Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The use of or reliance on voluntary action to maintain an institution, carry out a policy, or achieve an end.
- noun A theory or doctrine that regards the will as the fundamental principle of the individual or of the universe.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The metaphysical opinion that all existence and all actual happening is of the nature of an individual effort (against a resistance) which has on each occasion a peculiar conscious quality and is also discriminative or, at least rudimentally, purposive, and so cognitive. In so far as this opinion makes cognition essentially purposive, it agrees, in effect, with pragmatism from which, however, it differs in being a metaphysical hypothesis founded on arguments drawn from psychology, instead of being a maxim of logic deduced from an analysis of the nature of signs.
- noun A type of psychological theory, which regards the will as fundamental, and accordingly emphasizes the volitional rather than the intellectual aspect of our nature: ordinarily opposed to intellectualism.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Philosophy) Any theory which conceives will to be the dominant factor in experience or in the constitution of the world; -- contrasted with
intellectualism . Schopenhauer and Fichte are typical exponents of the two types of metaphysical voluntarism, Schopenhauer teaching that the evolution of the universe is the activity of a blind and irrational will, Fichte holding that the intelligent activity of the ego is the fundamental fact of reality. - noun the principle or practice of depending on volunteers to support institutions or perform some desired action.
- noun a political philosophy opposed to dependence on governmental action or support for social services that might be performed by private groups.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun US a reliance on
volunteers to support aninstitution or achieve an end;volunteerism - noun philosophy a doctrine that assigns the most dominant position to the
will rather than theintellect - noun politics the political theory that a community is best organized by the voluntary cooperation of individuals, rather than by a government, which is regarded as being coercive by nature.
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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As we think globally, and we must think that way today, voluntarism is critical to the strengthening of local communities.
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I owe them thanks for my deep-seated roots in voluntarism, and I thank the Junior Leagues for helping me, to acquire the skills that I need to give back positively to the communities that so generously helped my family.
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Second, the denial of the right to strike would be incompatible with tradition and would strip the element of voluntarism from the labour agreement which is, after all, the objective of the process of collective bargaining as we understand it.
The Canadian Labour Congress and Free Trade Unions Throughout the World 1957
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Well where’s the voluntarism from the bank bailouts that Bush started and Obama continued?
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If there are any honorable friends of mine who are opposed to compulsion, the most effective service they can render to voluntarism is to make this army a success.
New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 Various
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German scientist, whose school of thought is called voluntarism, considers the motive-force of Energy to be something that may be called
A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga William Walker Atkinson 1897
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The antithesis is also misinterpreted, or at least wrongly narrowed, if it is called voluntarism _versus_ associationism.
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He dealt with them at the grass roots-level, as a community organizer (Since when do the Republicans, the party of "voluntarism" and "faith-based initiatives" and "compassionate conservatism," sneer at individuals who choose community service over self-aggrandizement?).
Jeffrey C. Issac: What Experience Really Means in Presidential Politics 2008
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I have added the emphasis in those last few sentences, ones that criticize Duns Scotus and others for what philosophers call their "voluntarism" about God.
What one finds in the Deus absconditus Mike L 2006
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I have added the emphasis in those last few sentences, ones that criticize Duns Scotus and others for what philosophers call their "voluntarism" about God.
Archive 2006-10-01 Mike L 2006
ruzuzu commented on the word voluntarism
"The metaphysical opinion that all existence and all actual happening is of the nature of an individual effort (against a resistance) which has on each occasion a peculiar conscious quality and is also discriminative or, at least rudimentally, purposive, and so cognitive. In so far as this opinion makes cognition essentially purposive, it agrees, in effect, with pragmatism from which, however, it differs in being a metaphysical hypothesis founded on arguments drawn from psychology, instead of being a maxim of logic deduced from an analysis of the nature of signs."
--Cent. Dict.
October 30, 2012