Pragmatic refers to a particular approach to philosophical problems that takes direct practical consequences into account. This philosophy is often used in the context of business, as well as in everyday life. For example, a pragmatic person would not put all of his or her eggs in one basket; they would always have an escape plan.
Pragmatists take a very systematic approach to their philosophical frameworks, and they carefully dissect each one down to its smallest components. They believe that by breaking a complex issue down to its fundamental building blocks, they will have the best chance of forming a strong and dependable foundation for their ideas. They are also very keen on spotting logical inconsistencies and tend to avoid taking anything at face value unless it aligns with their principles.
The field of pragmatics attempts to investigate the ways in which the meaning of words and sentences depends on their use, context and the social and linguistic circumstances in which they are spoken. This is in contrast to semantics, which focuses on the actual objects or ideas that a word might mean, and syntax, which investigates the relationships between signs or symbols.
There are many different theories of pragmatics, and the way in which they approach the problem differs from theory to theory. For example, some pragmatic theorists (such as Sperber and Wilson) have taken a hearer-oriented perspective on what constitutes the pragmatic properties of an utterance. This is sometimes referred to as’relevance theory’.
Others (such as Cappelen and Lepore) have a more theoretical view of the pragmatic properties of an utterance, and they distinguish between what they call ‘near-side pragmatics’ and ‘far-side pragmatics’. The former consists of the theory that what speakers mean when they say something can be worked out by conventions of semantic meaning, precisification, disambiguation and reference fixing. The latter focuses on the question of what happens when an utterance is said, and it includes the theory of conversational implicature as well as speech act theory.
Another theory of pragmatics is called ‘functional’ or ‘contextualist’ pragmatics. This is the theory that the meaning of an utterance depends on its functions, or what it is used to do. This is in contrast to a theory of meaning that relies on the notion of a propositional sign that might be assigned a fixed semantic content.
The philosophers who have contributed to the development of pragmatism have often been critical of formal logic, especially its pretension to ultimate validity. However, most pragmatists are not skeptical of the existence of logic, and they see it as an important tool for the evaluation of claims.
A major point of contention in pragmatism is the nature of reality. Is an idea a representation of reality, and can a belief be considered true or false only in relation to its utility in inquiry and action? Some pragmatists, such as William James, hold that belief represents reality, but this is widely disputed.