noun
definition
A theory that association (of experiences etc) is the basis of consciousness and mental activity
Examples of associationism in a Sentence
Finally, the psychology of Hobbes, though too undeveloped to guide the thoughts or even perhaps arrest the attention of Locke, when essaying the scientific analysis of knowledge, came in course of time (chiefly through James Mill) to be connected with the theory of associationism developed from within the school of Locke, in different ways, by Hartley and Hume; nor is it surprising that the later associationists, finding their principle more distinctly formulated in the earlier thinker, should sometimes have been betrayed into affiliating themselves to Hobbes rather than to Locke.
In uniting with this the Associationism which he inherited, through his father, from Hume, he revealed at once the strength and weakness of the dual conception of naturalism.
So again in determining the " import " of propositions, it is no accident that in all save existential propositions it is to the familiar rubrics of associationism - co-existence, sequence, causation and resemblance - that he refers for classification, while his general formula as to the conjunctions of connotations is associationist through and through.
To the second problem there are two main answers, that of Associationism which denies to the mind any a priori existence and asserts that sensation is the only source of knowledge, and that which admits the existence of both transcendental and empirical knowledge.