نفس و روح در فلسفه و عرفان

Soul and Spirit in Philosophy and Gnosis

The evaluation and clarification of the nature and reality of manʹs soul are among the most important problems philosophers and gnostics deal with. At the beginning of the section of the knowledge of the soul (ilm al-nafs) of philosophy, philosophers always refer to this issue and try to analyze it. Philosophical issues follow a specific logical order in both form and content. However, in gnostic books, the problems which are related to the soul - like many other ones - are not only vaguely treated, but also scatteredly presented in different chapters. In fact, in spite of the prime importance of the problem of spirit in gnosis, no specific chapter has been devoted to it, while it has been mentioned in most of the chapters in their books. Gnostics, as the science of gnosis necessitates, follow a completely divine and metaphysical approach in their analysis of the reality of the soul and study it from its reflexive (being like a mirror) aspect, while philosophers pay attention to the mental aspect of the soul and its connection to nature as well. The most important point occupying the minds of philosophers succeeding Aristotle, concerning his definition of the soul, pertains to Mulla Sadraʹs arguments with the Peripateric philosophers as to whether Aristotleʹs definition is related to the reality of the soul or its connective mode. Some of the ideas -concerning the reality of the soul are possibly too strange. The reason for having a tendency towards such ideas could be the complexity of this issue, so that some thinkers believe that the reality of the soul can never be known, and some of them, in confirming this claim, have resorted to one of the verses in the Holy Qurʹan (Al-Isra Chapter: 85).