Aristotle and Al-Farabi on Soul
For Aristotle, soul has no shape and it is the form of matter.
Soul is the capacity by which matter or body can perform certain activities like growth, decay, movement, nourishment, reproduction, perception and intellect.
On the hierarchy of soul's functions, the rational soul that performs intellect is what lies on the top.
Humans possess rational soul but animals do not.
Animals perform functions of the sensitive soul (perception and locomotion) and the nutritive soul (growth and nutrition).
Soul, for Aristotle is not a thing, it is a capacity of matter so it stays with matter.
The capacity of the body is not separable.
For instance, an axe is just metal and wood but its ability to chop is its soul.
For Aristotle, the thinking part of the soul is less complex and it will survive death.
The more complex parts of the soul rely on matter and cannot exist without body.
Aristotle introduces active intellect, a part of the rational soul that will survive immortality.
Hence, soul is inseparable from matter, and it is a capacity but a part of this capacity can be separated.
That part is the active intellect.
He characterizes active mind as a separate, unaffected and unmixed, being in its essence actuality and also as eternal.
This is where the controversy lies.
Capacities are grounded and not free-floating.
How can a part of the capacity separate from which it is a capacity of.
For the Arabic philosopher, Al-Farabi, the goal of human beings is to develop the rational powers by the use of will.
The rational intellect needs to be developed for the rational soul to become immortal.
Here, we know that Al-Farabi thinks in quite a similar way to Aristotle.
So, no matter how confusing it is to figure out what Al-Farabi's beliefs on the immortality of soul were, we know for sure that he believed, like Aristotle, in the immortality of a part of the soul that is the rational part or the active intellect.
However, Al-Farabi has a different interpretation of Aristotle's active intellect.
For Al- Farabi, human beings are between two worlds: the higher immaterial world of celestial intellects and the lower, immaterial world of decaying organisms.
Human beings have a rational capacity in their soul which is the active intellect that connects them to the higher realm.
Active intellect is what turns the potentially intelligible in the earthly humans into actual intellect.
So a goal of a human is to move towards perfection or the First Cause.
Soul is the capacity by which matter or body can perform certain activities like growth, decay, movement, nourishment, reproduction, perception and intellect.
On the hierarchy of soul's functions, the rational soul that performs intellect is what lies on the top.
Humans possess rational soul but animals do not.
Animals perform functions of the sensitive soul (perception and locomotion) and the nutritive soul (growth and nutrition).
Soul, for Aristotle is not a thing, it is a capacity of matter so it stays with matter.
The capacity of the body is not separable.
For instance, an axe is just metal and wood but its ability to chop is its soul.
For Aristotle, the thinking part of the soul is less complex and it will survive death.
The more complex parts of the soul rely on matter and cannot exist without body.
Aristotle introduces active intellect, a part of the rational soul that will survive immortality.
Hence, soul is inseparable from matter, and it is a capacity but a part of this capacity can be separated.
That part is the active intellect.
He characterizes active mind as a separate, unaffected and unmixed, being in its essence actuality and also as eternal.
This is where the controversy lies.
Capacities are grounded and not free-floating.
How can a part of the capacity separate from which it is a capacity of.
For the Arabic philosopher, Al-Farabi, the goal of human beings is to develop the rational powers by the use of will.
The rational intellect needs to be developed for the rational soul to become immortal.
Here, we know that Al-Farabi thinks in quite a similar way to Aristotle.
So, no matter how confusing it is to figure out what Al-Farabi's beliefs on the immortality of soul were, we know for sure that he believed, like Aristotle, in the immortality of a part of the soul that is the rational part or the active intellect.
However, Al-Farabi has a different interpretation of Aristotle's active intellect.
For Al- Farabi, human beings are between two worlds: the higher immaterial world of celestial intellects and the lower, immaterial world of decaying organisms.
Human beings have a rational capacity in their soul which is the active intellect that connects them to the higher realm.
Active intellect is what turns the potentially intelligible in the earthly humans into actual intellect.
So a goal of a human is to move towards perfection or the First Cause.
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