Pragmatic is a term used to describe people who focus on practical matters and real world situations rather than abstract theories or ideals. They prioritize actions and solutions that are likely to be effective in the real world, based on evidence and facts, rather than getting bogged down with what could or should be. Pragmatic people tend to have a realistic perspective and are flexible, able to change their approach based on new information or circumstances.
A key tenet of pragmatism is that beliefs only qualify as true or false in light of how they contribute to a life of inquiry and action. This is known as a pragmatic theory of truth, and it is a fundamental feature of pragmatism that the truth of a belief only becomes evident in the way that the belief helps us to cope with or deal with recalcitrant matters of fact or experience.
In contrast, skepticism in a classical sense, as developed by philosophers such as Descartes, is a limiting form of philosophical thinking that does not take into account the usefulness and value of what we know or can learn. A more sophisticated form of skepticism, that developed from Peirce and James, was called anti-pragmatism, and it sought to overcome the difficulties of a philosophy of knowledge by developing a theory that is congenial to modern academic skepticism but also embraces the pragmatic insistence that all knowledge is tentative.
The pragmatists believed that knowledge is acquired by the act of living, and that it is only in the struggle to survive that a person acquires the practical knowledge needed for life. This idea of survival, in which all beliefs, knowledge and ideas serve as weapons, helped to create a philosophy of learning that is both scientific and humanistic, one that is still at the core of modern education.
Pragmatism is an American philosophical movement, a third alternative to both the analytic and Continental traditions of philosophy. Its founders were Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, who worked closely together to develop pragmatism’s ideas. Later, a number of their Harvard colleagues including John Dewey and Josiah Royce became pragmatists. Pragmatism has influenced a variety of disciplines, including psychology and sociology, where the functionalist philosophy of language (such as that of Mead and Angell) has roots in pragmatism.
Today, pragmatism continues to evolve in response to contemporary issues and social challenges. For example, a more liberatory and inclusive version of pragmatism has been advanced by African-American philosopher Cornel West. This is sometimes referred to as prophetic pragmatism, and it seeks to incorporate some of the progressive social ideals of classical pragmatism with other historical and current sources of inspiration such as Marxism and Christianity. The pragmatist tradition is now an international enterprise, with vibrant research networks in South America, Scandinavia, and central Europe as well as North America. Increasingly, it is being seen as an alternative to the more conservative analytic and continental philosophy that has predominated since the turn of the century.