Lost And Returning: An Analysis Of Maimonides’ View Of The Soul

As a famous Jewish philosopher,Maimonides plays an indispensable role in the history of Jewish philosophy and even the history of Western philosophy.In the history of philosophy,he put forward the soul thinking mode combining reason and belief,and expounded the relationship between God and human by combining "rational soul" and belief.Taking Maimonides’ view of soul as the theme,this thesis aims to briefly explain the origin of his thought,systematically sort out his classification of different levels of soul,focus on how the human soul lost and how to achieve the main path of return and perfection,and finally analyze the influence and significance of Maimonides’ view of soul.The first part mainly discusses the ideological origin of Maimonides’ soul view.This part systematically combs the Platonic idealism,Aristotle’s view of the soul,Plotinus’ s "flowing" theory,the indirect influence of Arabism,the Bible’s "vital" thought,Saadi Gaudi’s view of the soul and the thought of punishment,Ibn Daoud’s view that the soul belongs to the entity rather than the occasionality.Their thoughts influenced Maimonides’ soul view from two aspects: Greek philosophy and Jewish philosophy.The second part mainly combs the soul hierarchy theory of Maimonides and expounds the different levels of six souls arranged from high to low in Maimonides.They are God as the ultimate perfection,angels as the independent understanding,the perfect soul of the celestial body,the human soul,the animal soul,and the plant soul.The purpose of writing this part is to clarify the position of the human soul in the hierarchy of souls.The human soul is imperfect,but human beings can achieve human intellectual perfection by means of intellectual perfection.The third part is the key part of the article,which mainly expounds the main reasons for human soul to go astray and the rational perfection of human to return with the help of the law.This thesis expounds the human soul’s confusion caused by its lack of systematic learning of knowledge,lack of perfect moral conduct,too much interference from secular desires,failure to realize the potential of the soul,and lack of understanding of theology,as well as the human rational perfection of learning knowledge with the help of law and reason,believing in God,and then returning to the world.The fourth part discusses the influence and significance of Maimonides’ soul view.This part focuses on Spinoza,Bengersen and Kleska’s different views of the soul on the basis of Maimonides’ view of the soul,as well as Strauss’ s research on the significance of Maimonides’ view of the soul.