Pragmatic is the study of how context influences how meaning is interpreted and made in communication. It is often associated with other areas of linguistic study, including semantics (rule systems that determine literal linguistic meanings), syntax (how words are combined to form sentences with specific meaning) and semiotics (how signs and symbols are used). However, pragmatics also includes elements of non-linguistic communication, such as gestures and body language.
The term pragmatic is derived from the Greek pragmatikos, which means practical or reasonable. It is a positive term that praises choices or actions that are seen as practical and reasonable. It is often applied to political positions or actions, particularly those that are considered’middle of the road’ and take arguments from both sides into account.
A pragmatic approach is one that takes the reality of human life into consideration, and seeks to find solutions that will work within that environment. This is an approach that many people appreciate, because it allows for compromise and finding ways to get things done. The word pragmatic can also be applied to situations in the workplace or to relationships, as it refers to being able to accommodate different opinions and views in order to achieve success.
In philosophy, pragmatism is a school of thought that emerged in the United States around 1870. Its ‘classical pragmatists’ were Charles Sanders Peirce, who originated and defined the philosophy, and his Harvard colleague William James (1842-1910), who developed and popularised it. James viewed the history of philosophy as being dominated by a fundamental clash between two types of thinking, the ‘tough-minded’ and the ‘tender-minded’, which he promised that pragmatism could resolve.
The ‘tough-minded’ are those who stick to the evidence and go by the ‘facts’, while the ‘tender-minded’ are those who prefer a priori principles and rationalisation. Despite the seeming irreconcilability of these two approaches, they both offer the potential to provide rich understandings of experience and science. It is this insight that the pragmatists aimed to offer.
Pragmatic philosophers have contributed to a wide variety of philosophical areas. In particular, they have made important contributions in philosophy of science and of language, the social sciences, ethics and philosophy of religion. In the latter area, they have contributed to the development of discourse ethics and to understanding how religious beliefs shape human experience.
More recently, Jurgen Habermas, an heir to the Frankfurt School of philosophy, has incorporated pragmatist ideas into his normative theory of communication. He combines analytic philosophers’ goal of systematically theorising language with a hermeneutic and neo-Marxian critique of modernity, and draws upon Mead’s pragmatist analysis of self-relationships to develop his concept of communicative action. This has allowed him to make substantial contributions to contemporary sociology, philosophy of law, aesthetics and the philosophy of religion. He is now considered one of the most influential philosophers in the world.
