AncientPages.com –<\/strong>\u00a0Most people imagine philosophers as rational thinkers who spend their time developing abstract logical theories and strongly reject superstitious beliefs. But several 20th-century philosophers actively investigated spooky topics such as clairvoyance, telepathy \u2013 even ghosts.<\/p>\n Hamlet and the Ghost by Frederick James Shields (1901).\u00a0Manchester Art Gallery<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Many of these philosophers, including\u00a0Henri Bergson\u00a0and\u00a0William James, were interested in what was called\u00a0\u201cpsychical research\u201d. This was the academic study of paranormal phenomena including telepathy, telekinesis and other-worldly spirits.<\/p>\n These thinkers attended seances and were attempting to develop theories about ghosts, life after death and the powers exhibited by mediums in trances. My recent\u00a0archival research\u00a0has been looking at how these topics shaped 20th-century philosophy.<\/p>\n CD Broad (1887-1971) was a professor of philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He is now recognised as one of the most important writers on the\u00a0philosophy of time. He also published on ethics, logic and the history of philosophy. What is less known, though, is that he was an active member of the Society for Psychical Research, a learned society dedicated to the study of paranormal phenomena. The society twice elected him as their president, and he published widely on topics including\u00a0clairvoyance\u00a0and\u00a0poltergeists.<\/p>\n In his 1925 book,\u00a0The Mind and Its Place in Nature<\/a>, Broad developed what has come to be known as the \u201ccompound theory\u201d of ghosts. Broad argued that the human mind was a compound of two components. One of these was the \u201cphysical factor,\u201d roughly corresponding to the body. The other one was the \u201cpsychic factor,\u201d which carries our mental content like emotions or thoughts. The two of them conjointly form the human mind \u2013 just like salt is composed of sodium and chloride.<\/p>\n Broad believed that after death, the psychic factor can continue existing for a bit on its own and might enter, like a spirit, a medium during a seance.<\/p>\n Another philosopher interested in ghosts and spirits of the dead was HH Price (1899-1984). He was a professor of logic at the University of Oxford and is mostly known for his publications on the philosophy of perception. However, just like Broad, he was heavily involved in the Society for Psychical Research and attended several international conferences dedicated to life after death and telepathy.<\/p>\n Price believed ghosts could appear to sensitive people.<\/span>\u00a0Wellcome Collection<\/a>,\u00a0CC BY<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n In his presidential address to the society in 1939, Price tried to offer an explanation of ghosts and hauntings.<\/p>\n At any given moment, he argued, your mind is full of \u201cmental images\u201d \u2013 the memory of your last holiday, the things you see outside your window, your hopes and expectations for the future. Price theorised that there is a substance, which he called the \u201cpsychic ether\u201d that exists halfway between matter and the human mind. He believed that this ether could carry the images that currently exist in your mind even after you die. A bundle of these images and memories can appear as a ghost to some particularly sensitive people.<\/p>\n Casimir Lewy (1919-1991) was one of the most influential philosophical logicians of the 20th century. He spent most of his career at the University of Cambridge \u2013 in fact, the\u00a0philosophy faculty library\u00a0there is named after him.<\/p>\n Lewy is now mostly known for his work on logic, and few people know that he actually wrote\u00a0his PhD thesis\u00a0(which was examined by Broad) on life after death.<\/p>\n He was primarily interested in language and in the meanings of the terms people use when they talk about ghosts and life after death. What does it mean to say that I might survive the death of my body? What sort of experiences would I need to have as a ghost for the statement \u201cI have survived my death\u201d to be true? Would I have to be able to see myself in the mirror, or to speak to people in the seance room?<\/p>\n Lewy insisted that these questions need answering before looking at the empirical \u201cevidence\u201d for ghosts.<\/p>\n Following a series of scandalous and widely publicised discoveries of fraudulent mediums faking their supernatural powers and\u00a0accusations\u00a0of pseudo-scientific research methods, psychical research eventually moved to the fringes of academia. Lewy, for example, never returned to write on these topics after passing the defence of his PhD in 1943.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, despite its brief lifespan, academic psychical research had a significant influence on an entire generation of British philosophers. It shaped their views on time, causation and matter, and gave them an opportunity to think one of life\u2019s most pressing questions: what happens after we die?<\/p>\n Provided by\u00a0The Conversation\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n This article is republished from\u00a0The Conversation\u00a0under a Creative Commons license. Read\u00a0the\u00a0original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n![\"How](\"https:\/\/www.ancientpages.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/ghostsphilosophers.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nImages in the ether<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nWhat does \u2018ghost\u2019 mean?<\/h2>\n