A comparative study on soul and life in the philosophy of Aristotle and Ibn Sina

(with an emphasis on the book De Anima and Kitāb al-Nafs from al-Šifa’)

Abstract

Numerous works have been written in different languages ​​about the nature of the soul and soul-body relations in the viewpoint of Aristotle. In the meantime, due to the high in­fluence that Ibn Sina has received from Aristotle in his philosophy, a considerable num­ber of these works have also been done as comparative studies on the psychology of Aris­totle and Ibn Sina. These works have explained the commonalities of the two philoso­phers as well as the differences that exist in Ibn Sina's psychology in definition of the soul, its essence, soul-body relations and so on. But no study has independently examined the difference between the soul and life in the viewpoint of Ibn Sina and nor compared these differences with what Aristotle expresses in his works. Our aim in this article is to compare the opinion of Aristotle and Ibn Sina about the nature of the soul and life, and to show how they think differently.