Pragmatic is an approach to philosophy, language and human communication. It focuses on the way that meanings and propositions depend on context for their interpretation. Its branches include semantics and the theory of discourse-level phenomena such as conversational implicature, metaphor, hyperbole and politeness. It also extends to the broader context-dependence of various aspects of linguistic interpretation, such as pragmatic inference, which is a special kind of reasoning that goes beyond the ordinary application of rules (it might be described as ‘ampliative inference’).
In his 1907 essay on ‘Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking’, William James observed that pragmatism emerged from the apparent impossibility of reconciling two conflicting ways of thinking – one characterized by an empiricist commitment to going by experience and ‘the facts’, and the other by a reliance on a priori principles which appeal to rationalisation. He claimed that pragmatism resolved the conflict by providing a method for settling metaphysical disputes that might otherwise be interminable.
The neo-pragmatic school of philosophy is now a thriving third alternative to analytic and continental philosophical traditions worldwide. It is especially strong in the United States and Canada, but it is gaining ground in South America, Scandinavia and more recently central Europe and China. A number of prominent philosophers have contributed to its revival, including Hilary Putnam, who has made ambitious claims for the prospect of a ‘pragmatist enlightenment’.
Some of the key tenets of the neo-pragmatic movement are its rejection of skepticism, willingness to embrace fallibilism, and emphasis on the primacy of practice over concepts like truth and fact. It also stresses the importance of understanding a situation in order to act appropriately, which is seen as the most important component of rational decision-making.
It is also a pragmatic view that the only meaningful truths are those that are verifiable in the real world. This is contrasted with idealism, which places great value on ideas such as beauty or goodness, but does not consider them to be empirically testable or measurable.
The word pragmatic is also used to refer to a set of principles or guidelines for the practical operation of an organisation, for example, a guide to good management, the pragmatic model. A more common use of the term is in information technology to describe a system administrator’s role, where they are responsible for the configuration, support and troubleshooting of a multiuser computer environment. They might be called IT directors, IT managers or sys admins. They can have a wide range of skills and knowledge across all business technologies. This can be a highly technical role, but it can also be a very business-facing and customer-facing position.