Soul

===Avicenna and Ibn al-Nafis===

Following Aristotle, [[Avicenna]] (Ibn Sina) and [[Ibn al-Nafis]], an Arab physician, further elaborated upon the Aristotelian understanding of the soul and developed their own theories on the soul. They both made a distinction between the soul and the spirit, and the [[Avicennism|Avicennian]] doctrine on the nature of the soul was influential among the [[Scholasticism|Scholastics]]. Some of Avicenna's views on the soul include the idea that the immortality of the soul is a consequence of its nature, and not a purpose for it to fulfill. In his theory of "The Ten Intellects", he viewed the human soul as the tenth and final [[intelligence|intellect]].<ref>Nahyan A.G. Fancy (2006), [http://etd.nd.edu/ETD-db/theses/available/etd-11292006-152615 "Pulmonary Transit and Bodily Resurrection: The Interaction of Medicine, Philosophy and Religion in the Works of Ibn al-Nafīs (d. 1288)"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150404020329/http://etd.nd.edu/ETD-db/theses/available/etd-11292006-152615/ |date=4 April 2015 }}, pp. 209–10 (''Electronic Theses and Dissertations'', [[University of Notre Dame]]).</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Arabic and Islamic Psychology and Philosophy of Mind |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arabic-islamic-mind/#Avi |publisher=[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]] |date=29 May 2012}}</ref>

While he was imprisoned, Avicenna wrote his famous "[[Floating man]]" [[thought experiment]] to demonstrate human [[self-awareness]] and the substantial nature of the soul.{{CN|date=January 2024}} He told his readers to imagine themselves suspended in the air, isolated from all sensations, which includes no [[sense|sensory]] contact with even their own bodies. He argues that in this scenario one would still have [[self-consciousness]]. He thus concludes that the idea of the [[self (philosophy)|self]] is not logically dependent on any physical [[object (philosophy)|thing]], and that the soul should not be seen in [[relative term]]s, but as a primary given, a [[substance theory|substance]]. This argument was later refined and simplified by [[René Descartes]] in [[epistemology|epistemic]] terms, when he stated: "I can abstract from the supposition of all external things, but not from the supposition of my own consciousness."<ref>Seyyed [[Hossein Nasr]] and [[Oliver Leaman]] (1996), ''History of Islamic Philosophy'', p. 315, [[Routledge]], {{ISBN|0-415-13159-6}}.</ref>

Avicenna generally supported Aristotle's idea of the soul originating from the [[heart]], whereas Ibn al-Nafis rejected this idea and instead argued that the soul "is related to the entirety and not to one or a few [[organ (anatomy)|organs]]". He further criticized Aristotle's idea whereby every unique soul requires the existence of a unique source, in this case the heart. Al-Nafis concluded that "the soul is related primarily neither to the spirit nor to any organ, but rather to the entire matter whose temperament is prepared to receive that soul," and he defined the soul as nothing other than "what a human indicates by saying "[[I (pronoun)|I]]".<ref>{{cite thesis |author=Nahyan A.G. Fancy |year=2006 |title=Pulmonary Transit and Bodily Resurrection: The Interaction of Medicine, Philosophy and Religion in the Works of Ibn al-Nafīs (d. 1288) |pages=209–210 |work=Electronic Theses and Dissertations, [[University of Notre Dame]]|url=http://etd.nd.edu/ETD-db/theses/available/etd-11292006-152615 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150404020329/http://etd.nd.edu/ETD-db/theses/available/etd-11292006-152615/ |archive-date=4 April 2015|publisher=University of Notre Dame}}</ref>