A History of Mediaeval Jewish PhilosophyHusik, Isaac
ReligionJewish
A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy
Husik, Isaac
Philosophy, Jewish; Philosophy, Medieval
While we have proved that soul is not mixture nor anything like it, it
is nevertheless true that the kind of soul bestowed upon a given body
depends upon the state of the mixture in the elementary qualities of
that body. Thus we have the three kinds of soul, vegetative, animal and
human or rational. We need not follow Ibn Daud in his detailed
descriptions of the functions of the several kinds of soul, as there is
little that is new and that we have not already met in Joseph Ibn Zaddik
and Judah Halevi. Avicenna (Ibn Sina) is the common source for Halevi
and Ibn Daud, and the description of the inner senses is practically
identical in the two, with the slight difference that Halevi attributes
to the "common sense" the two functions which are divided in Ibn Daud
between the common sense and the power of representation.
The soul is not eternal. It was created and bestowed upon body. When a
body comes into being, the character of its mixture determines that a
soul of a certain kind shall be connected with it. The other
alternatives are (1) that the soul existed independently before the
body, is then connected with the body and dies with the death of the
latter; or (2) it remains after the death of the body. The first
alternative is impossible; because if the soul is connected with the
body in order to die with it, its union is an injury to the soul, for in
its separate existence it was free from the defects of matter. The
second alternative is equally impossible; for if the soul was able to
exist without the body before the appearance of the latter and after its
extinction, of what use is its connection with the body? Far from being
of any benefit, its union with the body is harmful to the soul, for it
is obliged to share in the corporeal accidents. Divine wisdom never does
anything without a purpose.
The truth is that the soul does not exist before the body. It arises at
the same time as, and in connection with body, realizing and actualizing
the latter. Seed and sperm have in them the possibility of becoming
plant and animal respectively. But they need an agent to bring to
actuality what is in them potentially. This agent--an angel or a sphere,
or an angel using a sphere as its instrument--bestows forms upon bodies,
which take the places of the previous forms the bodies had. The sphere
or star produces these forms (or souls) by means of its motions, which
motions ultimately go back to the first incorporeal mover, by whose
wisdom forms are connected with bodies in order to perfect the former by
means of the latter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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