Pragmatism
Pragmatism is a humanistic movement in philosophy, which
emphasizes the role of humans in the creation of objective
and meaningful reality (Shalin, 1991). American pragmatism
emerged between the 1860s and the end of World War II in
the 1940s. During this period, personal material gain was
driving American economic and social progress and scholars
were demanding that philosophical pursuits extend beyond
theory to prove their worth in practice. In a country with a
meagre precapitalist past, pragmatism provided the “philosophical
expression of middle class liberalism” (Novak,
1975, p. 12). The unification of knowledge and action, and
applying theory to practice distinguished pragmatist philosophy
from other philosophical positions, which at the time
were based on empirical epistemology (Dewey, 1929).