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/prˈægmətˌɪzəm/ Listen

Pragmatism

noun

(philosophy) the doctrine that practical consequences are the criteria of knowledge and meaning and value.

The attribute of accepting the facts of life and favoring practicality and literal truth. Synonym: realism.

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"Pragmatism" Quotes from Famous Books

... are raised to an unknown degree in man. What is the law of man, as man? We do not know it, probably we shall never know it. Right and justice may be truths, but they will always be fractional truths. Traditional morality is a pragmatism, useful and efficacious for social life, for well-ordered life; but at the bottom, without reality. Summing all this up: first, life is a labyrinth which has no Ariadne's thread but one,—action; secondly, man is upheld in his high qualities by force and struggle. Those ...

— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja

... complete cure by ending private business through the workers seizing it when the time was ripe, which he believed would be soon. Stroganoff was for an empery of wise men, of scientists, philosophers, and artists, who would kick out the statesmen and politicians, and manage things by enlightened pragmatism. For the individual man who sought happiness his formula was ...

— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... thought that something should have been said about the revolt against authority and tradition which has styled itself variously 'Pragmatism' and 'Humanism', and also about the recent vogue of Bergsonianism. I may in part excuse my silence by the plea that both movements are, in my judgement, already spent forces. If I must say more than this, I would only remark about Pragmatism that I could speak of it ...

— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... validity of the main criticisms to which they are subjected, and to illustrate some of their most typical applications. A formal summary of the conclusions reached would be tedious and unnecessary. But it may be well to show that even when brought to the tests imposed by the reigning Pragmatism, the nature-mystic can justify his existence and can proselytise with ...

— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer

... upon the power of the mind to know the truth and to find perfect happiness in the supernatural act of beholding God face to face, Dante is not in agreement with Pragmatism, Hegelianism and the "new Realist" theory—all which make truth elusive to the mind; but he is in full accord with the teaching of the Catholic Church, which defends the rights of reason holding, e.g., that "by ...

— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery