externalism

[ik-stur-nl-iz-uh m]

noun

attention to externals, especially excessive attention to externals, as in religion.

Origin of externalism

First recorded in 1855–60; external + -ism

Related formsex·ter·nal·ist, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for externalism

Historical Examples of externalism

The fallacy of the Socialist program is not in its radicalism, but in its externalism.
The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition
Upton Sinclair
The externalism in which most of our lives are spent makes the effort to look within a painful contradiction of habit.
Expositor's Bible: The Song of Solomon
Walter Adeney
A religion violently imposed from without as a state-religion naturally tends to hypocrisy and externalism.
The Expositor's Bible
F. W. Farrar
To a Christian all this has its defects—formalism, externalism, needless narrowness.
Expositor's Bible: Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther
Walter Adeney
They tore off the accumulated husks of externalism, but kept intact the real kernel of religion.
Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic
Sidney L. Gulick

British Dictionary definitions for externalism

externalism

noun

exaggerated emphasis on outward form, esp in religious worship

a philosophical doctrine holding that only objects that can be perceived by the senses are real; phenomenalism

Derived Formsexternalist, noun

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012