Johannes Poortman

April 26, 1896 (age 74)

He was also a theosophist. From 1958 to 1966 he was a Professor of metaphysics at the University of Leiden. After he retired his chair was successively occupied by Professor Dubbink, Professor van Vledder and Professor Gerding. Poortman was the maker of the Repertory of Dutch philosophers, Repertorium der Nederlandse Wijsbegeerte, which can be consulted on line at the site of the Leiden University. This vision was explained in his four volume work, Vehicles of Consciousness. Poortman distinguished six different metaphysical views of the world, which he named from Alpha to Zeta. Gamma: that only matter exists, with the exception of one single entity which is not material. This is the view held by Poortman himself. Delta: the view that two separate kinds of material and one kind of spiritual, immaterial entity exists, for example the early Christian and Gnostic belief that man was made of body, soul and spirit, where the first two are different forms of matter and the spirit is immaterial. Epsilon: a view in which matter and mind are totally separate things. This view was for example held by René Descartes in his cogito ergo sum statement, see mind dualism.

Johannes Poortman

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philosopher

Education

In 1919 he received his Master of Arts. Many years later he would also earn a Doctor of Philosophy Poortman studied at the universities of Hamburg, Genève, the Sorbonne in Paris and in Vienna.

Career

He was also a theosophist. From 1958 to 1966 he was a Professor of metaphysics at the University of Leiden. After he retired his chair was successively occupied by Professor

Dubbink, Professor van Vledder and Professor

Gerding. Poortman was the maker of the Repertory of Dutch philosophers, Repertorium der Nederlandse Wijsbegeerte, which can be consulted on line at the site of the Leiden University. This vision was explained in his four volume work, Vehicles of Consciousness.

Poortman distinguished six different metaphysical views of the world, which he named from Alpha to Zeta. Gamma: that only matter exists, with the exception of one single entity which is not material.

This is the view held by Poortman himself.

Delta: the view that two separate kinds of material and one kind of spiritual, immaterial entity exists, for example the early Christian and Gnostic belief that man was made of body, soul and spirit, where the first two are different forms of matter and the spirit is immaterial. Epsilon: a view in which matter and mind are totally separate things. This view was for example held by René Descartes in his cogito ergo sum statement, see mind dualism.

Views

He formulated the idea of a hylic pluralism (in Dutch hylisch pluralisme) of the plurality of matter, a model of the universe in which science and metaphysics are no longer contradictory. Alpha: monistic materialism, the view that only one kind of stuff, id est (that is) matter, ultimately exists in this universe. Beta: the view that only matter exists, but that there are different kinds of matter (hylic pluralism), specifically that God and other spiritual beings are created of a finer kind of matter, not visible to our scientific instruments.

Zeta: monistic idealism or illusionism, where matter is seen as some kind of emanation of God or another spiritual being.

Membership

From 1932 to 1938 he was member of the Council of the Dutch Society for Psychical Research.

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