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What does idealism mean?

Looking for the meaning or definition of the word idealism? Here's what it means.

Noun
  1. The property of a person of having high ideals that are usually unrealizable or at odds with practical life.
  2. The practice or habit of giving or attributing ideal form or character to things; treatment of things in art or literature according to ideal standards or patterns;—opposed to realism.
  3. (philosophy) An approach to philosophical enquiry, which asserts that direct and immediate knowledge can only be had of ideas or mental pictures.
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Even when people are motivated by challenge and idealism, pay and recognition remain important.
His shrewd assessment of political reality was wedded to a belief in the necessity of moral idealism in human affairs.
The first important school of thought to arise out of Kantian philosophy was the subjective idealism of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel.
Later, I shall deal with issues of idealism and realism in African film productions.
It's only when he leaps into the wild blue yonder of compassion, or idealism, or altruism, that he makes these hilarious mistakes.
Ah, how the heady idealism of youth is dashed upon the rocks of the pragmatism of adulthood.

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