A Critical Reappraisal of the Sadrian Explanation of the Mind–Body Problem

The relationship between the soul and the body constitutes one of the most enduring and central problems in the history of philosophy, particularly within contemporary philosophy of mind, prompting extensive explanatory endeavors by both Islamic and Western thinkers. Employing a descriptive-analytical method with a critical approach, the present study investigates this issue within the framework of Mullā Ṣadrā’s Transcendent Philosophy. The primary question addressed is whether Mullā Ṣadrā-by introducing distinctive ontological principles such as the primacy of existence, the gradation of being, intensive substantial motion, and the corporeal origination of the soul-has succeeded in providing a coherent and unambiguous account of the soul-body relation. The findings indicate that while Mullā Ṣadrā has offered remarkable innovations-such as novel philosophical groundings, the assertion of an essential bond between soul and body, and the conceptualization of the soul as a graded, evolving substance-his position, which we identify as a specific form of dualism termed “distinction-oriented dualism,” confronts five critical challenges: 1.The invalidity of positing the unity of the elemental body and the immaterial soul; 2. The inadequacy of the foundations underlying the corporeal origination and evolutionary motion of the soul; 3.The vulnerability of asserting the unity of the soul’s evolutionary motion; 4.The refutability of the assumption of the soul’s evolutionary immateriality; and 5.The contentious nature of the mediating role attributed to the vaporous soul and the imaginal body. The study concludes that despite significant ontological innovations, Mullā Ṣadrā’s account suffers from theoretical ruptures in elucidating the genuine nexus between soul and body, thereby leaving the issue as an open question in post-Sadrian philosophical discourse.