User:Lucyintheskywithdada/Spiritualism (philosophy)

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Spiritualism is the philosophical doctrine that the ultimate reality in the universe is Spirit. This spirit has been characterized as (Pneuma, Nous, Reason, Logos) an over mind akin to human spirit, but pervading the entire universe as its ground and rational explanation. It is opposed to materialism. Sometimes used to denote the Idealistic view that nothing but an absolute Spirit and finite spirits exist. The world of sense in this view is a realm of ideas.[1]

The word spiritualism is used within philosophy to classify systems of thought that affirm the existence of realities beyond the physical realm, ie. a supernatural or spiritual world.[2] Philosophical spiritualism embraces a wide number of diverse philosophies, and can apply to any that accept the concepts of an immortal soul or god. It is associated with the philosophical school of idealism, especially in Europe.[3] Alfred Hegler first coined the term "Spiritualist".[4]

Contents

[edit] Philosophy of mind

Schleiermacher's philosophy of mind was found mainly on his lectures on psychology. It involved four central principles all of which have their roots in Herder's main work on the philosophy of mind, "On the Cognition and Sensation of the Human Soul (1778)". In the first, Schleiermacher argued for a strong dependence of the soul (or mind) on the body, and indeed for their identity whilst resisting reductionism in either direction. He argued that both what he called “spiritualism” (i.e. the reduction of the body to the mind) and “materialism” (i.e. the reduction of the mind to the body) are errors and referred instead to a non-reductive unity of mind and body that he instead champions as “life.”[5][6]

[edit] Difference between spiritualism and materialism within philosophy

Main article: Materialism

Philosophical spiritualism takes either the form of monism, i.e. as espoused by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, George Berkeley; or more moderate form[clarify] of dualism, e.g. Thomas Hobbes and Pierre Gassendi and Ludwig Feuerbach. In American, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Amos Bronson Alcott, (1799–1888)[7] Modern spiritualism, especially of the more extreme type, has its origins with Descartes and Leibniz. Historically, the early Greek philosophers tended generally towards materialism. Modern idealists, and philosophers advocating an extreme form of philosophical spiritualism, base their criticisms of materialism and their vindication of the reality of spiritual on a variety of grounds;[8]

At the level of “subjective culture”, spiritualism and materialistic sensibilities are confined to or self-contained in contexts deemed to be relevant to the life projects of the individual. it was thought that both identities were salient but a choice had to be made in any given situation as to which identity was ‘activated’ or ‘retrieved.’ While doing scientific analysis, spiritual predilections needed to be left at the door. Conversely, while spiritually engaged, the disenchantment and demystification associated with the human scientific enterprise need to be contained. At the level of “objective culture,” spiritualism and materialistic forms of consciousness are viewed as constituent of the human condition, and as indispensable components of the ideational division of labor.

The argument was that spiritualist and materialist frames of reference posed serious threats to each other and therefore need to be contained in light of this realization. From a spiritualist point of view, the human sciences with their penchant for demystification undermine the quest for the transcendent. As a result, the human sciences need to be prevented from “contaminating” the spiritual journey. From a materialist vantage point, spiritualism reeked of non-empirical superstition, impressionistic sentimentalism and therefore poses a serious threat to the analysis of the social order. In the case of the former, the two forms of consciousness are seen as complementary, not divergent. That is, they were recognized as different, but not necessarily incompatible.

However, the antagonisms were virulent, each “pushing the buttons” of the others buttons. From a spiritualist perspective, materialism was seen, not inaccurately, as a product of the Enlightenment, whose raison d’etre was to help establish a social order that was not grounded in Divine Law and religious traditions. The Enlightenment’s profound secularism drew the ire of many of the spiritually minded philosophers and most materialists were blatantly anti-religious. Their empirical or positivistic methodology was dismissive of that which could not be directly observed. Religion was becoming a subject for scientific investigation only, its substantive validity was excluded.[9]

[edit] Engels on the philosophical dichotomy of the 18th century

Friedrich Engels wrote that the culmination of science in the eighteenth century was materialism, the first system of natural philosophy and the consequence of this development of the natural sciences. The struggle against the abstract subjectivity of Christianity forced the philosophy of the eighteenth century to the other extreme; it opposed subjectivity with objectivity, the mind with nature, spiritualism with materialism.[7] The division drawn between the two was passionate and absolute.[10]

For him, the eighteenth century thus did not resolve the great antithesis which had been the concern of philosophers from the beginning and whose development constitutes philosophical history, the antithesis of substance and subject, nature and mind, necessity and freedom. Instead, it set the two sides against each other, fully developed and in all their sharpness, and thereby made it necessary to overcome the antithesis. The consequence of this clear final evolution of the antithesis was general revolution which spread over various nations and whose imminent completion will at the same time resolve the antithesis of history up to the present.

The Germans, said to be at the time the nation of Christian spiritualism, experienced a philosophical revolution; the French, the nation of classical materialism and hence of politics, had to go through a political revolution; the English, a nation that is a mixture of German and French elements, who therefore embody both sides of the antithesis and are for that reason more universal than either of the two factors taken separately, were for that reason drawn into a more universal, a social revolution. They converted its abstract inwardness into abstract outwardness, but this outwardness never lost the mark of its origin and always remained subordinate to inwardness and spiritualism.

The French were to be found on the side of materialism and empiricism; but because this empiricism is the primary national tendency and not a secondary consequence of a national consciousness divided within itself, it asserts itself nationally, generally and finds expression in political activity. The Germans asserted the absolute justification of spiritualism and hence sought to set forth the universal interests of mankind in religious and later in philosophic terms. The French opposed this spiritualism with materialism as something absolutely justified and consequently considered that the state was the eternal manifestation of these interests.

The result of taking philosophy as the point of departure was materialism (for which Newton was just as much a prerequisite as Locke), the Enlightenment and the French political revolution. The result of taking practice as the point of departure was the English social revolution.[11][12]

[edit] French Spiritualism

Émile Boutroux (1845), graduated from the École Normale Supérieure and influenced by the philosophy of Maine de Biran, whose work in the early nineteenth century laid the metaphysical foundations for modern French psychology. Boutroux encountered Biran's follower J. Lachelier, whose writings in logic and the philosophy of science proved particularly important to Boutroux's own work in the same. From 1869 to 1870, Boutroux continued his studies at Heidelberg University where he was introduced to German philosophy by his teacher Hermann von Helmholtz. Boutroux was elected a member of the Academy of the Moral and Political Sciences in 1898 and in 1902 he became Director of the Thiers Foundation. In 1912 he was elected to the Académie française, where he was a member from 1914.

As is reflected in his Gifford Lectures, Boutroux's work can be situated in a branch of philosophy known as French spiritualism, a school that reacted against the nineteenth century left-Hegelian philosophies of Materialism. Spiritualism aspired to preserve metaphysics and religion while simultaneously affirming the ongoing work of the natural sciences. In Boutroux this is reflected most prominently in his De la Contingence,[13] which suggests that physical determinism is only valid on the macro-physical scale whereas on the micro-physical scale there exists an indeterminacy that is too small to be detected by instrumentation. As such, science cannot always discover the necessary connections that exist in nature. His argument against absolute necessity implied that science could exist alongside religion and ethics. Whereas science uncovered information about certain lower domains of life, religion appealed to the highest manifestations of nature, namely the human spirit. Spirit, for Boutroux, transcends the possibilities of science, thus making metaphysics and the religious dimension indispensable facets of existence.[14]

See also, Henri Bergson, the spiritualism of André Lalande and the materialism of Edmond Goblot.

[edit] Chart of comparison

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Materialism Spiritualism
• Monism: only one substance exists, for materialism, this substance is matter. Dualism: two substances exists, matter & mind or in spiritualist monism, only mind exists.
• Humankind can be known or described by only matter. Humankind does not consist of only matter.
• Absence of beliefs in "supernatural"; atheism. Beliefs : God, soul, next world, reincarnation, superstitions, supernatural systems of explanation.
• Humankind has an illusion of autonomy. It is subjected to determinism or random. Humankind is autonomous or free.
• Self-consciousness is an illusion that is generated by the complexity of the organization of matter. Soul is autonomous.
• Absence of meaning to life. Humankind fixes itself his own destiny. Spiritual finality often of divine origin.
• Humankind, as an animal like another, is a part of nature. Humankind dominates nature.
• Humankind is a product of evolution. Creationism
• What are called "mysteries" are only questions unsolved by sciences. There are mysteries that the Humankind reason cannot and will never be able to solve.
• Our ignorance must be accepted. Ignorance is transformed into transcendence "stopgap" or substitute, like God.
• Priority is given to the research of the "how". Priority is given to the research of the "why".
• Knowledge. Faith.
• Perception. Speculation.

[edit] See also

People

Concepts

[edit] References

  1. ^ Runes, Dagobert D.; Jones, Rufus M. (2006). The Dictionary of Philosophy. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 0-80222-388-5. “Spiritualism: Spiritualism (1) is the doctrine that the ultimate reality in the universe is Spirit, (Pneuma, Nous, Reason, Logos) an over-mind akin to human spirit, but pervading the entire universe as its ground and rational explanation. It is opposed to materialism. Spiritualism (2) is sometimes used to denote the Idealistic view that nothing but an absolute Spirit and finite spirits exist. The world of sense in this view is a realm of ideas. Spiritualism (3) is used in religious terminology to emphasize the direct influence of the Holy Spirit in the sphere of religion and especially to indicate the teaching of St. John's Gospel that God is Spirit and that worship is direct correspondence of Spirit with spirit. Spiritualism (4) means the faith that spirits of the dead communicate with the living through persons who are "mediums" and through other forms of manifestation. The word Spiritism is more properly used for this faith.” 
  2. ^ Doyle, A.C. (1926). The History of Spiritualism. Cassell. “There has, however, been no time in the recorded history of the world when we do not find traces of preternatural interference and a tardy recognition of them from humanity” 
  3. ^ Schrift, A.D. (2005). Twentieth-Century French Philosophy: Key Themes And Thinkers. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 1-40513-218-3. “French surveys of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century philosophy typically organize their topic around three basic philosophical positions: positivism,idealism, and, situated between these two extremes, various versions of positions they call spiritualism. This division does not so neatly fit the figures discussed above, however, for while Ravaisson and Renouvier link their work to the spiritualist tradition, Renouvier is also strongly inclined toward Kantian idealism.” 
  4. '^ Alfred Hegler, Geist und Schrift bei Sebastian Franck: eine Studie zur Geschichte der Spiritualismus in der Reformationszeit (Freiburg: JCB Mohr, 1892).
  5. ^ Sigwart, C. (1857). "Schleiermachers psychologische Voraussetzungen, insbesondere die Begriffe des Gefühls und der Individualität" 2: 267-327. 
  6. ^ Gesamtausgabe der Werke Schleiermachers in drei Abteilungen (Berlin, 1838-)
  7. ^ a b Frothingham, O.B. (1876). Transcendentalism in New England: A History. GP Putnam's sons. “If among the representatives of spiritual philosophy the first place belongs to Mr. Emerson, the second must be assigned to Mr. Amos Bronson Alcott,—older than Mr. Emerson by four years (he was born in 1799), a contemporary in thought, a companion, for years a fellow townsman, and, if that were possible, more purely and exclusively a devotee of spiritual ideas ... Though a reader, and a constant and faithful one, his reading has been limited to books of poetry - chiefly of the meditative and interior sort - and works of spiritual philosophy. Plato, Plotinus, Proclus, Jamblichus, Pythagoras, Boehme, Swedenborg ...” 
  8. ^ Maher, Michael (1912). The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIV. Published 1912. New York: Robert Appleton Company. New York: Robert Appleton Company. “EVIDENCE FOR THE DOCTRINE OF SPIRITUALISM Whilst modern Idealists and writers advocating an extreme form of Spiritualism have frequently fallen into grievous error in their own positive systems, their criticisms of Materialism and their vindication of the reality of spiritual being seem to contain much sound argument and some valuable contributions, as was indeed to be expected, to this controversy.” 
  9. ^ Lenoir, R. (1923). "Emile Boutroux and the Modern Conscience". The Philosophical Review 32 (5): 491-511. 
  10. ^ Chesterton, G.K. (1995). Orthodoxy. Ignatius Press. ISBN 0-89870-552-5. “For we must remember that the materialist philosophy (whether true or not) is certainly much more limiting than any religion. In one sense, of course, all intelligent ideas are narrow. They cannot be broader than themselves. A Christian is only restricted in the same sense that an atheist is restricted. He cannot think Christianity false and continue to be a Christian; and the atheist cannot think atheism false and continue to be an atheist. But as it happens, there is a very special sense in which materialism has more restrictions than spiritualism ... But the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle.” 
  11. ^ Engels, Friedrich (1844). "The condition of the working class in England" No. 70. 
  12. ^ Kelley, D.R. (1998). Faces of History: Historical Inquiry from Herodotus to Herder. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-30012-062-1. “It is true, as Kelley maintains, that Enlightenment history took on different meanings based upon national prejudices. In general the Italians followed the lead of the humanists, the English and Scots were inspired by Bacon and Locke, the French reflected Cartesian rationalism and Lockean empiricism, and Germany followed Luther’s spiritualism, eclecticism and a kind of "proto-historicism."” 
  13. ^ Boutroux, E. (1895). De la contingence des lois de la nature. F. Alcan. 
  14. ^ http://www.giffordlectures.org/Author.asp?AuthorID=25

[edit] Bibliography

  • Tamm, J.M. (1979). "Materialism and spiritualism: the dualistic way of Western thinking.". Psychother Psychosom 31 (1-4): 344-9. 
  • Feuerbach, Ludwig Andreas (1863/4). "Concerning Spiritualism and Materialism, 1863/4". 
  • Bahm, A.J. (1947). "Spiritualism, materialism, organicism". Philosophical Quarterly: An Organ of the Indian Institute of Philosophy and the Indian Philosophical Congress 23: 105-108. 
  • Vitzthum, R.C. (1995). Materialism: An Affirmative History and Definition. Prometheus Books. 
  • Priestley, J. (1778). A Free Discussion of the Doctrines of Materialism, and Philosophical Necessity, in a Correspondence Between Dr. Price and Dr. Priestley.. Printed for J. Johnson, No. 72, St. Paul's Church-Yard, and T. Cadell, in the Strand. 
  • Cox, A.S. (1971). "Lucretius and His Message: A Study in the Prologues of the De Rerum Natura". Greece & Rome 18 (1): 1-16. 
  • Sellars, R.W. (1951). "The Spiritualism of Lavelle and le Senne". Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 11 (3): 386-393. 
  • Frothingham, O.B. (1876). Transcendentalism in New England: A History. GP Putnam's sons. “Hume started Kant on his long and severe course of investigation, the result of which was, that neither of the antagonist parties could sustain itself: that Descartes was wrong in asserting that such abstract ideas as causality, infinity, substance, time, space, are independent of experience, since without experience they would not exist ... It is idle to dispute whether knowledge comes from one source or another - from without through sensation, or from within through intuition; the everlasting battle between idealism and realism, spiritualism and materialism, can never result in victory to either side” 
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