In the 1970s he began to regret the lack of historical knowledge in analytic philosophy. He applied Ludwig Wittgenstein’s (1889–1951) notion of ordinary language to advocate for pluralism within philosophy. He lost confidence in the ability of philosophers to describe the world better than ordinary language users. Given his increased interest in the social sciences, particularly economics, he rejected the fact/value dichotomy. Putnam argued that scientists were not as “objective” or free of value concerns as they presented themselves to be, and that value judgments can be objective.