naturalism

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun Factual or realistic representation, especially.
• noun The practice of describing precisely the actual circumstances of human life in literature.
• noun The practice of reproducing subjects as precisely as possible in the visual arts.
• noun A movement or school advocating such precise representation.
• noun The principles and methods of such a movement or of its adherents.
• noun Philosophy The system of thought holding that all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes and laws.
• noun Theology The doctrine that all religious truths are derived from nature and natural causes and not from revelation.
• noun Conduct or thought prompted by natural desires or instincts.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A state of nature; uncivilized or unregenerate condition.
• noun Conformity to nature or to reality; a close adherence to nature in the arts of painting, sculpture, poetry, etc.: opposed to idealism, and implying less of crudeness than realism.
• noun Specifically, in the fine arts, the rendering of nature, as it is, by the arts of design, but without either slavish fidelity or attempt at illusion. It is the mean between idealism and realism.
• noun In philosophy, that view of the world, and especially of man and human history and society, which takes account only of natural (as distinguished from supernatural) elements and forces.
• noun In theology:
• noun The doctrine that natural religion is sufficient for salvation.
• noun The doctrine that all religious truth is derived from a study of nature without any supernatural revelation, and that all religious life is a natural development unaided by supernatural influences.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun A state of nature; conformity to nature.
• noun (Metaph.) The doctrine of those who deny a supernatural agency in the miracles and revelations recorded in the Bible, and in spiritual influences; also, any system of philosophy which refers the phenomena of nature to a blind force or forces acting necessarily or according to fixed laws, excluding origination or direction by one intelligent will.
• noun The theory that art or literature should conform to nature; realism; also, the quality, rendering, or expression of art or literature executed according to this theory.
• noun The principles and characteristics professed or represented by a 19th-century school of realistic writers, notably by Zola and Maupassant, who aimed to give a literal transcription of reality, and laid special stress on the analytic study of character, and on the scientific and experimental nature of their observation of life.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A state of nature; conformity to nature.
• noun Metaphaphoric: The doctrine that denies a supernatural agency in the miracles and revelations recorded in the Bible, and in spiritual influences
• noun philosophy Any system of philosophy which refers the phenomena of nature as a blind force or forces acting necessarily or according to fixed laws, excluding origination or direction by a will.
• noun philosophy A doctrine which denies a strong separation between scientific and philosophic methodologies and/or topics
• noun art A movement in theatre, film, and literature that seeks to replicate a believable everyday reality, as opposed to such movements as Romanticism or Surrealism, in which subjects may receive highly symbolic, idealistic, or even supernatural treatment.
• noun naturism, social nudity.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun (philosophy) the doctrine that the world can be understood in scientific terms without recourse to spiritual or supernatural explanations
• noun an artistic movement in 19th century France; artists and writers strove for detailed realistic and factual description