Conservatism And Pragmatism

In philosophy there are many words that mean different meaning. Some of the words that we studied in philosophy really changed the way I thought about those words. The words that really made a difference I the way I thought are pragmatism, realism, liberalism, conservatism and ideology. These words really made me think in a whole different way.
The word that really made me actually think the most was pragmatism. Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that began in the 1876 (Gutek, 2004). Pragmatism was developed by American philosophers Charles S. Piers, William James and John Dewey (Gutek, 2004). Pragmatist developed their philosophy around the idea that the function of though is an instrument or tool for prediction, action and problem solving. The empirical test is, does it work. American education has shown a definite belief in the idea that knowledge is valued because it can be applied in order to improve the human condition, increase productivity, and help solve problems (Gutek, 2004). A pragmatic person will not do things because he wants to, but because it will benefit him and the people around him. Like king john signing the Magna Carta, not because he wanted to by signing it he was losing a lot of power but because it benefited him by keeping his head on his shoulders. A pragmatic person will have to go through what he believes will work in order to see if it will work. Everyone would agree that killing is wrong; a pragmatist person would take a life in self-defense it meant it would save his own life. A Pragmatist uses practical knowledge in order to control reality. A pragmatic person will continue doing what he is doing because it benefits him until he finds a better way or he is stopped by society. ...

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...le to actually say its real. There are three reasons why we study Realism: (1) for the historical significance: (2) for its popularity as a commonsense, or naïve, way of knowing: (3) for its educational importance (Gutek, 2004). The reason we use realism in school is so that we can show the students the five senses and so they can actually have a first hand of what realism actually is. Even though we are thought this in school about things not being real we yet somehow always manage to make things up in our heads and actually make things appear real. One of the things that the schools have been doing for a very long time is something called “show and tell”. This is great for the younger kids to actually understand the concept of what show and tell is really all about because you actually involve the students and they can actually see all the five senses.