Pragmatic is a word that describes people who are more concerned with matters of fact than with ideas about what could be or should be. The pragmatic person is practical and logical, able to break down complex issues into small pieces so that they can be easily understood and addressed. It’s easy to see how this kind of thinking could benefit a crisis situation, where decisions need to be made quickly and under pressure.
Philosophical pragmatism was first developed in the United States during the latter quarter of the nineteenth century. It is a philosophical movement that embraces the view that an ideology or proposition only has value if it works satisfactorily. The philosophy of pragmatism has significantly influenced non-philosophers as well, including public administration, education, psychology, politics, leadership studies, law, sociology and business management.
The two primary philosophers who are credited with developing the pragmatism were Charles Sanders Peirce and William James. They were members of an informal club called the Metaphysical Club, which included such notables as Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and linguist Chauncey Wright. Their writings combined various influences, including a tradition of British empiricism, that emphasizes the role of experience in the formation of knowledge. It also drew from the work of 18th-century empirical idealist George Berkeley, who believed that sensations are predictive of future experiences.
Both of these philosophers used the concept of pragmatism as a way to critique and attack mainstream philosophies of their time. Their views were controversial and widely debated, but they had an enormous impact on American culture and society.
The pragmatism school of thought has a significant following in the United States and abroad. A number of contemporary philosophers are classified as pragmatists and are often associated with the school’s rich tradition of Peirce, James and Dewey. Some of these so-called neo-pragmatists include Hilary Putnam, Nicholas Rescher, Jurgen Habermas and Susan Haack, among others.
A major criticism of pragmatism concerns its failure to maintain its focus on reality and the real world. It can lead to false conclusions as a result of limited human knowledge, whether in the physical sense or the spiritual sense. The pragmatist argument that an idea is true only if it works has also been known to fail in moral and ethical matters.
However, despite these concerns, the pragmatist approach has many important contributions to make in our daily lives and is still being utilized to this day in applied fields like law, education, psychology and business. In particular, a pragmatic philosophy of language is being used in linguistics and cognitive behavioral therapy, where it emphasizes the importance of putting words into action. It is also used in such fields as research methodology and political science, where it emphasizes the need to link thought and action.
