The Body and Its Relation to Human Actions from Sadrian Viewpoint

Subject Areas : Philosophy

Received: 2016-12-23 Accepted : 2017-07-06 Published : 2017-11-22

Keywords: Corporeal Action, Psychical Action, Ideal Body, Hierarchy of the Soul, Mulla Sadra,

Abstract :

This essay deals with the problem of the role of the body in emanating actions, from Mulla Sadra’s viewpoint. To study human actions we need, at first, to deal with some basic concepts of Mulla Sadra’s philosophical psychology, such as the hierarchy of the soul, natural body, and ideal body. We find in his psychology two bodies, namely natural body and ideal body. As the soul can’t realize in the natural world without body, it is not deprive of body in isthmus and the stage of imagination. Human actions, according to the hierarchy of levels of being, are associated with both bodies. Indeed, both bodies are the agents of the actions. Therefore, human actions can be divided into corporeal and psychical actions. The former is an action whose agent is natural body, and, with respect to the hierarchy of levels of the soul, its distant agent would be the soul. The latter is an action whose agent would be the animal soul, or the ideal body. In action emanation, the ideal body plays an important role. In fact, according to Sadrian viewpoint, in the process of action emanation, the body, together with the soul, contributes to actions formation and to leading human beings toward perfection and happiness.