Why All The Fuss? Pragmatic?

· 6 min read
Why All The Fuss? Pragmatic?

Pragmatism and the Illegal

Pragmatism can be described as both a descriptive and normative theory. As a description theory it claims that the traditional conception of jurisprudence isn't accurate and that legal pragmatics is a better option.

Legal pragmatism, specifically it rejects the idea that correct decisions can be derived from a fundamental principle. It argues for a pragmatic and contextual approach.

What is Pragmatism?

The philosophy of pragmatism was born in the latter half of 19th and the early 20th centuries. It was the first truly North American philosophical movement (though it is important to note that there were also followers of the contemporaneously developing existentialism who were also labeled "pragmatists"). The pragmaticists, like many other major philosophical movements throughout time were in part influenced by dissatisfaction over the situation in the world and the past.

In terms of what pragmatism actually means, it is a challenge to pinpoint a concrete definition. Pragmatism is often focused on results and outcomes. This is frequently contrasted with other philosophical traditions that take an a more theoretical approach to truth and knowing.

Charles Sanders Peirce has been credited as the founder of the philosophy of pragmatism. Peirce believed that only what could be independently tested and proven through practical experiments was deemed to be real or true. Peirce also emphasized that the only real way to understand the truth of something was to study its impact on others.

John Dewey, an educator and philosopher who lived from 1859 until 1952, was a second founder pragmatist. He developed a more holistic approach to pragmatism. This included connections to society, education and art, as well as politics. He was influenced both by Peirce, and the German idealists Wilhelm von Humboldt und Friedrich Hegel.


The pragmatists also had a more loosely defined approach to what constitutes the truth. This was not intended to be a relativism but rather an attempt to gain clarity and solidly-substantiated settled beliefs. This was achieved through an amalgamation of practical knowledge and solid reasoning.

This neo-pragmatic approach was later extended by Putnam to be more broadly defined as internal realists. This was a possible alternative to correspondence theories of truth, which dispensed with the intention of attaining an external God's eye viewpoint while retaining the objectivity of truth, but within the framework of a theory or description. It was a similar idea to the ideas of Peirce, James, and Dewey however with an improved formulation.

What is the Pragmatism Theory of Decision-Making?

A legal pragmatist sees law as a method to resolve problems rather than a set of rules. He or she does not believe in the classical notion of deductive certainty, and instead, focuses on the importance of context when making decisions. Legal pragmatists also argue that the notion of fundamental principles is a misguided notion since, as a general rule they believe that any of these principles will be devalued by application. Therefore, a pragmatic approach is superior to a traditional view of the process of legal decision-making.

The pragmatist view is broad and has given rise to a myriad of theories in ethics, philosophy as well as sociology, science and political theory. However, Charles Sanders Peirce deserves most of the credit for pragmatism and his pragmatic maxim that clarifies the meaning of hypotheses through exploring their practical implications - is its central core, the concept has since been expanded to encompass a variety of perspectives. The doctrine has been expanded to encompass a broad range of views which include the belief that a philosophy theory only true if it is useful and that knowledge is more than just a representation of the world.

The pragmatists do not go unnoticed by critics despite their contributions to many areas of philosophy. The pragmatists' rejection of a priori propositional knowledge has led to an influential and effective critique of traditional analytical philosophy, which has extended beyond philosophy into a myriad of social disciplines, including the fields of jurisprudence and political science.

It is still difficult to classify the pragmatist view to law as a description theory. Most judges make decisions that are based on a logical and empirical framework, which relies heavily on precedents and traditional legal materials. However an expert in the field of law may well argue that this model doesn't accurately reflect the actual dynamics of judicial decision-making. Therefore, it is more sensible to consider the law from a pragmatic perspective as an normative theory that can provide a guideline for how law should be interpreted and developed.

What is Pragmatism's Theory of Conflict Resolution?

Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that sees knowledge of the world as inseparable from agency within it. It has been interpreted in many different ways, and often in conflict with one another. It is sometimes seen as a response to analytic philosophy, whereas at other times it is seen as an alternative to continental thought. It is a growing and developing tradition.

The pragmatists wanted to emphasize the importance of experience and individual consciousness in forming beliefs. They also sought to overcome what they saw as the flaws in a flawed philosophical tradition that had distorted the work of earlier philosophers. These errors included Cartesianism as well as Nominalism, and an inadequacy of the role of human reasoning.

All pragmatists are skeptical about the unquestioned and non-experimental representations of reasoning. They will be suspicious of any argument which claims that "it works" or "we have always done things this way" are valid. For the lawyer, these assertions can be interpreted as being overly legalistic, naively rationalist, and insensitive to the past practices.

Contrary to the traditional view of law as an unwritten set of rules The pragmaticist emphasizes the importance of context when making legal decisions. They will also recognize the possibility of a variety of ways to describe law, and that the various interpretations should be embraced. This perspective, referred to as perspectivalism, may make the legal pragmatic appear less reliant to precedent and previously accepted analogies.

The legal pragmatist's view recognizes that judges do not have access to a fundamental set of principles from which they can make well-reasoned decisions in all instances. The pragmatist will thus be keen to stress the importance of understanding the situation before deciding and to be prepared to alter or abandon a legal rule in the event that it proves to be unworkable.

There is no universally agreed concept of a pragmatic lawyer however certain traits are common to the philosophical stance. This is a focus on context, and a denial to any attempt to create laws from abstract concepts that are not directly tested in specific situations. The pragmatic also recognizes that the law is constantly evolving and there can't be one correct interpretation.

What is the Pragmatism Theory of Justice?

Legal pragmatism as a judicial philosophy has been praised for its ability to bring about social change. But it has also been criticized as a way of sidestepping legitimate philosophical and moral disagreements and relegating them to the arena of legal decision-making. The pragmatic is not interested in relegating philosophical debate to the realm of the law. Instead, they take an approach that is pragmatic in these disputes, which insists on contextual sensitivity, the importance of an open-ended approach to learning, and the acceptance that perspectives are inevitable.

Most legal pragmatists oppose the idea of a foundationalist approach to legal decision-making and instead rely on traditional legal sources to decide current cases. They take the view that the cases aren't adequate for providing a firm enough foundation for analyzing properly legal conclusions and therefore must be supplemented by other sources, including previously recognized analogies or principles from precedent.

The legal pragmatist rejects the idea of a set of overarching fundamental principles that could be used to make correct decisions. She claims that this would make it easy for judges, who can then base their decisions on rules that have been established and make decisions.

Many legal pragmatists due to the skepticism characteristic of neopragmatism, and the anti-realism it represents and has taken a more deflationist stance towards the concept of truth. They tend to argue, by focusing on the way a concept is applied and describing its function, and creating criteria to determine if a concept is useful and that this is the standard that philosophers can reasonably be expecting from the truth theory.

Certain pragmatists have taken on more expansive views of truth, referring to it as an objective standard for establishing assertions and questions.  프라그마틱 슬롯체험  combines elements of the pragmatist tradition with classical realist and Idealist philosophy. It is also in line with the larger pragmatic tradition, which regards truth as an objective standard of inquiry and assertion, not just a standard of justification or warranted affirmability (or its derivatives). This holistic perspective of truth is described as an "instrumental theory of truth" because it seeks only to define truth in terms of the purposes and values that guide an individual's involvement with reality.