Pragmatism (non-technical usage)
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- In ordinary usage, pragmatism refers to behavior which temporarily sets aside one ideal to pursue a lesser, more achievable ideal.
- A pre-20th century usage of the term pragmatist has it referring to a person who meddles in the affairs of others, in brief, a busybody (OED).
- In philosophy, the term pragmatism has a number of technical meanings that are only incidentally related to its ordinary usage. The philosophic school of pragmatism founded by Charles Sanders Peirce originated in the U.S. in the 1870s. Peirce derived the name from Kantian terminology; however, pragmatism's main popularizer William James mistakenly promoted the school's name as a derivation from the Greek word "pragma."
- Pragmatics, along with semantics and syntax, make up the three main branches of linguistics.
[edit] See also
- Pragmatic maxim
- Pragmatic theory of truth
- Pragmaticism (Peirce's reform movement)
- Pragmatism (Philosophy)
