Pragmatics is a philosophy of language that focuses on how people use the languages they speak. This includes the meaning of words, but also their grammatical structure and context, as well as the social aspects of language use, such as how it can be understood and interpreted by others. The term pragmatic was coined by Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) to distinguish his view of pragmatism from the more conventional (and dogmatic) views of philosophy of language. The idea is that a person’s real world experience and understanding of what works and what doesn’t work is the most important thing in developing and using language.
Although there are differences between the general lines of contemporary pragmatist thought, all pragmatists agree on the importance of a practical maxim that defines a pragmatist philosophy: ‘The truth is what works’. Moreover, they all agree that the most meaningful and authentic way to learn is through practice.
In the classroom, lessons on pragmatics might involve exploring greetings in different cultures or practising other language functions such as making requests, giving advice, complaining, inviting someone over, apologizing, and closing a conversation. They might be based on home and target cultures, but can also be adapted for a mixed group of students from different backgrounds.
Classical pragmatism’s progressive social ideals live on in some quarters, especially with the contributions of George Herbert Mead to the sociology of knowledge and the philosophy of education, Cornel West’s prophetic pragmatism that draws on both Christian and Marxist thought, and the African American philosophers W.E.B Du Bois and Alain Locke who pioneered the philosophy of race. But as analytic philosophy took root and became the dominant methodological approach in most Anglo-American philosophy departments, pragmatism lost influence.
Today, a number of neo-pragmatists are working to revive the idea of a pragmatic enlightenment. Hilary Putnam, for example, has defended the pragmatist tradition by stressing its rejection of skepticism; its willingness to embrace fallibilism; and its refusal of sharp dichotomies such as those between fact and value, thought and experience, mind and body, analytic and synthetic and so on. However, he has also made it clear that his own pragmatism is very different from that of classical pragmatists and that he thinks it is possible to reconcile these two approaches to philosophy.
