The music education profession seriously underestimates the potential significance of philosophical or theoretical inquiry to its instructional, curricular, and research efforts. This essay urges that rapidly changing realities and an unpredictable future make theoretical inquiry more important than ever - theory or philosophy of a very different kind than that to which the profession has grown accustomed. The potential benefits of philosophical pragmatism are explored, with particular attention to the primacy of action and the habit of changing habits.