A pragmatic person focuses on how things work rather than what they could or should be. Pragmatic is also the name of a philosophical position that stresses the practical consequences of ideas, although it recognizes that not all outcomes are equally valuable.
The word pragmatic comes from the Greek pragmatos, meaning “active, versed in affairs” and from the Latin praegere (to take into account). It is used to describe someone who takes social, cultural, and situational factors into account when using language. Pragmatics is a subfield of philosophy that studies the ways in which people use words to carry out tasks. It is sometimes referred to as the “art of conversation” or, more specifically, the art of discourse.
One of the most important developments in pragmatism was the theory of communication as an activity that has goals and constraints. This concept of language as an activity was developed by Paul Grice and J. L. Austin and was the basis of their pragmatic theory. The pragmatic theory of language focuses on how utterances can be used to convey information. It addresses how a message is understood by the audience and includes such concepts as equivalence, presupposition, and conversational implicature.
Other key developments in pragmatism were the ideas of John Dewey and Charles Sanders Peirce. Dewey was a major figure in American philosophy, and his work helped give birth to the pragmatic movement.
Dewey’s philosophies were influenced by the pragmatist ideas of James and Peirce, but he was also a key contributor to the foundational theories of American pragmatism. He was also a prolific writer and thinker, and his works were influential both in America and abroad.
By the 1940s, a number of pragmatists had begun to question Dewey’s foundational theory of pragmatism. Several of these, including Sellars, Rorty, Davidson, Putnam, and Goodman, argued that experience is always theory-laden, that we are never able to gain direct access to reality without imposing our own assumptions on it, and that it is impossible for us to verify theories or worldviews by comparing them to some raw, unsullied sense data.
While pragmatism was criticized by these philosophers, many others embraced it. A large number of scholars continue to study pragmatic concepts, methods, and perspectives today. The field of pragmatics has a wide range of applications in the natural sciences, philosophy, and humanities. It has become increasingly important in the fields of cognitive science, psycholinguistics, and sociolinguistics. Pragmatics has also influenced the development of other areas of inquiry, such as philosophy of mind, semantics, and ethics. Moreover, pragmatics is an essential tool in the scientific method, because it allows scientists to develop theories of what is going on in people’s minds. These theories are then tested through experiments. These tests can help to determine whether a hypothesis or theory is valid and worth investigating further. It is through these kinds of investigations that the sciences can make progress in a variety of disciplines. It is through this kind of research that we can make a better world for everyone.
