Pragmatic is the study of how language is used in different social situations. It includes things like what we are saying to whom, how it is being said, and how the response is received. This can also include other non-verbal elements like body language. It is important to understand pragmatics in order to communicate effectively and avoid misunderstandings. Children who have difficulty with pragmatics may make rude comments to others or be unable to tell a story in a logical sequence. These types of behaviors are often referred to as pragmatic disorders and can be a sign that something is wrong.
While pragmatism has been associated with the work of William James, it actually began with Charles Peirce. He called his philosophical view pragmaticism and argued that it is a reformation of classic empiricism or positivism. This reformation involves a new principle whereby a proposition is meaningful only insofar as it has some practical use.
James emphasized the importance of pragmatism in his 1907 book titled Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking. He described a present dilemma in philosophy whereby there is a clash of two ways of thinking. One is empiricist and goes by ‘the facts’, while the other focuses on a priori principles that appeal to reason. He promised that pragmatism would overcome this conflict.
Other prominent pragmatist philosophers include Quine, Wittgenstein, and Carnap. However, mainstream analytic philosophers tended to ignore pragmatism until the early 1980s.
Since then, there has been a growing interest in pragmatics in the analytic philosophy community. In the last decade, scholars have written books and articles examining both the philosophical roots of pragmatism and its contemporary applications in areas such as ethics, sociology, and education.
Pragmatism is a broad philosophical movement that can be applied to almost any field of knowledge. Applied fields such as public administration, leadership studies, and international relations have incorporated the tenets of pragmatism because it emphasizes the connection between thought and action.
In addition, pragmatism has been influential in the development of informal logic, rhetoric, and computer science. It is also an integral part of Dewey’s expansive notion of democracy.
Moreover, pragmatism has been criticized for going too far in some respects. For example, some neo-pragmatists have proposed that truth is reducible to ‘personal warranted assertion’ and that any statement can be justified. Nevertheless, these newer pragmatic accounts can be seen as a response to criticisms of classical pragmatism or as a return to the insights of classical pragmatists updated for a contemporary audience. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has an extensive entry on Pragmatism, as well as links to other resources. Wikiquote has a large collection of quotes related to Pragmatism.
