Pragmatic is a philosophy that deals with the way people think and act in different situations. It’s a philosophy that is based on practicality and not theory, so pragmatists are more concerned with results than they are with what could or should be. People who are pragmatists tend to be more flexible in their thinking and willing to abandon beliefs that don’t work anymore.
Pragmatism was first developed by philosopher Charles S. Peirce in the early 1900s. His theory is based on the idea that truth consists of both logical and ethical principles. In a nutshell, the pragmatic approach holds that values are only valid as long as they’re useful, and that there is no such thing as an absolute, unchanging truth.
The concept of pragmatism has evolved over time, and today it is found in many fields, including the arts, social sciences, and business. It’s a philosophy that embraces change and adaptation, and it encourages a focus on action rather than ideas or theories.
A common application of pragmatism is in education. The pragmatist view sees knowledge as an ongoing process of experimentation and experience. The goal of this experimentation is to help students develop their personality and skills. It’s also about recognizing the value of learning for its own sake, and not just as a tool to achieve some other end.
Another example of pragmatism is in how people use language. It’s a philosophy that considers the context of an utterance to determine its meaning. For instance, if someone says, “I have two sons,” that statement can mean one of several things. It might be a statement of fact, or it might be a question that someone is asking for more information. It might be a joke, or it might be an attempt to start a conversation.
In business, pragmatism is often used in market research. It focuses on finding out what customers actually want to buy and figuring out the best way to deliver that product or service. This is similar to the Agile software development process, which involves gathering feedback from customers, creating a prototype, and then testing it. It’s a continuous cycle of improvement and adapting to meet customer needs.
The adoption of a pragmatic approach in research has become increasingly important, especially as more and more studies fail to replicate earlier experimental findings. This has been dubbed the replication crisis. Pragmatism is a philosophical approach that aims to address this issue by encouraging researchers to be more flexible in their investigative techniques and by promoting the idea of examining how actions influence results. This helps avoid over-reliance on a single empirical standard and allows for more diverse interpretations of the evidence. It also helps researchers to manage dynamic, iterative analytical processes and keep their respondents in the loop through repeated interviews or updated documentation. In project examples 1 and 2, pragmatism was a key factor in establishing research objectives, defining the problem, and choosing methodologies.
