Rational soul

Hence the rational soul of man makes him an abiding creature, and, though his body may seem to die, yet we know that he will live for ever. For to him death is only a process of purification, by means of which he is freed from his sins, and translated to another and better place. But there is no resurrection for the brute beasts, because they have no rational soul, for which alone our Lord and Saviour shed His blood. 

For though a body may be vitalized by a spirit, yet it need not, therefore, be fixed, unless, indeed, it possess a rational soul, that strong bond between body and spirit, which represents their union, and resists all efforts to separate them. Where there is no soul, there is no hope of redemption. Nothing can be perfect or... 

Typically extrapolations of many kinds are necessary to complete a risk assessment. The number and type of extrapolations will depend, as we have said, on the differences between condition A and condition B, and on how well these differences are understood. Once we have characterized these differences as well as we can, it becomes necessary to identify, if at all possible, a firm scientific basis for conducting each of the required extrapolations. Some, as just mentioned, might be susceptible to relatively simple statistical analysis, but in most cases we will find that statistical methods are inadequate. Often, we may find that all we can do is to apply an assumption of some sort, and then hope that most rational souls find the assumption likely to be close to the truth. Scientists like to be able to claim that the extrapolation can be described by some type of model. A model is usually a mathematical or verbal description of a natural process, which is developed through research, tested for accuracy with new and more refined research, adjusted as necessary to ensure agreement with the new research results, and then used to predict the behavior of future instances of the natural process. Models are refined as new knowledge is acquired. 

Moreover, I tell you in few words, that you cannot obtain a metallic body except by perfectly joining these three principles into one. Know, also, that all animals are, like man, composed of flesh and blood, and also possess a vitalizing spirit, but are destitute of the rational soul which the Creator gave to man alone. Therefore, when animals die, they perish for ever. But when man yields up his mortal life into the hands of his Creator, his soul does not die. 

John Desmond Bernal, The Flesh , in The World, the Flesh and die Devil An Enquiry into the Future of the Three Enemies of the Rational Soul (London, 1929). 

MELUSINA and MELIORA — were Kings daughters in France, snatched away by Satan because they were hopelessly sinful, and transformed into spectres horrible to behold, and monstrous ghosts. The preceding is not a fictitious account. They are thought to exist with a rational soul, but a merely brute-like body, of a visionary kind, nourished by the elements and, like them, destined to pass away at the last day unless they contract a marriage with a man. Then the man himself may, perish by a natural death, while they live naturally by this nuptial union. 

The Greeks similarly perceived the liver as the seat of feelings and rage as well as of the soul. In his Ti-maios , Platon (427-347 BC) described the liver as the location of the desiring soul , which he subordinated to the rational soul of the head. (3) Horatius designated the liver as the organ of love (10), whereas Juvenalis saw it as the seat of anger. (12)... 

Section 5. That the Rational Soul is not Imprinted in the Boefy Following on from his treatment of sensory perception in Section 4, al-Mas udi turns to intellection. In Ishdrdt II.3.16, Avicenna explains that since the intel-hgibles are indivisible, they cannot become impressed on a divisible thing so they cannot become impressed within the human body in the same way that sensory images become impressed within the perceiver s sensory organs and brain. The inteUigibles, therefore, are perceived by a thing that is neither a body nor imprinted in a body, namely the immaterial rational soul. ... 

Against the notion that perception is, or requires, impression, al-Mas udi reiterates a point he made in Section 4, which is this. I know that the perceiver of all sensibles and intelligibles within me is one. However, if the perception of sensibles requires their presence in the bo, and the perception of intelligibles requires their presence in the rational soul, then if I perceive sensibles I will not perceive intelligibles, and if I perceive intelligibles I will not perceive sensibles. ... 

At the start of Ishdrdt II.7, Avicenna advances one of his two arguments for the immortality of the rational soul. He had already estabUshed that the soul is not imprinted in the human body, but exists separately from the body and uses it as an instrument, and that the soul has a celestial cause. It follows that the soul survives the corruption of the body. In the following passages Ishdrdt II.7.2-4), which al-Mas udi targets, Avicenna goes on to argue that the soul s intellectual activity too is not affected by the death of the body. Since intellection is essential to the soul, and since the soul obtains the intelligibles from the... 

This last argument seeks to refute Avicenna s theory that a thing that comes to be must be preceded by a substrate, but also lends credence to the Ash ari doctrine that God s power can create things ex nihilo, which al-Ghazali defended. It is, however, an ad hominem argument, since it does not presuppose a commitment to the doctrine of the rational soul, which in this context is conceded purely for the sake of argument. ... 

Gutas, Dimitri. Avicenna The Metaphysics of the Rational Soul . In The Ontology of the Soul inMedieval Arabic Thought. Edited by Ayman Shihadeh. The Muslim World 102 (2012) 417-425. 

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