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The End of Ottoman Positivism: The Gökalp-al-Husari Debate of 1916

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2015

Adrien Zakar
Adrien Zakar*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Columbia University, New York, N.Y.; e-mail: apz2106@columbia.edu
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Extract

In the midst of World War I, a group of Ottoman scientists published a debate entitled “National Education” in the 1916 issue of the periodical Muallim (The Teacher). The exchange between the sociologist Ziya Gökalp (1876–1924) and the psychologist Satiʾ al-Husari (1882–1968) started out with different agendas for imperial education and culminated with an outburst regarding the definition of modern science. In his conclusive remarks, al-Husari declared: “I consider [his] way of thinking to be a form of metaphysics and mystics that resembles pantheism.” Al-Husari was a positivist who professed the exclusive authority of empirical data over all immaterial evidence acquired through metaphysics and mystical experience. Yet, his opponent was nothing less, and the accusation was all the more provocative because Gökalp believed that his positivist sociology could become the organizing principle of educational reform.

Type
Roundtable
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , August 2015 , pp. 580 - 583
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

NOTES

1 al-Husari, Satiʾ, “Terbiye Münakaşları: Ferd-i Şuur ve Içtima-i Vücdan,” Muallim 1, no. 5 (1916): 131Google Scholar.

2 On the concepts of “adaptation” and “accommodation,” see Fortna, Benjamin, The Imperial Classroom: Islam, the State, and Education in the Late Ottoman Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 1–42Google Scholar.

3 On social constructivism and equal validity, see Boghossian, Paul, The Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 On the concept of materialized cosmologies, see Tresh, John, “Cosmologies Materialized: History of Science and History of Ideas,” in Rethinking Modern European Intellectual History, ed. McMahon, Darrin M. and Moyn, Samuel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014)Google Scholar.

5 Berkes, Niyazi, “Sociology in Turkey,” American Journal of Sociology 42 (1936): 242CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Hanioğlu, Şükrü, Atatürk: An Intellectual Biography (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Cleveland, William, The making of an Arab nationalist; Ottomanism and Arabism in the Life and Thought of Satiʾ al-Husri (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971)Google Scholar; Moubayed, Sami, Steel & Silk: Men and Women Who Shaped Syria 1900–2000 (Seattle, Wash.: Cune, 2006)Google Scholar.

8 Gökalp, Ziya, “Milli Terbiye,” Muallim 1, no. 1 (1916): 3–9Google Scholar; Gökalp, , “Milli Terbiye,” Muallim 1, no. 2 (1916): 33–39Google Scholar; Gökalp, , “Milli Terbiye,” Muallim 1, no. 3 (1916): 65–71Google Scholar.

9 Gökalp, , “Milli Terbiye,” Muallim 1, no. 1 (1916): 3Google Scholar.

10 al-Husari, Satiʾ, “Telkin ve Terbiye,” Muallim 1, no. 3 (1916): 71–75Google Scholar.

11 Gökalp's last installment was followed by two rejoinders by Satiʾ al Husari: Gökalp, Ziya, “Milli Terbiye,” Muallim 1, no. 4 (1916): 96–102Google Scholar; al-Husari, Satiʾ, “Terbiye ve Milliyet,” Muallim 1, no. 4 (1916): 103–7Google Scholar; al-Husari, Satiʾ, “Terbiye Münakaşları: Ferd-i Şuur ve Içtima-i Vücdan,” Muallim 1, no. 5 (1916): 129–35Google Scholar.

12 Latour, Bruno, “When Things Strike Back: A Possible Contribution of ‘Science Studies' to the Social Sciences,” British Journal of Sociology 51 (2000): 113CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On ANT, see Latour, Bruno, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)Google Scholar.

13 Although the Gökalp-al-Husari debate occurred more than a decade after and in a different context, it discussed the same issues as 1903 debate between Durkheim and the now-forefather of ANT, Gabriel Tarde. While European historians do not have transcriptions of their 1903 debate, Ottoman historians do. Just this once will not hurt.

14 al-Husari, Satiʾ, “Faaliyet Zevki,” Terbiye Mecmuası 1, no. 1 (1330): 2–6Google Scholar; al-Husari, Satiʾ, “Terbiye-i Ahlakiye ve Vataniye,” Tedrisat-ı İbtidaiye Mecmuası 1, no. 3 (1326): 67–78Google Scholar.