فاطمه فاضل زاده

Van Deurzen, an existential psychotherapist, identifies self-reflection and self-discovery as the core components of existential therapy through her examination of its various aspects. She posits that humans, distinct from other creatures, possess a fluid and dynamic identity. This, according to her, allows individuals to determine their own existence and identity. Mulla Sadra, on the other hand, acknowledging the fluidity and dynamism of human identity, proposes that human existence extends beyond this world, encompassing multiple worlds and levels of existence, and within each world, individuals find a corresponding level of existence, so that through their own free will, humans determine their position in this system of existence. By elevating their existence to the level of rational existence, they can transform themselves into a rational world akin to the objective world. This paper aims to demonstrate, based on the views of these two thinkers on human beings’ fluid and dynamic existence, the self-determining nature of the human self, the place of self-discovery in existential therapy, and Sadra's perspective on self-discovery, that Sadra’s view can potentially serve as the foundation for an existential therapy within Iranian-Islamic culture.

According to Mûllā Ṣâdrā, a human being is a creature who is educable during his life. By “Education” Mûllā Ṣâdrā means to purify human soul from the vices and to prepare it for receiving the manifestation of the Divinity. Relying on his philosophical foundations, Mûllā Ṣâdrā argues that the soul is corporeal in its coming-into-being and spiritual in its survival. He believes that the soul comes into being with the coming-into-being of the body and thus begins its perfecting motion from the lowest degree in order to achieve its actuality, immateriality and the highest degree of perfection. This paper tries to discuss descriptively and analytically on educating the human soul from Mûllā Ṣâdrā’s view and its relation with his understanding of the Existential Dependence on and the Essential Need to God. The Essential Need to God refers to the existential dependence of an effect on a cause and the essential dependence of a Contingent being to the Necessary Being. Among the things which can influence on educating the human soul and on a human being’s understanding of his existential dependence on God, one can refer to a perfect self - knowledge and its role in educating the soul, his understanding of his existentiating cause, and its influence on educating the soul. Of course, it should be noted that there are numerous papers about Mûllā Ṣâdrā’s view of education, but what distinguishes this paper from other papers is the role of the Essential Need to God in educating the soul, which has not been discussed in none of the other papers.1.The perfect self-knowledge and its role in educating the soulSelf-knowledge is one of the things which play a very important role in educating the soul and a human being’s understanding of his Essential Need to God, because if self-knowledge is correctly done, this will make a human being reach his existential perfection, which is the purpose of educating the soul. Mûllā Ṣâdrā believes that the perfection of soul is the true eudaimonia. According to him, a human being will reach the perfection of soul, i.e. the true eudaimonia, if he know God and is committed to divine teachings and rules as well. Thus, the vision of God requires both the theoretical knowledge and using the theoretical wisdom and the practical knowledge and using the practical wisdom. In fact, self-knowledge is a firm pillar that reliance upon it makes a human being approximate to God and reach other-worldly eudaimonia, and the negligence of it for those who have the capacity and possibility of acquiring it is the source of all miseries and evils in this world and the otherworld. Thus, if we study the cause of the close relationship between self-knowledge and knowledge of God from Mûllā Ṣâdrā’s view, we would reach the conclusion that, according to Mûllā Ṣâdrā, a Contingent being subsists in the Necessary Being, the Soul subsists in the Intellect, and the Intellect subsists in God. A human being’s understanding of his Existentiating Cause and its influence on educating the soulAccording to Mûllā Ṣâdrā, Existence is concomitant with Goodness and Eudaimonia, and since the existents are different in their perfection and imperfection, whichever existent is of a more perfect existence, its eudaimonia will be further and more perfect, and since the existence of God is the most perfect existence, He has existentially the highest degree of eudaimonia. For Mûllā Ṣâdrā, although the existence of everything is pleasant for it, understanding its existentiating cause is more pleasant for it, for its existentiating cause is the perfection of its existence. Hence, understanding the existentiating cause brings about more eudaimonia for a human being, for that cause is considered as the perfection of his existence. Thus, if a human being know his existentiating cause, his eudaimonia which is the purpose of educating the soul, will be more. Generally speaking, according to Mûllā Ṣâdrā, a human being’s understanding of his existentiating cause is, in fact, his understanding of his existence in a more perfect degree, for that cause is regarded as his existential perfection. When a human being understands his own existence, a pleasure and a state of eudaimonia are gained for him, and understanding his existentiating cause can bring about a higher degree of pleasure and edudaimonia for him, which is considered as the perfection of educating the soul.In Mûllā Ṣâdrā’s view, the Essence of God is the manifestation of all his Attributes and Names, and His essence is a mirror in which and by which the forms of all Contingent beings can be seen, without happening any immanence or union. For Mûllā Ṣâdrā, one of the features of an Effect is that it is present for its Cause and this presence can be of certain educational effects for a human being. One of these educational effects is a human being’s attention to God’s presence and understanding this presence. This means that understanding God’s Presence can make a human being control him against the sins. In other words, our sins have a reversed relation with faith in God and understanding His Presence; i.e., the more the faith, the less the sin. Besides, understanding God’s Presence can bring about responsibility and commitment for a human being. The growth of moral virtues in society, controlling the instincts, and avoiding of the violation of people’s rights are some of the other educational effects of attending to God’s Presence. At the same time, the most important educational effects of attending to God’s Presence are to strengthen the human spiritual wayfaring in this world, to give meaning to life, and to be liberated from nihilism. ConclusionAccording to Mûllā Ṣâdrā, a human being’s understandingof his Essential Need to God, who is his Exixtentiating Cause, can bring about educating the soul for him. Self-knowledge is one of the things which are very effective and useful in educating the soul. For Mûllā Ṣâdrā, the final end of a human being in his life is to reach his existential perfection, and his existential perfection is to reach the intellectual detachment and, thereby, the approximation to God. This means that a human being must be existentially assimilated to God, and his attributes must become similar to the Divine Attributes in order to understand God’s Presence. Besides, in Mûllā Ṣâdrā’s view, a Contingent being subsists in the Necessary Being, the Soul subsists in the Intellect, and the Intellect subsists in God. Finally, for Mûllā Ṣâdrā, Existence is concomitant with Goodness and Eudaimonia, and the existence of everything is pleasant for it, but its understanding of its existentiating cause is more pleasant for it, for that cause is its existential perfection. Therefore, if a human being know his existentiating cause, his eudaimonia which is the purpose of educating the soul, will be more.

Explanation of the nature of mental states is among the important doctrines of the philosophy of mind which has been undertaken by Putnam insofar as he discusses it in his numerous works. To explain the nature of mental states, Putnam first proceeds to criticize and deny the physicalist perspective concerning the mental states and its problems. According to Putnam, identification of mental and cerebral states can have its origin in “confusion of notion and extension; negligence of the distinction between the object and its notion”, “failure of language and its ambiguity” and “ambiguity of scientific methods”. Later he critically evaluates behaviorist perspective according to which the behavioral reactions are identified as the nature of mental states. Putnam contends that behaviorism fails to explain human understanding of pain and fear of other human beings. To solve this problem, he turns to functionalist perspective according to which mental states are not the same as the cerebral states rather they are software set on the hardware. However, Putnam pushes this to a next stage where he criticizes functionalism and argues that mental states are not calculable states and even they are not physical states either; because having a calculative notion of the mental states cannot provide a transparent representation of human psychology as it does not have any word to say of the propositional attitudes.

 Kant has considered the question of existence in both pre-critical and critical periods. In the pre-critical period, he discussed the issue of existence in his treatise "«The only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God " and even pointed to the inability of reason to provide an existential argument to prove the existence of God; The same view that Kant developed in the critical period and expressed more fully. In addition, in the critical period, he introduced existence as one of the categories of comprehension. Kant's approach to the concept of existence in both periods was based on the distinction between real predicate and logical predicate. A real predicate is a predicate that adds anything new to its subject, and a logical predicate is a predicate that does not add anything new to its subject. It should be noted that Kant's approach to existence in the critical period has not changed much, and The only difference with the pre-critical period is that in the critical period, he expressed his views on existence based on the categories of understanding and distinguishing synthetic / analytic theorems; As some of Kant's commentators, such as J. Forgie and Etienne Gilson, argue, Kant has dealt with it more fully in The Only Possible Foundation for Proving the Existence of God.