Pragmatic is the scholarly study of how people communicate with one another, including non-linguistic gestures and body language. It is a broad field that intersects with linguistics, philosophy, sociology, semiotics, cognitive psychology, and cultural studies. The interdisciplinary nature of pragmatics allows for rich cross-pollination of ideas and theories, underscoring its importance in human communication.
The central tenet of pragmatism is that truth is based on experience rather than innate concepts or objective realities. This premise enables pragmatists to avoid the philosophical problems of realism and idealism, by viewing reality as constructed through human activities and interactions. This approach can be applied to a number of different areas of philosophical inquiry, including epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, and aesthetics.
Many philosophers have developed pragmatist views. The most influential is Charles Sanders Peirce, who popularised the term ‘pragmatism’ in publications from the 1870s onwards. His ideas were influenced by discussions at the so-called ‘Metaphysical Club’ at Harvard and also by Sigmund Freud and James. Like James, Peirce used the pragmatic maxim as a tool for clarifying concepts and hypotheses and for identifying empty disputes.
The pragmatist tradition continued with John Dewey, who used pragmatism to support his ideals of social progress. His pragmatism contributed to the reforms and activism of the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was an important influence on American democracy. Dewey was a strong advocate for the rights of women and minorities, and he viewed education as a means of promoting individuality and democratic values.
More recently, the concept of pragmatism has been taken up by a younger generation of philosophers. These neopragmatists use pragmatic principles to challenge traditional approaches to issues such as freedom, morality, and knowledge. These neopragmatists have also been critical of analytic philosophy and have reintegrated pragmatic ideas with some of the insights of phenomenology.
The practicality of pragmatics has been embraced in the scientific community, as well. For example, the study of computational pragmatics is concerned with how computer systems can be trained to interpret and understand context in order to reduce ambiguity when processing information. For instance, reference resolution, which is the process by which a system determines whether two words refer to the same entity, is one of the key areas studied in computational pragmatics.
The pragmatics of language are particularly relevant in the classroom, where students must learn how to express themselves appropriately and be able to understand the communication cues that their peers are giving them. This is a complex area of grammar and can be challenging for some students, especially those with developmental or neurological conditions. For example, children and individuals on the autism spectrum often have trouble picking up on pragmatic rules for greetings, apologizing, asking for help, making requests, and closing conversations. Joseph Siegel offers a useful classroom activity for practising pragmatics in a speaking class through an activity for request scenarios in his Forum article “Pragmatic Activities for the Speaking Classroom.” The teacher presents a series of scenarios and asks the students to decide how they would respond.