| 释义 |
materialism|məˈtɪərɪəlɪz(ə)m|
[a. mod.L. māteriālismus, f. L. māteriāl-is material a.: see -ism. Cf. F. matérialisme (1751 in Hatz.-Darm.).]
1. Philos. The opinion that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications; also, in a more limited sense, the opinion that the phenomena of consciousness and will are wholly due to the operation of material agencies. Often applied by opponents to views that are considered logically to lead to these conclusions, or to involve the attribution to material causes of effects that should be referred to spiritual causes.
1748Needham in Phil. Trans. XLV. 665 Not that I imagined that..you..would think my Principles any way tending to Materialism. 1758Gray Let. 18 Aug. Wks. 1888 II. 373, I am as sorry as you seem to be, that our acquaintance harped so much on the subject of materialism. 1823Coleridge Table-t. 3 Jan., ‘And man became a living soul’. Materialism will never explain these last words. 1877E. Caird Philos. Kant ii. 13 Sensationalism necessitates materialism, for it must explain sensations as impressions made by a material object. 1898J. R. Illingworth Div. Immanence vi. 137 The mechanical automaton that materialism believes him [viz. man] always to be.
2. Transferred uses.
a. Applied in reproach to theological views (e.g. on the operation of the sacraments or the nature of the future life) that are supposed to imply a defective sense of the reality of things purely spiritual.
1850Robertson Serm. iii. vii. (1863) 103 The miserable materialism of the mass. 1898J. R. Illingworth Div. Immanence vi. 143 The growth of the sacramental system was an historical necessity; which, despite of the religious materialism into which it too frequently lapsed [etc.].
b. In art, the tendency to lay stress on the material aspect of the objects represented.
1850A. Jameson Leg. Monast. Ord. (1863) 421, I give a sketch from a Spanish picture just to show the materialism of the conception. 1852― Leg. Madonna (1857) Introd. 33 The grand materialism of Michael Angelo is supposed to have been allied to the genius of Dante.
c. Devotion to material needs or desires, to the neglect of spiritual matters; a way of life, opinion, or tendency based entirely upon material interests.
1851Hawthorne Snow Image (1879) 31 The stubborn materialism of her husband. 1857Toulmin Smith Parish 505 Good old customs, which modern selfishness and cold materialism shrink from. 1899W. R. Inge Chr. Mysticism viii. 317 Teutonic civilization..is prevented from sinking into moral materialism by its high standard of domestic life. 1903A. & E. Castle Star Dreamer 24, I fear..you will never rise beyond the grossest everyday materialism.
¶3. concr. The system of material things; the material universe.
1817Chalmers Astron. Disc. vii. 231 He, who instead of seeing the traces of a manifold wisdom in its manifold varieties, sees nothing in them all but the exquisite structures and the lofty dimensions of materialism. Ibid. 233. |