materialism
Materialism is an excessive attachment to money and possessions, and in philosophy the belief that only matter exists and that the mind is a product of it.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Definitions
- A way of thinking and living that puts money, possessions and physical comfort above ideas, relationships and moral or spiritual values.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - In philosophy: the doctrine that matter is the only reality, and that thought, feeling and consciousness are produced by matter and can be explained by it.
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Examples
- He worried that the holidays had turned into a festival of materialism for his children.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - The sermon contrasted the materialism of modern life with the simplicity of earlier generations.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - In the lecture we compared the materialism of Democritus with the idealism of Plato.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - Her new book argues that materialism does not make people happier once their basic needs are met.
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Usage
In everyday English materialism is almost always a criticism. Saying that a person, a family or a whole society suffers from materialism suggests that they judge success by what they own and spend too much effort on getting more. The word often appears in discussions of shopping seasons, advertising and social media, where people are encouraged to compare their belongings with those of others. A person described in this way is called materialistic, and this adjective is at least as common as the noun itself.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)The noun combines with adjectives such as rampant, crass, consumer and Western, and with verbs such as reject, criticise and turn away from. In philosophy it is found in fixed terms such as scientific materialism, which ties the view to the natural sciences, and dialectical and historical materialism, the names used for the philosophy of Marx and Engels. The person who holds the philosophical view is a materialist, a word that Webster (1913) explains as one who denies the existence of spiritual substances or agents.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Philosophical materialism began in ancient Greece. The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1911 names Democritus as the first systematic materialist: he taught that all things arise from the joining and separating of indivisible particles, the atoms, and that even the soul is made of atoms. The Roman poet Lucretius later set out the teaching of the Epicurean school in verse. According to the same encyclopedia, the classic period of materialism came in the eighteenth century, when La Mettrie wrote L'homme machine and Baron Holbach published the Système de la nature.
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C. Gutberlet, Materialism, The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 10, Robert Appleton Company, New York 1911, open sourceThe 1913 Webster records three senses: the doctrine of materialists, the tendency to give undue importance to material interests, and a rare, now obsolete use meaning material substances taken together, that is, matter itself. Only the first two are alive today. Materialism should also be kept apart from consumerism and from hedonism. Consumerism is about buying and using up goods, while hedonism is about pleasure of any kind; materialism names the value placed on material things themselves.
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Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913, open sourceWord forms
Regular forms according to English morphology (editorial description); the noun is mostly used without a plural.
word forms
| przypadek | forma |
|---|---|
| singular | materialism |
| plural | materialisms |
Word forms: Editorial team
Collocations
- rampant materialism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - consumer materialism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - reject materialism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - scientific materialism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - dialectical materialism
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Synonyms · Antonyms
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Etymology
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Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913, open sourcealso
C. Gutberlet, Materialism, The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 10, Robert Appleton Company, New York 1911, open sourceRelated words
- materialist , agent noun
- materialistic , adjective
- material , base adjective
- materiality , related noun
Related entries
Questions and answers
What does materialism mean?
In everyday speech materialism means caring too much about money and possessions. In philosophy it is the position that matter is the whole of reality and that thinking is something matter does.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)What is a materialistic person?
A materialistic person values things they can buy and own above other things in life, such as relationships or ideals. The word is usually critical, and the noun for the attitude is materialism.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Is materialism the same as consumerism?
Not quite. Consumerism is the habit or system of buying and using up goods, while materialism is the value a person places on material things. Materialism often drives consumerism, but the two words are not interchangeable.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Who was the first materialist philosopher?
The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1911 names Democritus, a Greek thinker who taught that everything, including the soul, is made of atoms. Lucretius later set out similar ideas of the Epicurean school in a long Latin poem.