حکمت معاصر (Jun 2012)
The Analysis and Researching of Immortality of the Soul in Avicenna’s and Aquinas’s Point of View
Abstract
Immortality of the soul has always been one of the crucial concerns of deist philosophers. Regarding to significance and status of this problem, it would be accurate to say that all philosophical attempts proving the existence of the soul, have been dealing with setting fourth an explanatory definition of it. As two major figures in this tradition, Avicenna and Aquinas, following Aristotle, got substantially involved in giving a religiously and philosophically valid basis to support the existence of the soul. They both elaborated this concept on the Aristotelian understanding and further developed their own theories, viewing immortality as one of the pivotal features of the soul. For this reason, a succinct explanation of Aristotle’s idea of the soul should be inevitably presented. This essay consists of two parts. The first part concerns explaining the concept of the soul, its abstractness and in corporeality and the way it is affiliated to the body, introductory to prove immortality of the soul. In the second part, I try to elaborate the explanation analysis and researching of the soul and its immortality in philosophy of Avicenna and Aquinas.
