AAMC Style Passages | Pragmatism - Jack Westin

A glance at the history of the idea will show you what pragmatism means. The term is derived from the same Greek word pragma, meaning action, from which our words “practice” and “practical” come. It was first introduced into philosophy by Mr. Charles Peirce in 1878. In an article entitled “How to Make Our Ideas Clear,” in the Popular Science Monthly for January of that year, Mr. Peirce, after pointing out that our beliefs are really rules for action, said that, to develop a thought’s meaning, we need only determine what conduct it is fitted to produce.  And the tangible fact at the root of all our thought-distinctions is that there is no one of them so fine as to consist in anything but a possible difference of practice. To attain perfect clearness in our thoughts of an object, then, we need only consider what conceivable effects of a practical kind the object may involve – what sensations we are to expect from it, and what reactions we must prepare. In short, philosophy is defined by

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