Pragmatic is an area of philosophy that deals with the construction of meaning within language. Its central concept is that a word or phrase can be understood in a variety of ways, depending on the context in which it is used. This means that words are never used literally and that there is always ambiguity when interpreting an utterance. Understanding these ambiguities is key to pragmatics and this article will look at some of the main ideas that underpin it.
Firstly, it is important to understand that pragmatics is not a separate philosophy; it is actually a subfield of philosophy and linguistics. This is because a large number of the concepts that define pragmatics are also found in the fields of philosophy, anthropology and psychology. For example, the concept of conversational implicature is an idea that was first developed by philosopher HP Grice in 1975 and is an integral part of pragmatics.
As such, it is a useful tool for those studying these other disciplines as well as for anyone interested in the way that people communicate with each other. The key reason for this is that a pragmatic approach to the understanding of language allows us to better understand how we construct meaning in everyday communication. For example, imagine that you are late for work and your boss asks you what time you will be in. If you reply that you will be there in 20 minutes, then your boss could interpret this as you being apologetic for being late or they might take it the other way and assume that you are being ironic. This is because the interpretation of an utterance depends on the context in which it is heard and the tone of voice that is used.
This is a fundamental principle that underpins all pragmatic theories of language. It is also an important factor in the development of cognitive behavioral therapy which is a type of psychotherapy that uses specific practical strategies to help change the way a person thinks about and reacts to certain situations.
In short, pragmatics allows us to see that there are many truths in different contexts – there are different truths for biology, physics, chemistry and even psychology. However, it is unlikely that we will ever find a single, all-encompassing theory that will eloquently describe all of these domains in one neat and tidy package. Instead, pragmatism acknowledges that there are different truths and that we should strive to seek the ones that are most meaningful for us in our lives.
This is a fundamentally positive aspect of the philosophy of pragmatism and it has been adopted by a number of modern political movements such as anarchism. In the field of science, pragmatics is also highly influential and its ideas have been used to inform research in a wide range of areas, including communication, information design and human-computer interaction. Indeed, the emergence of pragmatism as a third alternative to analytic and continental philosophy is now allowing new and exciting research programmes to be established.