naturalism

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: nat=u=ral=ism

CIDE DICTIONARY

naturalism, n. [Cf. F. naturalisme.].

•  A state of nature; conformity to nature.  [1913 Webster]
•  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]
•  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.]
•  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.]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

naturalism, n.
1 the theory or practice in art and literature of representing nature, character, etc. realistically and in great detail.
2 a Philos. a theory of the world that excludes the supernatural or spiritual. b any moral or religious system based on this theory.
3 action based on natural instincts.
4 indifference to conventions.

Etymology

NATURAL, in Philos. after F naturalisme

THESAURUS

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