Pragmatics and Semantics

Many modern philosophical perspectives focus on semantics. Brandom, for example, focuses on the significance of words (albeit from a pragmatic point of view).

Others take a more comprehensive approach to pragmatics, like relevance theory, which aims to explore the understanding processes of an utterance by a listener. However, this method tends to neglect other elements of pragmatism like epistemic debates over truth.

What is pragmatism?

Pragmatism is a philosophical outlook that offers a viable alternative to continental philosophy and analytic philosophy. Charles Sanders Peirce conceived it, and William James extended it. Later, Josiah Royce developed the philosophy. It was influential in areas of inquiry that ranged from theology to philosophy of science, but also found a place in ethics, pragmatickr politics, philosophy of language, aesthetics, and social theory. The pragmatist tradition continues develop.

The core of classical pragmatism is the pragmatic maxim, a principle to clarify the significance of hypotheses by exploring their 'practical implications that they have for the experience of specific situations. This creates an epistemological perspective that is a type of 'inquiry-based epistemology' as well as an anti-Cartesian interpretation of the rules that govern inquiry. Early pragmatists were divided over whether pragmatism was a science-based philosophy that embraced an ethos of truth (following Peirce) or a broad alethic pluralitism (James &amp