Tradition of Philosophical Anthropology in Turkish Philosophy

Dr. Yusuf Örnek – Antalya Bilim University

With the establishment of contemporary Turkey in 1923 came modernisation efforts that also showed within educational reform. Suffering significant losses in its youth population during long years of war, the newly founded Republic of Turkey was in dire need of individuals who could shoulder the task of modernizing its Ottoman heritage. To this end, the Turkish Grand National Assembly began to send pupils to European countries from 1929 onwards under a new law known as the “Law Pertaining To Students Sent to Foreign Countries”. This, they envisioned, would enable the Republic’s best and brightest to receive an education in subjects as diverse as mathematics, archaeology, law and philosophy, and then return to Turkey to help the young Republic thrive in the modern world.

Under these circumstances, we see that the first few students of philosophy were sent to Germany. The new Turkish Republic’s first philosophers were students who earned their doctorates in Germany. These individuals are credited with implementing the teaching of the history of philosophy and the systematic disciplines of philosophy from a Western standpoint. One amongst this first wave of students established the importance of philosophical anthropology within Turkish philosophy.

As the Republic of Turkey sought to implement considerable reforms in higher education after 1931, Jewish German scientists and philosophers escaping Nazi Germany were also instrumental in assisting this transformation. Turkey under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk welcomed almost one hundred asylum-seeking Jewish scientists between 1933-19451). We know that German philosophers Hans Reichenbach, Ernst von Aster and Walther Kranz came to Istanbul in 1935 and 19362). Around the same time, Turkish philosophers who had taken advantage of the aforementioned law to pursue doctoral study in Germany begin to return. Those who came to Turkey before the start of the Second World War include Mazhar Şevket İpşiroğlu, who returned in 1933 upon completing his dissertation at the University of Bonn on Hegelian Aesthetics under the supervision of Erich Rothacker3); Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu, who presented his dissertation in 1937 under the supervision of Nicolai Hartmann at the University of Berlin, titled “On the Limits of Knowability in Husserl and Scheler”4); and Macit Gökberk, whose dissertation titled “The Concept of Society in Hegel and Comte”5) was completed in 1939 at the University of Berlin, under Eduard Spranger.

It is, of course, to be expected that this influx of young, German-trained Turkish philosophers were highly influenced by concepts popular to 1930’s and 1940’s German Philosophy. Three key schools of thought were particularly prevalent at the time in Germany: Phenomenology (Edmund Husserl), Ontology (Nicolai Hartmann, Martin Heidegger) and Philosophical Anthropology (Max Scheler). We can continue to spot the strong influence of these three schools of thought in Turkish Philosophy today.

Often credited as a First Wave modern Turkish philosopher who made significant contributions to the development of Western philosophy in Turkey, Mazhar Şevket İpşiroğlu completed his post-doc in 1939 with a thesis titled “The Concept of Man in Heidegger and Scheler”6). Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu soon followed in 1940 with his “Phenomenology and Nicolai Hartmann”7). The academy’s interest in philosophical anthropology and phenomenology is also reflected in the research undertaken at Istanbul University’s Department of Philosophy at the same time. Bedia Akarsu, later to join the very same department during her professorship, submitted a thesis titled “The Problem of Personality in Max Scheler”8) in 1962. The department also oversaw two more important theses on Husserl: Nermi Uygur’s “The Problem of the Self in the Other”9) and Önay Sözer’s “The Phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and the Existence of Objects”10).

The particular interest shown throughout the 1950’s by Istanbul University’s Department of Philosophy in philosophical anthropology is also apparent in the selection of philosophers invited to its conferences, and the subjects of these conferences themselves. İpşiroğlu’s teacher Erich Rothacker led five conferences on Cultural Anthropology in 1951, which were published in 1954. Celebrated sociologist and philosopher Arnold Gehlen presided over eight conferences in Istanbul in 195511) under the heading of “The Human”12). Herrmann Wein presented six conferences in 1959 called “Contributions to Philosophical Anthropology”13).

At this point it is also important to mention another Jewish German philosopher who sought refuge in Istanbul in 1933, waiting a year and a half for a departmental position: Helmuth Plessner. A name on par with Scheler in the field of philosophical anthropology, Plessner had published his influential “Man and the Stages of the Organic” in 1928 before coming to Istanbul. When a vacancy did not arise at Istanbul University, Plessner took an offer from Groningen University and left Turkey. Had Plessner stayed in Istanbul, he may have had a determining influence on the direction of philosophical anthropology in the Turkish academy14).

The name often credited with the founding of twentieth-century philosophical anthropology is the German philosopher Max Scheler. Scheler’s groundbreaking 1928 work, “Man’s Place in the Cosmos”, turned the field of philosophy back to man and resulted in human-centric philosophical schools of thought over the following decades15). Mazhar Şevket İpşiroğlu was the first to bring it to attention in Turkey when he published an article on Scheler’s essay in Istanbul University’s philosophy journal. This article is thought to be an excerpt from a thesis İpşiroğlu finished the same year, but never published16).

It was Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu who translated Max Scheler’s seminal work, published in 194717). With foundations in both his teacher Nicolai Hartmann’s New Ontology and in Husserl’s Phenomenology, Mengüşoğlu’s philosophical anthropology not only founded the discipline itself in Turkey, but also enabled the development of Western research practices in the field.

We can find several articles by Mengüşoğlu in 1945 editions of Istanbul University’s peer-reviewed journal, Philosophy Archive. Edited by Ernst von Aster, Walther Kranz, Mazhar Şevket İpşiroğlu, Macit Gökberk and Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu, Philosophy Archive’s first edition in 1942 contains Mengüşoğlu’s abbreviated translation of Nicolai Hartmann’s new publication of the very same year, “Paths in New Ontology”18). Mengüşoğlu goes on to publish several articles in the same journal on various subjects through the lens of philosophical anthopology, including “On the Concept of Experience”19) in 1952, “On the Phenomenon of Knowledge”20) in 1955, and “On the Problem of Subjectivity and Objectivity”21) in 1957. In the 1959 issue, he published “Notes on Philosophical Anthropological Thought Based on Ontological Foundations”22). In his last article for Philosophy Archive in 1976, titled “Anthropological Theories of Our Age”23), Mengüşoğlu differentiated his anthropological thought from that of Darwinism, Geist Theory, Biological Theory and Cultural Anthropology.

In addition to these articles, Mengüşoğlu detailed his own brand of philosophical anthropology in his three foundational books: “The Problem of Man in Kant and Scheler: A Critical Preparation for Philosophical Anthropology”24), “Philosophical Anthropology: The Structure of Man’s Being and its Qualities”25), and “Human and Animal, World and Environment: Contrasting Phenomena in the Existential Structure of Man and Animals”26).

Let us now take a look at the overall characteristics of Mengüşoğlu’s philosophical anthropology27):

On the one hand, Mengüşoğlu observes the metaphysical dead-end that a strictly dualistic Geist Anthropology has created, whilst noting that anthropology has transcended this dualism to now fixate on biologism. Research conducted on animals are being used to draw conclusions about the nature of mankind, whilst a cultural anthropology that defines “culture” in broad terms is increasingly distancing itself from the man. Mengüşoğlu, who closely follows advancements in anthropology, developmental psychology, behavioural studies, biology and zoology, believes the field should utilise scientific findings - with emphasis on the fact that these findings should ultimately help us see the man as a whole and identify its qualities. Mengüşoğlu’s fundamental aim is to get beyond the established concepts, prejudices or precepts that philosophy and the sciences advocate, and understand the man as it is, revealing the phenomena that make up the human entity. This, indeed, is the strength of Mengüşoğlu’s anthropology. With this starting point, dualisms and every kind of -ism, alongside metaphysical dead-ends, can be avoided. Mengüşoğlu seeks those phenomena that are ever-present in all humans. As the absence of these phenomena mark the absence of the human, he identifies this in Nietzschean terms as the “conditions of being”. Mengüşoğlu’s anthropology is based on three key philosophical roots and no comprehensive study has yet been undertaken on this. He draws the idea that man is an autonomous being and can improve his qualities from Kantian thought. In agreement with Scheler’s belief that the task of philosophical anthropology is to show how human achievements and human creativity stem entirely from the structures of its being, Mengüşoğlu argues for the development of an anthropology that stems only from the ontological whole that is the Man, without taking as a given any preconceived notions about the differences between humans and animals. For Man to be considered as an ontological whole, it should be considered for its actions and achievements, rather than reduced to a single concept or characteristic/anthropinon. This can come about through a holistic perspective. This is where Mengüşoğlu’s third key thought finds precedence in Hartmann’s phenomenological and ontological perspective. An anthropology that takes as its basis Man’s conditions of being is no longer caught up in the conceptual quagmire that results from “reflexive thought”. It is a clear, concise anthropology that stems from Man’s concrete being and observes its phenomena. The place and importance of Mengüşoğlu’s philosophical anthropology within contemporary anthropologies is that he expertly draws aside metaphysical concepts to reveal the Man through its surrounding phenomena. He sees Man as an open existence that cannot be narrowed down into a single concept or characteristic. This kind of approach is important for the philosophical anthropology; to trap the concept of a man within descriptors such as “Geist being”, “cultural being” or “symbolising being” is to restrict it to a singular concept or system. For Mengüşoğlu, that which define Man are his qualities  which always be evolve, as long as Man exists. There is no need for a fixed starting point or pre-conceived notions. To look at human faculties/qualities (knowing, doing, valuing, etc.) in a systematic way while leaving its identity open is ultimately more productive than trying to have the final word on human nature. Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu put forth his philosophical anthropology with a kind of effort rarely seen in our country, thereby earning his place within the field. The reason why Mengüşoğlu is not well known in the West - despite having expanded the Western anthropological tradition in a new direction - is because none of his works have been translated into Western languages.

We know that the first generation of the Republic’s philosophers were fundamentally interested in studies on Man, but Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu was the only one amongst them to have created a genuine philosophical anthropology. Macit Gökberk’s interests were focused on history and language in Kant and Herder28). Bedia Akarsu’s focus was on Humboldt’s perspectives on language and culture29). Nermi Uygur, an important representative of the generation after these pioneers, also focused on the relationship between language and culture30).

We can see Mengüşoğlu’s influence on the second generation of philosophers, many of whom were his own students: Uluğ Nutku published a work titled “A Comprehensive Look at the Concept of Education Through Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu’s Human Philosophy” in 199231). Another example is Tüten Anğ’s “Thoughts on Philosophy, Education, History and the Man”, dedicated to her teacher, Mengüşoğlu32). In this book, Anğ takes Mengüşoğlu’s ontological foundations as his basis for further his philosophical anthropology in relation to language, ethics and modernisation.

Mengüşoğlu’s greatest influence on this second generation was on Ioanna Kuçuradi. Kuçuradi’s publications on Max Scheler, Friedrich Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer are chiefly about  Man and his actions. Mengüşoğlu’s influence is particularly palpable in Kuçuradi’s work titled “Ethics”33). Kuçuradi’s view on Ethics can best be defined as the Ethics of situation/action, and it analyses the complexity of human inter-relationships by using as its point of departure Mengüşoğlu’s idea of “valuation” as a human phenomenon. Wrong valuations or value imputations within personal relationships, based on incorrect impressions or false knowledge, result in the dilution of human values and the exhaustion of persons themselves. Kuçuradi, who bases her philosophical research on the actions and values at work within human relationships, then naturally progresses towards questioning how human rights can be founded from a philosophical point of view. She finds this in the philosophical anthropology that takes as a given the unassailable wholeness of Man, with his value and dignity at its core. This philosophical approach is  Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu’s philosophical anthropology. Young Turkish philosophers have not adequately investigated Mengüşoğlu’s influence on Kuçuradi - yet locating and discussing the place of his philosophical anthropology within Kuçuradi’s ethics and human rights approach would not only highlight a continuity in Turkish philosophical anthropology, but also open up new lines of inquiry.

We can observe a continuation of this emphasis on the philosophy of Man in the generation of philosophers that came after Mengüşoğlu’s students Nutku, Anğ and Kuçuradi. For instance, Sevgi Iyi, the author of “Research on the Englightenment and  Philosophy of Man During the Early Republic”34), sees Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu as an early Republican thinker pursuing the Western method in philosophy and as a part of Turkey’s Republican Englightenment. Sevgi Iyi also compares Mengüşoğlu’s anthropology to Martin Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein in his Existential Philosophy. Mengüşoğlu’s human phenomena are also the starting point of lawyer Hayrettin Ökçesiz’s work, “Man and the Judicial State.”35)

Another Turkish philosopher of the same generation who has made close study within the field of philosophical anthropology is Betül Çotuksöken. Çotuksöken devoted a significant amount of attention to the subject of Man in the radio lectures she gave during the years 1998 – 199936). As well as organising a series of twenty conferences through Maltepe University and a local municipality, which discussed key names in contemporary philosophy including Karl Marx, Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger under the subject of  “Philosophy of Man from Antiquity to Today”, Çotuksökenalso focused heavily on subjects such as Man and  Arts; Man and politics; and the relationship between philosophy of Man and human rights. Betül Çotuksöken’s latest work has centred on establishing an anthropological basis for ontological research37). However, Çotuksöken’s approach to an ontology based on anthropology differs from Mengüşoğlu, in that she sees the human, its relationships with others, and all areas of human life as a category of “being-in-between”.

Two names stand out from amongst the latest generation of philosophers with interests in philosophical anthropology. One is Mustafa Günay, who explored human perspectives from Socrates to Heidegger in his 2003 study titled “The Question of Man in the History of Philosophy”38). The second is Muttalip Özcan, who published “ Philosophy of Man: A Study of Man’s ‘Being’”39) in 2016. While Günay’s study is an exploration of the history of philosophy, Özcan focuses on the evolution of individual-person-human concepts in Western philosophy.

The era of the early Republic saw studies on philosophical anthropology that were not limited to the individuals mentioned above. This paper has not touched upon the numerous undergraduate, postgraduate and doctorate theses presented at universities and in peer-reviewed journals of philosophy within this subject. A point that needs attention is that much of the fundamental texts of philosophical anthropology still have not been translated into Turkish. Notwithstanding two works each by Scheler40) and Cassirer41) and Gehlen’s lectures in Istanbul, nearly no other works can be accessed in Turkish. Publications by Plessner42), Landmann43), Huizinga44), Teilhard de Chardin45) still await translation. Works that compare philosophy as a systematic discipline with anthropology for their history as well as their contents have not been translated into Turkish46). For philosophical anthropology to develop within Turkish philosophy, needs to have the chance to enter a comparative and productive dialogue with Western approaches. As the work thus far undertaken within this field goes to show, we have reason to be optimistic in this regard.

DİPNOTLAR:

1)     Klaus-Detlev Grothusen, Der Scurla Bericht. Die Taetigkeit deutscher Hochschullehrer in der Türkei 1933-1939, Frankfurt am Main 1987

2)     Arslan Kaynardağ, Üniversitelerimizde Ders Veren Alman Felsefe Profesörleri; in ‘Türk Felsefe Araştırmalarında ve Üniversite Öğretiminde Alman Filozofları’, Ankara 1986, pp. 1-31; Felsefecilerle Söyleşiler, Istanbul

3)     Mazhar Şevket, Hegels Aesthetik in ihrem historischen Zusammenhang, Bonn 1933

4)     Takiyettin Temuralp, Über die Grenzen der Erkennbarkeit bei Husserl und Scheler, Berlin 1937

5)     Macit Gökberk, Begriff der Gesellschaft bei Hegel und Comte, Berlin 1939

6)     Mazhar Şevket İpşiroğlu, Martin Heidegger ve Max Scheler’de İnsan, unpublished thesis, Istanbul Üniversitesi 1939

7)     Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu, Fenomenologi ve Nicolai Hartmann, Istanbul 1976

8)     Bedia Akarsu, Max Scheler’de Kişilik Problemi, Istanbul 1962

9)     Nermi Uygur, Edmund Husserl’de Başkasının Beni Problemi, Istanbul 1958

10)  Önay Sözer, Edmund Husserl’in Fenomenolojisi ve Nesnelerin Varlığı, Istanbul 1976

11)  Erich Rothacker, Tarihte Gelişme ve Krizler, Istanbul 1955

12)  Arnold Gehlen, İnsan, Istanbul 1954

13)  Hermann Wein, Tarih, İnsan ve Dil Felsefesi Üzerine Altı Konferans, Istanbul 1959

14)  Halit Çelikbudak, Yurtsuz Kalanlar. Goethe Almanya’sından Atatürk Türkiye’sine Sığınan Alman Biliminsanlarının Öyküsü, Istanbul 2016, s. 249-251; see also Carola Dietze, Nachgeholtes Leben. Hellmuth Plessner 1892-1985, Göttingen 2. Aufl. 2007, S. 94-97

15)  Max Scheler, Die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos, Darmstadt 1928

16)  Mazhar Şevket, Felsefi Antropoloji(Max Scheler); in ‘Felsefe Semineri Dergisi 1’, Istanbul 1939, pp. 73-86

17)  Max Scheler, İnsan. Kainattaki Yeri, Istanbul 1947

18)  Nicolai Hartmann, Almanya’da Yeni Ontoloji Cereyanı, Felsefe Arkivi, Vol 1, No 1, Istanbul 1945, pp. 1-24

19)  Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu, Felsefi Antropoloji Bakımından Tecrübe Mefhumunun Tahlili, Felsefe Arkivi, Vol 3, No 1, Istanbul 1952, pp. 136-161

20)  Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu, Bilgi Fenomeninin Felsefi Antropoloji Bakımından Tahlili, Felsefe Arkivi, Vol 3, No 2, Istanbul 1955, pp. 53-75

21)  Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu, Subjektiflik Objektiflik Fenomeninin Felsefi Antropoloji Bakımından Tahlili, Felsefe Arkivi, Vol 3, No 3, Istanbul 1957, pp. 103-120

22)  Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu, Ontolojik Esaslara Dayanan Felsefi Antropoloji Hakkında Düşünceler, Felsefe Arkivi, Vol 4, No 2, Istanbul 1959, pp.1-8

23)  Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu, Çağımızda Antropologik Teoriler, Felsefe Arkivi, No 20, Istanbul 1976, pp. 48-62

24)  Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu, Kant ve Scheler’de İnsan Problemi. Felsefi Anthropologi İçin Kritik bir Hazırlık, Istanbul 1949

25)  Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu, Felsefi Anthropologi. İnsanın Varlık Yapısı ve Nitelikleri, Istanbul 1971

26)  Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu, İnsan ve Hayvan. Dünya ve Çevre. İnsan ve Hayvanın Varlık Yapısında Ortaya Çıkan Zıt Fenomenler, Istanbul 1979

27)  Next paragraph is taken from my following article:  “Felsefede Antropoloji Geleneği ve Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu” in: Yüzylımızda İnsan Felsefesi. Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu’nun Anısına, Ed. İoanna Kuçuradi, Türkiye Felsefe Kurumu, Ankara 1997, pp. 67-73

28)  Macit Gökberk, Kant ile Herder’in Tarih Anlayışları, Istanbul 1948; Değişen Dünya Değişen Dil, Istanbul 1980

29)  Bedia Akarsu, Wilhelm von Humboldt’ta Dil-Kültür Bağlantısı, Istanbul 1984

30)  Nermi Uygur, Kültür Kuramı, Istanbul 1984; Dil Yönünden Fizik Felsefesi, Istanbul 1985

31)  Uluğ Nutku, Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu’nun İnsan Felsefesi Işığında Eğitim Olgusuna Toplu Bir Bakış, in: İnsan Felsefesi Çalışmaları, Istanbul 1998, s. 151-160

32)  Tüten Anğ, Felsefe, Eğitim, Tarih ve İnsan Üzerine Düşünceler, Istanbul 2006

33)  İoanna Kuçuradi, Etik, Türkiye Felsefe Kurumu, 6th ed., Ankara 2015

34)  Sevgi İyi, Cumhuriyet Döneminde Aydınlanma ve İnsan Felsefesi Çalışmaları, Istanbul 2006, see the following articles: İnsan Felsefesi Çalışmaları ve Günümüzdeki Önemi, pp. 56-69; Yüzyılımızda İki Antropoloji Anlayışı-Heidegger ve Mengüşoğlu, pp. 77-91

35)  Hayrettin Ökçesiz, İnsan ve Hukuk Devleti, in: Hukuk Devleti, Ed. H. Ökçesiz, Istanbul 1998, s. 44f.

36)  Betül Çotuksöken, Radyoda Felsefe, Istanbul 2002, s. 86-98

37)  Betül Çotuksöken, Anthropontology as a New Kind of Ontology, in:Synthesis Philosophica, Vol.27, No 2, Zagreb 2012, pp. 237-244; Felsefede Antropontolojik Yöntem, in:Yeditepede Felsefe, Ed. Saffet Babür, Istanbul 2016, pp. 185-193

38)  Mustafa Günay, Felsefe Tarihinde İnsan Sorunu, İzmir 2003

39)  Muttalip Özcan, İnsan Felsefesi. İnsanın Neliği Üzerine Bir Soruşturma, Ankara 2016

40)  Max Scheler, İnsanın Kosmostaki Yeri, transl. by Harun Tepe, BigeSu Yayıncılık, Ankara 2012; Hınç(Ressentiment), transl. by Abdullah Yılmaz, Pusula Yayıncılık, Istanbul 2004

41)  Ernst Cassirer, İnsan Üstüne Bir Deneme, transl. by Necla Arat, Remzi Kitabevi, Istanbul 1980; Devlet Efsanesi, transl.by Necla Arat, Remzi Kitabevi, Istanbul 1984

42)  Hellmuth Plessner, Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch, 3. Aufl. Berlin 1975

43)  Michael Landmann, Der Mensch als Schöpfer und Geschöpf der Kultur. Geschichts –und Sozialanthropologie, München 1961

44)  Johann Huizinga, Homo Ludens. Versuch einer Bestimmung des Spielelementes der Kultur, Amsterdam 1939

45)  Teilhard de Chardin, Le Phenomene Humaine, Paris 1955

46)   Hans Lenk, Einführung in moderne philosophische Anthropologie, Berlin 2013; Joachim Fischer, Philosophische Anthropologie. Eine Denkrichtung des 20. Jahrhunderts, Freiburg/München 2008; Gerhard Arlt, Philosophische Anthropologie, Stuttgart/Weimar 2001