Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: In the philosophical system of Sadr al-Mutaʾallihin al-Shirazi, intellect, knowledge, and happiness are fundamental concepts, the understanding of whose interrelation is regarded as the key to the principal domain of anthropology and teleology in Transcendent Theosophy.This article, adopting an analytical-descriptive approach, examines the nature of the intellect and its levels (from the material intellect to the acquired intellect), the nature of knowledge as an existential and luminous reality (with characteristics such as gradation, simplicity, and pure actuality), and the nature of happiness as the perception of perfection and harmony with one's disposition.The findings of the research indicate that the relationship between intellect and happiness in this school is one of unity and objectivity, such that the intellect is not merely a path toward happiness but constitutes happiness in its various degrees.The fourfold levels of the theoretical intellect delineate the soul's process of perfection from potentiality to actuality and from darkness to light, and happiness, correspondingly, encompasses levels from the apprehension of self-evident truths to union with the Active Intellect.The ultimate end of the human being, in this view, is the attainment of the level of the acquired intellect and union with the Active Intellect, which is identical with true happiness and complete perfection, and is in no way comparable to sensory pleasures or illusory happiness.
Authors: Narges Adabi, Mohammad Khayyat Zanjani
Institutions: Razi University, Farhangian University
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W7196960331