immaterialism
Americannoun
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the doctrine that there is no material world, but that all things exist only in and for minds.
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the doctrine that only immaterial substances or spiritual beings exist.
noun
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the doctrine that the material world exists only in the mind
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the doctrine that only immaterial substances or spiritual beings exist See also idealism
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of immaterialism
1705–15; immaterial + -ism, modeled on materialism
Explanation
If the philosophy of immaterialism is true, then the screen you're reading this on is not really there. Neither is chocolate, which seems like a huge loss — but if you can still enjoy its taste, scent, and smoothness, what's the difference? A philosopher named George Berkeley came up with the idea of immaterialism in the early 1700s. He was concerned that previous philosophers assumed the existence of physical objects outside of our minds, but nobody could actually prove it. All we have to go on, he said, is our perception of things, so why not say that these so-called physical objects are just our perceptions? What is chocolate, apart from someone's mind perceiving a certain taste, color, weight, and texture? Nothing, according to Berkeley.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
As George Berkeley, the 18th-century philosopher of immaterialism, might have asked: What are windows without window shoppers to see them?
From New York Times • Nov. 25, 2020
The true bibliophile is obsessed by a kind of dialectical immaterialism.
From Time Magazine Archive
Spark hints at dark spiritual convulsions, a "new world which was arising out of the ashes of the old, avid for immaterialism."
From Time Magazine Archive
She has tried spiritually and harmoniously to convert him to immaterialism, but Rodney is very conscious of his physical, muscular, material being, and he hoots at her derisively, but tenderly.
From Sunny Slopes by Hueston, Ethel
Though the theology of Joseph Smith insists that immaterialism is an absurdity, yet it permits no overlapping of the earthly and the spiritual.
From Joseph Smith as Scientist A Contribution to Mormon Philosophy by Widtsoe, John Andreas
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
