Loneliness and Connection from the Perspective of Jaspers and Mulla Sadra; A Comparison Based on Existentialism and Transcendental theosophy

This article adopts a comparative and analytical approach to examine the concepts of solitude and communion within the ontological horizon of two major philosophers:Karl Jaspers, representing the existentialist tradition, andMulla Ṣadrā, representing the school of Transcendent Philosophy (al-ḥikmah almutaʿāliyah).Employing a descriptive–analytical method, the study focuses on the ontological and epistemological foundations of both systems. The findings reveal that, although both thinkers emphasize the formative value of solitude and the essential role of relationship in human transcendence, their divergent metaphysical premises lead to fundamentally different interpretations of the meaning, purpose, and function of these concepts.



In Jaspers’s philosophy, solitude—experienced at the intra-personal, inter-personal, and existential levels—is an intrinsic and creative condition of human being-in-the-world, through which the individual attains authentic self-awareness in confrontation with the Other and the Transcendent. In contrast, in Ṣadrā’s Transcendent Philosophy, based on the doctrine of the unity of existence (waḥdat al-wujūd)—in its two readings of gradational (tashkīkī) and personal (shakhṣī) unity—any ontological separation between the human and the Divine is denied. In the gradational view, solitude signifies a deficiency of being overcome through substantial motion and divine knowledge; whereas in the personal unity view, solitude has no real existence and appears only through human heedlessness.



Despite these differences, both philosophers regard solitude not as a merely negative condition but as a constitutive dimension of the human journey toward selfhood, the Other, and the Absolute. For Jaspers, the ultimate goal is existential freedom and authenticity; for Ṣadrā, it is divine proximity and the vision of ontological unity.