Objectivist

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An advocate of a philosophical viewpoint that affirms reality's independence from perceptions while asserting that knowledge derives from objective facts
2. A supporter of the ideology that prioritizes individual rights and capitalism as vital for personal and societal development grounded in rational thought
3. A proponent of a philosophy emphasizing the pursuit of reason and objective reality as essential for understanding existence and fostering individual freedom

Etymology: Ayn Rand, the Russian-born novelist of "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged," gave her name to a philosophy she called Objectivism, and "objectivist" is simply the name for someone who follows it. The word is built from "objective" and the suffix "-ist," which marks a person who adheres to a doctrine, a practice, or a school of thought. That suffix has a long pedigree: it passed into English through Old French from Latin "-ista," which in turn was borrowed from Greek "-istēs," a agent-forming ending found in words like "artist" and "cyclist." The base "objective" carries its own twist. It comes from Late Latin "obiectivus," from the Latin "obicere," meaning to throw or place before, so an object is literally something thrown in front of the mind or senses. Philosophers used "objective" for things existing outside the mind long before Rand, so her followers took a term with an older, more technical sense and applied it to a whole system of thought about reality, reason and self-interest.

Synonyms: realist, pragmatist

Antonyms: subjectivist