Pragmatics and Semantics
Many modern philosophical perspectives focus on semantics. For example, Brandom focuses on linguistic meaning (albeit from a pragmatic perspective).
Others take a more holistic approach to pragmatics, like relevance theory, which seeks to determine how an utterance is perceived by the listener. This approach tends to ignore other elements of pragmatics, for instance, epistemic discussions about truth.
What is pragmatism?
Pragmatism is a viable alternative to continental philosophy and analytic philosophy. It was conceived by Charles Sanders Peirce, and expanded by his colleague and friend William James, and later developed by Josiah Royce. It had a profound effect on the areas of inquiry ranging from theology and philosophy to philosophy of science, as well as ethics as well as philosophy of politics and language. The pragmatist tradition continues develop.
The pragmatic maxim is at the center of classical pragmatics. It is a rule that clarifies the meaning of hypotheses through their 'practical implications', or their implications for the experience of specific situations. This creates an epistemological view that is a type of 'inquiry based epistemology,' and an anti Cartesian explanation of the norms that govern inquiry. The early pragmatists were divided on whether pragmatism was a scientific philosophy that adopted a monism regarding truth (following Peirce) or a broad alethic pluralitism (James &