Without any clarification, such a statement is of no benefit to anyone; it reduces their theory to the claim that pleasure itself is nothing but knowledge, without tying it to the congruence of the thing known. They maintain that the eye delights in seeing, the ear in hearing, and the soul in intellection. Yet it is obvious that the eye does not delight in every sight, nor the ear in every sound; likewise, the soul does not rejoice in every act of understanding. The thing perceived must be congenial, or conducive to what is congenial, or a safeguard against what is uncongenial, and so forth.

Eighth Reply
If the soul possesses love and will, it necessarily acts to obtain its desired beloved, and that action is a kind of motion appropriate to it. In their technical usage, “motion” (ḥaraka) is not confined to moving from place to place; relocation is merely one category of motion. They speak of motion in quantity, motion in quality, motion in place (al-ayn), and motion in position.

Motion in quality is the transformation of a subject from one state to another—whether in color, taste, smell, or the like. Similarly, when the soul moves from ignorance to knowledge, from aversion to love, or from pain to pleasure, this is motion in quality.

Motion in quantity is exemplified by the growth that occurs in the bodies of animals and plants.

Motion in position is the movement of the celestial sphere, whose rotation does not take it outside its own domain.

Motion in place is translocation, such as the movement of water, earth, air, and other generated bodies from one locus to another.

Accordingly, after death the soul continues to love and to seek; if it attains what it seeks, it rejoices, and if it fails, it suffers. It therefore experiences either pain or pleasure according to what it perceives as fitting or unfitting, and this, too, is a form of motion. It is self-evident that whatever is subject to pains and pleasures must of necessity be subject to some kind of motion.