Is the human mind merely the aggregate of purely material processes in a physical organ (such as the brain), or is it an immaterial reality distinct from, and irreducible to, the body, and therefore capable of surviving bodily death? Discussed by preeminent philosophers such as Aristotle, Avicenna, Thomas Aquinas, and Descartes from antiquity to the medieval and early modern periods, this question continues to be debated by contemporary academic philosophers. Materialism, though by no means unchallenged, currently stands as the mainstream position. In this presentation, we will consider how the Bahá’í Writings—contrary to contemporary materialism—affirm that the essence of human identity and personality, and the ground of all mental faculties, is a “rational soul”(nafs-i-náṭiqih). This rational soul is immaterial, irreducible to the body, and essentially characterized by a faculty called “intellect” or “reason” (‘aql), which enables the human person to think abstractly and perform rational inference.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s philosophical arguments for, and descriptions of, the immateriality and bodily independence of ‘aql—and thus of the soul of which it is the essential faculty—will be presented, analyzed, explained with reference to their historical antecedents, and finally related to the work of contemporary philosophers who argue in favor of the incorporeality of the higher cognitive powers of the mind. We will argue, in conclusion, that an understanding of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s arguments in their historical and philosophical context could prove to be the foundation for a distinctly Bahá’í philosophy of mind, one that confidently demonstrates the rational basis of the Bahá’í belief that the essence of the human person transcends the body and persists after death.
Born in Missoula, Montana, Joshua D.T. Hall received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Montana in Central and Southwest Asia studies and English literature, and read for an M.Phil. in Islamic Studies and History at the University of Oxford. His chief interests include classical Persian poetry, specifically Hafez; Islamic philosophy, with a focus on Avicenna; and Bahá’í metaphysical theology. He has published in The Journal of Bahá’í Studies, where his article “Bahá’u’lláh and the God of Avicenna” discusses Bahá’u’lláh’s affirmative reception of Avicenna’s historic argument for the existence of God as the Necessary Existence. In future work, Joshua intends to pursue inquiries into the content and elaboration of Avicenna’s theological project east and west, the jointly aesthetic and philosophic character of Persian literature, and the development of Bahá’í thought as informed by its sapiential precedents and in critical engagement with contemporary intellectual discourse.
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