Pragmatic is an approach to philosophy which emphasises what actually happens in real life and the pragmatic consequences of our decisions. The term has been used in a wide variety of ways, and pragmatism as a philosophical perspective has made rich contributions across the disciplines.
Pragmatism is an important and growing third alternative to analytic and ‘Continental’ philosophical traditions worldwide. It was initiated in the United States around 1870, and developed by Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), who coined the word, and his close friend William James (1842-1910), who further elucidated and popularised it. James’ Harvard colleague Josiah Royce (1855-1916), although officially allied to absolute idealism, also became a significant interlocutor and advocate.
The ‘classical pragmatists’ focused on questions of epistemology and the methodology of science, although they also touched upon many other areas of philosophical inquiry. In the twentieth century, pragmatism was rediscovered by a number of American philosophers and has enjoyed a resurgence since then. In recent times, the pragmatic perspective has also become prominent in continental philosophy, with important contributions from writers such as Hans-Georg Gadamer and Robert B. Brandom, who has sought to integrate analytic and pragmatist ideas in his research program.
One of the most important features of pragmatism is its rejection of the dualisms that have been a feature of traditional philosophy, such as mind/body, analytic/synthetic and fact/value. It is also a’relativist’ view, which accepts that a good scientific theory may well be true for some purposes but not others, and is willing to consider alternative explanations of phenomena that are empirically verifiable.
Another feature of pragmatism is its empiricism, which emphasises that human knowledge and understanding derive from practical experience, rather than from abstract theories or concepts. This leads to the idea of’simultaneous realizability’, which is the belief that what we know and understand at any time is a result of what we have accomplished (or not) in our practical endeavours.
A pragmatic philosophy has a particular interest in issues of social progress. Dewey, for example, thematised democracy philosophically, and saw it as more than a system of government, but as an ideal of open communication which can mobilise people to realise their potential for contributing to the greater good, and a commitment to equality in civil society, workplaces and schools.
Contemporary pragmatists tend to be divided into those who hold a more or less ‘literalistic’ view of semantics, and those who adopt the basic outlines of the Relevance Theory approach. Both groups acknowledge the centrality of pragmatics in our understanding of the world, but differ on how much ‘pragmatic intrusion’ into semantics is appropriate. This article will explore some of the differences between these two models, and look at a few of the rich facets of pragmatic philosophy that they reveal.