Does the State Really Exist? A Perspective from the Transcendent Philosophy of Mullā Ṣadrā

Abstract

This research comes from a simple question whether the state exists in the real world or is only a fiction in the mind. In International Relations (IR), the state is often conceptualized as if she is an individual that has certain qualities of personality. The concept, however, is actually considered as a metaphor only or an as if person. What really exist in the extra-mental world are those individuals “in” it. If that is the case, then why the effects of its existence are so real and can be felt by everyone? And, how can IR be scientific while its object of study is a fiction? The neglect of the state’s existence is rooted in the empirical epistemology held by most IR thinkers and students especially since the wave of scientification of the discipline began in the 60’s. They hold the empirical view that knowledge stems primaliry from the sensory experience, and anything beyond it has no certainty. The similar neglect is, in fact, shared also among non-empirical IR thinkers coming about in the later decades such as postmodernists and constructivists, because of their idealist ontology that there is no any objective reality but constructed discoursively. This research wants to analyze the ontological status of the state from the perspective of Mullā Ṣadrā’s transcendent philosophy. His philosophical system that primarily concerns on the existence qua existence and the existential structure of realities, serves as the foundation of any discussion about the existence of entities, without exeption that of the state.