The word pragmatic can describe two different kinds of people. Pragmatic by definition means relating to factual and practical aspects of something at the exclusion of either the intellectual or artistic aspects of it. A pragmatic person can refer to someone who thinks of historical happenings in terms of the cause and the result of the situation, or someone who is overly practical or realistic
. and not idealistic or visionary. For example, Benjamin Franklin was described as a pragmatic person by John Updike: "pragmatic successors like Benjamin Franklin were concerned with lightning's " power but not its thrilling scenic value."From a biblical perspective, Jesus is sometimes seen as having a pragmatic attitude towards others. He stressed knowing people by their fruits rather than their title, their fame or their words.Some classical pragmatists include Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and F.C.S. Schiller. Peirce considered himself a logician who worked in linear algebra, geometries, continuity, applied mathematics, and engineering; advances included cardinal arithmetic for infinite number and axiomatization of natural number arithmetic. James was a psychologist, philosopher and physician who believed that diverse experiences in the world needed interpretation through "radical empiricism", that observation could never become fully objective because the mind of the observer affected outcomes of empirical approaches to truth; furthermore, mental experience and nature were inseparable in his view. He furthermore believed in free will, pluralism and indeterminism. Dewey was known as an experimentalist who rejected the idea of a personal god and believed that only scientific method and experimentation could increase human good. Schiller opposed the idea of metaphysics, naturalism and logic. Schiller focused on the "consequences" of a truth or statement. According to Schiller, consequences of meaning and truth of a statement must be for someone's particular purposes at a given time.For more information, please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatism.
