Toward a Definition of "Pragmatism"

Pragmatism - A label for a doctrine about meaning first made a philosophical term in 1878 by C.S. Peirce. "Consider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conceptions to have. Then our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object." The term was soon borrowed by William James, F.C.S. Schiller, and John Dewey, who all in their different ways made pragmatism a their of truth. Thus in his PRAGMATISM James said, "Ideas become true just so far as they help get us into satisfactory relations with other parts of our experience."

From A DICTIONARY OF PHILOSOPHY by Antony Flew