Effects and Implications of the Material–Immaterial Dichotomy in the Problem of Bodily Resurrection from the Perspectives of Ibn Sīnā and Mullā Ṣadrā

Abstract

The question of how to understand “material existence” and “immaterial existence” is one of the most fundamental issues in the history of philosophy, particularly in Islamic philosophy, because the mode of distinction or connection between the material and the immaterial determines numerous subsequent propositions in ontology, epistemology, philosophical anthropology, and eschatology, and carries far-reaching ontological implications. In the tradition of Islamic philosophy, two prominent models representing two major schools—Peripatetic philosophy and Transcendent Theosophy—offer distinct approaches to this distinction: Ibn Sīnā represents a relatively “essentialist and attribute-based” conception, whereas Mullā Ṣadrā embodies an “gradation-based and ontological” perspective grounded in the primacy of existence and substantial motion. Accordingly, the aim of the present study is to conduct a comparative examination of the consequences and implications arising from the approaches of Ibn Sīnā and Mullā Ṣadrā, as well as the significant and overarching roles these two perspectives play in explaining and classifying various kinds of material and immaterial beings. The findings of this study—derived through a combination of textual analysis of the primary works of each thinker (the writings of Ibn Sīnā and Mullā Ṣadrā) and a critical reassessment of interpretive and secondary sources—indicate that a comparative reading of these two philosophical traditions reveals two distinct conceptual frameworks. Each framework, based on its own metaphysical presuppositions, generates different solutions and hypotheses for the foundational problems of Islamic philosophy. This analysis further suggests that deeper examination of the texts and the historical interrelations of these doctrines can provide the basis for a more profound understanding of the transformation of debates on existence and their implications for contemporary philosophy.