Pragmatic is a philosophy which seeks to make sense of the world and our place within it. It aims to explain how we use language, think, and communicate with each other in order to understand the world around us. Pragmatic is an approach that takes into account what works and doesn’t work, rather than merely arguing for or against a particular point of view.
This approach to philosophical enquiry is known as pragmatism, and was popularised by the writings of William James (1842-1910) who coined the term ‘pragmatism’ in 1898 while lecturing at the University of California. He scrupulously swore that the word had been used earlier, however, by his fellow American Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), who had described his own philosophy as pragmatic realism.
The word ‘pragmatic’ is often used to describe people who can keep their cool and make clear, calm decisions when they are faced with a crisis. These people are pragmatic because they can see the big picture and are able to stay logically focused on the facts rather than being swayed by their emotions or fear. The opposite of a pragmatic person is a dogmatic one who clings to rigid ideals in the face of adversity.
There are many different areas of philosophy which have been richly influenced by pragmatist thought. The most well-known is probably that of philosophy of language, which was a key concern of the classical pragmatists. A number of different methods of linguistic analysis have been developed, particularly in the study of metaphor and semantics. Another area of interest to pragmatists has been metaphilosophy, and in recent years there has been an increase in the development of a neo-pragmatist metaethics, inspired by classical pragmatism (Heney 2016).
A significant part of contemporary empirical pragmatics is concerned with the relationship between utterances and their context. This is also a concern of many of the classic pragmatists, who saw pragmatic knowledge as a kind of ‘perception augmented’ by some species of ‘ampliative inference’–perhaps induction, or inference to the best explanation, or maybe simply special application of general principles for communication as conceived by Peirce and Grice.
Some pragmatists have sought to connect pragmatics with phenomenology and hermeneutics, while others have looked at the ways in which a pragmatist philosophy might be applied to social policy and practical ethics. It has also been suggested that the concept of ‘capacity reserves’ in cognitive pragmatics may offer a new way to approach questions about autism and the nature of mental illness. In addition, there is increasing evidence that pragmatic skills can be learned and taught to children who have autism spectrum disorder. This is being explored through interventions such as social stories.
