From “I Am” to Incorporeality: The Educational Role of the Flying Man
This article reinterprets Avicenna’s “Flying Man” not as a strict metaphysical proof, but as a experiential and heuristic exercise. By examining the three main versions Shifāʾ Nafs I.5, Nafs V.7, and Ishārāt X), it shows that the thought experiment first establishes an immediate self-awareness, and then, starting from this finding, points to the non-corporeality of the soul. Avicenna brings the faculties of imagination and estimation into play to have the reader construct a scenario in their own mind. With sensory ties withdrawn, the reader directly experiences their own existence, and thus the process serves an instructive function. This experiential reading treats the Flying Man as an inward turn that makes the basic experience of the soul’s self-awareness visible, thereby linking it to Avicenna’s discussions of selfhood and the nafs-body relation in his philosophy of mind. From this perspective, the Flying Man is not a straightforward demonstrative proof (burhān), but a tanbīh, that is, a guiding indication. The first and reliable result of the experiment is self-awareness, non-corporeality is a secondary, subsequent step that emerges at the level of implication rather than as a conclusive proof. In this way, by foregrounding the experiential dimension of the experiment, its place within Avicenna’s philosophy of mind becomes clearer.
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