Seyyed Hossein Nasr's perennial philosophy and the concept of soul: A critical analysis

Abstract

This article critically examines Seyyed Hossein Nasr's concept of perennial philosophy and the concept of the soul as an answer to the spiritual crisis faced by modern humans. Using literature studies, textual-philosophical analysis, and traditionalist hermeneutics, this article aims to examine Nasr's metaphysical anthropology and assess its epistemological and practical implications for contemporary Islamic thought. This study finds that Nasr conceives of human beings as theomorphic realities structured in a vertical hierarchy of spirit (ruh), soul (nafs), and body (jism), with the intellect (‘Aql) as the centre of spiritual consciousness. Within this framework, the classical levels of the soul form a dynamic roadmap for spiritual transformation that diagnoses modern pathologies such as alienation, meaninglessness, and secularism. Nasr sharply criticizes modern psychology and science for reducing the “science of the soul” to empirical behaviour detached from metaphysics and Scientia sacra. This article shows that Nasr proposes a foundation for re-establishing Islamic psychology within an ontological and cosmological hierarchy, while also emphasizing the need for further development of theoretical framework so that it becomes an empirical model suitable for critical and constructive dialogue with contemporary psychology.