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Allamah Misbah’s Puzzle … M. Legenhausen (39
any given time. This is an old and dependent on the body
problem that was debated among and others that are immortal
post-Aristotelian philosophers and immaterial, then the
for centuries, whether pagan, persistence of the individual
Christian, Jewish or Muslim. soul can be maintained as it
(Dales, 1995) crosses the threshold from the
Had he been acquained stage when its soul is
with Aquinas, Mulla Sadra corporeal to the stage when it
would surely have agreed is spiritual. Even if we
with him that in the human assume that this change
being, the soul includes the happens instantaneously, it
vegetative soul and the animal need not be interpreted as the
soul, for Sadra emphasizes introduction of an extra soul,
the unity of the embodied an immortal one, in addition
soul despite its existence at to the corporeal soul that
different levels, and he preceded it.
cautions that the vegetable Perhaps Allamah Misbah
soul in the human should not would respond that we have
be imagined to be just like the already agreed, following
vegetable soul in a plant. Ibn Sina, that the rational soul
Aquinas and Sadra both is an immortal substance and
explicitly reject the idea that is not to be identified with
the soul is in the body like a any corporeal substance.
captain in his ship. (Dales, When the soul becomes
1995: 140) immortal, a new substance is
If the soul can be united as attached to the human body
one individual despite having that did not exist before. We
powers that are corruptible cannot say that this was