On The Realism Theory Of Putnam

The philosophy of Hilary Putnam focuses on realism. His theory of realism comes from both analytical philosophy and pragmatism. Logical positivism made Putnam an analytic philosopher at the very beginning of his professional career. The thought of Kant, Wittgenstein and classic pragmatists made him finally convert to a pragmatist. Except for the theory of scientific realism in his early papers, Putnam developed internal realism and natural realism which is similar to James' direct realism. Putnam discussed with Dummett, Searle, Rorty, Quine and Goodman and generally realized how crucial the problem of cognition is. In a word, Putnam's realism has three characters, which respectively are characters in methodology, epistemology and ontology of his philosophy. He insists that everything could turn wrong, but does not want to be a skepticist; he persist in pluralism, but would not like to surrender to relativism; he adhere to materialism, but does not compromise reductionalism. Moreover, Putnam contributed three brilliant points of view to the research of realism: 1) reminding of the significance of intentionality problem, 2) discovering the deep contradictory of metaphysical realism, that is the paradox of realism, 3) making ethics crucial to realism.