Intentionality as Immateriality and Mullā Ṣadrā on the Soul

Abstract

Brentano’s positing the intentionality as mark of the mental can be best translated to medieval context through the discussions on the soul. Brentano’s intentionality is often regarded with his positing physical phenomena as opposite to mental phenomena and this led to attempts to solve the intentionality problem within naturalistic projects of mind in analytical philosophy. This chapter investigates the soul starting from Aristotle’s De Anima, followed by developments in Avicenna’s psychology where immaterial human soul became an important element of the theory. The chapter uses this basis in order to present Mulla Sadra’s monist psychology. In this account, the soul is contextualized in a larger realm of single reality, existence. The soul is a dynamic reality and she is in constant movement in her substance through each experience, movement, knowledge process.