to us."

"Nominalism about abstract objects leaves much philosophy undone."

"Properties are real, though the question of what they are is genuinely difficult."

"The unity of apperception, which Kant emphasized, remains central to understanding consciousness."

"Teleology has been banished from science, but it may have a role in philosophy of mind."

"The idea that meaning is in the head is one of the most destructive in philosophy of mind."

"We cannot fully escape metaphor, even in philosophy; metaphor shapes how we think."

"The notion of natural kinds is philosophically important, even if not metaphysically fundamental."

"Emergence is real, but it does not require denying the physical basis of things."

"The explanatory gap between the physical and the experiential is genuine, though perhaps bridgeable."

"Pragmatism offers a way out of the realism-antirealism debate."

"Discourse ethics, associated with Habermas, illuminates how reason and communication intersect."

"The social construction of reality does not mean reality is merely subjective."

"Epistemic values like simplicity and elegance guide science, but they are not discovered in nature."