An Invesigation of the Dualism of Soul and Body from the Perspective of Descartes and Molla-Sadra

Molla Sadra and Descartes are two contemporary philosophers who emphasize on the fact that soul and body are substances and believe that human being is constituted from both substances – yet one is abstract and the other is materialistic. But the way they distinguish between the soul and the body makes their ideas converse. Descartes believes soul and body are intrinsically different and Molla Sadra believes their difference is not intrinsic – unlike the difference between other beings in the universe - rather they are different in their degrees; he believes that the soul and the body are both a degree of one another. Comparing the two perspectives, the author has named Descarte's view regarding the duality of soul and body 'intrinsic duality' and Molla Sadra's view in this regard 'graded duality'. Finally the author concludes that according to Molla Sadra's view, the duality of the soul and the body as pictured by Descartes is conceptual and hypostatized not real and external.