An Inquiry into Conventional (I tibāri) Concepts in Allama Tabatabaie's View and the Way They Are Formed

According to Allama Tabatabaie, concepts are created in the mind just through quiddities; thus, philosophical concepts are formed from quiddities or primary intelligibles. In his theory of reasoning, he distinguishes between two groups of concepts: factual concepts and conventional ones. These two groups of intelligibles are the same as primary and secondary logical and philosophical intelligibels, dealt with by Allama Tabatabaie with a special view, explaining the way they are formed in the mind. He divides the conventional concepts into three groups: a) mental concepts, created from other mental concepts, b) conventional concepts, formed through a comparison between the soul and its actions and faculties, and c) conventional concepts, created through independently positing the judgment in propositions.
Conventional concepts created from judgment in propositions are more important than the other two types, because they include basic philosophical concepts such as existence, non-existence, unity, plurality, potentiality and actuality. The strong point of this theory is clarifying the way conventional concepts are formed and the way the conformity between the concept created in the mind and its true instance in real world –regarding those concepts which are created in the mind while having external instances– is preserved. Although Allama's attempt in explaining how those concepts are formed is a basic and creative one, his theory must be reviewed in some aspects; the most important among them are: mixing up the judgment in an affirmation and connective existence in propositions, introduced as the origin of the concept of existence.