Naturalism

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Naturalism \Nat"u*ral*ism\, n. [Cf. F. naturalisme.]
     1. A state of nature; conformity to nature.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. (Metaph.) The doctrine of those who deny a supernatural
        agency in the miracles and revelations recorded in the


        Bible, and in spiritual influences; also, any system of
        philosophy which refers the phenomena of nature to a blind
        force or forces acting necessarily or according to fixed
        laws, excluding origination or direction by one
        intelligent will.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. The theory that art or literature should conform to
        nature; realism; also, the quality, rendering, or
        expression of art or literature executed according to this
        theory.
        [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
  
     4. Specifically: The principles and characteristics professed
        or represented by a 19th-century school of realistic
        writers, notably by Zola and Maupassant, who aimed to give
        a literal transcription of reality, and laid special
        stress on the analytic study of character, and on the
        scientific and experimental nature of their observation of
        life.
        [Webster 1913 Suppl.]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  naturalism
       n 1: (philosophy) the doctrine that the world can be understood
            in scientific terms without recourse to spiritual or
            supernatural explanations
       2: an artistic movement in 19th century France; artists and
          writers strove for detailed realistic and factual
          description [syn: {realism}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  70 Moby Thesaurus words for "naturalism":
     Marxism, absolute realism, animalism, artlessness, atomism,
     authenticity, behaviorism, bona fideness, commonsense realism,
     dialectical materialism, earthliness, empiricism, epiphenomenalism,
     genuineness, health, historical materialism, honesty, hylomorphism,
     hylotheism, hylozoism, inartificiality, legitimacy, lifelikeness,
     literalism, literality, literalness, materialism, mechanism,
     natural realism, naturalness, nature, naturism, new realism,
     normalcy, normality, normalness, order, photographic realism,
     physicalism, physicism, positive philosophy, positivism,
     pragmaticism, pragmatism, propriety, realism, realness, regularity,
     representative realism, secularism, sincerity, substantialism,
     temporality, true-to-lifeness, truth to nature, unadulteration,
     unaffectation, unaffectedness, unartificialness, unassumingness,
     undisguise, unfictitiousness, unpretentiousness, unspeciousness,
     unspoiledness, unspuriousness, unsyntheticness, verisimilitude,
     wholesomeness, worldliness