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Tarbiat Modares University (TMU)
Volume 6, Issue 2 (2026)
3 2026, 6(2): 227-241 |
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Received: 2026/05/8 | Accepted: 2026/07/13 | Published: 2026/07/20
Received: 2026/05/8 | Accepted: 2026/07/13 | Published: 2026/07/20
How to cite this article
Zabihi M, Zargar A. Compatibility of the "Meaning in Suffering" Theory with the Problem of Evil between Viktor Frankl and Avicenna. 3 2026; 6 (2) :227-241
URL: http://jpt.daneshafarand.org/article-6-87234-en.html
URL: http://jpt.daneshafarand.org/article-6-87234-en.html
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1- Department of Islamic Philosophy and Theology, Faculty of Theology and Islamic Studies, Qom University, Qom, Iran
Abstract (188 Views)
This research examines the relationship between suffering, freedom, and happiness in Avicenna’s philosophy and Frankl's existential logotherapy, focusing on the possibility of an ontological formulation of “meaning in suffering.” In the analysis of Avicenna’s philosophy, evil is explained as the privation of the perfection proper to the essence of contingent beings, and suffering is introduced as the soul’s perception of this privation; through the argument for the corporeality of the imaginative faculty, it is then analyzed within the soul’s perfective movement from potentiality to actuality. Next, on the basis of Frankl’s theory of the will to meaning, existential situational suffering is considered in terms of the possibility of attitudinal choice and responsibility. The result of the research shows that the possibility of meaning in suffering rests on the structure of possibility and the soul’s inherent directedness toward happiness; that is to say, the perception of deficiency, when accompanied by conscious choice, can be placed on the path of the soul’s perfection and the realization of happiness. Hence, Frankl’s conception of meaning in suffering always possesses an ontological capacity that draws on the latent possibilities within Avicenna’s philosophical system.
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