negativistn.adj.

1861 Vanity Fair (N.Y.) May 228 ‘Pardon me, sir,’ said the polite negativist, ‘but..I so posed you that you look Slighter in the photograph.’

1873 L. Stephen Ess. Freethinking 190 A positivist, or a negativist, or a materialist.

a1876 M. Collins Thoughts in Garden (1880) I. 271 The atheists and negativists of the day fondly fancy..they would produce a perfect civilisation.

1961 K. Tynan Curtains i. 177 The words he utters are those of an anarch, of a logical negativist who believes that nothing in the dictionary has a verifiable meaning.

1970 Jrnl. Philos. 67 484 To this, the Negativist has, I think, the following cogent reply.

1981 R. M. Bramson Coping with Difficult People 102 Negativists are able to gain such power over others because they tap that potential for despair in each of us.

1996 F. C. Wendel et al. Outstanding School Administrators vii. 109 The complexity of introducing change is compounded when staff members who are to implement a change are also negativists toward the change.

1898 W. L. Courtney Life J. S. Mill i. 15 It is not quite clear when he [sc. James Mill] first adopted the negativist attitude towards religion which he imparted to his son.

1918 Philos. Rev. 27 546 A concept which..would..have relieved Spencer of his entire negativist metaphysics.

1927 J. S. Huxley Relig. without Revelation i. 52 They have..rejected the whole ground of divinity.., and so been forced into a negativist attitude, compelled to satisfy their natural and normal religious needs in other ways and other spheres.

1958 W. Stark Sociol. of Knowl. 317 The main representatives of this doctrine which..we wish to label the negativist theory, are..Nietzsche and..Pareto.

1988 Jrnl. Econ. Hist. 48 227 This negativist attitude toward politics and politicians is not accompanied by positivist attitudes toward the ideology of capitalism and markets.