An Examination of the Compatibility of Avicenna’s Doctrine of the Resurrection with the Principles of His Psychology

Rezaeiyan, Seyyed Hadi; Rastaei, Hamedeh

doi:10.22067/epk.2025.92997.1432

An Examination of the Compatibility of Avicenna’s Doctrine of the Resurrection with the Principles of His Psychology

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Seyyed Hadi Rezaeiyan ¹

Hamedeh Rastaei ²

¹ Assistant Professor of Imam Sadiq University

² Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Ale- Taha Institute of Higher Education, Tehran, Iran.

10.22067/epk.2025.92997.1432

Abstract

This study examines the compatibility of Avicenna’s doctrine of the resurrection (maʿād) and the persistence of the soul with the principles of his psychology. Employing a text-based analytical and critical approach, it investigates the points at which the foundations of Avicenna’s psychology appear to be incompatible with his account of the resurrection and the persistence of the soul. Avicenna advances several arguments for the immateriality and incorruptibility of the soul, concluding that all human souls persist after death. However, this conclusion appears to conflict with certain principles of his psychology, including the immutability of the soul’s substance and its separation from the body, the materiality of the imaginative faculty and the persistence of imperfect souls, the individuation of souls after separation from the body, the individuation of souls during their attachment to the body, the separation of imperfect souls, and the problems of ineffectiveness and transmigration. Some of these inconsistencies pertain specifically to imperfect souls, while others extend even to perfect souls. Avicenna’s rejection of the unity of the intellect and the intelligible, together with his view that the cognitive faculties—particularly the imaginative faculty—are material, constitute the principal source of the tension between his psychological principles and his doctrine of the persistence of souls. Recognizing the immateriality of the imaginative faculty would provide greater coherence to his psychological system and render his account of the persistence of human souls more consistent.

Keywords

Avicenna

Persistence of the Soul

Immateriality of the Soul

Imperfect Souls

Perfect Souls

Subjects

Islamic Philosophy and Kalam

Aflāṭūn. Dūrih-yi Kāmil Āsār. translated by Muḥammad Ḥasan Luṭfī. Tehran: Intishārāt-i Khvārazmī, 1988/1367.

Hikmat, Naṣr Allāḥ; Ḥājīzādih, Maḥbūbih. "Jāygāh Maʿād dar Falsafih Ibn Sīnā". Shinākht, no. 68 (spring and summer 2014/1392): 7-35.

Ḥillī, Kashf al-Murād. Ed. Ḥasanzādih Āmulī, Qum: Mūʾassisa al-Nashr al-Islāmī. 1996/1416.

Ibn Manẓūr. Lisān al-ʿArab. Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1994/1414.

Ibn Sīnā. al-Nafs min Kitāb al-Shifāʾ. Qum: Maktab al-Iʻlām al-Islāmī, 1997/1417.

Ibn Sīnā. al-Shifāʾ (al-Ilāhīyāt). Ed. Saʿīd Zāyid, al-Ab al-Qanawātī, Qum: Āyat Allāh Marʻashī, 1984/1404.

Ibn Sīnā. Kitāb al-Shifāʾ. Qum: Marashi Najafi, 1983/1404.

Irshādīniyā, Muḥammad Riḍā. “Maʿād Jismānī dar Dīdgāh-i Ibn Sīnā va Shubhih Tafkīkgirāyī". Āmūzih-hā-yi Nuvīn Kalāmī. No. 3 (autumn and winter 2018/1397): 117-140.

Jaʿfarī, Muḥammad Taqī. Tarjumah va Tafsīr Nahj al-Balāghah. Tehran: Daftar Nashr Farhang-i Islāmī, 1984/1363.

Mishkātī, Muḥammad Mahdī. "Taḥlīlī az Mabānī Falsafī Ibn Sīnā dar Maʿād Jismānī va Rūḥānī". Pazhūhish-hā-yi Falsafī -Kalāmī. No. 1-2 (autumn and winter 2011/1389): 161-202.