Mousavian Seyed N Et Al. (2017) Avicenna On The Origination of The Human Soul

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 10/5/2017, SPi
Avicenna on the Origination

of the Human Soul
Seyed N. Mousavian and Seyed Hasan Saadat Mostafavi
Ontological problems with Avicenna’s view on the nature of the human soul
run deep.1 Here we shall focus on one aspect of his view, namely, the
temporal origination of the human soul. According to the common wisdom,
among both contemporary scholars and classic interpreters, Avicenna is
committed to:
(1) The human soul is temporally originated with the human body.
We shall refer to (1) as the thesis of ‘Co-origination.’ In section 1, we will introduce
Co-origination. In section 2, against the common wisdom, we will try
1
See, for some contemporary discussions, Herbert A. Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna, &
Averroes on Intellect: Their Cosmologies, Theories of the Active Intellect, and Theories of
Human Intellect (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 81; Thérèse-Anne Druart,
“The Human Soul’s Individuation and its Survival after the Body’s Death: Avicenna on
the Causal Relation between Body and Soul,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 10 (2000),
259–73, particularly 273; Robert E. Hall, “Intellect, Soul and Body in Ibn Sina:
Systematic Synthesis and Development of the Aristotelian, Neoplatonic and Galenic
Theories,” in J. McGinnis with the assistance of D. C. Reisman (eds.), Interpreting
Avicenna: Science and Philosophy in Medieval Islam, Proceedings of the Second Conference
of the Avicenna Study Group (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 62–86, particularly 70; Michael
Marmura, “Some Questions regarding Avicenna’s Theory of the Temporal Origination
of the Human Rational Soul,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 18 (2008), 121–38, in
particular 121–2; and Dimitri Gutas, “Avicenna: The Metaphysics of the Rational Soul,”
The Muslim World, Special Issue: The Ontology of the Soul in Medieval Arabic Thought 102
(2012), 417–25, particularly 417. Here, for instance, is how Hall summarizes the
problem:
Ibn Sina’s cosmology with its dual hierarchy of Intellects and Souls is perhaps ontologic-
ally too complex. [ . . . ] Still, there are unresolved difficulties in the ontological aspects of
the ensoulment of the embryo, the intellectual ascent (in this life), the interrelations with
the celestial souls, and—least clear of all—the ontology of the afterlife. The ontological
problems run deep. (“Intellect, Soul and Body,” 70)
42 Seyed N. Mousavian and Seyed Hasan Saadat Mostafavi
to argue that Co-origination is ambiguous and vague and thus its attribution
to Avicenna is in need of clarification and precisification. Next, in section 3,
we will highlight the significance of the problem by exploring the logical
space of ‘possible’ solutions and introduce our methodology. The problem is
broken down into two sub-problems: First, in section 4, we will consider the
problem of the origination of different souls/powers, namely the vegetative,
animal, and rational, in humans, and second, in section 5, we will discuss
the problem of the relationship between these souls/powers. Based on our
solutions to these two sub-problems, in section 6, we will offer our own
reading of Co-origination according to which Avicenna is not committed to
the view that the human soul is originated with the ‘human body’ in its
ordinary sense. In section 7, we will try to derive two corollaries of our
reading: First, we will attempt to show where an influential argument by
Dag Hasse2 and Dimitri Gutas3 against a form of ‘supernal knowledge’ by
the faculty of imagination (al-hayal) goes astray, and second, we will offer a
̆
solution to the notorious problem of the integrator and retentive factor of
the fundamental elements of the embryo’s body, a matter of significant
disagreement between ar-Raˉ zī and at. -T. ūsī. In section 8, we will briefly
explain how the seemingly ‘contrary’ textual evidence may be handled. We
will end, in section 9, by touching upon some open questions that our
study engenders.
1 . C O - O R I GI N A T I O N
There are pieces of ‘explicit’ textual evidence throughout Avicenna’s works

of different periods that (apparently) support Co-origination. Here are two
examples:
Text 1. Thus, it is evident that human souls (al-anfus al-insaˉ niyya) are originated
with the origination (h.udūtˍ) of human bodies (al-abdaˉ n al-insaˉ niyya).4 Hence, it is
shown that when a human body, with a temperament specific to a human being, is
2
See Dag N. Hasse, Avicenna’s De Anima in the Latin West: The Formation of a
Peripatetic Philosophy of the Soul, 1160–1300 (London: Warburg Institute, 2000), par-
ticularly 159.
3
See Dimitri Gutas, “Imagination and Transcendental Knowledge in Avicenna,” in
J. E. Montgomery (ed.), Arabic Theology, Arabic Philosophy. From the Many to the One:
Essays in Celebration of Richard M. Frank (Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 337–54.
4
‘Being originated’ or ‘origination’ (h.udūtˍ), in medieval Arabic philosophy, has various
uses, relative vs. absolute (something might be relatively originated, given a point of reference,
without being absolutely originated) as well as temporal vs. essential (e.g., something might be
essentially originated without being temporally originated). Here, not trying to distinguish
between these uses, Avicenna presupposes that everything originated has a cause.
Avicenna on the Origination of the Human Soul 43
born, a human soul whose cause is the active intellect, since everything originated has
a cause, is simultaneously born with.5
The above passage is striking in that Avicenna explicitly refers to the
human body, not the material body, nor the body simpliciter, and to
the human soul, not just the soul and is keen to mention ‘simultaneity’
between the origination of the human body and that of the human soul with
a specific preposition in Arabic, i.e. ma ʿa (simultaneously with).6
Or, consider:
Text 2. Thus it is correct that the soul is originated just as the body appropriate for its
use is originated, to be employed by it [i.e. the soul] or to employ it, and the
originated body will become its domain of governance and its tool. What the body
naturally needs in terms of being occupied and employed, as well as being concerned
with its states, may be found in the substance of the soul originated with the body.7
Here Avicenna seems to be engaged in explaining the close connection
between the human soul originated with the ‘body appropriate for its use,’
on the one hand, and the human body as the ‘domain of the governance’ of
its soul, on the other hand. The explanation unfolds in a reciprocal manner:
the origination of an individual human soul is described by reference to the
individual body that possesses the soul, as the appropriate object to be
employed by the soul, and the origination of the corresponding individual
human body is described by reference to the soul that ensouls the body, as
the appropriate object to be occupied with the body.8
It is worth emphasizing that though Avicenna might have changed his
view on some details of the ontology of the human soul, he adheres to two
principles determinedly: (some version of ) Co-origination and the principle
5
Ibn Sīnaˉ , Avicenna. Al-Mabdaʾ wa-l-maʿād, The Provenance and Destination, ed.
Abdallaˉ h Nūraˉ nī (Tehran: The Institute of Islamic Studies, 1363/1984), 108. In what
follows, all translations are ours unless otherwise specified.
6
We use italicization ambiguously. In some occasions, we use it to generate stress
effect, e.g., ‘human’ in the above sentence. In other occasions, we use it to produce a
name of something, particularly when we refer to Arabic terms, e.g., ‘ma ʿa’ in the same
sentence. Obviously, we use other means, e.g., single or double quotation, to produce
names as well, e.g.,the last two occurrences of single quotation in this very footnote.
We try to save double quotation for cases in which quotation of some kind is involved.
We hope, perhaps naively, that context clarifies how we use italicization and quotation.
7
Ibn Sīnaˉ [Avicenna], Ah.waˉ l an-nafs [States of the Soul], ed. A. F. al-Ahwaˉ nī (Cairo:
Daˉ r ih.yaˉ ʾ al-kutub al-ʿarabiyya, 1371/1952), 97.
8
The explanation is not viciously circular since the human soul and the human body
are not ontologically interdependent; each has its own principle of existence, though the
human body contributes to the individuation of the human soul and the human soul
manages the human body. This kind of contribution to individuation does not necessitate
ontological interdependence; an accident might contribute to the individuation of a
substance when they have different principles of existence.
of ‘No-imprint,’ as we call it: “The rational soul, according to Avicenna, is a

substance subsisting by itself which is imprinted neither in a human body
nor in anything else corporeal; it is completely separable and abstracted
from matter” (Gutas, “Metaphysics of the Rational Soul,” 417). Thus,
Co-origination seems to constitute the heart of Avicenna’s ontology of the
human soul.
Contemporary Avicenna scholars, almost with no exception,9 interpret
Avicenna as being committed to Co-origination. For instance,
An individual rational human soul comes into existence the moment a human body,
suitable for its reception and for becoming its instrument, is formed. It comes into
existence as an emanation necessitated by the celestial intellects.
(Marmura, “Some Questions,” 122)
Likewise, according to Druart, “In De anima, V, 4, Avicenna shows that
though the human soul and its body originate simultaneously (ma ʿa), they
do not corrupt simultaneously [ . . . ]” (Druart, “The Human Soul’s Indi-
viduation,” 262–3). Although Gutas does not closely follow Marmura’s
interpretation of Avicenna’s philosophy of the soul, his view on the origin-
ation of the human soul is similar: “The rational soul comes into existence
together with the human body, not before, and it maintains a certain
association with it as long as a person is alive” (Gutas, “Metaphysics of the
Rational Soul,” 417–18).10
2. THE PROBLEM: CO-ORIGINATION IS

A M B I GU O U S A N D V A G U E
Co-origination, (1), is ambiguous and vague and thus its attribution to

Avicenna is in need of clarification and precisification, or so we will argue.
Disambiguation and precisification of (1) has far-reaching consequences for
Avicenna’s view on the origination of the human soul and engenders a
host of open questions ranging from Avicenna’s philosophy of mind and
9
As far as we can see, the only exception is: Joseph Kenny, “Ibn Sīnaˉ and the Origin
of Human Life,” in K. D. Crow (ed.), Islam, Cultural Transformation and the Re-
emergence of Falsafah: Studies Honoring Professor George Fransic McLean on His Eightieth
Birthday (Tehran: Iranian Institute of Philosophy Press, 2009). Available online at:
<http://www.dhspriory.org/kenny/IbnSinaHayawan.htm>. We find Kenny’s interpret-
ation of Avicenna’s ontology of the soul, however, problematic for other reasons. He
concludes that “Ibn-Sina is the only medieval thinker I know of who, in so many words,
maintains the humanization of the human fetus right from conception” (17). We disagree.
See section 5.
10
All emphases on ‘human’ and ‘its’ in the above quotes are ours.
metaphysics to his moral philosophy (see section 9). Now, we shall argue for
the ambiguity and vagueness of (1) in two steps.
a. Co-origination is Ambiguous
(1) is ambiguous since the term ‘human body’ is ambiguous. In one sense,
the term may refer to a body with all major human organs that occupy their
natural location and function properly. In this sense, the ‘human body’ is
the ‘body’ of a human individual in its ordinary sense. Alternatively, it may
refer to a material body that does not have all the major human organs or
whose organs do not occupy their natural location or function properly. In
this sense, the ‘human body’ is not the ‘body’ of a human being in its
ordinary sense. The ‘human body,’ as used in (1), is ambiguous between the
ordinary sense of the term and its non-ordinary sense. (We will come back to
the ambiguity embedded in the non-ordinary sense later.) We will explain why.
Let’s begin with Avicenna’s view on the chronology of embryonic devel-
opment in the fifth chapter of the ninth treatise of al-Ḥ ayawaˉ n of aš-Šifaˉ ʾ:
Text 3. And the frothy/foamy period is six days. And the red lines and dots appear
after another three days. That would be nine days after the beginning [i.e. the
conception], and this may be predated a day or delayed for a day. And then after
another 6 days, this would be the fifteenth after the conception, the hematic
[element] penetrates throughout the whole, and it becomes a blood clot. And this
may be predated a day or two or delayed two days. And by 12 days after that, it will
become flesh. [Subsequently,] the segmentation of the flesh becomes distinct and the
three [major] organs are set apart and then the moist [/membranes] surrounding the
spinal cord spans, this may be predated or delayed two or three days. Then after nine
days the head gets separated from the sides [/shoulders] and the limbs from the ribs
and the abdomen, such a distinction is sensible [/perceivable] in some and concealed
in others till it will be sensible [/perceivable] by 4 days after that, and this completes
the forty days. This is rarely delayed to 45 days. And the earliest, in this regard, is
thirty days.11
For Avicenna, the human body is completed over a period of time, between
thirty and forty-five days. Otherwise put, the human body does not
come into existence all at once. This is consistent with what we know
from Muslim physicians’ consensus, as well as natural philosophers’, over
11
Ibn Sīnaˉ [Avicenna], Aš-Šifaˉ ʾ, at. -T. abī ʿiyyaˉ t, al-Ḥ ayawaˉ n [The Healing, Natural
Sciences, The Animal], ed. A. Muntas.ir, S. Zaˉ yid, and A. Ismaˉ ʿīl (Cairo: al-Hayʾa al-
mis.riyya al-ʿaˉ mma li-t-taʾlīf wa-n-našr, 1970), 172–3.
Table 2.1 Avicenna’s view on the chronology of embryonic development

Stages The length of each stage The total time from conception
The frothy/foamy period 6 days 6

Red lines and dots 3 days 1 day 9
Blood clot 6 days 2 days 15
Flesh and the three major organs 12 days 3 days 27
Distinction of some organs 9 days 36
Distinction of all organs 4 days 40 5 (min: 30 days)
epigenesis, the view that “the organs are not all formed at once, but one after
the other.”12 Epigenesis is endorsed in the Quraˉ n as well.13
An almost identical chronology of embryonic development may be found
in Avicenna’s al-Qaˉ nūn fī t. -t. ibb (569).14 Thus, he is committed to epigen-
esis. Table 2.1 summarizes his view on the chronology of embryonic
development.
12
See Basim Musallam, “The Human Embryo in Arabic Scientific and Religious
Thought,” in G. R. Dunstan (ed.), The Human Embryo: Aristotle and the Arabic and
European Traditions (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1990), 32–48. Particularly, here:
The belief that the fetus passes through different stages, that the organs are not all
formed at once, but one after the other, is called epigenesis. On this issue Muslim
religious thinkers had no quarrel with Aristotle, and both scientific traditions of
medicine and natural philosophy emphasized epigenesis as the standard idea of fetal
development. The Quran left no doubt that the fetus undergoes a series of transform-
ations before becoming human. (38)
13
For instance, as Musallam (ibid.) refers to, consider the Quraˉ n (24, 12–14):
(12) We created man of a quintessence of clay. (13) Then we placed him as semen in a
firm receptacle. (14) Then we formed the semen into a blood-like clot; then we
formed the clot into a lump of flesh; then we formed out of that lump bones and
clothed the bones with flesh; then we made him another creation. So blessed be God the
best creator.
14
Ibn Sina [Avicenna], Al-Qaˉ nūn fī t. -t. ibb [The Canon of Medicine]. F1953. Saab
Medical Library, American University of Beirut, 2002–2007. A point of difference
between what Avicenna says on the chronology of embryonic development in aš-Šifaˉ ʾ
and that in al-Qaˉ nūn is his emphasis on the role of the faculty of form-bearing
(al-mus.awwira) in the first stage of embryonic development in al-Qaˉ nūn:
Text 4. And the frothy period is six days or seven, and during these days the form-bearing
[faculty/power] (al-mus.awwira) acts on the semen (an-nut. fa) without the help of the
uterus, and after that it needs its assistance [ . . . ] (Al-Qaˉ nūn fī t. -t. ibb, Book 3, Part 21,
Treatise 1, chapter on genesis of the embryo, 569)
Apparently, Avicenna is talking about the form-bearing faculty of the mother’s soul and
its active role on the evolution of the semen after conception. This, nonetheless, should be
verified elsewhere.
By the ‘three major organs,’ in the fourth stage, Avicenna means the
heart, brain, and liver (ibid., 568–9). In the fifth stage, the organs that
become distinct before all the rest are the head and the limbs. The human
body, then, is completed about forty days after conception.
Given (1), if by the ‘human body,’ we mean the human body in its
complete form, i.e. in its ordinary sense, then, the human soul should come
into existence at about forty days after conception. Some Avicenna scholars,
e.g., McGinnis, might be read as arguing that, for Avicenna, the animal soul
is originated with the perfected animal body, and thus the human soul is
originated with the perfected human body:
First, there is the initial substance, the semen (minan), which remains for a while,
and then all at once a new substance appears, namely, the embryo (or blood clot,
ʿalaqa). Similarly again, after a while the embryo is replaced by a new substance that
comes to be all at once, in this case, the fetus (mud.g.a). This state is followed by the
generation of the various organs and limbs. Finally, the perfected animal itself comes to
be, which is yet a different substance.15
15
Jon McGinnis, “On the Moment of Substantial Change: A Vexed Question in the
History of Ideas,” in J. McGinnis with the assistance of D. C. Reisman (eds.), Interpreting
Avicenna: Science and Philosophy in Medieval Islam, Proceedings of the Second Conference of
the Avicenna Study Group (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 42–61, at 54 (emphasis added). A minor
terminological point may be worth mentioning. We use the ‘human embryo’ and the
‘human fetus’ in their contemporary senses: In humans, the term ‘embryo’ is currently
“applied to the unborn child until the end of the seventh week following conception; from
the eighth week the unborn child is called a fetus” (Encyclopedia Britannica, <http://
global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/185610/embryo>, retrieved Nov. 27, 2014).
Medieval terminology, and in particular Avicenna’s, is different. In Avicenna’s language,
ʿalaqa applies to the human embryo (as we use the term) when it is between the second
and third week after conception (see Table 2.1), and not much further. Moreover, the
term ʿalaqa is not semantically characterized to convey temporal information, though it
refers to the human embryo between the second and third week. The word ʿalaqa is
semantically characterized to convey information about the matter, namely blood, and the
form (in a loose sense), namely a clot, that ‘constitutes’ the human embryo; ʿalaqa literally
means ‘coagulated blood,’ see Hans Wehr, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (3rd
edition), ed. J. M. Cowan (New York: Spoken Language Services Inc., 1976). Hence, we
shall prefer to transcribe/transliterate the term or, depending on the context, translate it
by a description, e.g., ‘a blood clot.’ Regarding mod.g.a, one may have similar concerns.
For Avicenna, the term refers to the human embryo (as we use the term) after the stage
of being a blood clot and before the formation of the first major organ, i.e. the heart
(al-Qaˉ nūn fī t. -t. ibb, 568) (we shall come back to this reference and discuss it in more detail
later). This, according to Avicenna, should occur between the third and the fourth week
(not after the seventh or eighth week, as we know). The word mod.g.a is semantically
characterized to convey information about the matter, i.e. flesh, and the form (in a loose
sense), namely a small chunk or a property of it, that “constitutes” the human embryo;
mod.g.a literally means ‘a small chunk of meat’ or something ‘to be chewed’ (Wehr,
Dictionary). Hence, we shall prefer to transcribe/transliterate the term or, depending on
the context, translate it by a description, e.g., ‘a chunk of flesh.’
McGinnis might be interpreted as suggesting that, first, embryonic devel-

opment, as a biological process, involves some stages of substantial change, as
a metaphysical event, and second that at the end of these substantial changes
and after the generation of various organs and limbs, the perfected animal,
as a different substance, is originated. What makes the perfected animal a
different substance is its possession of the animal soul. Therefore, the animal
soul and the perfected animal should be co-originated. Applying this ana-
lysis to the origination of the human body, it might be concluded that the
human soul is originated with the perfected human body.
Likewise, among the classic interpreters of Avicenna, Nas.īr-ad-Dīn at. -
T. ūsī has been read as arguing that the rational soul is co-originated with the
completed human body:16
Text 5. [ . . . ] Thus the body gets completed and evolves to become capable of
receiving a rational soul, or to bring about reason besides all the previous [acts].
And this soul will remain as the administrator in [/of] the body until the death [of the
body] arrives.17
In fact, if one takes the ‘human body’ to be exclusively used in its ordinary
sense, the above interpretation may be the most straightforward reading of
Avicenna’s Texts 1 and 2, and all the like.
The interpretation, however, does not go well with what Avicenna
says elsewhere in the same book. In the 16th chapter of the 8th volume of
aš-Šifaˉ ʾ, after considering different possibilities regarding the origination of
the human soul inasmuch as it is sensitive or inasmuch as it is rational,
Avicenna concludes as follows:
Text 6. And whatever the case, as soon as the heart and the brain come into existence
inside [the embryo] the rational soul is attached to it and from it the sensitive [power]
follows. But the rational [power] is distinct and immaterial though not yet operative,
it is like what it is in the drunk or the epileptic and shall acquire its perfection from
something external [to it] that bestows intellect [/intellection upon it]. However, the
other powers acquire their perfection by means of the body and the bodily factors.
And if the newborn were first sensitive and then became a human being by
[possessing] rationality, then by its perfection it would be transferred from one
species to another species.18
16
See, for example, Seyed Hasan [Saadat] Mostafavi, “A Problem in Avicenna’s View
on the Origination of the Soul and a Reply to It,” Sophia Perennis: The Journal of
Sapiential Wisdom and Philosophy 2/4 (2011), 19–29.
17
See Nas.īr-ad-Dīn at. -T. ūsī, al-Išaˉ raˉ t wa-t-tanbīhaˉ t li-Abī ʿAlī ibn Sīnaˉ , ma ʿa Šarh.
Nas.īr ad-Dīn at. -T. ūsī [/Šarh. al-Išaˉ raˉ t], ed. S. Dunyaˉ , 4 vols. (Cairo: Daˉ r al-maʿaˉ rif, 1971),
355. Emphasis added.
18
The Healing, Natural Sciences, The Animal Bk. 16 ch. 1, 403.
The first sentence of Text 6 describes the origination of the rational soul
as early as the formation of the first major organ(s) of the body, namely
the heart and/or the brain. The formation of these organs, according to
Avicenna, occurs after the second week following conception (see Table 2.1)
and long before the perfected human body. Turning to the last sentence of
Text 6, and taking it at face value, it reads that the newborn does not
become first an animal and then a human being. The middle parts of the
quote explain that the sensitive power of the soul is something that follows
from the rational soul even if the rational power of the soul is inactive. The
passage seems to suggest that the origination of the human soul is at least as
early as the origination of the first major organ(s) or at least as early as the
activity of sensitive faculty of the human embryo.
The idea that the human soul initially belongs to the heart, as the first
major organ, reappears at the end of Avicenna’s De Anima:
Text 7. Thus it should be the case that the soul’s first attachment is to the heart and it
is not permissible [to say] that it is attached to the heart and then to the brain since
when the soul is attached to the first organ, then the whole body becomes ensouled
but [regarding] the second [organ being called the ‘second’ organ ensouled it is
because] it [i.e. the soul] acts upon it [i.e. the second organ] via [acting upon] this
first [organ]. Thus the soul animates the animal via the heart [ . . . ].19
One way to read Text 7 is that the first attachment of the soul is to the heart
and thus as soon as the embryo’s heart is originated, it necessitates the
origination of the soul to manage it. Assuming that the embryo’s heart
cannot be managed by a soul other than the human soul, it follows that the
human soul is originated as early as the origination of the embryo’s heart.
Given epigenesis, it can be derived that the human soul is originated long
before the origination of the completed human body. In Text 7, Avicenna
also explains that calling the second organ ensouled the ‘second’ is not
because the soul first, in a temporal sense, belongs to the heart and then,
in a later instant, belongs to the second organ, e.g., the brain; rather, as soon
as the first major organ is originated the soul is originated and the whole
body of the human embryo is ensouled. The ‘second’ organ ensouled is
called the ‘second’ because, metaphysically speaking, it is acted upon by the
soul via the first organ.
The above pieces of evidence show that Avicenna does not uniformly use
the ‘human body’ (or the ‘animal body’) to refer to the completed or
perfected human (or animal) body. Coming back to (1), the thesis reads
19
Ibn Sīnaˉ [Avicenna], [Aš-Šifaˉ ʾ, at. -T. abī ʿiyyaˉ t, an-Nafs] Avicenna’s De Anima (Arabic
Text): Being the Psychological part of Kitaˉ b al-Shifa’, ed. F. Rahman (London: Oxford
University Press, 1959), Bk. 5 ch. 8, p. 264.
that the human soul is temporally originated with the human body. The
‘human body,’ as used in (1), is ambiguous; it may refer to the perfected or
completed human body (namely, the ‘human body’ in its ordinary sense) or
to the first major organ or to the material body from which the perfected/
completed human body is formed (what we may call the ‘non-ordinary’
sense of the term).
b. Co-origination is Vague
(1) also leads to a borderline case and, thus, is vague. By the ‘human soul’ we
mean an individual human soul in its Avicennian sense. To wit, “a substance
subsisting by itself which is imprinted neither in a human body nor in
anything else corporeal; it is completely separable and abstracted from
matter” (Gutas, “Metaphysics of the Rational Soul,” 417). Note that
Avicenna explicitly argues that all substantial changes occur instantaneously
or all at once (duf ʿatan).20 His argument for this latter statement, in The
Physics of the Healing (II.3), goes like this:21 if substantial changes were not
instantaneous, substances would undergo either intension/intensification
(ištidaˉ d ) or remission/deterioration (tanaqqus.). However, substances are
not susceptible to intension or remission (something is not more or less a
substance). Therefore, substantial changes are instantaneous. The details of
the argument aside, it indicates that for Avicenna substances come into
existence instantaneously. Putting these two premises together, namely that
the human soul is a self-subsisting substance and that substances come into
existence instantaneously, it follows that the human soul comes into exist-
ence instantaneously. Given (1), that the human soul is temporally origin-
ated with the human body, it may be concluded that, the human body and
the human soul come into existence simultaneously and instantaneously.
Thus, Avicenna is committed to the view that there is an instant (in a
metaphysical sense) in which the human body, either the first major organ
or the material, from which the completed human body is formed or the
completed human body itself, is originated. But which instant? This is a
borderline case. It is true that the seminal fluid does not have a human body
and that, in normal circumstances, the newborn has a human body. The
instant in which the human body is originated, however, falls in the ‘gray
area.’ If no such instant is determined, the application of the term ‘human
20
For an analysis of Avicenna’s argument for the above claim, see McGinnis, “On the
Moment of Substantial Change.”
21
Ibn Sīnaˉ [Avicenna], [Aš-Šifaˉ ʾ, at. -T. abī ʿiyyaˉ t, as-Samaˉ ʿ at. -t. abī ʿī] The Physics of the
Healing, ed. and trans. Jon McGinnis (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press,
2009), 138–40.
body’ to the material that constitutes the embryo’s body does not have a
definite truth-value. Recall, “[a] borderline case is a situation in which the
application of a particular expression to a (name of a) particular object does
not generate an expression with a definite truth-value.”22 Hence, the appli-
cation of the term ‘human body’ leads to a borderline case. But a “borderline
case, in the logical sense” is “a case that falls within the ‘gray area’ or ‘twilight
zone’ associated with a vague concept.”23 Therefore, the term ‘human body’
should have a vague concept. Hence, (1) is vague.
3 . T H E S I G N I F IC A N C E O F T H E P R O B L E M :
A M E T H OD O L OG I C A L N O T E
The problem of ambiguity and vagueness of Co-origination is deep since

both concepts involved, namely the human soul and the human body, call for
explanation. To show the significance of the problem, we may explore the
logical space of ‘possible’ solutions.24 Let us distinguish two dimensions of
the problem: temporal and substantial. We will explain these dimensions.
First, consider the following question on the temporal dimension of
Co-origination:
(Q1) Is the human soul temporally originated with (or after) the
completion of the embryo’s body?
Let’s call any view that answers (Q1) affirmatively a ‘late ensoulment’
(L) solution and any one that answers (Q1) negatively an ‘early ensoulment’
(E) solution. Co-origination requires one to characterize the material body
ensouled by the human soul, as the ‘human body.’ Thus, if an E-solution
fixes the origination of the human soul at the moment of conception,
for example, the ‘human body’ in its non-ordinary sense will refer to
the ‘fertilized egg’ or the ‘coagulated seminal fluid’ at conception. Or, if
an E-solution fixes the origination of the human soul at some time between
the moment of conception and the completion of the embryo’s body, say as
early as the vegetative soul/power of the embryo is activated, then the
‘human body’ will refer to ‘a properly disposed humoral mixture’ that fulfills
22
Francis Jeffry Pelletier and István Berkeley, “Vagueness,” in R. Audi (ed.), The
Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd edition (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1999), 945–7.
23
John Corcoran, “Borderline Case,” in Audi, Cambridge Dictionary, 96.
24
Single quotes around ‘possible’ are scare quotes; by ‘possible’ we mean apparently or
epistemically possible.
the vegetative functions in question.25 Similarly, if an L-solution fixes the

origination of the human soul at the moment of perfection of the embryo’s
body in the mother’s womb, then the ‘human body’ will refer to the completed
embryo’s body. Or, if an L-solution fixes the origination of the human soul at
some later stage, say when the brain is fully developed and normally function-
ing, then even the completed embryo’s body in an earlier stage is not the human
body. Thus what the ‘human body’ refers to calls for explanation.
Second, consider the following question on the substantial complexity of
the human soul:
(Q2) Is the human soul, at its origination, ‘composed’ of some sub-
stantial forms?
Let us call any view that answers (Q2) affirmatively a ‘composite soul’
(C) solution and any one that answers (Q2) negatively a ‘simple soul’ (S) solution.
Historically speaking, a C-solution may resonate with Robert Kilwardby’s
view, for instance, according to which “the human soul is a composite of
three forms: vegetative, sensitive, and intellective,”26 and an S-solution
may resonate with Aquinas’s view, for example, according to which “the
rational soul is the body’s only soul and its only substantial form.”27 Note
that our question is similar but considerably different from the problem
of the ‘unicity or multiplicity of the substantial forms in a human being’ as
discussed in the Latin tradition; for Avicenna, the human soul is not the
form, simple or composite, of the human body; rather, it is a self-subsisting
abstract object, the perfection of the human body.
Table 2.2 The logical space of solutions

Early ensoulment Late ensoulment
Composite soul CE CL
Simple soul SE SL
25
The potential sense of the ‘human body,’ i.e. a material body that is potentially a
‘human body’ (in its ordinary sense) or a body suited to being the body of an actual human
being, is subsumed under the non-ordinary sense of the ‘human being’ (as the potential
sense of the ‘tree,’ i.e. a material body that is potentially a tree, is subsumed under the
non-ordinary sense of the term; a seed is a tree, only if ‘tree’ is used non-ordinarily).
26
José Filipe Silva, “Robert Kilwardby,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Summer 2016 edition), ed. Edward Zalta, <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2016/
entries/robert-kilwardby/>.
27
Robert Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature: A Philosophical Study of Summa
theologiae Ia 75–89 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 126.
By combining the above options, we may describe the logical space of

‘possible’ solutions as in Table 2.2.
C-solutions, i.e. CE and CL, picture a layer-cake model of the human
soul as being composed of some substantial forms (vegetative, animal, and
rational soul). Accordingly, the vegetative, animal, and rational soul come to
existence, most likely consecutively, and none is corrupted or degenerated.
They all co-exist as three different components of an individual human soul.
Such views can account for the plurality of different souls/powers managing
the embryo’s body more straightforwardly but have a hard time explaining
the unity of the human soul. S-solutions, i.e. SE and SL, picture a simple-
substance model of the human soul, as not being composed of other
substantial forms.28 Accordingly, the vegetative and animal soul/power either
are not generated as some substantial forms or, if generated as such, get
corrupted (/degenerated) before the origination of the rational soul/power.
Such views can account for the unity of the human soul more straightfor-
wardly but have a hard time explaining the sense in which the vegetative and
animal soul/power, not as substantial forms, manage the embryo’s body.
L-solutions, i.e. CL and SL, well accord with the common wisdom of
Muslim peripatetics and solve the problem of ambiguity of the ‘human
body’ more naturally (they preserve the natural sense of the term).
E-solutions, i.e. CE and SE, make ‘vagueness’ a distinctive problem for
Co-origination, however. If the human soul is originated before the com-
pletion of the embryo’s body, then Avicenna uses the ‘human body’ in its
non-ordinary sense. Most concepts expressed by ordinary language terms are
both ambiguous and vague; the ‘human body’ is no exception. The ‘human
body’ may be ambiguous between the non-ordinary and ordinary sense but
vagueness is more of a problem if the term is used non-ordinarily. The
‘human body,’ in this usage, covers a range of dissimilar objects that are
not ordinarily categorized under this concept. The issue is not only that there
is a ‘gray area’ associated with a concept. In fact, the non-ordinary sense of
the term is not a sense/concept in the first place; worse, it is not clear how
many senses are at stake. Otherwise put, the ‘sense’ of the ‘human body,’ in
its non-ordinary use, is lost. In this case, (partial) precisification is necessary for
understanding the meaning of the term. Likewise, ‘hairy,’ in its ordinary use,
is vague. However, if one uses ‘hairy’ non-ordinarily and applies it to relatively
hairless people, then vagueness will become a distinctive problem and (partial)
precisification will be necessary for understanding the meaning of the term.
28
The human soul may be complex, by having different faculties and powers, without
being composite, namely being composed of some substantial forms.
Now we may briefly describe and justify our methodology. We break

down the problem of ambiguity and vagueness of (1) into two sub-problems:
First, the problem of the origination of different souls/powers, namely the
vegetative, animal, and rational, in humans, and second, the problem of the
relationship between these souls/powers. Based on our solution to these two
sub-problems, we suggest a disambiguation and precisification of (1).
We may justify this methodology as follows. The most significant char-
acteristic of the material undergoing embryonic development is its posses-
sion of vegetative and animal soul/power. An E-solution may be vindicated
if it turns out that the vegetative and animal soul/power in humans are
originated pretty early and, moreover, they cannot be originated without the
origination of the human soul. An L-solution may be vindicated if it turns
out that the origination of the vegetative and animal soul/power in humans
is dissociated from the origination of the human soul. On this account, only
a completed body, in which the vegetative and animal soul/power are
actualized, is “capable of receiving a rational soul” (see Text 5). Moreover,
the relationship between the vegetative, animal, and rational soul/power is
the key to the question of (substantial) complexity of the human soul. If the
vegetative and animal soul/power, as they exist in humans, have their own
substantial forms, then a C-solution is vindicated, otherwise, an S-solution.
Thus, we propose that we discuss these two sub-problems in order: the
origination of different souls/powers in humans, and the relationship
between these souls/powers.29
29
Avicenna’s view on the soul contrasts, at least, with three main views: Platonic,
Aristotelian, and Trans-categorical. A Platonic view, according to which the human soul
pre-exists the human body, obviously clashes with Avicenna’s commitment to Co-
origination. An Aristotelian view, according to which the human soul is the form of the
human body, violates Avicenna’s commitment to No-imprint (roughly that the human
soul is a self-subsisting abstract entity imprinted in no object). A ‘Trans-categorical’ view
(as we call it), according to which the human soul is corporeal at its origination and
incorporeal at its perfection, though it may vacuously satisfy Co-origination and No-
imprint, contravenes Avicenna’s opposition to the idea of motion in substance. A Trans-
categorical view suggests that the human soul at its origination is identical with a material/
human body and then evolves via substantial motion to the human rational soul as an
incorporeal object. Hence, the identity of the human soul is not to be explained by appeal
to its Aristotelian substance category. This solution may have odd consequences; for
instance, the human soul would be contingently corporeal, at its origination, and
contingently incorporeal, at its perfection. A view along this line may be attributed to
Mulla Sadra, The Wisdom of the Throne (al-Ḥ ikmaal- ʿAršiyya), trans. J. W. Morris
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), 131–2:
The human soul has many levels and stations, from the beginning of its generation to the
end of its goal; and it has certain essential states and modes of being. At first, in its state of
connection (with the body) it is a corporeal substance. Then it gradually becomes more
and more intensified and develops through the different stages of its natural constitution
4. THE ORIGINATION OF DIFFERENT

SOULS/POWERS
Let us begin by clarifying Avicenna’s view on the origination of the vegeta-

tive soul/power in humans.
a. The Vegetative Soul/Power

The vegetative soul/power has three major powers, the first one being the
nutritive (al-g.ˉadiya) (Avicenna’s De Anima, 40). This is the power that is
ˉ
active throughout the individual’s lifetime:
Text 8. The nutritive power, which is a power of the vegetative soul, acts throughout
the person’s lifetime and as long as it exists [and] performs its actions [/functions],
the plant and the animal will be staying alive and if it gets ineffective the plant and
the animal will not be staying alive [ . . . ]30
That the nutritive power as a power of the vegetative soul is active during the
person’s lifetime does not tell us when the nutritive power comes to activity.
However, assuming that a power does not exist unless its principle exists, it
may show that the vegetative soul and the nutritive power co-exist. We
should note that Text 8 does not say that when the person is not alive, the
nutritive power of the corresponding body does not exist, though it may be
the case; rather, it only implies that if the person is alive, the nutritive power
is active.
Since the nutritive power seems to be necessary for the first major organ,
we may suppose that this power exists at least as early as the origination of
the first organ. Thus, the vegetative soul, as the source of this power,
should also be originated as early as the first organ. Avicenna’s discussion
in al-Ḥ ayawaˉ n confirms this reading:
Text 9. Then the semen (al-manī) moves something else, namely the seminal fluid
of the woman. Firstly, it moves toward forming the principle [/the source], thus
a power that is the principle [/source] leading to the formation of other organs, in
[a particular] order, will arise from the first organ, and then the coagulated seminal
fluid comes to the possession of the soul in virtue of the penetration of the male
power into it. So, the spirit seems to be born from the male seminal fluid and the
until it subsists by itself and moves from this world to the other world, and so returns to
its Lord (89:27). Thus the soul is originated in a corporeal (state), but endures in a
spiritual (state).
30
Avicenna’s De Anima Bk. 2 ch. 1, 52–3.
body from the female seminal fluid. Then when that is ensouled, the soul takes
action through it to complete the organs. And this soul, at the time, is a nutritive
[/vegetative] soul or [equivalently] has no other action [besides fulfilling nutritional
tasks], though it has the potentiality for other things.31
Text 9 contains many interesting points; for now, we will focus on seven.
First, Avicenna is explicit that the coagulated seminal fluid is ensouled or
‘comes to the possession of the soul’ even before it develops into a human
body. Accordingly, some kind of ensoulment occurs with the origination of
the first organ within the coagulated seminal fluid. Second, this ensoulment
is “in virtue of the penetration of the male power into it.” Hence, the
mother’s soul does not play any active role in this ensoulment, though it
may contribute to the formation of the embryo’s body at later stages. Third,
Avicenna apparently does not use ‘soul’ (an-nafs) and ‘spirit’ (ar-rūh.) inter-
changeably. Thus we may suppose that he distinguishes between the human
soul and the human spirit, as he does elsewhere:32 The human soul is an
incorporeal substance that ontologically depends on higher or abstract
principles; the human spirit, in contrast, is a corporeal substance that
initially emerges from the mixture of elements. Fourth, the male semen is
responsible for the origination of the human spirit and the female seminal
fluid for the origination of the human body, or more accurately for the
origination of the material from which the complete human body is formed.
Fifth, the soul originated at this stage is responsible for the formation of the
organs of the human body and thus completing it by acting upon the
coagulated seminal fluid. Sixth, this soul has one operative power, namely
the nutritive power. Therefore, this soul should be a vegetative soul. Seventh,
and most importantly, this vegetative soul has potentiality for other activities.
Note that a vegetative soul of an animal, though it may actually be the same
as the vegetative soul of a plant, in the sense of performing the same
nutritional tasks, potentially differs from that since it has the potentiality
of performing some acts that the vegetative soul of the plant lacks (we will
come back to this point in section 5).
To clarify the distinction between the human spirit and the human soul,
consider:
Text 10. This spirit is a kind of divine body, it relates to the semen and to the organs
as the intellect relates to the powers of the soul. Thus, the intellect is the supreme
incorporeal substance and the spirit is the supreme corporeal substance. This
31
The Healing, Natural Sciences, The Animal Bk. 16 ch. 1, 401–2.
32
See Ibn Sīnaˉ [Avicenna], al-Adwiya al-qalbiyya [Remedies for the Heart], in Min
Mu ʾallafaˉ t Ibn Sīnaˉ at. -T. ibbiyya, ed. M. Z. al-Baˉ baˉ (Aleppo: Maʿhad at-turaˉtˍ al-ʿilmī al-
Islamī, 1404/1984), 221–94, particularly 226.
substance is inseparable from the semen as long as it is [kept] sound and proper in the
womb [ . . . ]33
The ‘human spirit,’ in the above use, refers to the supreme corporeal
substance. It is not separable from the sound semen. This characterization
of the human spirit is repeated elsewhere. In al-Qaˉ nūn fī t. -t. ibb (The Canon
of Medicine), where he distinguishes between three kinds of spirit, a similar
characterization of ‘spirit’ may be found:
Text 11. And when the uterus contains the semen (al-manī), the first state that
occurs there is the foaming of the semen, and that is an act of the form-bearing
faculty/power. And the truth regarding that state of foaming is [that it results from]
the stimulation [initiated] by the form-bearing faculty/power when there is [some-
thing] from the human [spirit],34 natural [spirit] and animal spirit in the semen [and
it runs each] toward its own principal location35 to reside there. And from that each
organ is created in accordance with the way we have explicated and clarified [ . . . ]36
Hence, the utmost attention should be given to the distinction between
different kinds of the soul, namely the vegetative, animal, and rational, on
the one hand, and different kinds of the spirit, namely the natural, animal,
and human, on the other hand.37 To sum up, in humans, the nutritive
power, and thus the vegetative soul, is originated much earlier than the
formation of all major organs and the vegetative soul, with the mediation of
the spirit, contributes to the process of completing the human body.
b. The Animal Soul/Power

The animal soul is characterized by two main sets of power: motive and
perceptive.38 The latter, in turn is divided into two categories: internal and
external, depending on the object of perception (or sense).39 Sensation or
sensitive power is restricted to animals and humans. The first sensation in
virtue of which an organism becomes an animal is the sense of touch, one of
33
The Healing, Natural Sciences, The Animal Bk. 16 ch. 1, 404. Our translation of the
first two sentences follows Kenny, “Ibn Sīnaˉ and the Origin of Human Life,” 11.
34
Note that the order of consecutive adjectives in Arabic is different from that
in English.
35
In the original text, Avicenna uses the word ma ʿdin. In modern Arabic ma ʿdin
means mineral or metal (Al-Mawrid: A Modern Arabic English Dictionary, ed. R. Baʿalbaki
(Beirut: Dar el-ilm lilmalayin, 1995)). Here, however, we suspect Avicenna has the
Persian use of the word in mind, in which it means center, principle, or principal location
(Dehkhoda Lexicon, available at: <http://icps.ut.ac.ir/f-index-vajeh.html>).
36
The Canon of Medicine Bk. 3, pt. 21, tr. 1, 568.
37
We expect some variation in Avicenna’s terminology as well.
38
Ibn Sīnaˉ [Avicenna], [An-Najaˉ t, at. -T. abī ʿiyyaˉ t, an-Nafs] Avicenna’s Psychology: An
English Translation of Kitaˉ b al-Najaˉ t, Book II, Chapter VI, ed. and trans. F. Rahman
(London: Oxford University Press, 1952), 25–6; Avicenna’s De Anima 41.
39
Avicenna’s Psychology 25–6.
the external senses.40 Again assuming that a power of the animal soul does
not exist unless its principle exists, the origination of the animal soul in
humans can be traced back to the origination of sensation:
Text 12. Thus, in summary, the semen is the foamy [/extract of the]41 substance, and
because of this, Venus42 is called ‘Aphrodite’43 [from the Greek word ‘aphros’
meaning foam],44 since it is the origin of lust and the source of semen production.45
And coldness does not freeze the semen, as long as it is semen.46 And when the
nutritive power in the seminal fluid is prepared to receive the acts set for the sensitive
soul [namely, specific to it], then the power to receive the soul inasmuch as it is
sensitive will come about therein, though in the ones [i.e. the organisms] that possess
rationality (an-nut. q), the sensitive [power] and the nature (at. -t. abī ʿa)47 are one and
the same, and this is because the organs for sensation and the ones for rationality are
completed concurrently, and this is not the case for the nutritive [power] and
40
Avicenna’s De Anima 67.
41
The Arabic term may be read in two ways: zabadī and zubdī, the first means foamy
and the second extract or something related to it.
42
Again the Arabic term may be read in two ways: az-zahra and az-zuhra, the first
means the flower (‘the’ shall reflect the definite article ‘al’ at the beginning, transcribed as
‘az’) and the second means the planet Venus. Pace Joseph Kenny, “Ibn Sīnaˉ and the Origin
of Human Life,” 7, we find the first reading absolutely wrong.
43
Like above, the Arabic term has two readings: zabadiyya and zubdiyya, each being
a relative adjective of the corresponding term, namely zabadī and zubdī. The two
meanings are interrelated but distinct. Translation of the names in this context may
raise significant questions regarding their semantics. Addressing such concerns, how-
ever, goes beyond our purposes here and thus we shall put them aside.
44
See <http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/29573/Aphrodite>, retrieved
May 29, 2015:
Aphrodite, ancient Greek goddess of sexual love and beauty, identified with Venus by the
Romans. The Greek word aphros means “foam,” and Hesiod relates in his Theogony that
Aphrodite was born from the white foam produced by the severed genitals of Uranus
(Heaven), after his son Cronus threw them into the sea.
45
Here is the translation of the first two sentences in Kenny, “Ibn Sīnaˉ and the Origin
of Human Life,” 7:
In summary, semen is naturally foamy. That is why a flower is called foamy, because it is a
source of pleasure and a source of semen production.
46
Elsewhere Avicenna reports that Venus bestows upon human souls the ‘predispos-
ition’ or ‘preparedness’ (isti ʿdaˉ d) for reproduction:
Text 13. But Venus, from which a power is bestowed upon corporeal bodies that confers
coldness and concurrence and [from which another power is bestowed] upon souls
[that confers] the predisposition for reproduction power [ . . . ] (Fī l-Ajraˉ m al- ʿulwiyya
[Treatise on the Supernal Bodies], in Tis ʿRasaˉ ʾil fī l-h.ikma wa-t. -t. abī ʿiyyaˉ t, Treatise 2
(Cairo: Mat. baʿa hindiyya, 1326/1908), 59).
47
We suspect that ‘nature’ here means neither substance nor essence. Regarding this use
of the term, one may consult the first book of The Physics of the Healing, under the titles On
defining nature and On nature’s relation to matter, form, and motion (McGinnis, “On the
Moment of Substantial Change,” 37–50). We will come back to this point shortly.
its organs. Also, sensation does not generalize to all organs of the animal but attaining
[/receiving] nourishment does. And it is not unlikely that the seminal fluid is in this
state when the nutritive power therein is acquired from the father and then another
[nutritive power] is coming afterwards. It may also be permissible that the nutritive
soul coming from the father stays until the temperament transforms, via some kind
of transformation, [into another] and then a particular nutritive soul is attached to it,
the one [i.e. the nutritive soul or power] acquired from the father does not have the
power to completely manage [the embryo] to the end, and it’s only adequate for
some [stages of] managing, [and] needs a powerful principle. As though the one got
from the father is just changed from what is necessary for it, thus it does not belong
to the kind of absolute (al-mut. laqa) nutritive [power] that was in the father (al-abb),
[nor does it belong to] that [which] will be in the child, nonetheless this change
does not drive that [power] out from performing the appropriate act required for
action.48 And whatever the case, as soon as the heart and the brain come into
existence inside [the embryo] the rational soul is attached to it and from it the
sensitive [power] follows.49
The above text is pretty complex and carries several key points. Avicenna
begins by explaining the origination of the power (qūwa) to receive the soul
inasmuch as it is sensitive. There are two points here: first, he talks about the
power to receive the soul, not the reception of the soul or the soul itself. Note
that Avicenna does not introduce the soul as the form of the body. It is
essentially distinct from the matter. The body, however, can receive the soul
if it has the adequate humoral temperament. So, there are some stages of
preparation before the origination of the human soul. Otherwise put, the
human soul is not originated at the moment of conception (thus, Kenny’s
interpretation (“Ibn Sīnaˉ and the Origin of Human Life”) is false, as we
shortly explain). Second, what Avicenna means by the ‘sensitive soul’ can be
determined by what he says in the same sentence, namely the soul inasmuch
as it is sensitive. Recalling that sensation is a distinctive feature of animals,
including humans, the sensitive soul should be a power of the animal soul
that is responsible for sensation.
48
This sentence in Arabic is pretty hard to read, translate, and interpret. We have
read the concatenation of ‘k,’ ‘ ʾa’ or ‘aˉ ,’ and ‘n’ as ka ʾanna (not kaˉ na), meaning as
though. So, we do not take the term to be a verb. Accordingly, and for literary reasons,
we have read the qad before tag.ayyara as qad of taqrīb (approximation), not of tah.qīq
(realization). Hence, we have added ‘just’ before the first occurrence of ‘changed’ in
our translation. Moreover, after al-abb we have supposed, added in brackets above,
that the previous negation is repeated. Finally, we have, perhaps with no convincing
justification, tried to fill in the references of the pronouns in brackets to give a full
sense to the sentence.
49
The Healing, Natural Sciences, The Animal Bk. 16 ch. 1, 402–3.
Next, we may turn to the point that in humans, the sensitive power and
the nature are one and the same since the organs for sensation and the organs
for rationality are formed in parallel. ‘Nature’ has many different uses in
Avicenna’s philosophy and he discusses and distinguishes them on different
occasions for different purposes. Let us first review a summary of the three
main uses of the term in The Physics of the Healing:
Text 14. Still, the term nature might be used in many ways, three of which we shall
mention [as] deserving that title the most. So [(1)] nature is said of the principle,
which we mentioned;50 [(2)] nature is said of that by which the substance of
anything subsists; and [(3)] nature is said of the very essence51 of anything.52
It is not clear in what sense Avicenna uses the term ‘nature’ in Text 12.
Kenny reads him as arguing for ‘hominization at conception’:
Ibn-Sīnaˉ is the only medieval thinker I know of who, in so many words, maintains
the hominization of the human fetus right from conception. (Kenny, “Ibn Sīnaˉ and
the Origin of Human Life,” 17)
This reading, however, encounters various problems. We will discuss two.
First, as far as Text 12 is concerned, Avicenna emphasizes, as another
possibility (note “it is not unlikely”), that “the nutritive soul coming from the
father stays until the temperament transforms [ . . . ].” The fact that Avi-
cenna raises this possibility should give us pause in ascribing hominization at
conception to Avicenna. According to this possibility, the temperament of
the embryo should undergo a transformation to obtain its own nutritive
power. So, the nutritive power coming from the father would stay for a
while after conception. Thus, for this period, the human embryo does not
possess its own nutritive power. But if the embryo does not possess its own
nutritive power, then it does not possess its own vegetative soul/power
either. In fact, in the subsequent sentences, Avicenna attempts to fill in
the details of this possibility by considering a nutritive power that is neither
of the kind that is in the father nor of that which is in the child. At the end of
Text 12, he tries to explicitly refer to the point at which he undoubtedly takes
50
We will come back to this meaning shortly.
51
McGinnis uses the term ‘being’ instead of ‘essence’ here. The Arabic term is dˉat.
Admittedly, there are occasions in which dˉat should be translated as being. However,ˉ in
this context, we find essence a more appropriateˉ translation. For one thing, if something
does not exist, it may still, in this sense of ‘nature,’ have a nature or essence, but it may be
odd to say that ‘nature’ is applicable to the very being of that, given that it is non-existent.
Alternatively, one may translate dˉat to ‘itself ’ or ‘the thing itself.’ If so, the last sentence of
Text 14 should be rendered intoˉ “[(3)] nature is said of the very thing itself, of anything.”
52
The Physics of the Healing Bk. 1 ch. 6, 47. Emphasis added.
the human embryo to be ensouled: “whatever the case, as soon as the heart
and the brain come into existence inside [the embryo] the rational soul is
attached to it and from it the sensitive [power] follows.” This suggests that
Avicenna withholds belief in ‘hominization of the human fetus right from
conception.’
Second, in The Physics of the Healing, when Avicenna is trying to argue
against the possibility of motion in substance, he describes the reception of
the form of life by the human embryo as occurring when the bones, the
nervous system, and the veins are getting completed, which in turn is in the
third and the fourth week after conception (see Table 2.1):
Text 15. Still, on the basis of observing semen gradually developing into an animal
and the seed gradually into a plant, it is imagined that there is a motion here [namely,
with respect to substance]. What should be known is that, up to the point that the
semen develops into an animal, it happens to undergo a number of other develop-
ments [/genesis]53 between which there are continuous qualitative and quantitative
alterations; and so, all the while, the semen is gradually undergoing alteration. In
other words, it is still semen until it reaches the point where it is divested of its
seminal form and becomes an embryo. Its condition [remains] like that until it is
altered [into] a fetus,54 after which there are bones, a nervous system, veins, and
other things that we do not perceive, [remaining] like that until it receives the form
of life. Then, in like fashion, it alters and changes until it is viable and there is
parturition. Someone superficially observing the transformation imagines that this is
a single process from one substantial form to another and therefore supposes that
there is a motion with respect to the substance, when that is not the case and, instead
there are numerous motions and rests.55
Avicenna explains the reception of ‘the form of life’ as occurring after some
genesis and changes in which ‘bones, a nervous system, veins and other
things that we do not perceive’ are formed. This provides strong evidence
that the idea of “hominization of the human fetus right from conception”
cannot be attributed to Avicenna, if by ‘hominization’ we mean reception of
the form of life.
53
Here we should like to slightly depart from McGinnis’s translation. The Arabic
expression for ‘other developments’ is takawwunaˉ tun uhraˉ . We find the content of
‘development,’ in one sense, broader than that of takawwun. ̆ If Avicenna uses the latter
in the technical sense of ‘generation’ as in ‘generation and corruption’ (or ‘generation and
degeneration’), then ‘development’ is not the best word. We suggest ‘genesis’ (or ‘trans-
formation’) instead; we hope that this translation represents the difference between kawn
and takawwun. It is noteworthy that we do not find any Arabic term corresponding to
McGinnis’s term ‘transformation’ used in the last sentence of Text 15.
54
Pace McGinnis, we do not translate ʿalaqa to ‘embryo’(or mod.g.a to ‘fetus’). Please
see note 15.
55
The Physics of the Healing Bk. 2 ch. 3, 141.
Coming back to Avicenna’s use of ‘nature’ in Text 12, we propose to

interpret ‘nature’ along the following lines:
Text 16. (1) Every body has a nature, form, matter, and accidents. Its nature, again,
is the power that gives rise to its producing motion and change, which are from [the
body] itself, as well as its being at rest and stable. Its form is its essence by which it is
what it is, while its matter is the thing bearing its essence. Accidents are those things
that, when [the body’s] form shapes its matter and completes its specific nature,
either necessarily belong to it as concomitants or accidentally belong to it from some
external agent.56
In the above quote, the first meaning of ‘nature,’ referred to in Text 14, is
unpacked. Avicenna is explicit in this discussion that only “in the case of
the simples [that is, the elements], the nature is the very form itself.”
Therefore, in humans, ‘nature’ should not be identified with the form.
Given that ‘nature’ is used in accordance with Text 16, what Avicenna
says in Text 12 about the identity of the sensitive power and the nature
means that the soul inasmuch as it is sensitive is the power that gives rise to
the production of motion and change in the human embryo, and the organs
responsible for motion and change are completed concurrently with the
organs responsible for cognition and intellection, though they may become
active at different times.
To sum up, since the organs responsible for motion and change are
originated before the completion of the human body, it follows that the
animal soul/power is so too.
c. The Rational Soul/Power

The situation of the rational soul, however, is not as clear. A passage like
Text 15 might be read as suggesting that the rational soul is originated with
the origination of the perfected human body. In contrast, a passage like Text
12 describes the origination of the rational soul as early as the origination of
the first major organ, i.e. the heart, and hence long before the completion of
the human body. Trying to avoid a premature solution to the problem, we
shall keep both possibilities alive at this stage. It is, however, worth repeating
that Avicenna does not consider the human soul as the form of the human
body imprinted therein, whereas he takes the vegetative soul as it exists in a
plant to be the form imprinted in the body of the plant. The same story goes
with the animal soul of non-human animals. The immediate question, then,
is what is the relationship between the vegetative and animal soul/power in
humans, on the one hand, and the rational soul/power, on the other hand?
56
The Physics of the Healing Bk. 1 ch. 6, 45.
5 . T H E RE LA T I O N S H I P B E T W E E N
D I F F E R E N T SO U L S / P O W E R S
Recall that according to C-solutions (composite soul), Avicenna is commit-

ted to the view that the human soul is composed of some substantial forms.
These forms should be the vegetative, animal, and rational soul, as they exist
in an individual human soul. If so, it follows that the vegetative and animal
soul exist in one and the same sense, namely as substantial forms, in plants and
non-human animals, on the one hand, and in humans, on the other hand.
However, if it is shown that this is not the case, namely the vegetative and
animal soul/power exist in an individual human soul not as substantial
forms, then C-solutions should be avoided. Thus digging into the relation
between different souls/powers is crucial for our purposes.
Let us begin by looking at the first book of Avicenna’s De Anima where he
tries to argue that “the soul is a substance” and in particular “a form [that is]
not in a subject” (Avicenna’s De Anima Bk. 1 ch. 3, 27). After arguing that
the subsistence of the proximate subject of the soul is due to the soul (ibid.,
28), he turns to the following objection and rebuttal:
Text 17. But one might say: We indeed accept that the vegetative soul is the form of
that [i.e. its matter] and thus it is a cause of the subsistence [/constitution] of its
proximate matter; however, the animal soul seems to be such that the vegetative soul
[first] constitutes its matter and then the animal soul shall follow this and constitute
it [i.e. the matter already constituted by the vegetative soul], thus the animal soul
[/animality] is factual (mutih.as..silatun) in a matter that is [already] subsisted by itself
and that is the cause of the subsistence of what is occurring to it, namely the animal
soul [/animality], therefore there is no animal soul [/animality] except [as being
something that is] subsistent in a subject.
In reply to that, we say: The vegetative soul inasmuch as it is a vegetative soul does
not necessitate anything except a nutritive body in an absolute sense, and the
vegetative soul in the absolute sense has no existence except as the existence of a
generic meaning (ma ʿnaˉ jinsī), and that is only in the [faculty of] estimation; and
what exist among concrete particulars (al-a ʿyaˉ n) are [different] species of it. And
what should be said [goes like this]: The cause of the vegetative soul [in this absolute
sense] is also something general ( ʿaˉ mm) and universal (kullī), not factual, and that is
the growing nutritive body in its absolute generic sense, [which is] not species-
determining. But the principle of the body with the means [/tools] for sensation,
discrimination, and voluntary movement, is not the vegetative soul inasmuch as it is
a vegetative soul, rather this [i.e. the vegetative soul inasmuch as it is a vegetative
soul] becomes a distinct nature in virtue of a distinct differentia being attached to it,
and that will not be, except by becoming an animal soul.57
57
The objection Avicenna addresses here may be reformulated as follows: one

may accept that the vegetative soul is ‘a form not in a subject’ but reject that
the animal soul is like that because the animal soul only occurs when the
nutritive power is operative and this implies that the vegetative soul is
originated (given that the origination of the vegetative soul is a necessary
condition of the operation of its power). Thus, the animal soul occurs to (/is
realized in) a matter that already subsists by itself in virtue of the origination
of the vegetative soul. Therefore the animal soul is ‘a form in a subject.’
Avicenna’s reply includes five main points: First, ‘the vegetative soul’ in its
absolute sense, namely, the vegetative soul inasmuch as it is a vegetative soul,
requires a nutritive body in its absolute sense, not any (specific or) particular
nutritive body. Second, the vegetative soul, in this sense, exists as a generic
meaning, it has no existence as a particular object or individual or a species.
The vegetative soul in its absolute sense is not part of the ‘external’ world; it
exists nowhere as an external fact, it only exists in our faculty of estimation.
Third, if the vegetative soul in its absolute sense only necessitates a body in
its general sense and only exists in estimation, then it determines no species.
Fourth, the principle of the ‘body with the means [/tools] for sensation,
discrimination, and voluntary movement,’ is not the vegetative soul in its
absolute sense, rather it is the animal soul in its specific sense [as a species].
Fifth, the vegetative soul inasmuch as it is a vegetative soul does not
contribute to the subsistence of the matter constituting the body of the
animal. In other words, the animal soul does not occur to (/is not realized in)
an already subsisting matter because the ‘vegetative soul’ in its absolute sense
fails to contribute to the subsistence of any matter whatsoever.
So far Avicenna has identified the generic meaning of the ‘vegetative soul’
or its absolute sense. Accordingly, the ‘vegetative soul’ is like a theoretical
term for an ideal object, e.g., ‘ideal gas’ and ‘frictionless surface,’ a term that
does not refer to something in the external world but is necessary for our
understanding of it and only exists in theory, in Avicenna’s language “in
estimation.”58 Then, he moves on to explain some other senses of the term:
Text 18. Nonetheless, it is necessary to begin [once more] and add further explan-
ation here. Thus we say: By the ‘vegetative soul’ either [1] we mean59 the specific
soul [as a species]60 that is specific to a plant, not an animal, or [2] we mean a general
58
We do not intend to imply that ‘existence in theory,’ in our language, has the same
content as ‘existence in estimation’ in Avicenna’s language.
59
The original text has this, and the following two cases numbered (2) and (3) above,
in a passive form, namely ‘it is meant.’
60
In the literature, ‘specific’ is used as a translation of both hˉa.s.s and an-nawʿiyya/an-naw ʿī
(see, for instance, McGinnis, “On the Moment of Substantial Change,” ̆ 74–5, for the first use
and McGinnis, ibid., 76, 180, for the second one). To distinguish these, we add ‘as a species’
meaning that generalizes over the vegetative [in the first sense] and the animal soul so
far as it attains nourishment, reproduces and grows, this is sometimes called the
‘vegetative soul,’ but this is a metaphorical [way of] speech. The vegetative soul does
not exist but in the plant; however, the meaning that generalizes over the vegetative
and the animal soul exists in animals as well as in plants and its existence is like the
existence of a general sense in objects. Or, [3] by this [i.e. the ‘vegetative soul’] we
mean a power/faculty of the powers/faculties of the animal soul that the acts of
attaining nourishment, cultivation, and reproduction are issued by it.
If [by the ‘vegetative soul’] we mean the vegetative soul that in relation to the soul
effective in nourishment is a species, that only exists in plants and not in any other
thing, and [particularly] not in animals. And if [by the ‘vegetative soul’] we mean the
general meaning [of the term], then it is necessary to attribute a61 general meaning to
it, not a specific meaning; thus a general craftsman[as a genus] is the one to whom a
general craftwork[as a genus] is attributed, and a specific craftsman [as a species], like
a carpenter, is the one to whom a specific craftwork [as a species] is attributed and a
determinate (al-mu ʿayyan) craftsman is the one to whom a determinate craftwork is
attributed. And this is something the enquiry of which has [already] been presented
to you, and what is attributed to the general vegetative soul, vis-à-vis bodily affairs, is
[also being] generally growing, it is growing inasmuch as it may suit the reception of
sensation or it may not suit [it], and that [i.e. any of these two] is not attributed to
the vegetative soul inasmuch as it is general, nor this meaning follows from it.
But [if by the ‘vegetative soul’ we mean] the third case, then it would be
impossible, according to what is suspected [by the critic], for the vegetative power/
faculty [of the animal soul] to come [into existence] alone and render the body
animal-like and [it is so, in turn, since] if that power/faculty were alone in managing
[the body] it would complete the body as a plant, and this is not true, rather it
completes the body as an animal, with the means [/tools] for sensation and motion.
Thus it should be a power of the soul which has other powers and this power, among
others, conduct oneself with the acts that paradigmatically contribute to the tool’s
preparedness for [the realization of] the secondary perfections of the soul with this
power, and this soul is the animal soul, and it will be clarified afterwards that the soul
is unique and these powers in the organs stem from it.62
In this long quote, Avicenna distinguishes three meanings of the ‘vegetative
soul.’63 In the first sense, the ‘vegetative soul’ refers to the specific soul (as a
or ‘the species’ parenthetically, depending on the structure of the sentence and context,
whenever the second use is intended.
61
Bearing in mind that there is no syntactic device to indicate stress effect in
Avicenna’s text, we hope that our emphasis here is consistent with the content of the
text and adequately represents it.
62
Avicenna’s De Anima, 30–1. Our reading, and particularly our parsing of this
passage, is different from Fazlur Rahman’s.
63
Avicenna, here, seems to be relying on The Physics of the Healing Bk. 1 ch. 12, in
which he discusses similar distinctions vis-à-vis causes and effects (McGinnis, “On the
Moment of Substantial Change,” 74–80, particularly 75–6). Therein Avicenna apparently
species) of a plant. He explicates this sense in the second book of Avicenna’s

De Anima in more detail. The palm soul is a vegetative soul and “in its
vegetative-ness is palm-ish”;64 it is not the case that it is a vegetative soul and
then something else should be added to it to become the palm soul, or palm-
ish. The palm vegetative soul, in its vegetative-ness realizes all the powers
required for the palm tree. Otherwise put, the vegetative soul of the palm is
not a genus in need of a differentia to become a natural kind; it is itself the
specific soul (i.e. the species) of the palm and specifically exists therein. The
same story goes with every species of plant, e.g., the grape has a grape soul
that in its vegetative-ness is grape-ish.65 In this sense, “the vegetative soul
does not exist but in the plant” (Text 18).
In the second sense, introduced in Text 17 as the “absolute sense,” the
‘vegetative soul’ refers to a genus, a meaning that generalizes over plants and
animals. This is the generic sense in which the vegetative soul does not exist
among concrete particulars (al-aʿyaˉ n) and determines no species. The vege-
tative soul, in this sense, may also be associated with the body. Since the
vegetative soul is responsible for growth, the ‘growing body’ attributed to
the general vegetative soul should also be understood in a generic sense: this
‘body’ is open to reception of sensation, in the case of animals, and is not so,
in the case of plants. Such a generic body is a general meaning that does not
exist among concrete particulars; the actual bodies are not indifferent to
reception of sensation.
In the third sense, the ‘vegetative soul’ refers to a power of the animal soul,
a power that is responsible for the acts in common between animals and
plants, namely “attaining nourishment, cultivation, and reproduction.” The
‘vegetative soul’ as referring to this power exists among concrete particulars
and is the ground to attribute the ‘vegetative soul’ in the second sense to
animals, i.e. the absolute or generic meaning. The key point is that the
vegetative soul, in this sense, does not come into existence alone to manage
the body; rather, it manages the body as a power of a unique animal soul that
has other powers as well. Avicenna’s argument for this claim is short: if the
vegetative soul as a power of the animal soul were alone in managing the
body, the body would be completed as a plant. However, the body of an
animal is not completed like that; instead it is completed as an animal.
Hence, other powers of the animal soul also manage the body, though they
may become operative at different stages and at different times.
draws on Aristotle’s discussion of modes of causation in Physics 2.3. 195b25ff in The

Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation (Sixth Printing, with Correc-
tions), ed. J. Barnes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 739–40.
64
Avicenna’s De Anima, 48–9, 56–7.
65
We will come back to this passage and discuss it further shortly.
To conclude, there are three different senses of the ‘vegetative soul’: as a

species, as a genus, and as power of another soul. In the first sense, it only
exists in plants as species. In the second sense, it only exists in our estima-
tion, as an abstraction that generalizes over plants, animals, and humans.
In the third sense, it exists in animals as a power of their souls.
6 . C O - O R I G I N AT I O N P A R T I AL L Y
D I S A M B I G U A T E D AN D P R E CI S I F I E D
The conclusion of section 4 reads that the vegetative and animal soul/power
(in humans) are originated much earlier than the completion of the ‘human
body’ in its ordinary sense. We now have different senses of the ‘vegetative’
and ‘animal’ soul/power handy (section 5). Thus, back to the problem of the
ambiguity and vagueness of Co-origination, we may clarify in what sense the
‘vegetative soul’ is originated before the formation of all major organs in
humans. The vegetative soul that the coagulated seminal fluid comes to
possess and which arises from the first organ and leads to the formation of
other organs (Text 9) should be something that exists among concrete
particulars and thus cannot be the ‘vegetative soul’ in its second use, the
generic sense, since that only exists as a meaning in estimation. It is
noteworthy that the ‘vegetative soul’ in its second sense may be attributed
to humans in the sense that a genus may be attributed to particulars falling
under a species under that genus. Thus being an animal is truly attributed
to every individual human. But being an animal, in this sense, does not
exist among concrete particulars. It only has the existence of a general
meaning in objects.
The vegetative soul that the coagulated seminal fluid comes to possess
cannot be the ‘vegetative soul’ in its first meaning, i.e. as a species, since that
only exists in plants, not in animals and, a fortiori, not in humans. There-
fore, it should be the ‘vegetative soul’ in its third sense, namely as a power of
a unique soul that has other powers as well, that comes into existence before
the formation of all major organs or the complete human body. In this
sense, the ‘vegetative soul’ that exists in a plant is different in species from
the ‘vegetative soul’ that exists in a human:
Text 19. [ . . . ] And that is because the vegetative soul that exists in the palm [tree],
as a species, clearly does not contribute to the power of growth [/augmentation]
(an-naˉ miyya) existing in a human, and that power is not such as to be qualified to be
associated with the animal soul at all, nor is the power of growth existing in an animal
qualified to be associated with the palm soul. Nonetheless, a single meaning [/sense]
embraces both and that is [that] each one of them attains nourishment, grows and
reproduces, though each is differentiated [from the other] by a species-determining

differentia that is constitutive [to it], not just by an accident. And the meaning that
entirely exists in both is the genus of the vegetative power which belongs to the
human and that is distinct [from both] in the manner in which a generic meaning is
distinct [from what falls under it]. And we do not deny that the genus of these
powers may be found in other things [as well] and nothing [from what we have said]
implies that these powers cannot be conjoined and belong to a unique soul of a
human [ . . . ]66
We read Avicenna as explaining that the vegetative soul existing in a plant, as
something that exists in a concrete particular, is different from the vegetative
soul existing in a human (or in an animal). The sense in which the
‘vegetative soul’ is applicable to both plants and humans (or animals) is
the sense in which a genus, as a common description, is applicable to its
species. We take Avicenna’s last sentence to point toward his own view on
the unity of the human soul: the vegetative soul that exists in a human,
namely the vegetative power, belongs to a unique soul that possesses differ-
ent powers and faculties. So, a human soul, as a self-subsisting substance, has
different powers, among them the vegetative power, which may be called the
‘vegetative soul.’ The ‘vegetative soul,’ in this sense, as Avicenna explains
shortly afterwards, is predicable of the ‘human soul’ since it is an instanti-
ation of its power; there is no human soul unless it is capable of attaining
nourishment, reproduction, and growth (thus it has nutritive, generative,
and augmentative power). This vegetative soul/power cannot exist inde-
pendently of the human soul.
The idea that the vegetative soul or power of an animal is different from
the vegetative soul as a genus applicable to both plants and animals is
discussed earlier in Avicenna’s De Anima in more detail:
Text 20. The vegetative power that is in the animal reproduces an animal body and
that is because it is a vegetative [power] to which an animal power belongs, and this
[i.e. the animal power] is the differentia that has, among other things, what contrib-
utes to its possession of the nutritive power and growth and thus [it] mixes the basic
[ingredients] and elements to a temperament appropriate for the animal. And its
temperament does not manage a power common (muštaraka) to the plant and
animal inasmuch as it is common; therefore, inasmuch as it is common, it does
not necessitate any specific temperament. Rather, it necessitates a specific tempera-
ment in it [i.e. in the animal] because in addition to being a nutritive [power] it is an
animal [power] that in its nature is to sense and move if it obtains the [necessary]
means [/tools], and that [power] by its very reality is a preserver of that aggregate and
the temperament [in some form of preservation], and when this [i.e. the harmony] is
brought to the things that are aggregated it should be by force because it is not in the
66
nature of opposing bodies and elements to get aggregated in virtue of their essences,
rather by nature they are prone to move toward different directions and this is
a specific soul that aggregates them. For example, in the palm, [this specific soul] is a
palm soul and in the grape, is a grape soul, and in general it is the soul that is the form
of that matter. And when the soul becomes palm-ish, there is something more and
above the very reality of growth to it, and that is the palm soul and [likewise] in the
grape, [that is] the grape soul, and the palm is not in need of a soul in addition to its
vegetative soul to become a palm, though it [i.e. its vegetative soul] has no acts
besides the acts of the plant, in fact its vegetative soul in its vegetative-ness is palm-
ish. But the vegetative soul that is in the animal exceeds the creation of the animal
toward the acts that are distinct from the vegetative acts, and this manager [/admin-
istrator] is the animal soul, and in fact it is not the same as the vegetative soul, except
that it is said that it is the vegetative soul in the meaning that we discussed, namely
the general [meaning of the term].67
So what exists, among concrete particulars, as a vegetative soul or power in
an animal or in a human is entirely different from the ‘vegetative soul’ in its
specific sense (as a species) that only exists in a plant. The vegetative soul, as
a power of a unique animal soul, has a different causal power than the
‘vegetative soul’ in its specific sense: the former manages the body to evolve
and become the body of an animal whereas the latter manages the body to
evolve and become the body of a plant.
Likewise, the ‘animal soul’ may have three different meanings, as a
species, as a genus, and as a power of another soul. We may use it to refer
to (i) the specific soul (as a species) that is specific to each animal: in this
sense the animal soul only exists in animals and every species of animal has
its own soul. Or, by the ‘animal soul,’ we may mean (ii) a general meaning
that generalizes over all animals, including humans: the ‘animal soul’ in this
generic sense is a meaning that applies to what the ‘animal soul’ in the first
sense refers to. This general meaning can be expressed by “what contributes
to motion and/or perception as the common characteristics of animals.” The
‘animal soul’ in the generic sense exists in the faculty of estimation. Or we
may use the ‘animal soul’ to refer to (iii) a power of the rational soul that is
responsible for the acts of motion and perception. In this sense the ‘animal
soul’ is a power of the human soul which has other powers such as reasoning.
At this point, we may disregard some ‘possible’ solutions in Table 2.2.
Note that a substantial form contributes to the subsistence of its matter.
Therefore, if the vegetative soul, as it exists in animals (humans included),
were a substantial form, it would “contribute to the subsistence of the
matter constituting the body of the animal.” However, Texts 17–20 suggest
otherwise. Hence, the vegetative soul, as it exists in animals, is not a substantial
67
form. Therefore, the prospect for C-solutions (composite soul: the human
soul is composed of vegetative, animal, and rational soul as substantial
forms) is dim. More particularly, versions of CL-solutions (a Composite
soul originated Late) according to which the embryo first possesses a
vegetative soul, as a substantial form, and then comes to the possession of
the animal soul, as a distinct substantial form, and finally receives the
rational soul, as its perfection, when none of these souls gets corrupted in
between, jeopardize the sense in which they are substantial (as each subse-
quent soul should come into existence in a subject already in-formed by the
previous soul).
Of S-solutions, versions of SL-solutions (a Simple soul originated Late)
might be developed in two main forms: Either the management of the
embryo’s body at the earlier stages, i.e. before the origination of the human
soul, is attributed to no souls, of any kind, or to some souls, in some sense.
Both options are untenable. The former ignores numerous pieces of textual
evidence (e.g., Texts 8, 9, and 12) in which Avicenna explains the develop-
ment of the embryo’s body as being managed by the vegetative and animal
soul/power. The latter, namely taking some souls to be responsible for the
early embryonic development, might posit them either as some substantial
forms or as powers belonging to a different substance. Again, both alterna-
tives are unacceptable. The first one needs to further assume that through
successive ensoulment, at each new stage, the substantial form originated at
the previous stage gets corrupted (otherwise this solution collapses to a
version of C-solutions). This implies that the embryo would be transferred
from one species to another (from a plant to an animal and from an animal
to a human), a transition that Avicenna implicitly denies: “And if the
newborn were first sensitive and then became a human being by [possessing]
rationality, then by its perfection it would be transferred from one species to
another species” (Text 6). The second alternative postulates a third sub-
stance, neither the human body nor the human soul, which has specific
powers, i.e. the vegetative and animal, to manage the embryo’s body before
the late origination of the human soul. This solution finds no textual
support and violates Avicenna’s soul–body dualism (we will come back to
this issue in section 7, b). If C-solutions (in both CE and CL versions) and
SL-solutions are not promising, as the above observations suggest, an SE-
solution (a Simple soul originated Early) should be favored.
Having these points in mind, let us return to the problem of ambiguity of
Co-origination. We may now say that the ‘vegetative soul’ as a power of a
unique soul is originated before the formation of the ‘human body’ in its
ordinary sense. This power, however, cannot exist without the existence of
the soul itself. But the soul that belongs to a human, as it exists among
concrete particulars, is the specific soul (as a species), i.e. the human soul.
Therefore, the human soul is originated before the formation of the ‘human
body’ in its ordinary sense. More particularly, “a power that is the principle
[/source] leading to the formation of other organs, in [a particular] order,
will arise from the first organ, and then the coagulated seminal fluid comes
to the possession of the [vegetative] soul in virtue of the penetration of the
male power into it” (Text 9). The same argument shows that the existence of
the ‘animal soul’ as a power of a unique soul necessitates the existence of the
human soul before the formation of the ‘human body,’ again in its ordinary
sense: “as soon as the heart and the brain come into existence inside [the
embryo] the rational soul is attached to it and from it the sensitive [power]
follows” (Text 12). Therefore, since the vegetative and the animal power of
the human soul are originated as early as the first major organ and the
sensitive power ‘follows’ from the rational soul, then the rational soul, in
pure potentiality, is originated as early as the first major organ. So, the non-
ordinary sense of the ‘human body,’ namely the material from which the
completed human body is formed (after undergoing some stages of sub-
stantial change), should be the intended sense of the term, as it is used in
Co-origination.
Note that according to this reading, the vegetative soul/power, as it exists
in an individual human soul, is firstly a power of the human soul and
secondly distinct from the vegetative spirit. The vegetative soul, in this sense,
is the realization of a power of an abstract entity, namely the human soul,
and that abstract entity has other powers, e.g., the animal and rational, that
may be inactive at the stage in which the vegetative soul is activated. How,
for Avicenna, an abstract entity can have some inactive power is a different
issue. Avicenna is anyway committed to such a view since the human
intellect at its origination has some inactive powers and only acquires
perfection through objects external to itself, e.g., the active intellect or the
souls of celestial spheres. The vegetative spirit as it exists in a human, in
contrast, is a corporeal entity. It can move and circulate in the human body,
or in the material constituting the body, and assist the soul in the formation
of other organs. None of these two, i.e. the vegetative soul and the vegetative
spirit, should be conflated with the vegetative soul as it exists in a plant,
which in fact is the realization of the plant form as a species. The vegetative
soul of the plant is corporeal too but it is distinct from the vegetative spirit as
it exists in a human since first, it is the form of the plant whereas the
vegetative spirit is not the form of the human body, and second, it does not
require administration by an abstract entity, whereas the vegetative spirit
requires that.
Finally, consider the ‘problem’ of vagueness of Co-origination. We
explained that ‘vagueness’ may be a distinctive problem, if the ‘human
body’ is used in its non-ordinary sense. Moreover, above, we argued that
this is the case. Thus to establish a meaning for the ‘human body,’ we need to
first precisify it. As Avicenna argues, the human soul is a substance and
substances come into existence instantaneously (as they do not accept
intension (ištidaˉ d) or remission (tanaqqus.)). Therefore, in whatever sense
the ‘human body’ and the human soul are co-originated, they are originated
instantaneously.68 The above disambiguation of Co-origination also suggests
a precisification of it: The instant in which the human soul comes into
existence is the instant in which its vegetative power is originated. This,
however, does not fully determine the instant in question because on some
occasions Avicenna is indeterminate about this instant and on some other
occasions he talks about it indirectly by referring to the origination of the first
organ. As an example of the former case, consider the middle part of Text 12:
And it is not unlikely that the seminal fluid is in this state when the nutritive power
therein is acquired from the father and then another [nutritive power] is coming
afterwards. It may also be permissible that the nutritive soul coming from the father
stays until the temperament transforms, via some kind of transformation, [into
another] and then a particular nutritive soul is attached to it, the one [i.e. the
nutritive soul/power] acquired from the father does not have the power to completely
manage [the embryo] to the end, and it’s only adequate for some [stages of]
managing, [and] needs a powerful principle.
As an example of the latter case, consider the beginning of Text 9 where
Avicenna asserts that by the origination of the first organ the vegetative
power is originated. In the same text, Avicenna explains “when that [i.e. the
body] is ensouled, the soul takes action through it to complete the organs.
And this soul, at the time, is a nutritive [vegetative] soul or [equivalently] has
no other action [besides fulfilling nutritional tasks], though it has the
potentiality for other things.” At the end of Text 12, Avicenna makes it
utterly clear that the sensitive soul and the rational soul are originated with
the origination of the heart, though the rational soul is inactive.
Therefore, if we disambiguate the ‘human body’ by taking it to be used in
its non-ordinary sense, vagueness will become a distinctive problem since the
term, used this way, has no established meaning. To narrow down the range
of possible meanings, then, we propose a descriptive and partial precisifica-
tion: the ‘human body’ refers to whatever material body that comes to possess
the vegetative power of the soul. For Avicenna, the first major organ
undoubtedly possesses this power, as textual evidence witnesses. Whether,
at an earlier stage after the conception and before the origination of the first
major organ, the material body undergoing embryonic development pos-
sesses the ‘vegetative power of the soul’ is not fully determined.
68
See McGinnis, “On the Moment of Substantial Change.”
7 . T W O CO R O LL A R I E S
Our reading of Co-origination and the different senses of the ‘vegetative’ and
‘animal’ soul introduced above may also shed light on some related problems
in Avicenna’s philosophy of the soul. Here we will consider two such
problems, one in the contemporary literature and the other in the classic.
a. The Problem of Receiving Knowledge of

Particular Events from Celestial Spheres
Dimitri Gutas’s study, “Imagination and Transcendental Knowledge in
Avicenna,” begins with a distinction between two kinds of ‘supernal know-
ledge’ in terms of their objects: one is about ‘intelligible universal concepts’
whereas the other is about ‘forms of particular’ events on earth. Gutas
explains that conflating the two kinds of knowledge, their natures and
sources, has led to a false interpretation of Avicenna:
Most unfortunately, these problems contributed to a false understanding of Avicen-
na’s basic position and led to the belief in modern scholarship that
Imagination . . . may enter conjunction with the active intellect and receive the
emanation of the active intellect directly [Herbert Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna,
and Averroes on Intellect, 123].
But this cannot be correct, as Dag Hasse pointedly remarks: the animal soul cannot
receive knowledge from the supernal realm and it cannot have this prophetic
property because, “if this were correct . . . animals could become prophets as well”
[Hasse, Avicenna’s De Anima in the Latin West, 159].
(Gutas, “Imagination and Transcendental Knowledge,” 341)
In a footnote, Gutas provides further evidence for this alleged misinterpret-
ation of Avicenna by Davidson and Michael Marmura as well.69 Independ-
ently of the problem of the nature of ‘supernal knowledge’ and whether
Marmura’s and Davidson’s interpretation contain any grain of truth, we
suspect that Hasse’s main reason, which is Gutas’s as well, for holding that
the ‘animal soul’ of a human “cannot receive knowledge from the supernal
realm,” is inconclusive. The claim that “if this were correct . . . animals could
become prophets as well” is based on conflating the ‘animal soul’ in its
specific sense (as a species) with the animal soul as a power of the rational
soul. As was argued, the animal soul in its specific sense exists as the form of
69
See Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes on Intellect, 119 and 121, and
Michael E. Marmura, Ibn Sīnaˉ . Fī Ithbaˉ t al-nubuwwaˉ t (Beirut: Daˉ r an-nahaˉ r, 1968), xiii.
the matter that constitutes a non-human animal species; it is material and

mortal. In contrast, the animal soul of a human being is not the form of the
matter that constitutes a human being. It is a power of the abstract entity,
i.e. the human soul, that manages the human body. To wit, the two things
we refer to by the ‘animal soul’ have different causal powers: for example,
whereas the former, the animal soul of a non-human animal, completes its
body as an animal, and cannot exceed that boundary of perfection toward a
more perfect body, the latter, i.e. the animal soul of a human, completes its
body as a human. For Avicenna, these are entities of two different categories.
The animal soul, as a power of the human soul, is not necessarily
mortal. For one thing, Avicenna approvingly considers the possibility of
the activity of imagination after the death of the human body, for theo-
logical purposes, in aš-Šifaˉ ʾ and al-Išaˉ raˉ t wa-t-tanbīhaˉ t (see the following),
among other places:
Text 21. It also seems likely that what some scholars have said is true, namely: If
these [imbecile souls] were pure [of vice] and separated from the body when a mode
of belief in [consequences] in the hereafter had been embedded in them (which, for
their like, would be like [something] akin to that which one can address the
commonality), and this is represented in their souls; and if, then, [these souls]
separate from [their] bodies, having no meaning attracting them to the direction
above them [ . . . ] ([at the same time] there being no prohibition on the part of the
celestial materials [for these souls] to be subjects for the action of a soul on them),
then, [these scholars] say, [their souls] will imagine all that they had believed in
regarding the states of the hereafter. The instrument [these scholars go on to explain]
by means of which [such souls] are enabled to imagine would be something that
belongs to the celestial bodies. They thus experience all that they have been told in
the [terrestrial] world about the states of the grave, the resurrection, and the goods in
the hereafter. The bad souls [these scholars continue] also witness punishment
according to what had been portrayed to them in the [terrestrial] world, and they
suffer it. For the forms in the imagination are not weaker than the sensible [forms]
but are greater in influence and clarity, as one sees in sleep.70
To whom Avicenna is referring here, Faˉ raˉ bī or not, is not at issue; rather, his
reasoning matters. If imagination, as a faculty of the animal soul which in
turn is a power of the human soul, were necessarily mortal, and were
corrupted upon the death of the human body (like the faculty of imagin-
ation of the animal soul (as a species) which is corrupted upon the death of
the animal body), then it would be impossible for the human soul to
imagine anything in the hereafter. Avicenna, however, does not consider
this to be impossible. Thus, imagination, as a faculty of the human soul,
70
Ibn Sīnaˉ [Avicenna], [Aš-Šifaˉ ʾ, al-Ilaˉ hiyyaˉ t] The Metaphysics of the Healing, ed.
M. E. Marmura (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2005), Bk. 9 ch. 7, 356.
is ontologically different from imagination as a faculty of the animal soul, in

its specific sense. Correct, they both are corporeal in some sense: they need
some corporeal object to be active. For this reason, and to make sense of the
possibility he envisages, Avicenna hypothesizes that “the instrument by
means of which” these human souls are “enabled to imagine would be
something that belongs to the celestial bodies.” Again, Avicenna may not
endorse this position for other reasons, but not for the corporeality of the
animal soul as a power of the human soul. The same explanation may be
found in al-Išaˉ raˉ t wa-t-tanbīhaˉ t.71
Thus, we are not sure how to interpret Gutas on occasions like this:
They [i.e. the five internal senses] are all material faculties and located in the brain,
front to back, in the order listed, with imagination placed in the centre, between
imagery and estimation. As such the animal soul is mortal and dies with the death of
the body, just like the vegetative soul. Humans have this latter soul in common with
animals and plants, and the animal soul only in common with animals. It is only the
rational soul, an immaterial substance which characterizes humans exclusively, that is
immortal. (Gutas, “Imagination and Transcendental Knowledge,” 338)
The passage apparently conflates different senses of the ‘animal soul’ and is
misleading. It is true that ‘humans have this latter soul,’ namely the animal
soul, ‘in common with animals’ but they possess the ‘animal soul’ in a
different sense. In non-human animals, the animal soul is the form of the
body and exists in its specific sense (as a species); in humans, it is a power of
the soul, which is not the form of the human body, and does not exist in its
specific sense. Humans and animals even differ in their animal souls.
b. The Problem of the Integrator and Retentive Factor

of the Fundamental Elements
According to Avicenna, the human soul is distinct from the human body,
its corporeality and its temperament. In al-Išaˉ raˉ t wa-t-tanbīhaˉ t, under the
remark titled “on proving that the human soul is not the corporeality [of the
body] nor the temperament,” Avicenna concludes that “the fundamental
71
See Ibn Sīnaˉ [Avicenna], [Al-Išaˉ raˉ t wa-t-tanbīhaˉ t, vol. 4] Ibn Sīnaˉ and Mysticism.
Remarks and Admonitions: Part Four, ed. and trans. Shams C. Inati (London and New
York: Kegan Paul International, 1996). For example:
Text 22. As regards the unalert, if they raise themselves above imperfections, they will be
set free from the body and will reach the happiness that befits them. But perhaps even in
this state of relative happiness, they do not dispense with the assistance of a body which is
the subject of their imaginations (778). It is not impossible that this body be a celestial
body or the like. Perhaps this leads them eventually to the preparation for the happiness-
causing conjunction that the knowers enjoy (779).
powers that move, apprehend, and retain the temperament are something
other than [the temperament]. This you may call the ‘soul’ ” (Inati, Ibn
Sina’s Remarks and Admonitions, 97).72 On this point, in his extensive
commentary on Avicenna’s al-Išaˉ raˉ t wa-t-tanbīhaˉ t, at. -T. ūsī explicates
Avicenna’s view by adding that the soul manages different parts of the
body, i.e. the organs, prior to the body. Thus not only the temperament
of the body but also the temperament of each organ is managed by the soul.
At. -T. ūsī, then, considers an issue, discussed by Fahr-ad-Dīn ar-Raˉ zī, regard-
̆
ing the priority of the soul over the temperament. At. -T. ūsī’s summary of the
problem goes as follows:
Text 23. And on this position a famous question is raised and it goes like this. You
said that the composites become prepared to receive their forms from their principles
in accordance with their different temperaments. And from that, the priority of the
temperaments over those forms [necessarily] follows. And now [in contrast] you are
saying that the soul, which is the form of the animal, is the integrator of its
fundamental elements and the integrator of the fundamental elements should be
prior to the temperament. But this is a contradiction.73
The ‘problem of the integrator and retentive factor of the fundamental
elements’ may be reformulated as follows: On the one hand, a composite
receives its form only if it is prepared (or has the potentiality) to do so. And
it realizes such preparedness (or potentiality) only if it has the right tem-
perament. Therefore, the temperament of the composite (the animal body
or the animal organ) is prior to its form (the animal soul). On the other
hand, it is said that the animal soul manages the animal body and its organs.
Therefore, the animal soul is the integrator and retentive factor of the
fundamental elements of the animal body. Moreover, the fundamental
elements form the temperament of the animal body (or that of its organs).
Hence, the temperament of the animal body is posterior to the animal soul.
But this is contradiction: the temperament of the animal body cannot be
72
I have followed Shams Inati’s (2014) translation, except that I have added a pair
of single quotations around ‘soul’: Ibn Sīnaˉ [Avicenna], [Al-Išaˉ raˉ t wa-t-tanbīhaˉ t, vols. 2
and 3] Ibn Sina’s Remarks and Admonitions: Physics and Metaphysics, an analysis and
annotated translation, ed. and trans. S. C. Inati (New York: Columbia University Press,
2014), third class ch. 5.
73
Al-Išaˉ raˉ t wa-t-tanbīhaˉ t li-Abī ʿAlī ibn Sīnaˉ , ma ʿa Šarh. Nas.īr ad-Dīn at. -T. ūsī [/Šarh.
al-Išaˉ raˉ t], 354. The translation is ours. To distinguish the four elements, i.e. al- ʿanaˉ sur al-
arba ʿa, from the fundamental constituents of objects, i.e. ust. uqiss, we have used ‘funda-
mental elements’ as a rendering of the latter. This is unfortunate, since ‘fundamental
elements,’ predicatively read, may refer to the elements that are more fundamental than
the four elements. This, however, is not the intended reading. Fundamental elements, in
relation to the ordinary objects, are the fundamental constituents of them, and in relation
to the four elements, are made out of them.
both prior (as the first horn suggests) and posterior (as the second horn
suggests) to the animal soul, in one and the same sense.
Before considering our solution, let us briefly review at. -T. ūsī’s and ar-
Raˉ zī’s solution, as reported by at. -T. ūsī in his commentary.74 First, ar-Raˉ zī’s
solution:
Text 24. And the meritorious commentator replies to that [problem] as follows: the
integrator of the parts of the semen is the soul[s] of the parents, then that tempera-
ment will be under the administration of the mother’s soul until it is prepared to
receive a soul. Then, after its origination, it [i.e. the soul] will become its retentive
[factor] and the integrator of other parts [of it] by providing nourishment [for it].75
Ar-Raˉ zī distinguishes between, at least, three different stages: First, the stage
in which the parts of the semen are integrated by the soul[s] of the parents;
second, the stage in which the same temperament is managed by the soul of
the mother; and third, the stage in which the embryo is ensouled and
therefore it has its own soul which is the integrator and retentive factor of
its temperament. At. -T. ūsī rejects this solution for the following reason:
Text 25. If the mother’s soul were the manager of the [embryo’s] temperament, how
could it delegate the administration after awhile to the rational [soul], such a thing
[i.e. delegation of power] happens in non-natural agents that act in accordance with
[their] renewing wills.76
Here is our formulation of at.-T.ūsī’s reasoning: (a) if at one stage the mother’s
soul is the integrator and retentive factor of the fundamental elements of the
embryo’s body and at a later stage this task is given to another thing, e.g., the
embryo’s soul, then some kind of delegation of power should occur. (b) This
kind of delegation of power only occurs in “non-natural agents that act in
accordance with their renewing wills.” (c) The mother’s soul and the
embryo’s soul are natural agents, namely they act in virtue of their natures.
(d) Therefore, there is no delegation of power in such agents. (e) Thus, by
modus tollens, it is not the case that at one stage the mother’s soul manages
the embryo’s body and at a later stage the embryo’s soul takes up the job.
We believe that at. -T. ūsī’s reasoning is not sound since (a) is false. (a)
would be true, if what is integrated and preserved, i.e. the fundamental
elements of the embryo’s body, at different stages, were the same. We
believe this is not the case for Avicenna. Let us consider the problem in
the case of the human embryo.
74
At. -T. ūsī reports that ar-Raˉ zī offers two different solutions to the problem. At. -T. ūsī
rejects both. Here we only consider the first solution and accept at. -T. ūsī’s reason against
the other, being ar-Raˉ zī’s or not.
75
Šarh. al-Išaˉ raˉ t vol. 2, third class ch. 5, 354. 76
Ibid., 355.
As we interpret Co-origination, it suggests that the human soul is origin-

ated long before the completion of the human body and in fact as early as
the origination of the first major organ. We may not be able to determine
the exact instant; however, the human soul and the first major organ (or
whatever appropriate material body) are instantaneously co-originated as
two substances. Therefore, the material from which the first major organ is
formed undergoes substantial change, not motion, and then the first major
organ is originated. Hence, what is integrated before the origination of the
first major organ is a substance different from what is integrated and preserved
later on: it is the fundamental elements of the first major organ, or the ‘human
body’ in its non-ordinary sense. Therefore, if what is integrated and preserved
at different stages is not one and the same thing, no delegation of power
follows. Otherwise put, there is no single task of integrating and preserving
the fundamental elements of one and the same object: one task is to integrate
and preserve the fundamental elements of the mineral material from
which, via substantial change, the first major organ is formed, and the
other is to integrate and preserve the fundamental elements of the first
major organ. These are different tasks involving different objects, and thus
may be taken by different natural agents. Hence, at. -T. ūsī’s reasoning against
ar-Raˉ zī fails.
After rejecting ar-Raˉ zī’s solution, at. -T. ūsī offers his own:
Text 26. What the philosophical rules suggested by Avicenna and others imply is that
the soul[s] of the parents gather nutritive ingredients by the attracting power and
then turns them into mixtures and subsequently extract the matter of seminal fluid
from them, by means of the procreative power, and make it ready to receive a
potentiality whose significance is to prepare the matter to become a human. Thus, in
virtue of this potentiality it becomes seminal fluid and that potentiality would be the
form that preserves the temperament of the seminal fluid, like the mineral form.
Then, the seminal fluid attains more perfection in the womb in accordance with the
predispositions it acquires therein; [this will go on] till it becomes prepared to receive
a more perfect soul that executes vegetative acts in addition to preserving the matter,
thus it gathers nutrition and supplements that matter and makes it grow, hence the
matter evolves under its administration. So, that form becomes the origin of the
[new] acts in addition to what is already originated. And like this [it evolves] to
become prepared to receive a more perfect soul that originates, in addition to all
previous acts, animal acts. Thus, these acts are also originated by it and then the body
is completed and evolves to become prepared to receive a rational soul, or to bring
about reason [/speech] besides all the previous [acts], and [this soul] will remain as
the administrator of the body until the moment of death arrives.77
77
Ibid.
Then at. -T. ūsī appeals to a renowned analogy in the peripatetic tradition
to further explicate his solution.78 A charcoal juxtaposed to a piece of fire
initially gets (i) warm, and then becomes (ii) hot, and when it is heated
enough it turns to a (iii) glowing charcoal and finally (iv) it flames. The
charcoal’s warmth is analogized to the mineral form, the following hotness
to the principle of vegetative acts, the glowing phase to the principle of
animal acts and the flaming to the rational soul.
At. -T. ūsī’s solution might be interpreted in two ways. Here is the first
interpretation. The fundamental elements of the embryo’s body have dif-
ferent integrating and retentive factors: at the first stage, the souls of the
parents are the integrators of the fundamental elements of the seminal fluids
and the resulting mineral form would be the preserver of its parts. At the
second stage, the vegetative soul is the integrative and retentive factor of the
fundamental elements of the body, and at the third stage, the animal soul
and finally at the fourth stage the rational soul (that will remain the
administrator of the human body to the moment of death). Hence, different
‘souls’ are understood as different entities.79 We do not follow this inter-
pretation for reasons discussed against ‘successive ensoulment’ according to
which different souls (in humans) come into existence as different entities,
particularly as different substantial forms (see section 6).
The second interpretation goes like this. There are only two stages: As
before, at the first stage the integrator is the souls of the parents and the
preserver is the mineral form. The further three stages mentioned above
constitute one phase in which a single soul, namely the human soul, is the
integrator and retentive factor of the fundamental elements of the embryo’s
body, though by means of different powers, namely the vegetative, animal,
and rational. So, these are not different ‘souls’ as distinct entities; after the
first stage, the human soul is originated, although only its vegetative power is
active. The following passage supports this latter interpretation:
Text 27. Thus all these powers are like one thing, heading toward a boundary of
perfection from a boundary of deficiency. The name ‘soul’ is attributed to the last
three [powers] and these, with the differences in their levels, are the soul of the body
of the newborn. And from that, it will be clear that the integrator of the nutritive
parts constituting the semen is the soul[s] of the parents, and this is not the retentive
factor. And the integrator of the parts added to that [i.e. to the semen] until the
perfection of the [human] body and up to the end of life and the retentive factor of
the temperament [of the human body] is the soul of the newborn.80
78
Ibid., 356.
79
For an interpretation along this line see [Saadat] Mostafavi, “Problem in Avicenna’s
View.”
80
Šarh. al-Išaˉ raˉ t, 356.
This interpretation is compatible with our reading of Co-origination. After

conception, some substantial changes are necessary for the embryo to get
prepared (by developing veins, neural system, etc.) to receive the human
soul (Text 16). These changes, nonetheless, do not push the ‘coagulated
blood’ to get in-formed by some vegetative or animal soul, as a substantial
form. Some substantial changes happen but they are not transitions from
one species to another. As soon as the ‘coagulated seminal fluid’ comes to
possess the vegetative power of the soul, which certainly occurs by the
origination of the first major organ, the human soul is originated. Hence,
the human soul is originated long before the completion of the embryo’s
body. It is a simple substance with various powers that may get activated at
different times, as it is the case with the rational power indisputably. This is
an SE-solution (a Simple soul originated Early, see Table 2.2).
8 . O N T H E ‘ C O N T R A R Y’ E V I D E N C E
The textual evidence seemingly ‘contrary’ to our reading may be categorized

under four headings: directly contrary, ambiguously contrary, apparently
contrary, and allegedly contrary. We will discuss each category separately
and try to show that they do not undermine our reading.
A case of directly ‘contrary’ textual evidence may be found in Text 1. In
this passage, and similar ones, Avicenna is explicit that “human souls are
originated with the origination of human bodies.”81 We foresee two ways to
handle such passages. First, Avicenna might use the ‘human body’ in an
ambiguous manner and what he really means is that the ‘human body’ in its
non-ordinary sense is co-originated with the human soul. Second, if we note
that these texts are mainly coming from treatises like al-Mabda ʾ wa-l-ma ʿaˉ d,
where Avicenna is not in the position of formulating his mature analysis of
the soul, then even if the ‘human body’ is used unambiguously in its
ordinary sense, we may still suppose that he is reporting the dominant
peripatetic view on the origination of the human soul, not his own. The
fact that Avicenna’s formulation of Co-origination in aš-Šifaˉ ʾ is considerably
different from what we find in the above works, supports this latter explan-
ation (see below).
A witness of the second category, ambiguously ‘contrary’ evidence, may
be found in Text 2: “thus it is correct that the soul is originated just as the
body appropriate for its use is originated.”82 In such cases, Avicenna does
not use the term ‘human body’; rather, he employs the ‘body appropriate for
81 82
The Provenance and Destination, 108. States of the Soul, 97.
its use,’ namely appropriate for the use of the human soul. We do not find
such texts to be directly contrary to our reading of Co-origination. If one
takes the ‘body appropriate for its use’ to refer to what the ‘human body’
ordinarily refers to, then the text provides contrary evidence. However, if
one takes the ‘body appropriate’ for the human soul’s use to refer to
whatever material body that suits specific roles, e.g., individuating the
human soul and initiating the human spirit as a medium for the formation
of the human organs, then the text does not contradict our interpretation.
We speculate that all such ambiguously contrary pieces of evidence may be
disambiguated in accordance with our reading.
Of the third category, apparently ‘contrary’ evidence, we may consider
this:
Text 28. [ . . . ] Thus every body, with the origination of the temperament of its
matter, demands the origination of its soul, and it is not the case that a body
demands [the origination of the soul] and another body does not demand, because
the particulars [falling] under [natural] kinds do not differ in what in virtue of which
they are constituted [ . . . ]83
Here, Avicenna talks about the “origination of the temperament of its
matter,” namely the matter of the body. Such a passage may go contrary
to our reading only if it is presupposed that by the term ‘body’ here
Avicenna means the ‘human body’ in its ordinary sense and that the
temperament of the matter constituting the human body is not prior to
the origination of the perfected human body. Both presuppositions are
questionable, however. It is consistent with Avicenna’s metaphysics to
assume that the temperament of the material constituting the embryo’s
body exists long before the completion of the ‘human body’ in its ordinary
sense. Accordingly, such a passage may support our reading, rather than
hindering it. (Note: presupposing that the term ‘body,’ in such a use, refers
to what the ‘human body’ ordinarily refers to is begging the question.)
Finally, we shall consider allegedly ‘contrary’ evidence. For instance,
Gutas (“Imagination and Transcendental Knowledge,” 339–40) complains
about Avicenna’s not giving ‘further specification’ in his use of ‘soul’ on
occasions like the following:
Text 29. As for the reason for the knowledge of [future] events (al-kaˉ ʾinaˉ t), it is the
contact of the human soul with the souls of the celestial bodies which [ . . . ] know
what happens in the world of the elements [ . . . ]. For the most part, these [human]
souls come into contact with them [the souls of the celestial spheres] by virtue precisely
of a congeneric similarity (mujaˉ nasa) between them. The congeneric similarity is that
83
Avicenna’s De Anima Bk. 5 ch. 4, 233.
thing (al-ma ʿnaˉ ) which, there [in the heavens], is close to the concerns of these
[human souls]. So most of what is seen [by the human souls] of what is to be found
there [in the heavens] is congeneric to the states of the bodies of these [human] souls
or to the states of one who is close to these bodies. And although the contact [of the
human souls with the celestial souls] is total, the majority of the influence they
receive from them is for the most part close to just their [own] concerns. This contact
comes about on the part (min jiha) of the estimation and imagination (al-hayal) and
̆
through their use, and concerns particular things, whereas contact by means of the
84
intellect is something else, which is not our subject here.
Accordingly, the human soul via estimation and imagination, namely two of
its animal powers, comes into contact with the celestial souls. As was
discussed earlier, Gutas rejects this view:
First, there is the obvious contradiction in the two statements: is it the human or
animal soul that receives knowledge from the souls of the celestial spheres?
Second, and most importantly, if indeed it is the animal soul that receives this
knowledge, how is it possible for a material and mortal substance to be in contact
with divine and immortal supernal world?
(Gutas, “Imagination and Transcendental Knowledge,” 340)
Note that Text 29 prima facie supports the view that Gutas rejects. The view
in question, however, is consistent with our understanding of Co-origination.
Thus, if Gutas is right, the prima facie reading of Text 29 is misleading and it
needs to be reinterpreted. The allegedly correct reinterpretation of Text 29
should not support our understanding of Co-origination.
We agree with Gutas’s distinction between the two kinds of supernal
knowledge, to wit, one that has ‘intelligible universal concepts’ as its object
and the other that has the ‘forms of particular events’ on the earth. Also,
Gutas may be right that in the first kind of supernal knowledge, it is the
rational soul that is primarily connected to the active intellect. None of this,
however, shows that the imagination cannot be in contact, or be acted upon,
by the celestial souls. Gutas asks, “How is it possible for a material and
mortal substance to be in contact with divine and immortal supernal
world?” The question sounds anachronistic and puzzling to us for three
reasons. First, the imagination, as an internal sense of the animal soul that is
a power of the human soul, is not necessarily material and mortal; it is the
imagination as a power of the ‘animal soul,’ in its specific sense (as a species),
that is material and mortal since the ‘animal soul’ in this sense is the form of
the animal body. Second, given that for Avicenna the souls of celestial
84
The Provenance and Destination Bk. 3 ch. 17, 117. The translation is Gutas’s and is
quoted from Gutas, “Imagination and Transcendental Knowledge,” 339.
spheres as well as animal souls are corporeal,85 why should the property of
being ‘mortal’ or ‘immortal’ matter at all? Corporeality might be enough for
the possibility of the ontological connection between such entities. Third,
what does ‘connection’ mean here? After all, the human soul, as an imma-
terial and immortal entity is ‘in contact with’ the animal soul, as a material
and mortal entity, in humans, as Gutas reads Avicenna. Gutas’s question
neither matches his own presuppositions nor accords with our reading of
Avicenna. Thus, we conclude, the prima facie reading of Text 29 is not
misleading and hence the text is only ‘allegedly’ against our reading.
9 . O P E N Q U E ST I O N S
Let us end this study by turning to some open questions that it engenders.
On the moral philosophy side, we would like to mention two: If the human
soul is originated at least as early as the first major organ, what will be
Avicenna’s view on the ethics of abortion? And, as a related problem, does
the human embryo with the human soul but without a human body, in its
ordinary sense, count as ‘a person’?86
On the metaphysical side, if the human soul is originated prior to the
completion of the human body, what will be the role of the human soul in
the formation of the human body, if any? And, as a follow up, what does our
solution to the previous problem tell us about Avicenna’s theory of caus-
ation, in particular about causation between abstract and concrete objects?87
On the philosophy of mind side, if the human soul has three powers, the
vegetative, animal, and rational, and these are different from the ‘vegetative’
and ‘animal’ soul, in the specific sense, as existing in plants and non-human
animals, then do these powers contribute to the human cognitive processes
in a different manner?
And finally, more on the epistemological side, is it possible for the active
intellect to act upon the imagination, as a faculty of the human soul, and
85
Gutas, “Imagination and Transcendental Knowledge,” 344.
86
This question should be taken with extra care, bearing in mind that the distinction
between the ‘human individual’ and the ‘human person’ may be a modern innovation,
although with some historical roots.
87
The particular corporeal body co-originated with a particular human soul is meta-
physically necessary for the individuation of that human soul, as we read Avicenna.
However, it is not metaphysically essential to the human soul, in the sense that it does
not contribute to the essence of the human soul. Accordingly, the particular corporeal
body is the accidental cause of the particular human soul. ‘The,’ here, should imply
uniqueness; no other corporeal body individuates that human soul.
work on a particular form therein in the process of abstraction of universal

concepts?
We shall not try exploring these open questions here. We only mentioned
them to highlight the far-reaching and wide-ranging possible implications
of our reading.88
University of Gothenburg (Sweden) and Institute for Research
in Fundamental Sciences (IPM) (Iran)
Imam Sadiq University (Iran)
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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 10/5/2017, SPi

Avicenna on the Origination

42 Seyed N. Mousavian and Seyed Hasan Saadat Mostafavi

There are pieces of ‘explicit’ textual evidence throughout Avicenna’s works

Avicenna on the Origination of the Human Soul 43

44 Seyed N. Mousavian and Seyed Hasan Saadat Mostafavi

of ‘No-imprint,’ as we call it: “The rational soul, according to Avicenna, is a

2. THE PROBLEM: CO-ORIGINATION IS

Co-origination, (1), is ambiguous and vague and thus its attribution to

Avicenna on the Origination of the Human Soul 45

46 Seyed N. Mousavian and Seyed Hasan Saadat Mostafavi

Table 2.1 Avicenna’s view on the chronology of embryonic development

The frothy/foamy period 6 days 6

Avicenna on the Origination of the Human Soul 47

48 Seyed N. Mousavian and Seyed Hasan Saadat Mostafavi

McGinnis might be interpreted as suggesting that, ﬁrst, embryonic devel-

Avicenna on the Origination of the Human Soul 49

50 Seyed N. Mousavian and Seyed Hasan Saadat Mostafavi

Avicenna on the Origination of the Human Soul 51

The problem of ambiguity and vagueness of Co-origination is deep since

52 Seyed N. Mousavian and Seyed Hasan Saadat Mostafavi

the vegetative functions in question.25 Similarly, if an L-solution ﬁxes the

Table 2.2 The logical space of solutions

Avicenna on the Origination of the Human Soul 53

By combining the above options, we may describe the logical space of

54 Seyed N. Mousavian and Seyed Hasan Saadat Mostafavi

Now we may brieﬂy describe and justify our methodology. We break

Avicenna on the Origination of the Human Soul 55

4. THE ORIGINATION OF DIFFERENT

Let us begin by clarifying Avicenna’s view on the origination of the vegeta-

a. The Vegetative Soul/Power

56 Seyed N. Mousavian and Seyed Hasan Saadat Mostafavi

Avicenna on the Origination of the Human Soul 57

b. The Animal Soul/Power

58 Seyed N. Mousavian and Seyed Hasan Saadat Mostafavi

Avicenna on the Origination of the Human Soul 59

60 Seyed N. Mousavian and Seyed Hasan Saadat Mostafavi

Avicenna on the Origination of the Human Soul 61

62 Seyed N. Mousavian and Seyed Hasan Saadat Mostafavi

Coming back to Avicenna’s use of ‘nature’ in Text 12, we propose to

c. The Rational Soul/Power

Avicenna on the Origination of the Human Soul 63

Recall that according to C-solutions (composite soul), Avicenna is commit-

64 Seyed N. Mousavian and Seyed Hasan Saadat Mostafavi

The objection Avicenna addresses here may be reformulated as follows: one

Avicenna on the Origination of the Human Soul 65

66 Seyed N. Mousavian and Seyed Hasan Saadat Mostafavi

species) of a plant. He explicates this sense in the second book of Avicenna’s

draws on Aristotle’s discussion of modes of causation in Physics 2.3. 195b25ff in The

Avicenna on the Origination of the Human Soul 67

To conclude, there are three different senses of the ‘vegetative soul’: as a

68 Seyed N. Mousavian and Seyed Hasan Saadat Mostafavi

reproduces, though each is differentiated [from the other] by a species-determining

Avicenna on the Origination of the Human Soul 69

70 Seyed N. Mousavian and Seyed Hasan Saadat Mostafavi

Avicenna on the Origination of the Human Soul 71

72 Seyed N. Mousavian and Seyed Hasan Saadat Mostafavi

Avicenna on the Origination of the Human Soul 73

a. The Problem of Receiving Knowledge of

74 Seyed N. Mousavian and Seyed Hasan Saadat Mostafavi

the matter that constitutes a non-human animal species; it is material and

Avicenna on the Origination of the Human Soul 75

is ontologically different from imagination as a faculty of the animal soul, in