Pragmatic is a broad term that can be used to describe an individual who is concerned with the consequences of actions for himself and others. It is sometimes used to refer to a morally ambiguous style of doing business or politics, but pragmatism is also a philosophical movement that emphasizes action and results.
A defining feature of pragmatism is that it focuses on the way people actually use language rather than on theories of linguistic meaning. The discipline of Pragmatics is often confused with Semantics, Syntax and Semiotics, but these are different disciplines. The study of linguistic semantics focuses on the rules that determine the literal grammatical meanings of expressions, while the study of syntax looks at how words are combined to create sentences with specific meaning. The study of linguistic pragmatics, on the other hand, focuses on how the physical or social context in which an utterance is used can influence what is meant by an expression.
For example, if you tell your friend that you are leaving to go to the store and he replies, “OK,” this is an example of pragmatic communication. You can see how the speaker’s context and his understanding of your response influence what is meant by the word “OK.” The broader concept of pragmatism extends to the entire flow of communication between two people. This includes the ways in which we use gestures and body language to convey our feelings and intentions. It is a form of non-verbal communication that can be as effective as the spoken word.
Another key aspect of pragmatism is the belief that truth is what works, rather than an objectively defined set of criteria. For this reason, pragmatists tend to be agnostic when it comes to belief systems, including capitalism and socialism. A pragmatist would argue that each system has its pros and cons, but ultimately it comes down to what is best for the majority of society and what makes people happy.
This is the kind of philosophy that influenced the 18th-century empirical idealist George Berkeley, who emphasized that knowledge is definable in terms of one’s experiences and sensations. It also influenced Charles Sanders Peirce, who developed the notion that inquiry depends on real doubt and that knowledge is a cumulative process.
A later generation of pragmatists, led by John Dewey and Charles Mead, applied this philosophy to questions of education, society and the nature of truth. This approach is known as American pragmatism because most of its proponents were from the United States. More recently, the philosophy has gained followers around the world. It has become popular in places like Scandinavia, South America and China. American philosophers like Quine and Wittgenstein have been influential in reviving the interest in pragmatism. However, the discipline has not yet fully established itself in mainstream analytic philosophy.