Self-knowledge: Necessity and Means of Achievement From Allameh Tabatabaei’s Viewpoint

“Self-knowledge” is a kind of introspection and deliberation in the existence of self for recognizing the inner talents, desires and aspirations, and ultimately for achieving one’s true perfection. The aim of self-knowledge is the recognition of the true and celestial “self” of the human being, which is an immaterial, fixed, and remaining truth in all states and effects, in such a way that the human being does not need any proof or reasoning to prove it within themselves and he/she witnesses it with intuitive knowledge. Many scholars have had speeches about elaborating on this important subject in various epistemic areas, but the theory and attitude of mystic Allameh Tabatabaei in this respect (self-knowledge) are very precise and rich. This paper aims to achieve the above-mentioned subject through a descriptive-analytic way in his works. In this paper, we have achieved the following results: He believes that in order to enter and reach this path, one must use religious ways mentioned in religious sources such as self-judgment, meditation, silence, hunger, solitude, night vigil and so on in addition to diligence in worship. This way, because of self-attention gradually the four worlds of monotheism of actions, monotheism of attributes, monotheism of names and at the end monotheism in essence, will be revealed to the mystic.