Man and society in Mulla Sadra Shirazi's work

Abstract

The question of the relationship between man and society can be considered from different perspectives. However, it is irrefutable that the answer to this question primarily falls within the scope of philosophy, because the terms used to crystallize the relationship are of philosophical nature. In this respect, the author of this paper is trying to present the views of Mulla Sadra Shirazi, the founder of the Islamic transcendental philosophy, who holds that man will not be able to actualize their full potential if he lives outside society, just as society does not exist without man. The paper also explains in detail the views of this famous philosopher of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century on the true bliss of every man that will not be achieved without social life. The author, inter alia, also comprehensively analyzes rational background of Mulla Sadra Shirazi's special stance concerning his cosmological doctrine of substantial movement and his anthropological doctrine of the existential situation of the perfect man.

Keywords

• man
• society
• Mulla Sadra
• transcendental philosophy
• substantial movement
• the perfect man
• bliss