pragmatism
IPA: prˈægmʌtɪzʌm
noun
- The pursuit of practicality over aesthetic qualities; a concentration on facts rather than emotions or ideals.
- (politics) The theory that political problems should be met with practical solutions rather than ideological ones.
- (philosophy) The idea that beliefs are identified with the actions of a believer, and the truth of beliefs with success of those actions in securing a believer's goals; the doctrine that ideas must be looked at in terms of their practical effects and consequences.
- The habit of interfering in other people's affairs; meddlesomeness.
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Examples of "pragmatism" in Sentences
- It looks like pragmatism is a political cop-out; compromise is certainly viewed that way.
- Second, pragmatism is the thing human society can least afford at this stage in our development.
- As a citizen and voter, I expect a minimum level of common sense and pragmatism from the people elected to represent me.
- Pure pragmatism is the antithesis of populism, and Washington tars politicians with mark of the unprincipled politician.
- A similar chilly pragmatism is at work in those homeowners now using the courts to remain in a house they defaulted on months or years ago.
- I wish it might do so; for its author admits all MY essential contentions, simply distinguishing my account of truth as 'modified' pragmatism from Schiller's and Dewey's, which he calls pragmatism of the 'radical' sort.
- As British ministers deliberate how they will vote in the Security Council, they are confronted with the choice between what is morally right – supporting a Palestinian state – and hypocrisy justified in the name of pragmatism.
- Although they continued to refer back to Peirce's 1878 paper as the source of pragmatism, and they continued to regard concepts and hypotheses as functioning as instruments, they did not always think of ˜pragmatism™ as denoting ˜the principle of Peirce™.
- But in fact I wholeheartedly endorse Rohan's critical pragmatism; indeed, this kind of pragmatism is at the very core of my philosophy of criticism, along with John Dewey's insistence that it is the aesthetic experience of literature that is the immediate object of critical appreciation, an experience that can be satisfied in a multitude of ways.
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