Pragmatic is a word that’s used to describe someone who is down-to-earth, efficient, and concerned with matters of fact. It can also be used to refer to a set of strong principles about faith, morals, or ethics that are applied systematically. Other synonyms for pragmatic include practical, realistic, and sensible.
Pragmatism has been influenced by many philosophers and is a recurring theme in American philosophy, but it is most famously associated with the work of Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. In his 1906 essay ‘Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking,’ Peirce distinguished two kinds of philosophy: the’metaphysical’ and the ‘pragmatical.’ Metaphysical philosophy focuses on the essence of things and their eternal, objective reality; pragmatism is the more practical approach that emphasizes the value of what actually happens in human experience.
A central tenet of pragmatism is the belief that there are no absolute truths in life, but rather only practical truths. In other words, we are able to achieve knowledge only by evaluating situations and determining what is most useful. This flexibility, however, can be problematic. While it allows for a variety of perspectives and approaches, it can be difficult to establish consistent guidelines or principles that are applicable universally. In order to address this challenge, pragmatists have developed strategies for balancing pragmatic principles with ethical considerations, long-term sustainability, foundational principles, idealistic goals, and broader philosophical frameworks.
One of the most prominent examples of a pragmatic philosophy was devised by the late philosopher of language Paul Grice, who formulated what are now called the Gricean maxims. These four general rules govern the use of language in conversation and are important for understanding how to negotiate turn-taking norms and navigate ambiguity in context.
Gricean maxims rely on a concept of meaning in context that can be derived from Peirce’s pragmatic maxim, which states that “the meaningfulness of a utterance in a particular linguistic situation depends on whether it makes sense in that context”.
In the twentieth century, philosopher Hilary Putnam has been an influential figure for the revival of pragmatism. He has argued for the importance of a pragmatic approach to philosophical problems, and has made ambitious claims about the possibility of a ‘pragmatist enlightenment.’ Putnam has developed a pragmatic philosophy that includes a rejection of skepticism, a willingness to embrace fallibilism, a refusal of dichotomies such as fact/value, mind/body, and analytic/synthetic, and a view of practice as the fundamental ground of all truth.