Pragmatic is a word that describes a philosophy of “doing what works best.” People who act pragmatically consider real world conditions when making decisions. They weigh what can realistically be achieved and avoid unrealistic notions. For example, a four-year-old who asks for a unicorn for her birthday isn’t being very pragmatic.
Classical pragmatists (including Peirce, James, and William James) and later neopragmatists have developed a philosophy that has rich applications across a wide range of philosophical topics. This article will introduce you to the main ideas of pragmatism, as well as some of the many areas in which pragmatist approaches have been applied.
One way to think about pragmatism is as a method, or maxim, for clarifying concepts and hypotheses and for identifying empty disputes. In addition, pragmatism provides a unique perspective on how we acquire knowledge of the world around us.
The term pragmatic comes from the Greek word for “deed.” Classical pragmatists were known as pragmatic because they focused on how their ideas worked in the real world. This contrasted with their idealistic peers, who focused on abstract concepts and theories that could not necessarily be implemented in practice.
In philosophy, pragmatism is a broad philosophical attitude that influences the formation of concepts, hypotheses, and theories, as well as how they are justified. The molding of language and theorizing are viewed as a process for organizing behavior according to human needs, and the interpretation of reality is guided by considerations of its usefulness.
A number of philosophers, such as Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, have been identified as pragmatists. Peirce and James were influential in developing the theory of pragmatism, which is a distinctive approach to philosophy that focuses on how we gain knowledge of the world. It is important to understand that there is no pragmatist creed; there are certain key ideas that have loomed large in the work of pragmatists, but these are not universally endorsed by all pragmatists.
Pragmatic is also a scientific discipline that studies the ways in which context determines an utterance’s meaning. This is different from other linguistic disciplines such as semantics, syntax, and semiotics, which study the rule systems that determine the literal linguistic meaning of expressions and how they are combined into sentences with specific meaning. Pragmatics combines the principles of semantics and syntax with those of semiotics to describe how a speaker’s meaning is determined by the physical or social context in which the expression is used.
Without pragmatics, there is no way to know what a speaker truly means when she says something. For example, a speaker may say to her friend that eating cookies can make you fat. While the statement is truthful, it can be interpreted as meaning that the speaker is calling her fat. In this case, the pragmatics of the situation influenced what was actually meant. Pragmatics is a key component of what is now called near-side pragmatics, which is considered the closing of the classical pragmatics period and the beginning of neopragmatist pragmatics.