Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definitions: Materialism |
MaterialismNoun1. A desire for wealth and material possessions with little interest in ethical or spiritual matters. 2. The doctrine that matter is the only reality. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "materialism" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1781. (references) |
| Domain | Definitions |
Literature | Materialism The doctrines of a Materialist, who maintains that the soul and spirit are effects of matter. The orthodox doctrine is that the soul is distinct from the body, and is a portion of the Divine essence breathed into the body. A materialist, of course, does not believe in a "spiritual deity" distinct from matter. Tertullian contended that the Bible proves the soul to be "material," and he charges the "spiritual" view to the heretical doctrines of the Platonic school. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Materialism expresses the view that the only thing that exists is matter; if anything else, such as mental events, exists, then it is reducible to matter.
"Materialism" has also frequently been understood to designate an entire scientific, "rationalistic" world view, particularly by religious thinkers opposed to it and also by Marxists. It typically contrasts both with dualism and with phenomenalism (also known as idealism), and like those theories, has had a long history with many varieties and many distinguished proponents. Materialism has also developed as a pejorative label for a lifestyle pursuing wealth, money, and objects rather than spiritual or mental development.
The definition of "matter" in modern philosophical materialism extends to all scientifically observable entities such as energy, forces, and the curvature of space.
Compare also with vitalism.
Ancient Greek philosophers like Parmenides, Epicurus, and even Aristotle prefigure later materialists. Later on, Thomas Hobbes and Pierre Gassendi represent the materialist tradition, in opposition to Rene Descartes' attempts to provide the natural sciences with dualist foundations. Later materialists included Denis Diderot and other French enlightenment thinkers, as well as Ludwig Feuerbach.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, turning the idealist dialectics of Georg Hegel "upside down", provided materialism with a view on processes of quantitative and qualitative change called dialectical materialism, and with a materialist account of the course of history, known as historical materialism.
In recent years, Paul and Patricia Churchland have advocated an extreme form of materialism, eliminativist materialism, which holds that mental phenomena simply do not exist at all -- that talk of the mental reflects a totally spurious "folk psychology" that simply has no basis in fact, something like the way that folk science speaks of demon-caused illness.Varieties of materialism
History of materialism
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Materialism."
Synonyms: MaterialismSynonyms: philistinism (n), physicalism (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Heterodoxy | Protestantism, Arianism, Adventism, Jansenism, Stundism, Erastianism, Calvinism, quakerism, methodism, anabaptism, Puseyism, tractarianism, ritualism, Origenism, Sabellianism, Socinianism, Deism, Theism, materialism, positivism, |
Irreligion | Atheism; deism; hylotheism; materialism; positivism; nihilism. |
MATERIALITY | Physics; somatology, somatics; natural philosophy, experimental philosophy; physicism; physical science, philosophie positive, materialism; materialist; physicist; somatism, somatist. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Materialism |
| English words defined with "materialism": Berkeley, Bishop Berkeley ♦ Corporealism ♦ dialectical materialism, dialectics ♦ George Berkeley ♦ Hylotheism ♦ Immaterialism ♦ materialistic, Materialistical, mercenary ♦ Physicism, Physiolatry ♦ worldly-minded. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "materialism": Stoics. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Materialism" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Romanian (materialism), Swedish (materialism). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Clever | Materialism is buying things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people who don't matter. (references; author: unknown) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Theater & Movies | |
Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Author | Quotation |
Friedrich Engels | What, indeed, is agnosticism, but, to use an expressive term, "shamefaced" materialism. |
Henri Frederic Amiel | Materialism coarsens and petrifies everything, making everything vulgar, and every truth false. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | He made pretensions to literature and materialism. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Civil Liberties | Cuba | In 1992 it amended the Constitution to prohibit religious discrimination and to remove references to "scientific materialism," (i.e. atheism) as the basis for the State. (references) |
Armenia | Petitioning organizations must "be free from materialism and of a purely spiritual nature," and must subscribe to a doctrine based on "historically recognized holy scriptures." To qualify a religious organization must have at least 200 members. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Materialism" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Materialism" is used about 252 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 252 | 18,696 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "materialism": dialectical materialism ♦ philosophical materialism. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "materialism": anti-materialism. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
materialism | 102 |
dialectical materialism | 17 |
dialectic materialism | 16 |
historical materialism | 10 |
cultural materialism | 6 |
materialism philosophy | 4 |
eliminative materialism | 4 |
materialism quote | 4 |
definition materialism | 3 |
consumerism materialism | 3 |
materialism reductive | 3 |
materialism poem | 2 |
american materialism | 2 |
marx materialism | 2 |
body materialism mind problem | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "materialism"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | materializëm (carnality). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | مادية, نظرية مادية, المذهب المادي. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | материализъм. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | "物主义. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | materialismus. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | materialismi, aineellisuus. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | matérialisme. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | materialismus. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | υλισμόσ (secularism, secularity, worldliness). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | חמריות, חומר ות (worldliness), ארציות (earthliness). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | materializmus, anyagelvûség. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indonesian | materiaslisme, kebendaan (earthly, material, physical). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | materialismo. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | "物論 . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | マテリアリズ , ぶっしつしゅぎ, ゆいぶつしゅぎ, ゆいぶつろ". (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | seihlltid (worldliness, worldly-mindedness), seihlltaght (profanity, worldliness, worldly-mindedness), oyraghys (determinism). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | aterialismmay material (brutish, corporeal, data, gear, incarnate, material, materiality, materials, metals, physical, stuff, worldly). (various references) materialism, preocupãri materiale. (various references) материализм. (various references) materijalizam. (various references) materialismo (secularism). (various references) materialism. (various references) วัตถุนิยม. (various references) materyalizm, maddecilik (worldliness), özdekçilik. (various references) materializm (r). (various references) матеріалізм. (various references) sự quá thiên về vật chất, chủ nghĩa duy vật sự nặng nề vật chất. (various references) materoliaeth. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "materialism": materialisms. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "materialism": antimaterialism, immaterialism. (additional references) | |
Words containing "materialism": antimaterialisms, immaterialisms. (additional references) | |
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"Materialism" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: materalis, materialis, materialismo, maternalism, metermarism. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "materialism" (pronounced muti"rēuli'zum) |
| 9 | -i" r ē u l i' z u m | imperialism. |
| 8 | -r ē u l i' z u m | territorialism. |
| 7 | -ē u l i' z u m | colonialism, parochialism. |
| 6 | -u l i' z u m | bilingualism, cannibalism, capitalism, centralism, commercialism, dualism, emotionalism, entrepreneurialism, environmentalism, evangelism, factionalism, fatalism, federalism, feudalism, formalism, fundamentalism, gradualism, incrementalism, individualism, intellectualism, internationalism, journalism, legalism, liberalism, mercantilism, metabolism, minimalism, moralism, multiculturalism, multilateralism, mutualism, nationalism, naturalism, neutralism, nihilism, pastoralism, paternalism, pluralism, populism, professionalism, provincialism, racialism, radicalism, sensationalism, socialism, supernaturalism, symbolism, vandalism. |
| 5 | -l i' z u m | alcoholism, botulism, embolism, idealism, parallelism, realism, surrealism. |
| 4 | -i' z u m | abolitionism, absenteeism, absolutism, activism, adventurism, agrarianism, altruism, amateurism, anachronism, aneurism, animism, antagonism, aphorism, astigmatism, atavism, atheism, authoritarianism, autism, baptism, barbarism, bolshevism, boosterism, catechism, chauvinism, classicism, collectivism, communism, conservatism, consumerism, corporatism, counterterrorism, creationism, criticism, cronyism, cubism, cynicism, dandyism, defeatism, deism, despotism, determinism, diamagnetism, diastrophism, dimorphism, dogmatism, Druidism, dwarfism, dynamism, egalitarianism, egoism, egotism, electromagnetism, elitism, empiricism, ergotism, eroticism, escapism, ethnocentrism, euphemism, expansionism, expressionism, extremism, fanaticism, fascism, favoritism, feminism, ferromagnetism, fetishism, futurism, geotropism, gnosticism, hedonism, helotism, heroism, hooliganism, humanism, hypnotism, illusionism, impressionism, interventionism, Irredentism, isolationism, isomorphism, jingoism, leftism, lesbianism, lyricism, magnetism, mannerism, masochism, mechanism, mesmerism, methodism, microorganism, militarism, modernism, monasticism, monetarism, monism, monotheism, mysticism, narcissism, nativism, negativism, nepotism, obstructionism, opportunism, optimism, organism, ostracism, overoptimism, pacifism, paganism, parkinsonism, patriotism, perfectionism, pessimism, pharisaism, pietism, plagiarism, polymorphism, polytheism, positivism, pragmatism, protectionism, puritanism, racism, recidivism, relativism, republicanism, revisionism, rheumatism, romanticism, sadism, satanism, sectarianism, secularism, separatism, sexism, skepticism, statism, stoicism, synergism, terrorism, theism, tokenism, totalitarianism, tourism, truism, unionism, vegetarianism, vigilantism, voluntarism, volunteerism, voyeurism. |
| 3 | -z u m | bosom, careerism, chasm, cytoplasm, enthusiasm, iconoclasm, ism, microcosm, neoplasm, orgasm, phantasm, prism, sarcasm, schism, spasm. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-e-i-i-l-m-m-r-s-t" | |
-1 letter: immaterial. | |
-2 letters: aerialist, artemisia, materials, melismata. | |
-3 letters: airmails, airtimes, alarmism, alarmist, almemars, amirates, imamates, lamister, limiters, malmiest, maritime, marliest, marlites, marmites, material, misalter, mistrial, ramilies, rammiest, seriatim, trammels. | |
-4 letters: aerials, airiest, airmail, airtime, almemar, amirate, amities, amritas, aristae, armlets, asteria, atresia, elitism, imamate, imarets, laities, lamster, lariats, latrias, lemmata, limiest, limiter, limites, limmers, maestri. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-e-i-i-l-m-m-r-s-t" | |
+1 letter: materialisms. | |
+2 letters: immaterialism, immaterialist, maladminister, materfamilias. | |
+3 letters: axisymmetrical, immaterialisms, immaterialists, immaterializes, maladministers. | |
+4 letters: antimaterialism, immaterialities, maladministered, materfamiliases, melodramatising, multilateralism. | |
+5 letters: antimaterialisms, grammaticalities, maladministering, meristematically, multilateralisms. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)4D 61 74 65 72 69 61 6C 69 73 6D |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)-- .- - . .-. .. .- .-.. .. ... -- |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01001101 01100001 01110100 01100101 01110010 01101001 01100001 01101100 01101001 01110011 01101101 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)M a t e r i a l i s m |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)004D 0061 0074 0065 0072 0069 0061 006C 0069 0073 006D |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)4767867184756778758579 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Quotations: Familiar 7. Quotations: Fiction 8. Quotations: Non-fiction | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Expressions 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Derivations 14. Rhymes 15. Anagrams 16. Orthography | 17. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
