Pragmatic is a philosophical movement that provides a third alternative to the analytic and continental philosophy traditions. It is characterized by its emphasis on practical application and problem-solving in the real world. Its main ideas are Peirce’s pragmatic maxim and James’ elaboration of it as a rule for clarifying the meaning of hypotheses by tracing their practical consequences in specific situations. These ideas gave rise to a distinctive epistemological outlook and a broad alethic pluralism. They have been applied to a number of different areas in philosophy, and to the social sciences and humanities in general.
While the field of semantics studies words and their literal meaning, pragmatics takes a more sociological approach to language use. It considers how speakers utter words and the particular circumstances of their communication as well as things like irony, metaphors and idioms. Pragmatics also examines the way that a speaker’s intentions and actions influence the communication process.
The pragmatist tradition is sometimes contrasted with idealism, a philosophical position that emphasizes ideals and values over pragmatic concerns such as efficiency and effectiveness. However, a number of philosophers have found that they can embrace both pragmatics and idealism as part of the same philosophical project.
Although pragmatism had a long period of relative dormancy, since the 1970s it has enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in philosophy and the humanities. Its revival was partly fueled by Richard Rorty’s iconoclastic attacks on mainstream epistemology, especially its mistaken conceit of language and thought as merely mirroring the world (Rorty 1991a). The pragmatist concept of inquiry as community has been used in numerous fields, and it has been applied to such diverse topics as political philosophy, ethics, history of ideas, philosophy of religion and aesthetics (Carston 2005).
Some pragmatists see pragmatics, particularly as conceived by Grice, as a philosophical project. Others focus on its interaction with grammar and still others view it as an empirical psychological theory of utterance interpretation, in the vein of Peirce’s semiotics. Various philosophical approaches to pragmatics have emerged, including those that incorporate a version of inference to the best explanation or Bayesian reasoning and those that draw on a notion of communicative intention whose fulfillment consists in being recognized as meaningful by addressees.
The scholarly literature on pragmatism is extensive and varied. The bibliography below includes collections of papers by classic pragmatists as well as more recent neopragmatists. An enhanced bibliography is available at PhilPapers, and a searchable database is available of all works cited in this article by going to the ‘Works Cited’ page. See also the Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry on Pragmatism. Also consult the encyclopedias on Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey, as well as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Library of Congress. The author gratefully acknowledges the help of the many scholars who have contributed to the development and interpretation of pragmatism. In particular, the author wishes to thank William James and Josiah Royce for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.