Pragmatic is an adjective that describes a person or thing that focuses on the practical and results-oriented aspects of something. It is also used to describe an approach that is based on factual evidence rather than theoretical assumptions or beliefs. The pragmatic approach is often used in the business world and is a valuable tool when it comes to making decisions and solving problems.
During the late 1800s, pragmatism emerged as a third alternative to analytic and continental philosophy worldwide. The movement was led by Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, who were all pragmatists in their own right. They criticized and rejected the correspondence theory of truth that had been championed by such luminaries as Immanuel Kant and David Hume, and argued for a broader definition of truth that took into account both usefulness and coherence.
While the pragmatists were successful in transforming philosophical debate, their legacy suffered a severe setback during the rise of analytic philosophy. The pragmatists were no longer the central force in philosophy, and their views were often viewed as passe or irrelevant by rank-and-file analytic philosophers. Among the original pragmatist triumvirate, Dewey was the first to see his reputation take a major hit. James was the next to suffer, and Peirce quickly lost influence as well.
The pragmatic movement is still alive today, and contemporary philosophical approaches to pragmatism can be grouped into two broad categories. ‘Literalists’ focus on semantics as an autonomous domain, with little pragmatic intrusion; ‘contextualists’ are more inclined to accept the basic outlines of Relevance Theory and see pragmatism at every level of inquiry.
Peirce, for example, emphasized that truth is not merely what works; it’s also what inquirers will be willing to accept at the end of any reasonable process of inquiry. It’s easy to caricature this stance as utilitarian, but a closer look at the subtle pragmatist construal of utility shows that this view is no mere hedonistic utilitarianism.
New pragmatists have revived the pragmatic tradition, and they continue to challenge analytic philosophy. But their ideas differ in important ways from those of classical pragmatists, especially Peirce and James. For example, Robert Brandom’s work reflects the influence of Peirce, but he focuses solely on the logic of language and ignores pragmatism’s other concerns. In addition, his emphasis on ‘experience’ as a source of meaning departs from classical pragmatism’s focus on’reflexive’ and’referential’ content.
