Meaning

(philosophy) Someone who advocates possibilism, the position that things do not need to actually exist in order to have properties..

Definitions by Sense

1. (philosophy) Someone who advocates possibilism, the position that things do not need to actually exist in order to have properties.
2. (socialism, historical) A socialist who advocates focusing on small, achievable forms of immediate progress rather than an all-or-nothing commitment to revolution.
3. (philosophy) Someone who neither hopes without reason, nor fears without reason. Someone who uses analysis of data to understand the relative probability of future possibilities, instead of relying on intuition, emotions, personal experience, dogma, superstition, mainstream thought, or mental models (e.g., pessimism or optimism).

Example Sentences

Unless the actualist can adduce reasons to believe an explanation for @’s actuality, therefore, she will be at a disadvantage to the possibilist who believes all worlds to be on metaphysical par.

As early as 1881, the possibilists had won considerable backing in Parisian municipal elections;

People often call me an optimist, because I show them the enormous progress they didn't know about. That makes me angry. I'm not an optimist. That makes me sound naive. I'm a very serious “possibilist”. That’s something I made up. It means someone who neither hopes without reason, nor fears without reason, someone who constantly resists the overdramatic worldview. As a possibilist, I see all this progress, and it fills me with conviction and hope that further progress is possible. This is not optimistic. It is having a clear and reasonable idea about how things are. It is having a worldview that is constructive and useful.;

Word Forms

• possibilists

Antonyms for possibilist

Related Words

When Should You Use Possibilist?

Use possibilist when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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