mojtaba
Active Member
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
In the past, two major theories concerning the human soul were quite popular among philosophers. One of these theories was the Platonic theory of the spirit and the soul, suggesting that the existence of the soul was eternal, spiritual, and prior to the creation of the body (Timaeus). The second theory belonged to Peripatetics, and Ibn-Sina (Avicenna) provided a thorough explanation for it. This theory dealt with the immaterial or non-corporeal origination of the soul, along with the corporeal origination and creation of the body. Later Mulla Sadra presented an innovative theory in this regard. He proved that although man’s soul ultimately becomes immaterial in its particular course of development, it is corporeal at the outset of creation, and is born from the body.
In Mulla Sadra’s view, man’s soul is initially solid, and then, after leaving the stage of solidity behind, turns into an embryo and steps into the vegetative stage (vegetative soul). Later it arrives at the animal stage (animal soul), and then, in the process of its real maturity, reaches the stage of human soul and becomes a ‘rational soul’. After this stage, in the light of its efforts, practice, and rational and spiritual training, it can also achieve human maturity (which he calls the holy soul and actual intellect (intellectus in actu)). This is a stage which quite a few are capable of reaching.
All these stages, in fact, represent moving in the same route in order to leave potency and enter actuality. Each succeeding stage is a potential for the preceding one, and going through them means passing through grades of intensity, and moving from weakness to strength. However, the collection of these stages comprises the points of a line called ‘human life’ and ‘line of development’, and which is formed on the basis of the principle of graded existence and the trans-substantial motion.
It is important to know that entering each stage does not mean getting away from the previous stage; rather, each higher stage, at all times, embodies and includes the weaker stages prior to itself, as well. The rule here suggests that every strong existence – according to gradation of existence – embraces all the weaker existential stages before it.
Mulla Sadra blames philosophers like Peripatetics who consider the soul a static substance which remains in the same state from the beginning to the end of life, and has no trans-substantial motion. Obviously, he also disagrees with people like Descartes who believe in the absolute separation of the soul and body.
Like other Muslim philosophers, Mulla Sadra believes in the abstraction (immateriality) of the soul, but not in the sense intended by his preceding schools of thought. In his view, the immateriality of the soul is gradual owing to its ascending and developmental journey, and, in his own terms, due to its trans-substantial motion. This motion leads to body’s senility and annihilation; however, it is a motion towards rationality in the soul, and becomes more powerful and active day after day. The developed soul, after separating from the body and becoming needless of it, ultimately, turns into the ‘abstract intellect’, and continues its life in a space which is more desirable than the material one.
Mulla Sadra’s philosophical psychology is based on his other philosophical principles, which are considered exactly the very reasons he adduces to prove his theory. Such principles are presented below:
1. Material substance naturally enjoys a developmental motion, and, unlike what Peripatetics say, nature is not static; rather, the trans-substantial motion is at the heart of its dynamism.
2. The ultimate goal of the creation of each existence leaves a series of predispositions in it which must be divulged through its trans-substantial motion. Although both the body and the soul are in the matter of the existent’s body, the difference between their ultimate ends has left two different types of predispositions in them, which is quite natural, since as we can see, both a plant and an animal are born from matter, yet one obtains an animal soul, and the other remains vegetation.
3. Man’s soul is his very ‘I’ and ‘self’, and, in spite of the graded difference between the soul and body, man’s ‘self’ or ‘I’ cannot be decomposed. The synthesis of the body and the soul is in the form of unity, rather than annexation and external synthesis.
4. Although the body is made of the matter, and consists of several components, the human ‘I’ or soul is simple and indivisible. According to the philosophical principle stating that ‘the simple truth is everything’, all man’s internal and external effects, acts, and affections belong to his ‘self’ and soul and originate from his unity. In other words, the soul, while having unity and simplicity, consists of all his faculties.
5. Despite being abstract and independent, the soul is practically dependent on the five senses, the brain, and nerves for its perceptions. Likewise, for its physical activities, it depends on the related organs. All these organs and senses are the soul’s tools for its affections and activities. Mulla Sadra considers the soul the director and guide of the body rather than vice versa, and states that it is the wind that directs the ship forward rather than the other way round.
6. The more the soul is developed in the course of the trans-substantial motion, the less its dependence upon the body will be. Natural death (one that is not due to accidents) is the result of the voluntary separation of the soul from the body and its actual abstraction. Such an interpretation of death by Mulla Sadra is in contrast to that of both ancient (Galen and Hippocrates) and modern medicines.
To demonstrate the immateriality of the soul,[1] Muslim philosophers have adduced a number of arguments, including the following:
- In addition to sensing and perceiving particulars, man is capable of apprehending and analyzing abstract and universal issues and concepts, and developing some judgments for them. All abstract and universal affairs are immaterial (since all the related characteristics have been previously negated to them), and each immaterial thing ranks higher than matter, and cannot depend on it; it should possess an independent and immaterial receptacle and field for itself to predicate it;[2] otherwise, it will become material.
- The independent field containing the universals (man’s universal and abstract perceptions) is called ‘mind’ by philosophers. This field must be viewed as being separate from the material tools and layers of the brain (cortex).
- Denying the immateriality of the soul or the mind is a kind of leniency in research, and philosophical laziness. This is because paying attention to philosophical reasons could lead one to the immateriality of the soul and mind, which does not seem an easy undertaking to some people.
Philosophers have also adduced some others reasons which have been presented in Mulla Sadra’s books, as well as in those of others.
Experiences such as the sixth sense, telepathy, after-death perceptions for those who have come back to life, true dreams, and the like are among those meta-psychological and supernatural phenomena that are not in conformity with the structure of the body, and can refer to the immateriality of the soul.
Note:
[1]. Henry Corbin believes that ‘mujarad’ (abstract) in the terminology of Islamic philosophy is the same as the Greek ‘khoristos’ and an equivalent to ‘transcendent’ rather than to ‘immaterial’ or ‘incorporeal’.
[2]. Such independence for abstract things from the matter is not in contrast to the idea that the material body should make the provisions necessary for abstract things; for example, the upper layer of the brain and the nervous system serve as tools for exerting the soul’s will or transferring affections to it.
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