The word ‘Pragmatism’ doesn’t sound like a school of philosophical thought. It sounds more like an old time disease–like the story your grandpa told you about how he came down with the Pragmatism when he was a boy. However the name sounds, Pragmatism is not a disease, but rather a philosophy that a lot of philosophers treat as though it were one. So what is it? You might be surprised to find that in many ways (particularly if you’ve ever taken an Intro to Philosophy course, or asked ‘why does this matter?’) you may be a pragmatist!

Most Western philosophies are concerned with questions like: “What is there in the world?” “What can we know?” or “What if there’s another world in my thumbnail, and this world is a part of some other guy’s thumbnail?” Pragmatism takes these questions and hurls them out the window. Why? Because, say Pragmatists, they’re completely pointless. 

Pragmatism gets its name from the Greek word pragma, which means ‘action.’ Consequently, Pragmatism is a philosophy of action. It says that unless your ideas have some sort of practical consequence, then they aren’t of much use. You can imagine the tailspin that this sends traditional philosophers into. 

One prominent contemporary pragmatist, Richard Rorty, says in an essay that pragmatists do not need metaphysics or epistemology–the traditional backbones of philosophical thought! So where does this lead pragmatism? If it rejects the basic tenets of what philosophy has always been, then what does it do? What does it say? Here are a few broad tenets of Pragmatism:

Rejection of ‘Truth’: Pragmatists don’t believe in such a thing as Truth (in the Platonic sense). They don’t think that we can jump outside of our heads and discover what the world is really like–they think that what we know is simply what works, rather than what is inherently true. Instead of seeking some ‘Universal Standard’ of goodness like the Greeks were after, Pragmatists are more concerned that we find a measure of goodness that works. Why must ‘goodness’ come from a standard outside of us? If we can all, or mostly, agree that something is ‘good’ (like Americans agree that democracy is generally good), then what’s wrong with that? Pragmatists say, to continue the analogy, that democracy is not inherently true or good–but that we have found democracy to work better and be more agreeable than anything else! 

Rejection of Epistemology: As a result of the rejection of truth, pragmatists reject epistemology. (Epistemology is the study of human knowledge–essentially asking ‘what can we know?’) We, in a very real sense, say pragmatists, create our own epistemology. We make things like math and science, rather than discover them. Again, society dictates what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong,’ rather than some outside, non-human standard of universal ‘goodness’ and ‘badness.’ Epistemology is no longer a ‘discipline’ of study, but becomes more of a by-product of humanity. 

Rejection of Metaphysics: On a broad scale, pragmatists reject metaphysics. (Metaphysics includes questions like ‘Do I have free will?’ and ‘Is this world a part of a guy’s thumbnail?’) This rejection is based on one simple question: what do the answers to any of these questions matter? Unless there is a practical consequence to the metaphysical question you’re asking, pragmatists will generally tell you to get your head out of the clouds (or other various places). For example: will you ever discover the answer to the question of free will? The answer is most certainly no–the idea of someone discovering the answer as though it were a physical thing is almost comical. So what practical difference does it make one way or another? In fact, why do we even bother asking the question? How do we know that something beyond us (be it the Universe, God, or whatever) has made it so that our will must fall into one of those two categories? Unless something has a real, practical consequence, it is of no use to the pragmatist. 

It ought to be clear now why traditional philosophers have such a difficult time with Pragmatism. Traditional philosophers argue that pragmatists aren’t really ‘doing philosophy,’ and that their ideas bleed off into other academic disciplines. Pragmatists argue back that traditional philosophy has become isolated and stale; unchanging and unwilling to learn from other disciplines. Instead of asking traditional philosophical questions that seemingly have little value or practical application, pragmatists insist that we must do something to change our actual world. It’s better that we produce something of value than simply sit around and philosophize in an ivory tower.