Pragmatic is a word used to describe someone who is practical and gets things done. This type of person does not get wrapped up in big-picture ideas and is able to keep their emotions in check. They tend to make sound decisions when in a crisis and can help others stay calm by making clear, step-by-step plans. However, pragmatists can sometimes get caught up in the details and neglect to see the bigger picture. They can also fall victim to short-term thinking, and could benefit from broadening their perspective and dreaming a bit more.
The philosophical idea behind pragmatism emphasizes that thought and action are linked, with one having direct influence on the other. Applied fields like public administration, leadership studies, politics, and research methodology have adopted pragmatism as an important concept. This philosophy is also reflected in popular literature, movies, and television.
While pragmatism has many definitions, the main tenets of the philosophy revolve around the concept that reality is what works and that truth is what works for people. Its origin dates back to the early 1900s and is associated with American philosophers such as James, Dewey, and Peirce.
Most pragmatists accept the possibility of formal logic, but they are critical of its pretension to ultimate validity. They also recognize that logic is one tool among others, such as the law of the excluded middle or Stephen Toulmin’s pragmatic theory of argument.
Generally, pragmatists reject the correspondence theory of truth and believe that true statements do not necessarily correspond to a state of affairs. They also believe that people often rely on different senses of truth when communicating and that a communication can have more than one meaning.
There are a variety of subfields of pragmatics, including the theory of conversational pragmatics and the theory of language. The latter field focuses on the interaction between the grammatical rules of a language and its contexts. It also explores the role of context in interpreting what an utterance really means to its addressee.
Computational pragmatics is another field of pragmatics that focuses on the interactions between human and computer systems. This branch of the discipline seeks to understand how computers can be used to communicate with people in a more natural way. It is a key part of the field of artificial intelligence and is involved in how computers interpret ambiguous inputs and determine what to do with them.
Although pragmatic is synonymous with practical, it can also have a negative connotation of being dogmatic or rigid. Pragmatists are not prone to dogmatism, but they can become inflexible when it comes to certain morals or theories. This is because a pragmatic person is concerned with what works, not with what could or should be. A pragmatic person does not judge an action based on its value, but rather by its consequences. This is a good trait to have, but it can be a problem when someone is too stubborn to change.
