idealist
(aɪˈdiːəlɪst)
[f. ideal + -ist; cf. F. idéaliste (18th c. in Hatz.-Darm.).]
1. Philos. One who holds a doctrine of idealism: see prec. 1. In first quot. One who holds the Platonic doctrine of ideas.
| 1701 Norris Ideal World i. iii. 182, I look upon St. Austin to be as great an Idealist as any in the world, and considering his authority, the greatest patron of the Ideal philosophy. 1737 W. Law On the Sacrament 42 The Letter of Scripture..that makes speculative Christians, Idealists, Critics, and Grammarians fall into Infidelity. 1803 W. Taylor in Monthly Mag. XV. 321 Nothing would remain tenable..but the system of the idealists. a 1810 D. Stewart Philos. Ess. ii. i. 56 Whereas Berkeley was sincerely and bona fide an idealist, Hume's leading object, in his metaphysical writings, plainly was to inculcate a universal scepticism. 1842 Emerson Addr., Transcendent. Wks. (Bohn) II. 279 As thinkers, mankind have ever divided into two sects, Materialists and Idealists; the first class founding on experience, the second on consciousness. 1855 H. Spencer Princ. Psychol. (1872) II. vii. xix. 500 Berkeley was not an Idealist: he never succeeded in expelling the consciousness of an external reality. |
2. One who idealizes; an artist or writer who treats a subject imaginatively. Opposed to realist.
| 1805 Mackintosh in Life (1836) I. v. 232, I called Milton an idealist. 1861 Tulloch Eng. Purit. ii. 284 Owen was the great dogmatist of the Puritan theological movement, Howe was its contemplative idealist. 1896 Times 27 Jan. 9 Once or twice this idealist, this formalist as his critics called him [Ld. Leighton], produced a portrait..which showed that he could turn at pleasure to realism. |
3. One who conceives, or follows after ideals. Sometimes depreciatively, One who cherishes visionary or unpractical notions.
| 1829 Lytton Disowned (ed. 2) II. iii. 37 Findlater, you are a sceptic and an idealist. 1851 Dixon W. Penn vi. (1872) 54 The politics of Fox had..their attraction for this idealist. 1884 Church Bacon iii. 59 He was no mere idealist or recluse to undervalue or despise the real grandeur of the world. |
4. attrib. or as adj. = next.
| 1875 Jowett Plato (ed. 2) I. 421 Philosophers of the idealist school. 1884 in Littell's Living Age 16 Feb. 427 In a tender idealist exaltation. 1885 Athenæum 9 May 593/3 The various stages which the idealist problem has taken in modern philosophy. |