Allegory and Philosophy in Avicenna (Ibn Sînâ): With a Translation of the Book of the Prophet Muhammad's Ascent to Heaven

4. Avicenna's Theory of the Soul

4. Avicenna's Theory of the Soul Psychology, the study of the soul, held a particular fascination for Avicenna . That the subject clearly lies near the heart of his concern for philosophy is indicated by the fact that he devoted numerous major and minor tracts to the subject and returned repeatedly to its elaboration throughout his life.' Avicenna's psychological doctrines are stable in their general parameters, but his individual presentations of them differ according to considerations of philosophical intent, generic format, and audience of address." Like any psychology aspiring to comprehensiveness, Avicenna 's theory addresses four considerations: 1. The nature of the soul 2. The faculties of the soul 3. The origin of the soul 4. The final end of the soul The Nature of the Soul At the beginning of his "Explanation of the Condition of Prophethood and Apostleship" in the Mi'raj Nama, Avicenna posits an essential bifurcation in human beings. Humans, he says, consist of body and soul. The body is a "gathering" of humors and a "combination" of elements, "adorned" with parts, each with a specific function: the foot walks, the hand grasps, and so on." More detailed description of the elements, humors, and parts may be found in Avicenna's medical encyclopedia, al-Qanun fi t-tibb (The Canon of Medicine), where he explains that the material elements (arkan) are "simple bodies which are the primary components of human and other bodies."> They are four in number: earth (heavy, cold, and dry), water (heavy, cold, and wet), fire (light, hot, and dry), and air (light, hot, and wet). In their diverse combinations, or temperaments (mizaj), these elements constitute all the world's material bod- 54 Allegory and Philosophy ies. The more symmetrical their mixture the more perfect the result. The human body, according to Avicenna, is the most symmetrical, and thus the most perfect, material composition. 5 The humors (akhllit) are bodily fluids generated from the intake of nutrients. The principal humors are also four in number: blood (hot and moist), phlegm (cold and moist), choler, or yellow bile (hot and dry), and melancholy, or black bile (cold and dry). The appropriate amount of each humor in the body and the harmony of their proportionate relationships determine a person's physical health and well-being." Finally, there are the parts or members (a'tjli)) of the body. They consist of: (I) basic components (such as flesh, skin, or bones); (2) limbs (head, hand, leg, arm, etc.); and (3)organs (liver, heart, brain, and so on). The relationship among the elements, humors, and parts of the body is hierarchically contingent. The elements, in certain combinations, produce nutrients appropriate for humans, which, when consumed, generate and sustain the body's fluids, or humors. The humors, in turn, generate and sustain the body's solid members. As Avicenna says, the bodily parts are "generated from the first mixture of the salubrious humors, just as the humors are the first mixture of the elements." 7 Soul, for Avicenna, is an equivocal term. His generic definition is that the soul is "the first entelechy of a natural body possessing organs that potentially has life."8 Beyond this, Avicenna offers relational descriptions. In regard to the otherwise inert body, the soul is the vital or activating principle. In relation to the body's material constituents, soul is form. In regard to entelechy (final end or perfection), the soul is a particular life form's specifying differentia, separating species from genus.9 According to Avicenna, the human soul is a union of three subsidiary parts, each of which is also usually termed soul (nafs). Each of these subsidiary souls is distinguished by its own specific functions and entelechy. As he states in an-Najat, soul is like a single genus divided somehow into three parts. One of them is the vegetable (soul), the first. entelechy of a natural body possessing organs in regard to reproduction, growth, and nourishment. The second is the animal soul, the first entelechy of a natural body possessing organs in regard to perceiving particulars and moving through will. And the third is the human soul, the first entelechy of a natural body possessing organs in regard to what is related to its performing actions stemming from rational choiceand deduction through opinion and in regard to its perceiving universal matters. 10 Avicenna's Theory of the Soul 55 This tripartite division of the human soul into...