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HandWiki. Philistinism. Encyclopedia. Available online: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/35659 (accessed on 01 October 2026).
HandWiki. Philistinism. Encyclopedia. Available at: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/35659. Accessed October 01, 2026.
HandWiki. "Philistinism" Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/35659 (accessed October 01, 2026).
HandWiki. (2022, November 22). Philistinism. In Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/35659
HandWiki. "Philistinism." Encyclopedia. Web. 22 November, 2022.
Philistinism
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In the fields of philosophy and æsthetics, the derogatory term philistinism describes “the manners, habits, and character, or mode of thinking of a philistine”, manifested as an anti-intellectual social attitude that undervalues and despises art and beauty, intellect and spirituality. A philistine person is a man or woman of smugly narrow mind and of conventional morality whose materialistic views and tastes indicate a lack of and an indifference to cultural and æsthetic values. Since the 19th century, the contemporary denotation of philistinism, as the behaviour of "ignorant, ill-behaved persons lacking in culture or artistic appreciation, and only concerned with materialistic values" derives from Matthew Arnold's adaptation to English of the German word Philister, as applied by university students in their antagonistic relations with the townspeople of Jena, Germany, where, in 1689, a row resulted in several deaths. In the aftermath, the university cleric addressed the town-vs-gown matter with an admonishing sermon "The Philistines Be Upon Thee", drawn from the Book of Judges (Chapt. 16, 'Samson vs the Philistines'), of the Tanakh and of the Christian Old Testament. In Word Research and Word History, the philologist Friedrich Kluge said that the word philistine originally had a positive meaning that identified a tall and strong man, such as Goliath; later the meaning changed to identify the "guards of the city".

philistinism philosophy philologist

References

  1. Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language – Unabridged (1951) p. 1260
  2. Nabokov, Lectures on Literature, lecture on Madame Bovary
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