Pragmatic philosophizing: philosophizing for praxis or based on praxis?

Abstract

Often, contemporary philosophers such as Wittgenstein or Heidegger, are referred to as pragmatists, but there are also those who rebut such qualification, as Wittgenstein himself, for instance. To many, pragmatism consists in identifying the true with the useful, and it is in this sense that it is accepted or rejected. What should then be understood by pragmatic philosophy? This article proposes a distinction capable of delimiting the differences and problems that a pragmatist qualification may elicit. Basically, we suggest a distinction between the philosophizing for praxis and the philosophizing that has praxis, as such, as fundament of philosophical analysis, in the case of Heidegger, for instance, or some type of praxis, as linguistics, in the case of Wittgenstein.