Meanings
plural sensualisms
- countableuncountableAddiction to or obsession with sensual pleasures or affairs.
- countableuncountableethicsThe doctrine that gratification of the senses is the highest good.
- countableuncountableepistemologyThe 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 Encyclopedia1 more example
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.
Synonyms & antonyms
noun(philosophy) the ethical doctrine that feeling is the only criterion for what is good
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
Translations
Czech senzualismus
- senzualismusdoctrine: gratification is highest good
Finnish sensualismi, sensualismi
- sensualismidoctrine: gratification is highest good
- sensualismidoctrine: everything reduces to transformed sensation
French sensualisme
- sensualismedoctrine: everything reduces to transformed sensation
Greek αισθησιαρχία, αισθησιοκρατία
- αισθησιαρχία (aisthisiarchía)doctrine: everything reduces to transformed sensation
- αισθησιοκρατία (aisthisiokratía)doctrine: everything reduces to transformed sensation
- σενσουαλισμός (sensoualismós)doctrine: everything reduces to transformed sensation
Italian sensualismo
- sensualismodoctrine: everything reduces to transformed sensation
Polish sensualizm, sensualizm
- sensualizmobsession with sensual pleasures
- sensualizmdoctrine: gratification is highest good
- sensualizmdoctrine: everything reduces to transformed sensation
Russian сенсуализм
- сенсуализм (sensualizm)doctrine: everything reduces to transformed sensation
Spanish sensualismo
- sensualismodoctrine: everything reduces to transformed sensation
Cite this entry
sensualism. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sensualism
“sensualism.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sensualism. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “sensualism,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sensualism.
Source: sensualism on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.