Phenomenology of Intention: An Examination of the Hermeneutic Phenomenology of States and the Content of Self-Awareness after “Union” (Visāl) in the Ghazals of Hafez

The ghazals of Ḥāfeẓ have played a significant role in the spiritual and psychological life of the Iranian people. For centuries, Iranians have engaged deeply with these poems, turning to them in various life circumstances and at critical existential moments. Mystics and spiritual seekers have likewise drawn upon Ḥāfeẓ’s ghazals as guiding lights along the path of inner cultivation, using them to navigate the challenges and uncertainties of spiritual wayfaring. Despite the passage of time, the influence of these poems has not diminished, raising important questions regarding the sources of their enduring impact and their lasting appeal not only among successive generations of Iranians but also among major intellectual figures across different historical periods, such as Goethe and Nietzsche.

Employing an interdisciplinary approach and the hermeneutic method, the present article examines the function of Ḥāfeẓ’s ghazals from a psychiatric perspective within the framework of Cloninger’s theory of self-awareness development, which regards the growth of self-awareness as the highest level of personality development and a fundamental condition for psychological well-being.

In this study, self-awareness is conceptualized as a multidimensional phenomenon developing along three dimensions: the vertical dimension (intensity of awareness), the horizontal dimension (breadth of the field of awareness), and the depth dimension (the extent to which awareness penetrates the inner layers of the psyche, including emotions, motivations, and unconscious contents). The analysis demonstrates that the ghazals of Ḥāfeẓ possess the capacity to facilitate the growth and elevation of self-awareness across all three dimensions, provided they are interpreted through an empirically informed psychiatric and developmental lens.