’s philosophies and the way its relationship with the body is explained and justified. It also asks the following questions: Do these two philosophers have the same view of the nature of the soul and its relationship with the body or do they hold different views? Whose view is more compatible with the Islamic-Qur’anic style of thinking?
Here, the writers argue that, while Ibn Sina has adduced some strong arguments in order to justify the immateriality and spiritual subsistence of the soul, a great part of them, if not all of them, are influenced by the Platonic-Neo-Platonic approach to the nature of the soul and the soul-body relation. They also emphasize that, although Ibn Sina has offered some subtle ideas and innovations in this regard, the general framework and structure of his discussion is what we have seen in the Platonic-Neo-Platonic tradition.
On the other hand, although Mulla Sadra pays particular attention to Ibn Sina’s arguments regarding the immateriality and subsistence of the soul and provides a new interpretation of the issue, through relying on the theories of the trans-substantial motion, the corporeal origination of the soul, and its spiritual subsistence, he provides an approach that can only arise from the magnificent tree of the Transcendent Philosophy. This approach is consistent not only with the rational transcendent view, but also with the Qur’anic-Islamic view concerning the nature of the soul and its relationship with the body.
Ibn Sina and Mulla Sadra’s view of the soul-body relation can be assimilated to the relationship between the “bird and cage” and the “abscess and butterfly”. In other words, in Mulla Sadra’s eyes, at the moment of origination, the soul is at the final stage of the development of material forms and the first stage of perceptive forms. Moreover, its being at this final moment is considered to be its last corporeal crust and the first spiritual core.
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