The Idea
Miskawayh sees the human being as a composite being made up of body and soul, not as body alone nor as an abstract soul. This view makes the human being capable of formation, because the balance between the two sides is not a final given but a state that can be refined. For this reason, education and moderation occupy a central place in his understanding of the human being, health, and ethics.
Concise Formulation
The human being, according to Miskawayh: a composite of body and soul, shaped by education and moderation
Its Place in the Book’s Argument
This claim serves the construction of Arkoun’s image of humanistic traditions within Arabic-Islamic culture, traditions that do not stop at a theoretical description of the human being but connect it to the possibility of refinement. In the book, Miskawayh appears as an example of a form of thought that links human nature to the possibility of reform, which allows Arkoun to highlight the presence of a conception of the human being that does not reduce it to determinism or moral rigidity.
Why It Matters
The importance of this claim lies in the fact that it opens the way to understanding the human being in the tradition as a project of education rather than as an object of passive acceptance. This helps read Arkoun as someone searching for humanistic elements within the inherited tradition itself, rather than for a break with it. It also shows that, for him, speaking about the human being is tied to refinement and responsibility, not to abstraction alone.
Reading Questions
- How does Miskawayh make education part of the definition of the human being itself?
- What does this conception add to the book’s argument about the possibility of a humanistic tendency within the tradition?