Dictionary

sensualism en · NOUN

Etymology

Etymology tree English sensual Proto-Indo-European *-id- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti Proto-Hellenic *-íd͏̌d͏̌ō Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō) Proto-Indo-European *-mos Proto-Indo-European *-mós Ancient Greek -μός (-mós) Ancient Greek -ισμός (-ismós)der. English -ism English sensualism From sensual + -ism.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) Addiction to or obsession with sensual pleasures or affairs.
2. (countable, uncountable) The doctrine that gratification of the senses is the highest good.
3. (countable, uncountable) The doctrine that all knowledge not only originates in sensation, but are transformed sensations, copies or relics of sensations; sensationalism.
   • For Sensualism the only source of human knowledge is sensation: everything reduces to transformed sensations. 1913, “Philosophy”, in Catholic Encyclopedia:
   • 1858, The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, No. 1, Gottfried Wilhem von Leibnitz, He [Locke] repudiated any supposed dowry of original truths or innate or connate ideas, and endeavored to show how, by acting on the report of the senses and personal experience, the understanding arrives at all the ideas of which it is conscious. The mode of procedure in this case is empiricism; the result with Locke was sensualism,--more fully developed by Condillac, [18] in the next century.
4. (countable, uncountable) A sensual style or aesthetic.

Forms

Relateds

sensualist · sensuality · sensually

Synonyms

sensationalism

Translations (14)

ru сенсуализм (doctrine: everything reduces to transformed sensation) · el σενσουαλισμός (doctrine: everything reduces to transformed sensation) · pl sensualizm (doctrine: gratification is highest good) · it sensualismo (doctrine: everything reduces to transformed sensation) · es sensualismo (doctrine: everything reduces to transformed sensation) · pl sensualizm (obsession with sensual pleasures) · be сэнсуалізм (doctrine: everything reduces to transformed sensation) · cs senzualismus (doctrine: gratification is highest good) · pl sensualizm (doctrine: everything reduces to transformed sensation) · fr sensualisme (doctrine: everything reduces to transformed sensation) · el αισθησιοκρατία (doctrine: everything reduces to transformed sensation) · fi sensualismi (doctrine: everything reduces to transformed sensation) · fi sensualismi (doctrine: gratification is highest good) · el αισθησιαρχία (doctrine: everything reduces to transformed sensation)