Ontology of Mentally-Posited Things: Consideration as the Mode of Man’s Being in the Physical World

Despite the existence of different and, at times, contradictory views regarding ‘Allāmah Ṭabāṭabā’ī’s theory of mentally-posited things, almost all the studies carried out in this field unanimously presuppose that this theory is essentially of an epistemological nature and is intended to justify a series of human perceptions that have no equal in the outside. Although this presupposition is not wrong, it fails to explain all the realities regarding the theory of mentally-posited things. Here, the authors try to demonstrate that this theory is basically of an ontological rather than epistemological nature. Given the quality of propounding this theory in al-Wilāyah and al-Insān treatises, it appears that consideration is one of the specific features of the being of an immaterial Man who lives in the physical world. This is a feature that makes some human acts which are in a way related to material affairs possible.