abderitism

Meaning

Noun

• The theory that humanity's morality will never advance beyond its present state.

Origin

• From German Abderitismus, from Abderit + -ismus, from Ancient Greek Ἀβδηρῑ́της ("Abderite") because of the Abderites’ famed foolishness and stupidity in classical Greece. It is equivalent to Abderite + -ism. The German term was coined by the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) in Der Streit der Fakultäten (The Conflict of the Faculties, 1798).