WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM?

Spiritualism is a vast current of thought that goes from Leibniz to Bergson.

Spiritualism can be defined as a doctrine according to which the spirit constitutes the substance of all reality, and is therefore opposed to materialism.

Spiritualism is distinguished from the opposition of idealism and realism, which are doctrines on the origin of knowledge, and not on the nature of being.

Leibniz, for example, is a spiritualist insofar as he reduces matter to energy, and energy to a force impossible to perceive, therefore, of a spiritual nature.

This current of thought opposes materialism not only as spirit opposes nature, but also as life opposes mechanism: the philosophy of Bergson, who affirms the irreducibility of life to any form of psycho-mechanism. chemical, results in a spiritualism which identifies the spontaneity of life with the creative activity of the spirit.