Imagination as the Animate Soul (Sadr al-Mutuallihin's Recognition of the Power of Imagination in the Light of Explaining the Principles and Analyzing the Functions)

The Power of Imagination in Ibn Sina and his followers` philosophy is introduced as the container of those partial forms perceived by the common sense. Sadr al-Mutuallihin, however, when defining the power of Imagination, presented two distinct, but coherent and logical, perspectives inferential and describable by his methodological analysis. The main issue of the current study is to describe Sadr al-Mutuallihin's true theory of the what of imagination and then compare it with the common Peripatetic view to discover the true commonalities and differences between these two views. The main finding, on an analytical-logical approach and the propositional and systematic analysis of Sadr al-Mutuallihin's statements in the two positions of "explaining the fundamentals of the cognition of the imagination" and "presenting the functions of this power", suggests that Sadra has adopted two approaches. At the beginning of his epistemological debates and his powers, he is subject to the famous view of the Peripatetic, and then, in a process of transcendence, with a view to the possibility of forming a self-power, offers another perspective on the recognition of the imagination. Mulla Sadra defines the imagination as the animal soul and the real species of man in the animal system, which itself is based on the three-fold power of the human soul in his philosophical system