Pragmatic means’meaning in context’. It is the branch of philosophy that studies the ways we make sense of language, how our semantics (the literal meaning) and pragmatics (meaning in use) interact to form an understanding of a linguistic expression or event. Pragmatics is what allows us to politely hedge a request, cleverly read between the lines and negotiate turn-taking norms in conversation; it is what helps us disambiguate ambiguity in context.
The pragmatist tradition was inaugurated by Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) and augmented by his Harvard colleague William James (1842-1910), who formulated and popularised the pragmatic maxims. They are an attempt to bridge a perceived gap between two ways of thinking: the ‘tough-minded’ empiricist commitment to going by experience and the ‘tender-minded’, who prefer a priori principles that appeal to ratiocination.
As the Deweyan era passed and the US entered into World War II, pragmatism became less prominent, as analytic philosophy took hold in many departments of philosophy. However, it continued to have a significant influence on the social sciences, such as the sociology of knowledge, developing a pragmatic perspective upon the relations between the self and the wider community. This was particularly the case with eminent sociologist and philosopher George Herbert Mead (1863-1931).
More recently, an increasing number of philosophers have sought to re-invigorate pragmatism as a philosophical tradition that is capable of engaging with modernity. The Frankfurt School philosopher Jurgen Habermas, for example, combines analytic philosophy’s goal of systematically theorising language with a neo-Marxian analysis of power and hermeneutical reading of history. He advocates a discursive ethics that scaffolds authentic communicative action that is free of the distortions of ideology and power – something Dewey would likely approve of.
Other scholars have specialised in the different areas of pragmatics, including formal and computational pragmatics; theoretical and applied pragmatics; game-theoretic and clinical pragmatics; neuropragmatics, intercultural and cross-linguistic pragmatics. The field of pragmatics is now vast and continues to grow, with new theories and applications emerging all the time. It is important for educators to prioritize pragmatic skills development in their classrooms, as this will enhance the student’s social-emotional growth and academic success. The ‘pragmatic’ in pragmatics refers to the contextual meaning of words and sentences, which takes into account social, cultural and situational factors that can influence how they are understood. Pragmatic knowledge is therefore a vital component of communication. Without it, the understanding of language would remain a purely theoretical pursuit, without any application to real-life situations. This is why the ‘pragmatic’ in pragmatics is sometimes seen as an ‘ethical’ rather than a ‘philosophical’ approach.