Pragmatic is a philosophy that argues that an idea is true only if it works, that the meaning of a proposition is found in its practical consequences and that unpractical ideas are to be rejected. Pragmatism developed in the latter quarter of the nineteenth century, but has since influenced non-philosophers, particularly in fields such as education, law, politics, sociology and psychology, and is also an important influence on business management and the social sciences.
The word pragmatic is most often used to describe a person who takes a practical approach to problems and situations. These individuals tend to be more interested in how something works and what the results of an action are than they are with its idealistic potential. For example, a businessman may decide to settle a lawsuit because it will cost less than going through the long process of fighting it in court.
A pragmatic person is someone who can quickly determine what is possible and what is not in a situation. They are also likely to be impulsive in their actions and will take the first opportunity they see to go after what they want. This is a trait that many entrepreneurs are known to have, as they try to be successful as quickly as they can in order to get the most out of their lives.
One of the most important concepts in pragmatism is context. Although there are a number of different ways to define the concept, most writers agree that a contextual context is anything that surrounds an utterance and influences its meaning or interpretation. This may include linguistic features such as ambiguity, vagueness and the reference of proper names, indexicals, anaphors and deictic demonstratives, but it may also extend to extra-linguistic factors such as prior or subsequent utterances and the social circumstances in which they occur.
Another crucial concept in pragmatism is the distinction between ‘near-side’ and ‘far-side’ pragmatics. Near-side pragmatics is the set of rules that govern how words are used in a conversation, and is concerned with things such as turn taking, greetings and eye contact. Far-side pragmatics, on the other hand, is concerned with how those same words are used in a social context to achieve a particular effect. This can be things such as establishing status, expressing an emotion or making a point.
While Schiller dismissed the possibility of formal logic, most pragmatists do not share his disdain for the study of logical form. They accept the utility of formal logic and its role in resolving logical puzzles, but they view it as just one of several tools in a toolbox.
As a result, the pragmatist tradition lost much of its early momentum and became more of an auxiliary to other traditions in philosophy. The Deweyans were undone by the progressive professionalization of philosophy as a specialized academic discipline, while the Peircean pragmatists were soon derided by rank-and-file analytic philosophers as passe. However, a number of liberatory philosophical projects in areas such as feminism, ecology and Native American philosophy are now evoking the pragmatic tradition as their philosophical home.