Arabic · Arabic and Islamic psychology
nafs
نفس
Heard as nafs
- Period
- classical Islamic philosophy
- Semantic range
- Soul as organizing principle of a living body, with faculties including sense, imagination, estimation, and intellect.
- What it can mean
- In Avicenna, an immaterial soul that can be self-aware even in the flying man scenario.
- What it should not be equated with
- Not Descartes' mind. The soul has a natural inclination for the body. Internal senses are not 'consciousness' as a single term.
- Primary or early source
- Avicenna, Kitāb al-Nafs.
- Scholarly source
- SEP Ibn Sina; Arabic and Islamic Psychology.
- Relation to other terms
- A different cut: soul, faculties, self-awareness, not a synonym of the English word.