De la „Paralelismul psihofizic” până „Dincolo de zări”
From "Psychophysical Parallelism" to "Beyond the horizon"

Summary/Abstract: In this paper I briefly outline the evolution of Ion Petrovici’s conception of spirit (soul) and body (largely using his own words), from the critique of the psychophysical parallelism in his doctoral dissertation published in 1905, to the conception he articulated in the conference on immortality "Dincolo de zare" [Beyond the horizon], held at the Romanian Athenaeum in 1939. Immediately after the publication of the thesis, Petrovici disagreed with the solution offered by the monism of pure experience in an article with the same name ("Monismul 'experienței pure'" [The monism of 'pure experience'] from 1907) and then inclined to look at "matter" and "spirit" as aspects of a third reality, at the end of the article "Spiritualismul" [The spiritualism], published in "Noi cercetări filosofice" [New Philosophical Researches] (1911). In the above-mentioned conference, starting from the finding that the idea of parallelism and correspondence between spirit and body are no longer as perfect as they seemed, he argues, based on new scientific discoveries (some proved to be pseudo-scientific), in favour of a possible existence of spirit on its own, dissolved and liberated from the body (through death).

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