The Turkish Connection

Global Intellectual Histories of the Late Ottoman Empire and Republican Turkey

Deniz Kuru, Hazal Papuccular

• Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9783110757354
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

Covering a rich array of global aspects, ranging from individuals as ideational entrepreneurs to transnational intellectual trajectories, this volume deals with multiple dimensions of global and transnational backgrounds pertaining to Turkey's intellectual history, starting with the 19th and reaching the 21st-century. The book engages with the late Ottoman and republican Turkish periods through topics such as the transnational processes that contributed to the development of modern Turkish philosophy, the Bosnian and Bulgarian intellectuals at the end times of the Ottoman imperial order, Wilsonianism's impact, the role of Westerners in promoting Ottoman political agendas, the global connections and ramifi cations of Turkish Islamism as well as Turkish anticlericalism and leftism. The aim is to globalize late Ottoman and republican Turkish intellectual histories by presenting distinct frameworks for advancing the Global Intellectual History agenda in this distinct setting.

Section II. From Empire to Republic: The Transformation of Intellectual Dispositions in Republican Turkey

Chapter 4 Ottoman-Turkish Thought from a Global Intellectual History Perspective: An Analysis of Disenchantment from Positivism and Engagement with Bergsonian Intuitionism

M. Sait Özervarlı

1. Introduction

In this chapter, I will highlight the interest of certain Ottoman Turkish intellectuals in Henri Bergson’s philosophy in the context of a global curiosity towards its popularity, and the shifting trends in the reception of philosophical movements. I will explore this interest within the framework of interconnectivity of ideas and the dynamism of global intellectual history that explain transmissions of ideas. The exploration will be based on a specific connection, as a result of the circulation and transmission of modern ideas in the late Ottoman and early Republican Turkey, and the flow of erudite trends especially from French thinkers, by demonstrating the decreasing role of Durkheimian sociology and the rise of Bergsonian thought among a certain group of intellectuals. By presenting this, I will trace the formation and growth of Bergsonism in Turkey as an intellectual school through its main figures in philosophy and literature.¹ The chapter aims to examine the development and manifestations of Bergsonism among Turkish scholars not only as a local case, but also as an integrated example of worldwide philosophical transfers and crossing perspectives. By that, it tries to highlight the global outcomes of Turkish intellectual history through the perception of Bergsonian ideas. Its goal is to envision a rich discussion on the Turkish case as a part of the global circulation of Bergsonism beyond its point of genesis in order to more robustly postulate the transnational spaces of thought in the modern period.

While interactions with the West, and translations from European languages, had started earlier in the Ottoman Empire, it is commonly accepted that the ideas more easily flowed into local discourses during the relatively open atmosphere of the Constitutional decade (1908 – 1918). As known by historians of modern Turkey, the transition from the late Ottoman period marked a sharp increase in the transmission of ideas from the West and their impact on the intellectual atmosphere.² Members of the newly established translation offices, such as Te'lif ve Tercüme Dairesi, for instance, translated certain classics of European modernism, including the seminal work of René Descartes (1596 – 1650) on philosophical method.³ Apart from early adaptations under the wave of translations from European philosophical writings,⁴ the collectivist positivism of the French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858 – 1917) became very popular. The trend was essentially advocated by the leading modernist, and the founder of sociology in Turkey, Ziya Gökalp (1876 – 1924) via journal articles, and lectures. European thought continued to be discussed among a rising number of modern educated students, but soon the enthusiasm for positivism vanished while new scholarly circles and favored intellectual trends emerged in the same period. After World War I, most significantly another French thinker, namely Henri Bergson (1859 – 1949) came to the frontline of intellectual discourse.⁵ Bergson’s writings and the “Bergsonian” approach to questions of time, human freedom, evolution, memory, and society had already influenced the intellectual landscape of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Thus, Bergsonism as an intellectual, philosophical orientation was reaching well beyond France and Europe into Asia, Africa and Latin America.⁶

Exploring this type of a “Turkish connection,” as it is highlighted in the title of this book, will shed light on a relatively neglected part of global intellectual history in terms of a rapid spread of ideas in a period of European dominance over other cultures. This global approach is especially relevant in examining the early 20^th century, when intellectual exchanges, migration of scholars, waves of translation, and spread of articles through journals facilitated the transmission of ideas not only in various parts of Europe, but all around the world. Since global intellectual history is history of relations, connections and interactions as a part of human conditions, it cannot be regarded isolated from regional, national, political and religious movements of specific connections that enrich and modify the global intellectual activity.⁷ In the case of this chapter, for instance, the integration of Bergsonian ideas into the Turkish cultural heritage is more important than the knowledge of the philosophy of Bergson by Turkish intellectuals. As Sebastian Conrad pointed out, generally global history’s

core concerns are with mobility and exchange, with processes that transcend borders and boundaries. It takes the interconnected world as its point of departure, and the circulation and exchange of things, people, ideas, and institutions are among its key subjects.⁸

The whole process of circulations with its actors, texts, translations, teachings, and debates turns into a local perception in its language and understanding, which is not disconnected from its origin or other perceptions, while also representing its own character that comes from its history and culture. This method allows us to focus on diverse manifestations of intellectual movements from a global perspective, while at same time close analyses of each context and discourse become possible. Thus, “intellectual history is the form of historical enquiry most suited to our global world.” It deals “with long spans of time, the translation of ideas across cultures and their necessary adaptation to new circumstances, and the inevitability of the revision of ideas and of their misunderstanding.”⁹

Following this global approach, therefore, is not something like pursuing grand theories or big ideas; it is rather about connections of intellectual processes with local appearances.¹⁰ In other words, it focuses on local cases with an awareness of interdependent connections and conditions. For such contributions via connections show that local thinkers had been engaging in the laborious tasks of translation, interpretation, and concept creation. Therefore, to produce an accurate image of the transmission of an intellectual movement, such as Bergsonism in this case, requires a close analysis of regional actors, and discourses in connection with its global phenomenon. As intellectual historian and comparative literature expert Christopher Hill accurately pointed out, through this circulation, or “travel of concepts,” a sort of a “universalization of concepts” took place. According to Hill, it seems as if “[t]he extent of intellectual circulation by the end of the century may show that the scale of this intellectual field finally became coextensive with the geographical globe, to the disadvantage of other intellectual ‘worlds’ defined by distinct processes of universalization.”¹¹

Human history at large has experienced several major intellectual transmissions of knowledge through translations or commentaries: Early Arab philosophers, for instance, were successful in transmitting via Baghdad ancient Greek thought to the Muslim lands in the 9^th century. One should also remember that following this translation movement from notably Greek into Arabic, another major wave of translation was from Arabic into Latin, which took place in Europe starting in the 12^th century. In other words, “the very European culture whose extension is associated with ‘globalization’ owes much to the transmission, via centers of Islamic learning, of Hellenistic culture to Western Europe.”¹² It was through translations as well as the mobility of scholars and texts that a new awakening in the late medieval and early Renaissance periods was generated. A similar intellectual surge took place in the 19^th century. In this age of the rapid spread of modernization, all sorts of concepts moved around the world through multiple mediations, including translation into other languages and mass circulation, which can be described as a global transfer of ideas and concepts.

Despite this reality, with the exception of a few global assessments, most studies dealing with intellectual history still attempt to use only resources located within one tradition or to undertake comparative examinations. However, solitary examinations or dual comparisons do not provide deep insights into syntheses or new perspectives coming out of intellectual encounters, because a comparative approach in a disciplinary project is not able to demonstrate wider engagements between multiple traditions of thought. While comparative approaches demonstrate important points of comparison and similarity, they do not bring cultural and intellectual traditions into connection or an interactive relationship. Therefore, a search for new horizons in order to improve conceptual clarity about transmissions of ideas and movements both interactively and unboundedly nee...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Section I. Inside Out: Global Intellectual Trajectories of the Ottomans
• Section II. From Empire to Republic: The Transformation of Intellectual Dispositions in Republican Turkey
• Section III. Interaction with the Global: Formation and Propagation of Ideas and Ideologies in Turkey
• Conclusion
• Index
• List of Contributors