Abstract
Hilary Putnam is one of the contemporary philosophers who highly regard American pragmatism and have greatly contributed to its recent revival. This paper systematically uncovers the common features in Putnam's and William James's views about truth and reality, showing that Putnam's realist view can be taken as a further articulation and critical elaboration of James's pragmatic views of truth and reality in his Pragmatism. They both strive to establish a defensible realist view different from both traditional realism and cultural relativism, both of which they deem unacceptable. In constructing his own realist view, Putnam critically develops the following three theses, all of which are manifest in James's pragmatic views of truth and reality: (1) the close relatedness of truth and ideal rational acceptability; (2) conceptual pluralism; and (3) the untenability of the fact/convention dichotomy.