Definition of "instrumentalism" [in•stru•men•tal•ism]

• A pragmatic theory that ideas are instruments that function as guides of action, their validity being determined by the success of the action. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "An affectual orientation that contrasts with Seabright’s instrumentalism is represented in The Second Marriage by Seabright’s daughter Sophia."
• "In the case of scientific theories, the basic logical empiricist approaches were variations on the idea of instrumentalism, the view that scientific theories were predictive instruments and that the knowledge they represent is limited to what they predict about the observable properties of observables."
• "There is a second kind of instrumentalism-based value inheritance."