In philosophy, spiritualism is the concept, shared by a wide variety of systems of thought, that there is an immaterial reality that cannot be perceived by the senses.Encyclopædia Britannica, "Spiritualism (in philosophy)", britannica.com This includes philosophies that postulate a personal God, the immortality of the soul, or the immortality of the intellect or will, as well as any systems of thought that assume a universal mind or cosmic forces lying beyond the reach of purely materialistic interpretations.
Generally, any philosophical position, be it dualism, monism, atheism, theism, pantheism, idealism or any other, is compatible with spiritualism as long as it allows for a reality beyond matter. Theism is an example of a dualist spiritualist philosophy, while pantheism is an example of monist spiritualism.
As a philosophical tradition, spiritualism was especially associated with 19th- and early 20th-century French thought.Gary Gutting, French Philosophy in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 9.Tullio Viola, "Spiritualism as a Philosophy of Culture: Ravaisson and Boutroux" in Mark Sinclair (ed.), and Daniel Whistler (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Modern French Philosophy, Oxford UP, 2024, pp. 89–106. emphasised the metaphysical and ethical primacy of the individual mind, opposing both materialist and empiricist reductions of mental life and forms of idealism that subordinated the individual to an absolute spirit.
Notable spiritualist thinkers
Aristotle F. H. Bradley Giovanni Gentile William Ernest Hocking Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Pindar Plato Josiah Royce
French spiritualists
Henri Bergson Maine de BiranSu-Young Park-Hwang (1998), L'habitude dans le spiritualisme français: Maine de Biran, Ravaisson, Bergson, Presses Universitaires du Septentrion. Maurice Blondel Émile Boutroux Léon Brunschvicg Elme Marie Caro Jacques Chevalier Victor CousinRoutledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Brahman to Derrida, Taylor & Francis, 1998, p. 10: "Victor Cousin's eclectic spiritualism". René Descartes Alfred Fouillée Alphonse Gratry Paul Janet Théodore Jouffroy Jules Lachelier Louis Lavelle Jules Lequier René Lesenne Léon Ollé-Laprune Maurice Pradines Félix Ravaisson Émile Saisset Étienne Souriau
See also Metaphysics Sensualism Spiritualism (religious movement) Spiritualism (Wallace)
Notes
Citations
Sources Dominique Janicaud, Une Généalogie du spiritualisme français. Aux sources du bergsonisme : Ravaisson et la métaphysique, La Haye, M. Nijhoff, 1969.