Explanation and Analysis of the Epistemological Ideas of Hakim Mohammad Hasan Elahi Tabatabaei in the “Treatise on Errorsˮ and Its Brief Application to the Foundations of Transcendental Wisdom

Mohammad Hassan Elahi Tabatabaei is the younger brother of Allamah Tabatabaei and one of the students of Mirza Ali Ghazi. One of the few extant works by him is a short treatise called “The Treatise on Errors” on perception and epistemology. In this treatise, Elahi Tabatabaei deals with some important issues of epistemology, among which the following can be mentioned: "Illusion of separation and existential independence of beings as an epistemological error", “knowledge as the only way to know and communicate with the outside world”, “psyche as the cause of knowledge about the objects of knowledge and a premise to prove the unity of knowledge, the knower and the object of knowledge, “the authority of psyche to make changes in the forms of entities”, “the objects of knowledge as the limits of human knowledge,” and “the agency and effectiveness of human judgment and will in the occurrence of events”. Some may assume that Elahi’s articulation of these errors does not defy scrutiny and that his arguments are not strong enough. Through the content analysis method, this article aims to compare his thoughts with the epistemological foundations of Sadra’s Transcendental Philosophy to show that Elahi’s innovative explanations could serve as new articulations of epistemological questions.