Hilmi_Ziya_Ülken

Hilmi Ziya Ülken

Hilmi Ziya Ülken

Turkish academic and thinker (1901–1974)

Hilmi Ziya Ülken (1901–1974) was a Turkish scholar and writer who had an influential role in the development of sociological and philosophical views in Turkey. In addition to his scientific work, he produced literary work, including poems.

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Early life and education

Hilmi Ziya was born in Constantinople on 3 October 1901.[1] His father, Mehmet Ziya Bey, was a faculty member at Darulfünun, precursor of Istanbul University, where he taught chemistry and served as the dean of the School of Dentistry and Pharmaceutics.[2] His mother, Müşfike Hanım, was part of a family from Kazan, and her father, Kerim Hazret, was a religious figure who settled in Constantinople in the 1850s when the Ottoman Sultan Abdulaziz invited him during the Crimean War.[2]

In 1918 Hilmi Ziya graduated from İstanbul High School and attended Darulfünun's School of Political Sciences where he received a degree in 1921.[3]

Career

Following his graduation Hilmi Ziya worked as a geography teacher.[3] After obtaining further education at Darulfünun in the fields of ethics, sociology and history of philosophy he continued to work as a teacher in Ankara and Istanbul.[3] In Ankara he worked at the teachers’ school.[4] He taught sociology at the Istanbul High School, and one of his pupils was Pertev Naili Boratav.[5] He also taught philosophy and sociology at the Galatasaray High School.[6]

In 1933 Hilmi Ziya went to Berlin for a research visit.[6] The same year Darulfünun was reorganized as Istanbul University and following his return to Turkey he joined the Department of Philosophy as an assistant professor of Turkish cultural history.[6] He taught the history of doctrines, the history of logic, philosophy, sociology and history of art.[3] One of his colleagues at the department was the German philosopher Hans Reichenbach who settled in Istanbul due to the Nazi rule in Germany.[6][7] Ülken became an attending professor in 1944 and an ordinary professor in 1957.[2] He served as the chair of the Department of Sociology at İstanbul University.[8]

Hilmi Ziya joined Ankara University in the 1950s and became the dean of Faculty of Theology in 1959, but he resigned from office soon.[2] He was elected to the same post in 1962.[2] However, he again resigned after six months.[2] From 1964 he began to teach the first course on philosophy of education in the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Ankara.[9] He retired from his teaching post in 1973.[2]

Views

His views were mostly influenced from the work by various Muslim, Turkish and European figures such as Ibn Arabi, Mehmet Fuat Köprülü, Ziya Gökalp, Mehmet İzzet, Émile Durkheim, Henri Bergson, Émile Boutroux, Baruch Spinoza, Max Scheler and Martin Heidegger.[2] Ülken reported that he and other leading figures began to follow the ideas of Henri Bergson in that these ideas offered them a spiritual command of intuition and a material power of change.[10] Because they needed such an inspiration during the armistice period.[10]

Following the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 Ülken adopted a conservative version of the republicanism.[11] Around 1926 he argued that if nationalism recognizes civil and political rights, it becomes the most modern political regime.[4] He also maintained that the republic as a regime was the only suitable form of government for modern citizens.[4]

In the late 1920s while Ülken was teaching at Darulfünun he supported the idea-oriented sociology against the experimental sociology.[12] During his term at Istanbul University Ülken was among the first Turkish scholars who analysed with logical empiricism.[6]

Work

Ülken was the author of various books which included textbooks on psychology, sociology and philosophy. In 1931 he published Aşk Ahlakı (Turkish: Ethics of Love) that presented his views on ethical philosophy containing sociological and cultural dimensions.[13] His another book was İnsani Vatanperverlik (1933; Turkish: Humanist Patriotism) in which he discussed humanistic universalism and nationalism and attempted to present a solution to the problem between idealism and realism.[2] This book was his first and only attempt to produce a philosophical syncretism.[2] In 1935 Ülken published a book on the functions of translation entitled Uyanış Devirlerinde Tercümenin Rolü (Turkish: The role of translation during ages of reawakening).[1] There he argued that translation provides creative power when a group involves in the reawakening process.[14] One of his most known books was Türkiye'de Çağdaş Düşünce Tarihi (1966; Turkish History of Modern Thought in Turkey) in which he examined the history of thought in Turkey.[2] His study contained an analysis of the topic across three periods, namely the Tanzimat period, the Meşrutiyet period and the Republic period.[2] His lecture notes on the philosophy of education were published as a book in 1982.[9]

Ülken was a contributor to several publications and established some journals. He first contributed to the magazines Mihrab (Turkish: Altar) and Anadolu Mecmuası (Turkish: Anatolia Journal) in the 1920s.[3] The other periodicals in which he published articles are as follows: Dergâh, Her Ay, Türk Yurdu, Yeni İnsanlık, Türk Düşüncesi[3] and Adımlar.[15]

Ülken cofounded and published İnsan (Turkish: Man) magazine together with Nurullah Ataç, Sabahattin Eyüboğlu and Celaleddin Ezine from 1938 to 1943.[3] From 1943 Ülken started and edited Sosyoloji Dergisi (Turkish: Journal of Sociology) which was a publication of the Faculty of Arts at Istanbul University.[2][16]

Memberships and activities

Grave of Hilmi Ziya Ülken and his wife Hatice Ülken

Hilmi Ziya established the Philosophy Association together with Mehmet Servet in 1928 which was the first in its category in the Republic of Turkey.[12][7] However, it was closed in 1930.[12] Ülken was also the founder of the Sociology Association which was established in Ankara on 2 December 1949.[12]

During the preparations to establish the International Sociological Association (ISA) in 1949 the preparatory committee of the Constituent Congress contacted with two scholars from Turkey, Ülken and Ziyaeddin Fahri Fındıkoğlu.[17] Ülken participated in the Congress held in Oslo in September 1949.[17] He was the vice president of the ISA and a member of its executive committee between 1953 and 1959.[17]

Personal life and death

Hilmi Ziya married in 1924.[2] His wife was Hatice Ülken, and they had a daughter.[18]

Ülken died in Istanbul on 5 June 1974 and was buried in Aşiyan cemetery, Istanbul.[1][18]

References

  1. [1]
    "Hilmi Ziya Ülken". Oxford Reference. Retrieved 2 April 2023.
  2. [2]
    Hakan Arslanbenzer (31 January 2015). "Hilmi Ziya Ülken: Ethics of love". Daily Sabah. İstanbul. Retrieved 2 April 2023.
  3. [3]
    "Hilmi Ziya Ülken" (in Turkish). Biyografya. Retrieved 2 April 2023.
  4. [4]
    Barak Salmoni (2004). "Ordered liberty and disciplined freedom: Turkish education and republican democracy, 1923–50". Middle Eastern Studies. 40 (2): 84. doi:10.1080/00263200412331301997.
  5. [5]
    Arzu Öztürkmen (2005). "Folklore on Trial: Pertev Naili Boratav and the Denationalization of Turkish Folklore". Journal of Folklore Research. 42 (2): 41. doi:10.2979/JFR.2005.42.2.185. JSTOR 3814600. S2CID 145810490.
  6. [6]
    Pascale Roure (2022). "Logical empiricism in Turkish exile: Hans Reichenbach's research and teaching activities at Istanbul University (1933–1938)". Synthese. 200 (265): 265. doi:10.1007/s11229-022-03740-9. S2CID 255377035.
  7. [7]
    Yaman Örs (2006). "Hans Reichenbach and Logical Empiricism in Turkey]". In Maria Carla Galavotti (ed.). Cambridge and Vienna. Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook. Vol. 12. Dordrecht: Springer. pp. 191, 196. doi:10.1007/1-4020-4101-2_13. ISBN 978-1-4020-4101-3.
  8. [8]
    Christoph Herzog (2016). "The "Clash of Civilizations" in the Post Nine-Eleven Discourse of Turkey". In Christoph Herzog; Barbara Pusch (eds.). Groups, Ideologies and Discourses: Glimpses of the Turkic Speaking World. Würzburg: Orient-Institut Istanbul. p. 15. ISBN 978-3-95650-184-5.
  9. [9]
    Hasan Ünder (November 2008). "Philosophy of Education as an Academic Discipline in Turkey: The Past and the Present". Studies in Philosophy and Education. 27 (6): 416. doi:10.1007/s11217-007-9049-z. S2CID 145492315.
  10. [10]
    M. Sait Özervarlı (October 2013). "Intellectual Foundations and Transformations in an Imperial City: Istanbul from the Late Ottoman to the Early Republican Periods". The Muslim World. 103 (4): 524. doi:10.1111/muwo.12031.
  11. [11]
    Ahmet Hınçalan (2011). Diverging paths of Turkish conservatisms during the Cold War era: A study on Cemil Meriç and Tarik Buğra (MA thesis). Boğaziçi University. p. 6.
  12. [12]
    Nilgün Çelebi (2002). "Sociology Associations in Turkey: Continuity Behind Discontinuity". International Sociology. 17 (2): 257–260. doi:10.1177/0268580902017002007. S2CID 146681514.
  13. [13]
    Nurten Kiriş Yılmaz (Fall 2018). "Hilmi Ziya Ülken's Moral Opinion: Ethics of Love". Turkish Studies. 13 (26): 813. doi:10.7827/TurkishStudies.14571.
  14. [14]
    Iain Boyd Whyte (2013). "Editorial: Moving House—Berlin to Ankara". Art in Translation. 5 (3): 318. doi:10.2752/175613113X13714828569819. S2CID 194058859.
  15. [15]
    Servet Tiken (2022). "1940'lı Yılların Türkiye'sinde Batı Edebiyatına Adımlar". Litera: Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies (in Turkish). 32 (1): 435–456. doi:10.26650/LITERA2021-980572.
  16. [16]
    Paul J. Magnarella; Orhan Türkdoğan (June 1976). "The Development of Turkish Social Anthropology [and Comments and Reply]". Current Anthropology. 17 (2): 266. doi:10.1086/201715. S2CID 147258531.
  17. [17]
    Stéphane Dufoix (March 2021). "Under Western Eyes? Elements for a Transnational and International History of Sociology in Asia (1960s–1980s)". Journal of Historical Sociology. 34 (1): 58–60. doi:10.1111/johs.12319. S2CID 235584936.
  18. [18]
    Hatice Ülken (1979). "Eşim Hilmi Ziya'nın Özel Hayatı". Istanbul Journal of Sociological Studies (in Turkish) (17).
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