Pragmatic is a word that describes a person or idea that takes a realistic approach to situations. It’s often contrasted with the term idealistic, referring to people who prefer practical solutions rather than ideas that are impractical or unrealistic. People who are pragmatic are also known as practical, sensible, or grounded. For example, a four-year-old who wants a unicorn for their birthday isn’t being pragmatic because unicorns don’t exist.
In philosophy, pragmatism is a theory that emphasizes the connection between thoughts and actions. Applied fields like public administration, leadership studies, and international relations frequently incorporate pragmatism into their curriculums. Pragmatism isn’t a specific philosophical viewpoint, but a broad set of principles that can be applied to any situation or decision.
There are a few different kinds of pragmatics, which differ from each other depending on the field and area of study: Formal pragmatics is concerned with the ways that context affects the meaning of an utterance. This type of pragmatics utilizes the techniques and goals of formal semantics to examine the role of context in language.
Informal pragmatics, on the other hand, focuses on the social and cultural aspects of speech acts and the way that people interpret them. Informal pragmatics uses the tools of social science, ethnography, and psychology to analyze language usage and cultural beliefs.
Many pragmatic philosophers are dissatisfied with ordinary empiricism because they feel that empiricists tend to view experiences as nothing more than individual sensations. These pragmatists, including James and Dewey, advocate for a radical empiricism that attempts to give a place to experience, connections, and meaning in our world of whizzing atoms.
The pragmatist philosophy is not antithetical to religion, but it does emphasize the need to prove the truth of religious claims with evidence before accepting them as valid. For example, James stated that a belief only becomes true insofar as it is useful, and so statements such as “your prayers are heard” are only meaningful on a psychological level, not as a fact about the universe.
The word pragmatic is related to the Latin pragma, which means “to do.” A pragmatist has a solution for every problem in life, and is always looking out for what works best. A pragmatic individual prioritizes results and effectiveness, and is willing to compromise in order to achieve them. They are also flexible and adaptable, and know how to find workable solutions in difficult circumstances. This kind of thinking has made pragmatics a key aspect of the business environment, and it’s not uncommon to hear the term used in the context of management and leadership. Pragmatics is also a popular topic for research in computer science and psychology. As a result, there are a number of different pragmatics journals that cover a wide variety of topics. These include cognitive and behavioral pragmatics, generative pragmatics, intercultural and interlinguistic pragmatics, game-theoretic and experimental pragmatics, clinical pragmatics, neuropragmatics, and historical pragmatics. A number of other journals are devoted to particular aspects of pragmatics, such as computational, theoretical, and logical pragmatics.