A Critical Study of Functionalism with a Glance at Mulla Sadra’s Self-Knowledge

The relationship between the body and the soul is one of the complex issues in philosophy. The Cartesian and Platonic dualism is one of the solutions offered for this problem. Descartes and Plato believed that the soul and body are two different substances and enjoy their own particular domains and features. Contemporary philosophers of the mind have also introduced a number of views in order to resolve the problems of substantial dualism. The theories of behaviorism and the identity of the mind and body deny the substantive nature of the soul and employ the words “mind” and “mental states” instead of the word “soul” and maintain that mental states are the same behavioral and brain-related states. However, while acknowledging the problems of dualism, the behavioral approaches, and the standpoint of the identity of the mind and brain, the advocates of functionalism provide an impartial interpretation of the mind (its being abstract or concrete) and believe that mental states are the same functional states which perform certain functional roles based on mental input and output and other mental states. Islamic philosophers and mutikallimun have also tackled the enigma of the soul and body and Plato’s substantial dualism. Ibn Sina and Suhrawardi deny the priority of the soul to the body (Platonic theory) but consider the essence of the soul and body to be immaterial and corporeal, respectively. Most mutikallimun reject the idea of the soul as an immaterial and self-subsistent substance and view it as a delicate kind of body. In line with functionalists, Mulla Sadra was well aware of the problems associated with considering the soul as an immaterial or corporeal substance and argued that the essence of the soul is not purely immaterial or material; rather, it is initially corporeal and then becomes immaterial through trans-substantial motion. He also stated that, based on the shadowy true unity, the soul is an intermediate world inclusive of both materiality and immateriality and becomes material and immaterial based on the states of its grades. Although both functionalists and Mulla Sadra reject the mind’s (the soul in Mulla Sadra’s view) being purely immaterial or corporeal, Mulla Sadra provided a more accurate explanation of the body-soul relation in comparison to functionalists, who hold a physicalist view of the mind. This is because he does not limit being exclusively to nature.