Ibn Sina and Mulla Sadra on the Soul-Body Relation: An Evaluation of the Efficiency of their Principles in Attaining their Ends
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Abstract :
One of the differences between Ibn Sina and Mulla Sadra in the field of anthropology pertains to their approach to soul-body relation. This difference is rooted in the principles underlying the philosophical school of each of them. The soul-body relation, according to Mulla Sadra, is an essential and existential relation, which is the reason why he argues for the elemental body functioning as the material cause of the soul’s physical level. In contrast, based on Ibn Sina’s views, the soul needs the body merely for the acquisition of existential perfections and not for its very existence. Moreover, he maintains that there is no essential causation between the body and the soul. Next, Ibn Sina holds that the soul and the body enjoy composition by way of unification, and so does Mulla Sadra; however, he maintains that it is only through accepting some of the basic principles of the Transcendent Philosophy that one can justify this union. The next problem is that if the body and the soul have an ontological relationship with each other rather than an accidental one, is it possible for the soul’s dependence on the body to be disrupted? Besides, if it is certainly obvious that the soul is graded, should one not consider the body to be graded so that it could maintain its unity with the soul at its different levels? Due to the differences between the underlying principles of their philosophies, Mulla Sadra and Ibn Sina provide different responses to the above questions. This paper aims to study such responses analytically and evaluate the efficiency of these underlying principles in addressing their intended targets.