How the philosophers of the 20th century explained the ghosts

Matyas Moravec: Most people imagine philosophers as rational thinkers who spend time developing abstract logical theories and strongly reject superstitious beliefs. But several philosophers of the 20th century actively studied ghostly topics, such as clairvoyance, telepathy-nawet ghosts.

Many of these philosophers, including Henri Bergson and William James, were interested in “mental research”. It was an academic study of paranormal phenomena, including telepathy, telekinesis and other global spirits.

My thinkers attended Seance and tried to develop theories about ghosts, life after death and the powers shown by the media in Trans. My recent archival research analyzed how these topics shaped the philosophy of the 20th century.

CD Broad (1887–1971) was a professor of philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He is now considered one of the most crucial writers about time philosophy. He also published ethics, logic and history of philosophy.

It is less known, however, that he was an busy member of the Mental Research Society, a learned society devoted to the study of paranormal phenomena. The Society chose him as its president twice and published broadly on topics, including clairvoyance and poltergeists.

In his book from 1925, The Mind and his place in nature, Broad developed what turned out to be known as the “complex theory” of ghosts. Broad argued that the human mind was a relationship of two elements. One of them was a “physical factor”, roughly corresponding to the body. The second was a “mental factor” that transfers our mental content, such as emotions or thoughts. They both together form a human mind – like salt, it consists of sodium and chloride.

Broad believed that after death a mental factor could still exist independently and could enter, like a ghost, a medium during a screening.

Images in the ether

HH Price (1899–1984) was another philosopher interested in the ghosts and ghosts of the dead. He was a professor of logic at the University of Oxford and is known mainly for his publications on the philosophy of perception.

However, like a wide, he was heavily involved in the Association of Mental Research and participated in several international conferences devoted to life after death and telepathy.

In his presidential speech to the company in 1939, Price tried to present the explanation of ghosts and visits.

At any time, he argued that your mind is full of “mental images” – the memory of the last vacation, the things you see outside the window, hopes and expectations for the future.

The theoretical price that there is a substance that he called the “mental ether”, which exists halfway between matter and the human mind. He believed that this ether could wear images that currently exist in your mind, even after death. The package of these images and memories may appear as a spirit for some particularly sensitive people.

What does “spirit” mean?

Casimir Lewy (1919-1991) was one of the most influential philosophical logics of the 20th century. He spent most of his career at the University of Cambridge – in fact the library of philosophy lecturers comes from him.

Lewy is now known mainly for his work on logic, and few people know that he actually wrote his doctoral dissertation (which was examined by Broad) about life after death.

He was primarily interested in the language and meanings of terms that people employ when they talk about ghosts and life after death. What does it mean to say that I can survive the death of my body?

What experiences would I have as a ghost to say “I experienced my death” to be true? Would I have to see myself in the mirror or talk to people in Seance's room?

Lewy insisted that these questions need to answer before looking at the empirical “evidence” for ghosts.

After a series of scandalous and widely publicized discoveries of false media pretending to be supernatural permissions and accusations of pseudo -needed research methods, mental research finally moved to the edge of the academic community. For example, Lewy never returned to write on these topics after adopting the defense of the doctorate in 1943.

Nevertheless, despite his compact life, academic mental research had a significant impact on the entire generation of British philosophers. This shaped their views on time, cause and matter and gave them the opportunity to think one of the most smoking questions of life: what would happen after death?

Matyáš Moravec, philosophy lecturer, Queen's University Belfast

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