A pragmatic person is a sensible, well-balanced person who can weigh the pros and cons of various options before making a decision. Pragmatic people are also able to adapt to changing circumstances and are able to find creative ways to achieve their goals. Unfortunately, pragmatism is not always the best way to approach life’s challenges and can sometimes lead to unrealistic or unnecessarily negative outcomes. The first major flaw of pragmatism is that it can be based on results alone, rather than on true beliefs or ideals. For example, a child’s theory that invisible gremlins live in electrical outlets and bite if touched “works” by keeping the child from touching them—but this does not necessarily mean that the gremlin theory is true or that gremlins actually exist.
While some philosophers have rejected pragmatism altogether, many others have taken it as a foundation for other philosophical theories. For instance, pragmatism has helped to shape the theories of communication and language and the theory of meaning.
Unlike linguistics, which deals with the phonetic and grammatical aspects of language, pragmatics focuses on how context contributes to a word or phrase’s meaning. It is a subfield of linguistics, and those who specialize in pragmatics are called pragmaticians.
The basic tenet of pragmatism is that the most important aspect of language is the meaning, not its form or grammar. It is also not a doctrine about truth or value, but is instead a theory of how language works in the real world.
A good example of the use of pragmatics in communication is a statement that “Luggage must be carried on the escalator.” In this instance, the semantic, literal meaning of the sentence is that luggage must be carried on the escalator; however, the pragmatic interpretation of this statement is that only those who are traveling with luggage should be using the escalator.
This is one of many examples that demonstrate how a phrase or word can have different meanings in various contexts. The field of pragmatics is characterized by an emphasis on the contextual factors that contribute to meaning and by the notion that meaning is a dynamic, ever-changing process.
Other aspects of pragmatics include the idea that meaning has a predictive component and the use of heuristics to guide interpreting language. In addition, pragmatists often reject the idea of absolute truth and see formal logic as just one tool among many for understanding language.
Although the field of pragmatics is relatively new, it has already made significant contributions to linguistics and related fields. For example, the pragmatic analysis of sentence ambiguity—the manner in which words can be interpreted in different ways—is an area of particular interest to linguists. Furthermore, the field of pragmatics has influenced other disciplines, such as psychology, philosophy, and sociology.