A comparative study of Avicenna's anthropology and existential psychology with emphasis on psychological consequences

Anthropology is one of the fundamental subjects in philosophy and psychology, and its elucidation plays an important role in understanding human identity, freedom, responsibility, meaning, and the purpose of human life. Drawing on the principles of Peripatetic philosophy, Avicenna regards the essence of the human being as an immaterial rational soul and considers human perfection to lie in the actualization of the soul’s faculties and attainment of felicity and proximity to God. In contrast, existential psychology, influenced by existentialist philosophy, emphasizes lived experience, freedom, responsibility, choice, existential anxiety, and the search for meaning. The present study employs a descriptive-analytical method and a comparative approach to examine the anthropological foundations of Avicenna and existential psychology and to analyze their psychological implications and theoretical capacities. The findings indicate that although both approaches emphasize human agency, self-knowledge, and the possibility of human development, they differ fundamentally in their ontological foundations, conception of human nature, understanding of freedom, and interpretation of anxiety, meaning, and the purpose of life. The analysis of their psychological implications further suggests that Avicenna’santhropology, with its emphasis on the stability of personal identity, purposiveness, the immateriality of the soul, and the human relationship with the transcendent principle, offers considerable theoretical potential for understanding certain dimensions of meaning, identity, and the human encounter with suffering and death. Existential psychology, by contrast, with its emphasis on responsibility, authenticity, freedom, and the search for meaning, provides a theoretical framework for understanding lived human experience and the individual’s encounter with existential concerns. Accordingly, dialogue between Islamic philosophical anthropology and existential psychology may provide a basis for examining the shared and divergent theoretical capacities of these two approaches in interpreting the existential and psychological dimensions of human existence.