The Argument from General Concomitants in Philosophy According to Allameh Tabataba'i

One of the complicated topics of philosophy is how to achieve certainty. This article tries to address one of the controversial issues among philosophers, especially Allameh Tabataba'i, about how to achieve certainty in philosophical issues. According to Allameh Tabataba'i, only a posteriori argument from the concomitant can bring forth certainty in philosophy, and other types of proof lack this feature. He did not consider a priori argument able to result in certainty because it is impossible to find a cause for existence in philosophy.  Based on the principle "the effects cannot be perceived except through their causes", he argues that a priori argument, absolute (muṭlaq) a posteriori argument, and a posteriori argument of reason (dalīl) cannot bring forth certainty in philosophical issues. On the other side, some of his critics have tried to prove the validity of these arguments in philosophy by arguing through analytical causality and exclusive causality. With a descriptive-analytical method, this article argues that a priori argument can be applied to the two-sided issues of existence like unity and multiplicity.