The Typology of Life from the Perspective of Allameh Tabatabai and Seligman

This study aimed to investigate the types of life from Seligman’s viewpoint, identify the types of life in Allameh Tabatabai’s viewpoint, and compare the two with each other. To do so, through descriptive-analytical method, the firsthand sources of Seligman’s views and the works of Allameh Tabatabai were referred to and compared with each other. The findings showed that by choosing the Aristotelian model of development from simple to complex, Seligman drew four types of life: enjoyable, committed, meaningful, and complete. According to Allameh Tabatabai, considering the two criteria of real and unreal life, and private life and public life, three types of life were extracted: ‘humiliation-oriented’, ‘pleasure-oriented’ and ‘happinessoriented’. The concepts of haste, worldly life, and the wares of delusion indicate a pleasure-oriented life, which is a public life. The concept of a wretched livelihood is an unrealistic life, which refers to a humiliation-oriented life. People in these two types of life fail to reach the highest levels of perfection. The real life is limited to the life of the Hereafter and good life, which is a happiness-oriented life. The spirituality of the source of life types, the purposefulness of life types to achieve eternal transcendental happiness, the role of Divine motivation for achieving the purpose of life, the beyond-inclusion of the value realm of life types are the significant differences of Allameh Tabatabai’s view with Seligman’s view.