Pragmatism
Etymology
From Greek "pragma," "deed, action." It is the great American philosophy, coined by Charles Sanders Peirce in the 1870s, popularized by William James around 1900, and extended to democracy and education by John Dewey. James put its test bluntly: a belief’s truth is its “cash value” in lived experience.
noun · /PRAG-muh-tiz-um/
The philosophy that the meaning and truth of an idea lie in its practical consequences — what difference it makes when you act on it.
What it names
A handle for judging beliefs by whether they work: not “is this metaphysically certain?” but “what happens if we treat it as true?”
Example
With characteristic pragmatism, the team stopped debating the perfect architecture and shipped the version that solved the actual problem.
Related idea
The lowercase “pragmatic” (simply practical) descends from this school but drops its bold claim — that practical usefulness is not just wise but the very meaning of truth.