جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « قدم نفس » در نشریات گروه « فلسفه و کلام »

Discussion of the origination or pre-eternity of the human soul is one of the oldest and the most challenging discussions among the thinkers. The thinkers, with their various intellectual foundations and research methods, have different views in this regard. Many of the Islamic theologians believe in the temporal pre-eternity of the soul, except a small group including Khaja Nasir who believes in its origination. Among the philosophers, Plato – on the basis of his Ideas – believes in the pre-eternity of the soul. On the contrary, his pupil Aristotle, Avicenna, and Sheikh of Illumination reject the view of pre-eternity of the soul with their arguments, believe in its origination. Similarly, Mulla Sadra of Shiraz believes in its origination. He, however, uses the foundations of transcendental philosophy such as substantial motion to state his belief in corporeal origination of the soul and its spiritual survival – unlike Avicenna who believes in the spiritual origination of the soul. The mystics who have an important share in Mulla Sadra’s intellectual foundations seems to believe in the corporeal origination of the soul along with a belief in its integrative existence with its higher beings.

Mulla Sadra believes that Soul, at very beginning, is material in nature which become spiritual through substantial motion and then ascends through levels of spiritual perfection, arrives at absolute immaterialism and become free from want of body. In fact, soul is newborn of natural universe and fails to exist prior to corporal manifestation. However, in some traditional sources and quotation from immaculate Imams- which some narrators believe that are quoted through successive witness- the creation of souls is prior to creation of bodies. Since, Mullah Sadra is a Shiite philosopher, to interpret the issued narrations and Hadith from the holy prophet and Immaculate Imams; he relies on logical evidences and tries to explain them through logical reasoning. Accordingly, concerning the existence of soul before corporal manifestation and universe, he provides two interpretations; logical collaborative existence and spiritual human existence.

Avicenna believes that human souls do not exist without their bodies, and then, they are created in their bodies. because if they exist without and before their bodies , they all have a single existence, but the Plurality is not permissible ;Avicenna says this because of he believes that plurality is only relates to bodies that the souls join to them and cannot relate to souls, because the souls are single and there is not any plurality in singles; the plurality is only due to the bodies in which the souls join them, but the truth It is that, divine jewelry should be Multiplied and distinct too, and the opposite will lead to impossible. The other reason for Avicenna for the occurrence is the belief in the negation of the’ principle of closure’ but, moreover, this principle is not acceptable, it does not essentially include immaterial world because it only relates to to the nature.

Mulla Sadra maintains that the soul has – rationally – existed by its intellectual existence in its previous stratums. At the same time, since the soul is the manager of the body and essentially belongs to the body in its mode of existence, it has physical origination. He has successfully reconciled these two apparently floundering views. Although this philosophical view of Mulla Sadra is quite innovative, its traces are clearly found in the works of mystics such as Ibn Arabi. In other words, Ibn Arabi emphasizes the existence of the soul in previous stratums on the one hand, and stresses the physical origination of the soul in its worldly mode, on the other.

Mulla Sadra has nullified the theory of eternity of soul, believing in origination of soul on the one hand, and holding that soul – in previous origin, before its origination in this world – enjoyed intellectual existence. In the present study, we attempt to find the way out of this seeming disparity between the two theories in Mulla Sadra’s thought. This is because Mulla Sadra has dealt with this issue on numerous occasions, stressing that each of these two theories, in a certain meaning, can be proved for soul. In other words, soul is eternal because of its intellectual existence, and at the same time, is originated with physical origination because of its very being soul and in view of its belonging to worldly origin.

The present paper mainly seeks to elaborate on how the problem of soul and its temporality or eternity occupied Mulla Sadra and Plato's minds. What reasons made Plato to believe in eternity of soul? Why Muslim philosophers, especially Mulla Sadra, did not face such constraints in spite of the fact that they did not accept these reasons? To this end, the present paper reviews not only these two thinker's works but also their social status and intellectual concerns, which resulted in developing their specific thoughts. It seems that the problems related to the issue of soul cannot be solved except with Muslim philosopher's existential view and particularly with Mulla Sadra's innovations in philosophy.

Despite their immateriality, temporal beings are not void of material attributes (i.e. quantity, measure, and shape), while such attributes are somehow involved in the individual specification and thus individuation of beings and they lead to the particularization of these forms. Assuming an ‘Imaginable stage’ for the human ego, one is also able to imagine some precedence for humans in this world. In such an imagination, there will be a numerical plurality as many as the corporeal individuals. Based on Mulla-Sadra’s viewpoint, the human ego is of corporeal originatedness and the precedence of such an ego is referred to the existence of an intellectual congregation in the Divine Areal Region or in the world of intellectual transcendents. Through such an interpretation, not only the idea of the originatedness of human ego remains preserved, but the rationally impossible consequences and the invalid succession of the idea of the eternal existence of ego will not find the opportunity to manifest. Therefore, the descending hierarchy, especially the subsequent stages of the fallen existences in the Arc of descent, does not seem reconcilable with the view of corporal originatedness and the background of the intellectual existence of ego, despite Sadr-ol-Mote’alehin’s great emphasis on the imaginable existence of existences, makes it difficult to explicate the manner of their origination from the intellectual stage to the material world. It might be possible to do away with this contradiction by assuming the pre-existence of the material making up the body as a common factor in human form; however, material is of little significance in Mulla-Sadra’s school of philosophy, in addition, it is innovative and cannot be employed in this stage. Based on Mulla-Sadra’s views, the assumption as to the existence of a direct link between the common matter of the form (in the material world) and the imaginable matter is an invalid assumption. However, in some scientific works some statements can be found that indicate a belief in a stage of human imaginable ego in the stages in the Arc of descent and support the view of the eternity of the ego and add to the vagueness of the theory of ‘Corporeal Originatedness’.