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Abū Al-Barakāt Al-Baghdādī On The Human Soul: An Exposition of Some Major Problems of Psychology
This study introduces and elaborates upon certain related discussions and ideas gleaned from an analysis of the psychological section of the al-Mu'tabar fi al-Hikmah by Abū Al-Barakāt Al-Baghdādī, which deals mainly with the major philosophical problems of the human soul. Since our subject is Abu al-Barakit and his Kitab al-Nafs, considered historically to be among those major works on Islamic philosophy, therefore the approach of this study is philosophical. Since it is not a thorough analysis of Abu al-Barakir's psychology, this study will focus only on major issues concerning the nature of the human soul. It covers aspects such as the definition and existence of the human soul as well as its very nature, which includes the problem of immateriality and substantiality of the soul, its faculties as well as the soul-body relationship. All these aspects will demonstrate the reality and nature of the human soul including its psychological aspects, at least from Abu al-Barakat's point of view.
170 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2021
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May 16, 2024
The gist of Wittgenstein’s idea in the Tractatus was that some things can be shown, but can never be said. Our thoughts are not intelligible in the Kantian sense, it is an inward expression of the external world. Thought and physicality limits each other in a way that both refers to the external world, and not the noumenon. This is the entire message behind Kantian’s message that metaphysics purely through concepts are implausible. After reading Kant and Wittgenstein, one got the impression that these two entire giant is the anti-Atlas, for while Atlas born the burden of the heavens on his shoulder, Kant and Wittgenstein abolished the possibility of the idea of going out into the firmament at all. But both Kant and Wittgenstein left a clue that while there are indeed things that cannot be conceptualized, there are things that must be necessarily experienced to cognize its presence i.e. ethics and transcendence.
In this book, through the dialectic Kalam way, the definition and essential properties of the Soul is delineated and purified from unworthy appendages. It is shown that the concept of Soul relates closely to our self-consciousness, for as the author cleverly puts it, when I mean about “I” and “myself”, I really intending for myself and my reality rather than something else. Thus, the definition of the Soul in Islam points towards the self-evidence of self-consciousness. But how this apparently this “I” interacts with the body and what is its property turned out not to be as self-evident, after all.
The Soul is not an accident, for it exists independently from the body. For if it is an accident, then it must be limited by the limitedness of the body it inheres, and thus it is impossible for it to perceive something greater than what its vessels can perceive. As the Soul can perceive things that is greater than mere physicality, it is not an accident. As it does not inhere in a body, then it must exists independently from a body and not inhering to a thing, thus it is a substance.
The Soul too can perceive two contradictory things e.g. warmth and cold, but the material cannot. The material must either be warm or cold, or even leaning towards one pole than another if it is continuous in nature. Yet we can perceive and hold and analyze two contradictory concepts, thus the Soul must be immaterial. Building from the two arguments, we have arrived to the conception of the Soul as the immaterial substance.
How can something immaterial interacts with the material? This is the ghost that haunts the Western world, through the old Cartesian ghoul. Many ideas and theories of the mind-body relationship has sprung, yet with no satisfactory answers. Speculations built on top of speculations, and speculations upon speculations necessarily cannot yield into the truth.
Where should we turn ourselves then? Back to the primary datum of consciousness, that is Existence. From my previous post, it has been shown how Existence in the material world proceeds from the unitary Absolute Reality, not in essence, but through the actualization of God’s attributes.
A recapitulation: the Many proceeds from the One through a process of ontological descent. The Absolute, in its absolute delimitedness reflects upon itself infinite attributes of perfection. This principle from which He reflects upon himself, is called as the Muhammadic Reality. Already within the infinite attributes, pregnant with the potentialities it actualizes. And thus the Attributes actualizes itself, out from the infinite interrelatedness, arises the material world. And the principle with which it applies for its potentialization is the exterior archetypes.
The parable for this ontological descent would be that the Sea, initially unitary in its vastness and absoluteness. But then it determines itself in the form of the Waves, and thus it washes the Shore and out from it are the Imprintings of the Shore.
Though the exterior archetypes, the World unfolds itself. And it is evident to us, that the World unfolds itself through this “I”. Thus this “I” stood as the particularized exterior archetypes into individual receptacle out from them arises the World. The Mirrors, that is the individual exterior archetypes, each reflected the specific facet of the Unitary Reality actualizing, specifying and determining itself in its dynamic.
Thus the I is the Shore and the Mirror through which God’s Attributes manifested themselves. It is the principle Reality unfolds itself through an individual lens. And through it, God’s dynamicity in determining His Attributes creates ripples of qualities which follows successively from one ripple to another ripple. And the “I” witnesses it through a succession, carried through time by the inertia and the weight of the successive qualities. And between qualities are connected by the regulative faculty of inference, out from it arises the notion of memory.
Thus the Soul is the receptacle from it arises the Reality. It proceeds across time which is none other than succession of qualities arising from dynamic perpetual annihilation and creation from God’s eternal Will and Power. When the Gazer decides to turn away from the Mirror, and the Sea remains still in its doldrum, the totality of the inertia of that particularized exterior archetypes called as the individual “I”, simply retreats back inwards instead of continue to unfolds outwards. It is a fenestration that opens both outwards and inwards, depending on the breath and the wind. The Self simply passed from outwards into inwards, just like the curious walker in his wanderlust proceeds from the suffocating damp alleys of his city into the open meadows, into the forest with its heavy canopy, and then onto the end of the Path, the Fountain from which all Rivers originated from, he found his Lover.
In this book, through the dialectic Kalam way, the definition and essential properties of the Soul is delineated and purified from unworthy appendages. It is shown that the concept of Soul relates closely to our self-consciousness, for as the author cleverly puts it, when I mean about “I” and “myself”, I really intending for myself and my reality rather than something else. Thus, the definition of the Soul in Islam points towards the self-evidence of self-consciousness. But how this apparently this “I” interacts with the body and what is its property turned out not to be as self-evident, after all.
The Soul is not an accident, for it exists independently from the body. For if it is an accident, then it must be limited by the limitedness of the body it inheres, and thus it is impossible for it to perceive something greater than what its vessels can perceive. As the Soul can perceive things that is greater than mere physicality, it is not an accident. As it does not inhere in a body, then it must exists independently from a body and not inhering to a thing, thus it is a substance.
The Soul too can perceive two contradictory things e.g. warmth and cold, but the material cannot. The material must either be warm or cold, or even leaning towards one pole than another if it is continuous in nature. Yet we can perceive and hold and analyze two contradictory concepts, thus the Soul must be immaterial. Building from the two arguments, we have arrived to the conception of the Soul as the immaterial substance.
How can something immaterial interacts with the material? This is the ghost that haunts the Western world, through the old Cartesian ghoul. Many ideas and theories of the mind-body relationship has sprung, yet with no satisfactory answers. Speculations built on top of speculations, and speculations upon speculations necessarily cannot yield into the truth.
Where should we turn ourselves then? Back to the primary datum of consciousness, that is Existence. From my previous post, it has been shown how Existence in the material world proceeds from the unitary Absolute Reality, not in essence, but through the actualization of God’s attributes.
A recapitulation: the Many proceeds from the One through a process of ontological descent. The Absolute, in its absolute delimitedness reflects upon itself infinite attributes of perfection. This principle from which He reflects upon himself, is called as the Muhammadic Reality. Already within the infinite attributes, pregnant with the potentialities it actualizes. And thus the Attributes actualizes itself, out from the infinite interrelatedness, arises the material world. And the principle with which it applies for its potentialization is the exterior archetypes.
The parable for this ontological descent would be that the Sea, initially unitary in its vastness and absoluteness. But then it determines itself in the form of the Waves, and thus it washes the Shore and out from it are the Imprintings of the Shore.
Though the exterior archetypes, the World unfolds itself. And it is evident to us, that the World unfolds itself through this “I”. Thus this “I” stood as the particularized exterior archetypes into individual receptacle out from them arises the World. The Mirrors, that is the individual exterior archetypes, each reflected the specific facet of the Unitary Reality actualizing, specifying and determining itself in its dynamic.
Thus the I is the Shore and the Mirror through which God’s Attributes manifested themselves. It is the principle Reality unfolds itself through an individual lens. And through it, God’s dynamicity in determining His Attributes creates ripples of qualities which follows successively from one ripple to another ripple. And the “I” witnesses it through a succession, carried through time by the inertia and the weight of the successive qualities. And between qualities are connected by the regulative faculty of inference, out from it arises the notion of memory.
Thus the Soul is the receptacle from it arises the Reality. It proceeds across time which is none other than succession of qualities arising from dynamic perpetual annihilation and creation from God’s eternal Will and Power. When the Gazer decides to turn away from the Mirror, and the Sea remains still in its doldrum, the totality of the inertia of that particularized exterior archetypes called as the individual “I”, simply retreats back inwards instead of continue to unfolds outwards. It is a fenestration that opens both outwards and inwards, depending on the breath and the wind. The Self simply passed from outwards into inwards, just like the curious walker in his wanderlust proceeds from the suffocating damp alleys of his city into the open meadows, into the forest with its heavy canopy, and then onto the end of the Path, the Fountain from which all Rivers originated from, he found his Lover.
February 3, 2022
This book was written by a well trained scholar in Kalam & Islamic Philosophy as can be seen in his analysis & remarks on Abu Barakat’s idea on human soul. This study deals with the definition, existence & nature of human soul quite extensively hence proving the contribution & excellency of Abu al-Barakat in Islamic Philosophy, particularly in the discussion of human soul in this case, which sometimes neglected by some modern scholars and researchers.
Abu al-Barakat’s ideas was not Aristotelian nor Platonic in toto, as regarded by some researchers in their analysis of Islamic Philosophy & Kalam, but rather a critical examination and analysis of their respective idea. Not just that, Abu Barakat critically followed & continued the idea of soul that have being put forward by Muslim scholars before him such as Ibn Sina & al-Ghazzali.
His idea and analysis of human soul have influenced scholars after him in their analysis of particular subject such as al-Iji, Fakh al-Din al-Razi, al-Suhrawardi and Mulla Sadra. Hence reflecting a long intellectual tradition of Muslim scholars involving critical analysis either resulting a different conclusion, opposing or not, or affirming the same conclusion but through different reasoning.
Abu al-Barakat’s ideas was not Aristotelian nor Platonic in toto, as regarded by some researchers in their analysis of Islamic Philosophy & Kalam, but rather a critical examination and analysis of their respective idea. Not just that, Abu Barakat critically followed & continued the idea of soul that have being put forward by Muslim scholars before him such as Ibn Sina & al-Ghazzali.
His idea and analysis of human soul have influenced scholars after him in their analysis of particular subject such as al-Iji, Fakh al-Din al-Razi, al-Suhrawardi and Mulla Sadra. Hence reflecting a long intellectual tradition of Muslim scholars involving critical analysis either resulting a different conclusion, opposing or not, or affirming the same conclusion but through different reasoning.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews