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Atomism

noun

(psychology) a theory that reduces all mental phenomena to simple elements (sensations and feelings) that form complex ideas by association.

(chemistry) any theory in which all matter is composed of tiny discrete finite indivisible indestructible particles. Synonyms: atomic theory, atomist theory, atomistic theory.

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"Atomism" Quotes from Famous Books

... he summed up his view of nature in the words: "Everything flows"; of Empedocles, who found his explanation of the world in the combination of the four elements, since become traditional, earth, water, fire, and air; of Democritus, who developed a materialistic atomism which reminds one strongly of the doctrine of atoms as it has appeared in modern science; of Anaxagoras, who traced the system of things to the setting in order of an infinite multiplicity of different elements,—"seeds of things,"—which setting in order was due to the activity ...

— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton

... But atomism has not been by any means universally regarded as the most satisfactory conception of the relation between space and matter. Not only does it require two kinds of being, with the different attributes of extension ...

— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry

... This is the first stage of reflection. The world exists for it as an innumerable congeries of things, each one independent of the other, and possessing self-existence. It is the stand-point from which atomism would be adopted as the philosophic system. Ask it what the ultimate principle of existence is, and ...

— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz

... fastened everywhere upon the aspects of life least suggestive of either iron uniformity or harmonious evolution. The abrupt demarcations which he everywhere imposes or discovers were the symptom of a primitive ingrained atomism of thought which all the synthetic strivings of a God-intoxicated intellect could ...

— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford

... on immortality was not without its natural results. They explored the world of metaphysical speculation. There is scarcely an hypothesis advanced by philosophers in ancient or modern times, which may not be found in the Brahmanical writings. "We find in the writings of these Hindus materialism, atomism, pantheism, Pyrrhonism, idealism. They anticipated Plato, Kant, and Hegel. They could boast of their Spinozas and their Humes long before Alexander dreamed of crossing the Indus. From them the Pythagoreans borrowed a great part of their mystical philosophy, of their doctrine of transmigration of ...

— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... conception is seductive from a certain standpoint: for some time the tendency has been toward atomism. Matter appears to us as formed of indivisible atoms; electricity is no longer continuous, not infinitely divisible. It resolves itself into equally-charged electrons; we have also now the magneton, or atom of magnetism. From ...

— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick