philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

, spiritualism is the concept, shared by a wide variety of systems of thought, that there is an

immaterial Immaterial may refer to: * The opposite of matter, material, materialism, or materialistic * Maya (illusion), a concept in all Indian religions, that all matter is a grand illusion * Incorporeality * Immaterialism, including subjective idealism (a ...

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 Immortality is the concept of eternal life. Some species possess " biological immortality" due to an apparent lack of the Hayflick limit. From at least the time of the ancient Mesopotamians, there has been a conviction that gods may be phy ...

, 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 Dualism most commonly refers to: * Mind–body dualism, a philosophical view which holds that mental phenomena are, at least in certain respects, not physical phenomena, or that the mind and the body are distinct and separable from one another * P ...

monism Monism attributes oneness or singleness () to a concept, such as to existence. Various kinds of monism can be distinguished: * Priority monism states that all existing things go back to a source that is distinct from them; e.g., in Neoplatonis ...

atheism Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the Existence of God, existence of Deity, deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the ...

theism Theism is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of at least one deity. In common parlance, or when contrasted with '' deism'', the term often describes the philosophical conception of God that is found in classical theism—or the co ...

pantheism Pantheism can refer to a number of philosophical and religious beliefs, such as the belief that the universe is God, or panentheism, the belief in a non-corporeal divine intelligence or God out of which the universe arisesAnn Thomson; Bodies ...

idealism Idealism in philosophy, also known as philosophical realism or metaphysical idealism, is the set of metaphysics, metaphysical perspectives asserting that, most fundamentally, reality is equivalent to mind, Spirit (vital essence), spirit, or ...

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.

Notable spiritualist thinkers

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

Henri Bergson Henri-Louis Bergson (; ; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopher who was influential in the traditions of analytic philosophy and continental philosophy, especially during the first half of the 20th century until the S ...

Maine de Biran François-Pierre-Gontier de Biran (; 29 November 176620 July 1824), usually known as Maine de Biran (), was a French philosopher. Life Maine de Biran was born in Bergerac. He assumed the name Maine (sometime before 1787) from his father's esta ...

F. H. Bradley Francis Herbert Bradley (30 January 184618 September 1924) was a British idealist philosopher. His most important work was ''Appearance and Reality'' (1893). Life Bradley was born at Clapham, Surrey, England (now part of the Greater London ar ...

Émile Boutroux Étienne Émile Marie Boutroux (; ; 28 July 1845 – 22 November 1921) was a French philosopher of science and religion, and a historian of philosophy. He was a firm opponent of materialism in science. He was a spiritual philosopher who defended t ...

Victor Cousin Victor Cousin (; ; 28 November 179214 January 1867) was a French philosopher. He was the founder of " eclecticism", a briefly influential school of French philosophy that combined elements of German idealism and Scottish Common Sense Realism. ...

René Descartes René Descartes ( , ; ; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and Modern science, science. Mathematics was paramou ...

Giovanni Gentile Giovanni Gentile ( , ; 30 May 1875 – 15 April 1944) was an Italian pedagogue, philosopher, and politician. He, alongside Benedetto Croce, was one of the major exponents of Italian idealism in Italian philosophy, and also devised his own sys ...

William Ernest Hocking William Ernest Hocking (August 10, 1873 – June 12, 1966) was an American idealist philosopher at Harvard University. He continued the work of his philosophical teacher Josiah Royce (the founder of American idealism) in revising idealism to int ...

Jules Lachelier Jules Esprit Nicolas Lachelier (; 27 May 1832 – 26 January 1918) was a French philosopher, most known for his contributions to French spiritualism and his influence on modern French philosophy. He developed a system of rational idealism and wa ...

Lebensphilosophie (; meaning "philosophy of life") was a dominant philosophical movement of German-speaking countries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which had developed out of German Romanticism. emphasised the meaning, value and purpose of life as ...

(French school) *

Louis Lavelle Louis Lavelle (; ; July 15, 1883 – September 1, 1951) was a French philosopher, considered one of the greatest French metaphysicians of the twentieth century. His magnum opus, ''La Dialectique de l'éternel présent'' (1922), is a systematic m ...

René Le Senne René Le Senne (; born Ernest René Lesenne; 8 July 1882, Elbeuf – 1 October 1954, Neuilly-sur-Seine) was a French idealist philosopher and psychologist. Publications * ''Obstacle et valeur'', Paris, F. Aubier 1934 * ''La découverte de Dieu ...

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in addition to ...

Pindar Pindar (; ; ; ) was an Greek lyric, Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes, Greece, Thebes. Of the Western canon, canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar i ...

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

Josiah Royce Josiah Royce (; November 20, 1855 – September 14, 1916) was an American Pragmatism, pragmatist and objective idealism, objective idealist philosopher and the founder of American idealism. His philosophical ideas included his joining of pragmatis ...

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Metaphysics of religion {{cosmology-stub

Notable spiritualist thinkers

See also

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