Soul and immortality in Avicenna

This thesis philosophically examines Avicenna's views on the possibility and nature of afterlife. Studies examining Avicenna's views on the soul and life after death are mainly narrow scoped and descriptive. In this study, Avicenna's view on the soul and life after death is examined in a comprehensive and critical way through the concepts of contemporary philosophy of mind. The thesis consists of an introduction, three chapters and a conclusion. In the introduction, basic concepts are explained, basic distinctions are drawn, explanations about the method and organization of the thesis are presented. The first chapter draws a conceptual framework of soul-body theories in the context of major philosophers. The second part examines Avicenna's soul-body theory in depth and determines its position within this framework as substance dualism. The third chapter examines his dualism-based personal identity theory and finds that he advocates pure dualism about persons. His view on life after death was scrutinized, his argument against the materialist theory of re-creation and his argument against the re-embodiment based on composite dualism were evaluated as strong and cogent. His argument against reincarnation is evaluated and two possible objections are pointed out. The conclusion chapter evaluates Avicenna's view of the soul and life after death with a general view and presents the results of the study.