The Immediate Influences of Mind on Outer World from Avicenna's Point of View A Brief Survey of Avicenna's Cognitive Approach

Document Type : Scholarly Article

Abstract

Based on the studies about the word "mind" and its applications in Avicenna's works, mind, or the sphere of perception in rational soul which is in relation with brain, has immediate and indirect influences on outer world including the world of nature, human body or the minds of others in different ways. The sphere of soul's perception and faculties of sensation, fantasy, imagination and estimation have direct influences in matters like praying, magic, love, body's moods and etc. Reviewing Avicenna's thoughts on this issue is done through a library research and the method of content analysis. So, the paper is trying to inspire a sort of cognitive approach in Avicenna's phycology, which focuses on the direct influences of thoughts and human behaviour. Sometimes, such approach is similar to the cognitive psychology (a new branch of experimental psychology) which along with the aim of compiling rules and discovering new theories about mental structures and processes, studies human's behaviour.

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