An Explanation and Investigation of Allamah Tabataba i's Foundationalism with a Look at New Debates

Most of Muslim philosophers believe in a certain reading of foundationalism in the sphere of conceptions and affirmations. One of them is Allamahh Tabataba’i. In Allamah’s foundationalism, establishing theoretical conceptions on axioms is done through definition, and it is done just through argument in affirmations. The important difference between Allamah’s foundationalism and that of other philosophers is restricting axioms to primary axioms. The present article investigates Allamah’s view on foundationalism and its drawbacks, using a descriptive-analytical method. Apparently, in view of the fact that Allamah has founded his foundationalism on axioms, the primary axioms in particular, and has regarded the criterion for the verity of theoretical premises to be referring them to axioms both in form and matter, the objections to the foundationalism are not applicable to him, and Islamic foundationalism enjoys the capacity to answer such criticisms. Allamah’s foundationalism, however, suffers from drawbacks due to restricting axioms to the primary ones.