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subjectivism

[suh b-jek-tuh-viz-uh m]
noun
  1. Epistemology. the doctrine that all knowledge is limited to experiences by the self, and that transcendent knowledge is impossible.
  2. Ethics.
    1. any of various theories maintaining that moral judgments are statements concerning the emotional or mental reactions of the individual or the community.
    2. any of several theories holding that certain states of thought or feeling are the highest good.
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Origin of subjectivism

First recorded in 1855–60; subjective + -ism
Related formssub·jec·tiv·ist, nounsub·jec·ti·vis·tic, adjectivesub·jec·ti·vis·ti·cal·ly, adverb
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for subjectivism

Historical Examples

  • Lack of originality is a second consequence of the subjectivism of the age.

    A Critical History of Greek Philosophy

    W. T. Stace

  • "Objective" idealism is trying, like Mill, to escape the subjectivism of the purely individual and "psychical" knower.

    Creative Intelligence

    John Dewey, Addison W. Moore, Harold Chapman Brown, George H. Mead, Boyd H. Bode, Henry Waldgrave, Stuart James, Hayden Tufts, Horace M. Kallen

  • The fault was not wholly in the subjectivism of the movement.

  • But I fail to understand how any one with a working grasp of their principles can charge them wholesale with subjectivism.

  • It opens up boundless possibilities of subjectivism in a man who was apparently only too matter-of-fact.

British Dictionary definitions for subjectivism

subjectivism

noun
  1. the meta-ethical doctrine that there are no absolute moral values but that these are variable in the same way as taste is
  2. any similar philosophical theory, for example, about truth or perception
  3. any theological theory that attaches primary importance to religious experience
  4. the quality or condition of being subjective
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Derived Formssubjectivist, nounsubjectivistic, adjectivesubjectivistically, adverb
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

Word Origin and History for subjectivism

n.

1857, from subjective + -ism.

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper