immaterialism

American  

[im-uh-teer-ee-uh-liz-uhm] / ˌɪm əˈtɪər i əˌlɪz əm /

noun

1. the doctrine that there is no material world, but that all things exist only in and for minds.

2. the doctrine that only immaterial substances or spiritual beings exist.

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immaterialism British  

/ ˌɪməˈtɪərɪəˌlɪzəm /

noun

1. the doctrine that the material world exists only in the mind

2. the doctrine that only immaterial substances or spiritual beings exist See also idealism

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Other Word Forms

• immaterialist noun

Etymology

Origin of immaterialism

1705–15; immaterial + -ism, modeled on materialism

Example Sentences

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

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

The true bibliophile is obsessed by a kind of dialectical immaterialism.

From Time Magazine Archive

But the same method may lead, as in the case of Berkeley, to immaterialism, falsely called idealism.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 08, June 1858 by Various

Abady, one of the most strenuous supporters of immaterialism, says, "The question is not what incorporeity is, but whether it be."

From The System of Nature, Volume 2 by Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry, baron d'