Allama Tabatabai's Method in Inferring the Issues of Prescriptive Human Sciences from Normative Teachings of Religion

Defining descriptive and prescriptive human sciences and stating their differences in their respective methodologies, the present study shows that values, for Allama Tabatabai, have an inescapable role in determining the goals and directing the issues of prescriptive human sciences. Accordingly, to produce felicity-generating prescriptive human sciences, we need a comprehensive and perfect system of values from the true religion. And since the issues of prescriptive human sciences are formed after determining the goal and achieving the necessary descriptions, Allama’s approach in inferring the issues of human sciences are explained in three stages: (1) collecting the necessary foundations and descriptions, (2) explaining, or – at least – considering, the goals of the true religion in a given issue, and (3) compiling the answer to that issue.