German Geist on the Bosphorus. On the Reception of Ontology and Philosophical Anthropology at Istanbul University (1933–1960)
Roure P. (Executive)
National Research Fund Supported Project, German Research Foundation, DFG, 2018 - 2021
- Project Type: National Research Fund Supported Project
- Support Program: German Research Foundation, DFG
- Begin Date: October 2018
- End Date: September 2021
Project Abstract
This project considers the reception of German philosophy at Istanbul
University, from its reform in 1933 till the 1960s. The academic
exchanges which took place between Germany and Turkey should not be
restricted to the presence of the exiled scholars in the 1930s Istanbul.
They must be reassessed in light of a broader political transfer of
knowledge. This project considers the stages of this reception at the
Department of Philosophy at Istanbul University under the presidencies
of Mustafa Kemal, İsmet İnönü and Adnan Menderes. Competing paradigms
from the 1920s German philosophy had a decisive effect on the
construction of a national and secularized academic philosophy in
Turkey. After 1938, Nicolai Hartmann’s “new ontology” as well as the
philosophical anthropology became the most discussed philosophical
paradigms in Istanbul University. They were perceived as a substitute
for some understandings of philosophy which were deemed traditional and
as an alternative to a positivist theory of knowledge and to logical
empiricism, both trends being represented there in the 1930s Istanbul by
exiled philosophers (Hans Reichenbach and Ernst von Aster). After 1950,
this reception and the exchanges with Germany increased, after German
professors (Heinz Heimsoeth, Joachim Ritter) had settled in Istanbul.
Those who mostly embodied academic philosophy in Turkey were, at that
time, Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu (ontological anthropology), Macit Gökberk
and Bedia Akarsu (language and civilization philosophy).