Human Nature from viewpoint of Mulla Sadra and Heidegger

The acquaintance of each human being with his own “Self” and its understanding always preoccupies human mind, because the answer to this question gives meaning to human life. This essay which has been authored using qualitative method and based on a fundamental analysis seeks to give an answer to the what-ness of human nature from the point of views of two renowned philosophers in Islamic world and western world. Mulla Sadra and Heidegger have both spoken of man and the related issues. Heidegger discusses man in order to know Being while Mulla Sadra intends to being with human knowledge in order to understand God as the Absolute Existence and the Truth of Existence. According to Mulla Sadra, human truth is not knowable because of some reasons and thus, what the philosophers state do not reflect his truth though can express human properties. He offers two types of essential definitions of man. In first definition, following the classic philosophers, he defines man as the rational anima and In the second definition, in the wake of the mystics, he founds his own essential definition of man on principles doctrines and Man as the Central Element of All Existential Spheres. But Heidegger in his analysis of man refers to two points, first, our main question of man should not be concerned with human nature, rather we should ask of “human who-ness”; it is in this case that we have asked a question of human existence. Secondly, defining man as the rational animal though is not an incorrect definition by no means can be appropriate for expressing human nature. According to Heidegger, human nature lies in his existence (Da-sein). Man is the only being who has the state of “ex-sistence”, i.e. open toward Being. Thus, man is the place where Being reveals itself. It seems that what Heidegger has expressed regarding the “who-ness” of man and the property that distinguishes him from other entities as compared to the definition offered by Mulla Sadra is just concerned with one aspect of human being and for this reason, it does not contain all human features and the definition is not of the whole human existence.