Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-t5pn6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-15T21:53:49.665Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Human Soul's Individuation and its Survival after the Body's Death: Avicenna on the Causal Relation between Body and Soul

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 May 2002

Thérèse-Anne Druart
Affiliation:
School of Philosophy, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. 20064-0001, USA

Extract

As for Avicenna the human soul is a complete substance which does not inhere in the body nor is imprinted in it, asserting its survival after the death of the body seems easy. Yet, he needs the body to explain its individuation. The paper analyzes Avicenna's arguments in the De anima sections, V, 3 & 4, of the Shifā' in order to explore the exact causal relation there is between the human soul and its body and confronts these arguments with relevant passages in the Metaphysics. It argues that the causal relation between body and soul remains obscure and that, though Avicenna claims that there is a personal immortality and that the disembodied soul remains individuated, he does not provide a satisfactory ontological account for it.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2000 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)