pre-establishedadj.
/ˌpriːᵻˈstablɪʃt/, U.S. /ˌpriᵻˈstæblɪʃt/ Established beforehand or in advance.
ΚΠ
1643 Priviledges of Parl. 3 (heading) Whether it be in the power of a Parliament called by Writs to alter pre-established State-government.
1700 N. Malebranche Treat. conc. Search after Truth 176 These Sentences according to the pre-establish'd Principle, must be explain'd in the Literal Sense.
1764 E. Gibbon tr. Ess. Study Lit. 141 He is supposed incapable of acting otherwise than agreeable to the pre-established laws of the Deity.
1852 G. Grote Hist. Greece IX. ii. lxxi. 222 His preestablished reputation and the habit of obeying his orders.
1883 Trans. Anthropol. Soc. Washington 3 37 The efficiency of competition itself in human progress depends primarily on pre-established justice.
1912 Jrnl. Nerv. & Mental Dis. 39 774 Is the comparative incapacity of the nervous system to regenerate due to..absence of preestablished routes, or to some peculiar defect in the Schwann cells?
1963 Times 17 Apr. 15/7 Shipments of beef are effected on the basis of preestablished shipping schedules.
2000 Terminol. Work: Vocab. II. 12/1 Database, collection of data..organized according to a pre-established structure.
Compounds
pre-established harmony n. [after French harmonie préétablie (1710 in Leibniz); compare post-classical Latin harmonia praestabilitata (1739 in Leibniz, or earlier)] Philosophy (in Leibniz's philosophy) the theory that God so devised the monads (see monad n. 2) at creation that they appear to interact causally, although no communication actually exists between them; the organization of the universe as posited by this theory (as a proposed solution to the mind-body problem).
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1728 E. Chambers Cycl. at Harmony A pre-establish'd Harmony between the Kingdoms of Nature and Grace.
1799 C. Butler Acct. Life & Writings A. Butler 10 He did not admire them [sc. the works of Woolfe and Leibnitz], and thought the system of pre-established harmony laid down in them, irreconcileable with the received belief or opinions of the Roman Catholic Church on the soul.
1900 B. Russell Crit. Expos. Philos. Leibnitz (1937) xi. 136 To explain how preconceptions give knowledge of present external things, Leibnitz [sic] invented the..pre-established harmony.
2001 Philos. Rev. 110 45 A second important a priori defense of unconscious perception rests on Leibniz's principle of pre-established harmony.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2007; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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