by some philosophers that they were a single, beginningless soul before becoming attached to bodies, and that upon leaving bodies they become one again. Thus there is no multiplicity, let alone an infinite number of them.

Others have said:

“The soul depends on the bodily constitution, and death simply means its ceasing to exist. It does not subsist as a substance independently of the body. Thus souls exist only in living beings. The living beings that exist are limited in number and remain finite. Those that do not exist cannot be described as either finite or infinite, except in the imagination, when they are supposed to exist.”’

He said:

‘The answer is that we raised this difficulty concerning souls against Ibn Sīnā, al-Fārābī, and the rigorous thinkers among them, insofar as they hold that the soul is a self-subsisting substance. This is the position adopted by Aristotle and the leading thinkers among the ancients. Whoever departs