internalist
internalist adjective: holding that a particular mental phenomenon, such as motivation or justification, has an internal rather than external basis.
Adjective
internalist (comparative more internalist, superlative most internalist)
- Holding that a particular mental phenomenon, such as motivation or justification, has an internal rather than external basis
- For one thing, many people regard rationality as an epistemically internalist notion, whereas reliability is a paradigmatic example of an epistemically externalist notion.2008 December 6, Sanford C. Goldberg, “Reliabilism in philosophy”, in Philosophical Studies, volume 142, number 1, →DOI
Noun
internalist (plural internalists)
- A supporter of internalism
- Perhaps I will appear presumptuous and misguided in claiming to explain the debate between internalists and externalists, for some would insist that there are a variety of related debates that get discussed under the heading of internalism and externalism.2007 July 12, Harold Langsam, “Rationality, Justification, and the Internalism/Externalism Debate”, in Erkenntnis, volume 68, number 1, →DOI
Forms of internalist
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more internalist |
| superlative | most internalist |
| Noun | |
| plural | internalists |
Origin of internalist
From internal + -ist.
Questions about internalist
- What does internalist mean?
- Internalist means holding that a particular mental phenomenon, such as motivation or justification, has an internal rather than external basis.
- What part of speech is internalist?
- Internalist can be an adjective or a noun.
Words near internalist in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: internalist (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “internalist.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/internalist. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.