1.
2.
[syn: naturalism, realism]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
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.]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
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: naturalism, realism]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
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