Examination of the Doubts Pertaining to Islamic Foundationalism with an Emphasis on Allama Tabatabae's Standpoint

Most of Muslim philosophers including Allama Tabatabae maintain a particular version of foundationalism in realm of concepts and propositions. According to Tabatabae’s account, cognitions, concepts or judgments, are divided into two categories of self-evident and speculative ones. Self-evident cognitions are not in need of any other acts of knowledge while speculative perceptions should eventually end in self-evident cognitions. Basing the speculative on the self-evident in respect with concepts are through definition whereas in propositions this is realized through demonstration. Foundationalism is challenged in various ways including the denial of basic beliefs and their incorrigibility. The principal question is whether Islamic foundationalism particularly with reference to Tabatabae’s account is able to meet the new challenges and give solution to the problem. In view of the fact that Muslim foundationalists have based their foundationalism on self-evident particularly primary perceptions on one hand and they identify truth criterion of speculative statements with reference to the self-evidence of contents and forms one can argue that the afore-mentioned criticisms are not leveled against Islamic foundationalism and it has the possibility of responding the challenges.