Pragmatic — pronounced prag-MAY-tik — is a word that describes someone who’s concerned with results and outcomes rather than with ideals. Someone who is pragmatic might be willing to compromise their principles in order to achieve a desired outcome. In philosophy, pragmatism is a type of epistemology that emphasizes gaining knowledge through experience and inference, as opposed to theories about the universe. The concept of pragmatism is often contrasted with idealism, but it’s important to note that many people find the best approach to life requires a balance of both pragmatism and idealism.
The word pragmatic comes from the Latin praegere, meaning “to take into account.” A person who is pragmatic thinks about what works and what doesn’t. Having a pragmatic attitude can be helpful when navigating problems because it allows you to see what options are available and what the best course of action would be.
It’s also possible to be a pragmatic philosopher, who studies philosophical ideas with an eye toward the practical application of those ideas. There are a number of pragmatic schools of thought that have been developed over the years. These include the Chicago school, logical pragmatism, and radical empiricism. The Chicago school of pragmatism (also known as American pragmatism) focuses on the nature of human understanding and knowledge, and it seeks to answer questions about the limits of science, the nature of meaningful objects and events, and the workability of reductionism. It’s a school of philosophy that was developed by John Dewey and Richard Rorty.
Logic pragmatism focuses on the role of language in communication, and it’s concerned with the ways that words and sentences can have different interpretations from one context to another. It’s an area of study that has become very popular among philosophers and linguists.
There’s a debate about whether or not pragmatics is an epistemology or a metaphysics. Some philosophers have argued that pragmatics is an aspect of metaphysics, while others have argued that it’s a subset of epistemology. The debate will likely continue until there is a clearer definition of pragmatics, which is more than just a theory about how to use language.