A Dispute between Falatouri and Tabatabai; Two Different Approaches to the Ethics of Science

Seyyed Mohammad Hosein Tabatabai is one of the scholars who contributed to A Collection of Essays in the Memory of Mulla Sadra, published in 1340 SH. Abdoljavad Falatouri, an Iranian professor living in Germany, offered a critique of the three articles in this book, criticizing them due to their methodology and inattention to the standards of the ethics of research and citation. Allameh Tabatabai, and others provided some answers to which Falatouri gave others. The scholarly debate lasted two years, and more than 10 articles were published by the parties to the debate. The review and analysis of these writings, as more than 60 years passed since they were published, clearly show two different approaches to the ethics of the advancement of science, criticism and research. The author has tried to systematically examine these writings and to highlight their various moral aspects. This controversy between them can be seen at three levels: the level of criticism, the level of research and research methods, and the major level, which expresses two approaches to the ethics of science. Although it is apparently easy to recognize the first level and it is possible to see the second level with accuracy, the third level, nonetheless, seems to have been ignored. At this level, the two approaches can be identified by analyzing the published texts in order to use them to advance science and extend the scholarly atmosphere.