Pragmatics and Semantics
Many of the current pragmatics theories based on philosophy focus on semantics. Brandom for instance, focuses on the significance of words (albeit from a pragmatic perspective).
Others choose a more holistic approach to pragmatics, like relevance theory, that aims to understand how an expression is perceived by the listener. However, this approach tends to ignore other aspects of pragmatism like epistemic debates on truth.
What is pragmatism, exactly?
Pragmatism provides a different perspective to continental philosophy and analytic philosophy. Charles Sanders Peirce was the first to introduce the concept and William James extended it. Later, Josiah Royce developed the philosophy. It had a profound impact on the areas of inquiry ranging from theology of philosophy to philosophy of science, but also on ethics as well as philosophy of politics and language. The pragmatist tradition continues grow.
The underlying principle of classical pragmatism is the pragmatic maxim, which is a guideline for clarifying the meaning of hypotheses through exploring their 'practical implications that they have for specific situations. This creates a distinct epistemological perspective that is a type of 'inquiry epistemology based on inquiry' and an anti Cartesian explanation of the rules that govern inquiry. The earliest pragmatists, however were largely divided on the issue of whether pragmatism should conceive of itself as a philosophy of science that adopts a monism about truth (following Peirce), or a broad-based alethic pluralism (James and Dewey).
How to understand knowledge is a major concern for pragmatics. Certain pragmatists, like Rorty tend to be skeptical of any notion of knowledge that rests on a foundation of 'immediate' experiences. Others, such as Peirce and James, Pragmatickr are sceptical of the theory of correspondence as a source of truth which holds that true beliefs are those that represent reality 'correctly'.
Other topics in pragmatism are the relationship between beliefs and reality as well as the nature of human rationality, the importance of virtues and values and the nature of life. Pragmatists have also developed a broad range of theories and methods in fields like semiotics, philosophy of language, philosophy of religion and ethics, philosophy of science and theology. Some, such as Peirce and Royce, are epistemological relativists, while others contend that this kind of relativity is a serious misguided idea. The latter half of the 20th century saw a revival of interest in classical pragmatics. This led to a myriad of new developments. This includes a "near-side" pragmatics that is concerned with the resolution of ambiguity, indexicals, demonstratives and anaphors as well as the "far-side" pragmatics that looks at the semantics in discourses.
What is the relationship between what is said and what happens?
Semantics and Pragmatics are regarded as being at opposite ends of the continuum. On the close side, semantics is viewed and pragmatics is on the far side. Carston, for example asserts that there are at least three main types of modern pragmatics people who view it as a philosophy based on the lines of Grice and others