Epistemology according to Allamah Tabatabai

Abstract

Epistemology is a science that discusses: 1. Human knowledge, 2. Evaluation of the types of human knowledge, 3. Determining the true and false criteria of human knowledge. Although this topic (issue, subject matter), has no long history in the history of science, as an independent science and a branch of philosophy, scholars have never been unaware of the issue of recognition and its value and importance, and attention to this issue is not restricted to recent decades. Also in Islamic philosophy and logic, epistemological topics have been raised sporadically in various dimensions but many of them have an ontological state (approach) rather than an epistemological one. Allamah Tabatabai, as one of the greatest scholars and contemporary Islamic philosophers, discussed in his compilations, directly in some cases, and indirectly in other philosophical discussions, the subject of epistemology. Epistemology includes a variety of topics, but three of them are considered as the most important ones: 1. The definition of knowledge, 2. The possibility of knowledge, 3. The instruments of knowledge. The article analyzes epistemology in these titles from the perspective of Allamah Tabatabai. First, it expresses the importance and necessity of epistemology and then it looks at the historical course of epistemology in the Occident and Islam.