مفهوم ذهن نزد ابن‌سینا: خوانشی نو در چارچوب فلسفۀ ذهن معاصر

Avicenna’s philosophy possesses a considerable capacity for dialogue with various branches of analytic philosophy. One form of this dialogue is the attempt to reread Avicenna’s views within the framework of analytic philosophical literature. The present paper focuses on such a rereading in the domain of contemporary philosophy of mind and addresses the first question on this path, namely, the nature of the mind. The study draws on a text-based analytical interpretation. It first examines how mentality is conceptualized in contemporary philosophy of mind. It then extracts Avicenna’s views on the two concepts of the soul (nafs) and the mind (dhihn). On this basis, it is shown that a meaningful connection can be established between psychological capacities and states—which play a pivotal role in the contemporary understanding of the mind—and the faculties of the soul and the acts proceeding from them in Avicenna’s philosophy. On this basis, in a new reading, mentality for Avicenna is equivalent to possessing an integrated organization and network of capacities and states that are purely perceptive as well as action-oriented (in the form of the faculties and acts of the soul), which its ultimate goal is the realization of the mental state of apprehending universals—both conceptual and assertive (in the form of the act of the rational faculty)—as a property of the human being. Since in some of his statements Avicenna, without emphasizing the rational aspect of the mind, introduces it merely as the receptacle for the realization of any apprehension whatsoever, a general definition of mentality can also be offered, such that every being endowed with psychological capacities and states—even at levels lower than intellection—falls within its scope.