Assistant professor and faculty member of Baqir al-Ulum University. Qom. Iran
Abstract
The problem of soul and body and their relation is a challenging issue with a wide domain, attracting philosophers' attention from the time immemorial. The problem emerges because the question arises how immaterial human soul is related to his material body, forming thus a single existent. Having innovated new philosophical principles such as fundamentality of existence, gradation of existence and substantial movement, Mulla Sadra gave a new and unprecedented structure to philosophical issues including the issue of soul. Based on the bodily creation of soul, progressive substantial movement, unificatory composition of matter and form, he deems that the relation between soul and body is a unificatory relation. As long as man is thus experiencing elemental life, he will have a reality of many degrees. He is material as well as immaterial to the extent that body is the lower degree of soul and soul is the higher degree of body. As man however lives on he gives up immateriality keeping up its positives alone in the stage of imaginary body. Zynoozi is one of the most careful Sadrian commentators. He explains Sadra's principles and views, though his way of explanation is somewhat different from that of Sadra. He believes that the combination of human essence from genus and differentia, the combination of rational soul from different degrees and finally the combination of soul and body are instances of real composite, though the combination of the forms of human organs with their matters is an instance of natural combination – though not essential natural combination. He believes that the interaction between soul and body is mutual. Soul is the determining cause of body and body the preparing cause of soul. Though after death, this mutual interaction comes to an end the particles of a person's body look after the soul of that person. They will finally reach it. The present article studies the opinions of these two philosophers in a comparative way
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