Pragmatic is the study of how people use language in a real-world context. It takes into account things like cultural, social, and situational factors that make a phrase or sentence more likely to mean something else than it would in a vacuum. This is different than semantics, which deals with the ‘literal’ meaning of words and sentences.
A pragmatist is someone who is practical in their approach to life, decisions, and interactions. A pragmatist looks for what works best in any given situation, and is willing to compromise on theoretically ideal outcomes for the sake of results that can be achieved. For example, if you were offered a job that pays less than you want, but it’s closer to home and will allow you to spend more time with your family, you might choose to accept it because the benefits outweigh the costs.
The pragmatist philosophy was first used to describe a philosophical outlook about a century ago, when William James (1842-1910) pressed the term into service during an address in 1898. He scrupulously swore, however, that he had not coined the word, and that the view he espoused was one that had been formulated a few decades earlier by his colleague C. S. Peirce (1839-1914).
As the popularity of pragmatism grew among American philosophers, it spawned its own sub-field of inquiry: pragmatics. While some pragmatists, such as Carston (2005), see pragmatics as a philosophical project in its own right, most pragmatic philosophers see it as an empirical psychological theory of utterance interpretation, with close connections to semantics and grammar.
A pragmatist sees the world as in a constant state of becoming, and that the only way to change reality is through action. Consequently, pragmatism places a high value on the practicality of research. It is therefore an appropriate epistemological framework for mixed methods research, and for qualitative research in general (Bryman 2006).
Pragmatism also offers a valuable philosophical perspective for conducting empirical studies on organizational processes. In particular, it helps to highlight the importance of integrating quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis, and it encourages the use of collaborative priority setting partnerships in research settings (James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnerships, 2014).
As the field of pragmatism has evolved over the years, the boundaries between Semantics and Pragmatics have become increasingly porous. For example, Donnellan (2010) suggests that the distinction between the semantic meaning of a description and its conversational implicatures is not as clear cut as has been thought.