Ṣadrā and Heidegger’s Approach to the Dualism of Soul and Body

The relationship between the soul and the body is one of the issues that received much attention with the beginning of philosophical thinking. The influence of Cartesian subjectivism on various fields, including ethics and culture, has made solving the problem of dualism a concern. In this article, by comparative and descriptive-analytical method, it is specified that Ṣadrā and Heidegger, in a similar approach, consider human a being, a subject that, in their opinion, has been neglected. Although the two philosophers use different terms, they are of the opinion that the distinction between the soul and the body is a rational and abstract matter, and that human beings have their own existential characteristics. Ṣadrā believes that the soul is ensued from the body and is aligned with it; and although it has its own characteristics as an abstract thing, this does not mean that there are two independent beings and that there is no more than one being ontologically. Therefore, the multiplicity of this being as the soul and body is by the credit of reason, and these aspects are not existential matters. Heidegger also believes that man is unique in his lived experience. In his view, any other conception of lived experience is a subset of it and the product of intellectual abstraction, rather than an existential matter. In his view, the Cartesian distinction causes the subjectivist aspect of man to prevail in philosophy, and under this rubric, the specific existence of man as Dasein is forgotten.