Yüzyıllardan beri Türk ve İslâm dünyasının fikir ve edebiyat çevrelerinde işlene gelmiş önemli konulardan biri de tasavvuf konusudur. Bu konuda verilen eserlerden biri de Erzincan, Kemaliye (Eğin) doğumlu mutasavvıf, şair Mustafa Fevzi Efendi (1871-1924) tarafından manzum biçimde yazılan Risâle-i Miratüş-Şühûd fî-Meseleti Vahdetil-Vücûd adlı eserdir. Bu eserde, şeriat, tarikat, hakikat ve marifetin ne olduğu ele alınmıştır. Gerçek ve Hak dostları ile yalancı ve sahtekâr taklitçilerin özellikleri anlatılmaktadır.

In Averroes’s epistemology, knowledge is universal, but it is always singular in terms of the known. Averroes believes that there is no need for an activity, even in the sense that used by those who have the idea of "kumūn" rational forms being formed by other rational forms of the same kind, or for a power such as in the example of polishing a mirror to reflect an image. Similarly, he argues that there are no discrete abstract forms of existing (...) things because otherwise, everyone would have to know everything. Although there are different degrees and levels, the existence of absolute metaphysical forms is subject to change and increases with the multiplication of their subjects. There are three means of knowledge: sensation, imagination, and intellect. Unlike the sensation and perception modes in animals, humans perceive the outer appearance of objects as well as their unique meanings and distinctions. Like animals, the function of sensation in humans is to mediate the self. While perception is abstract and spiritual in one sense, it is material and concrete in another. Averroes does not find it correct to link the knowledge of the contingents of the world to the eternal knowledge of God. Beacuse this implies that there is a difference in God's knowledge between the state of the world's existence and non-existence. In addition, human knowledge about contingents is deficient and changeable, whereas God's knowledge is the cause of the existence of contingents and is unchanging. Ultimately, it does not seem possible for humans to comprehend the nature of God's knowledge. It is agreed with Alexander of Aphrodisias that there should be a distinction between the active and imaginative intellects, but he differs from him in the point that the imaginative intellect disappears. According to Averroes, the active intellect in action is eternal, unlike Themistius’ view. According to Averroes, the intellect is neither a pure potentiality nor a distinct substance. That is to say, if the imaginative intellect were an actual thing, it could not perceive other things. If the intellect were absolute, everyone would know the same things. Similarly, if the intellect were absolute plurality, there would be no unity and connection between intellects. If the intellect were merely an accepting capacity, it could not perceive absence. According to Averroes, the active intellect is not a distinct intellect that gives form or governs the spheres, but rather the form and purpose of the imaginative intellect. There are two powers of this intellect: to abstract the concepts in their potential state from their matter and to make them actual and accepting them. In conclusion, it can be said that Averroes made a substance-centered philosophy regarding the possibility and reality of knowledge, and while he did not deviate from the Aristotelian line, he had to make new openings. Paradoxically, he tries to explain both the actual/abstract and potential/material aspects of the intellect that are postulated by introducing an original soul theory with the imaginative intellect. Therefore, he places importance on both a priori knowledge and sensation and imagination. (shrink)

In this article, I will discuss Mulla Sadrā's proof of ideas together with his evaluations of Fārābī, Ibn Sīnā and Suhrawardī's views. The aim of the article is to try to provide a certain opinion about the proof that Sadrā developed. It is seen that Sadrā generally exhibits a dual attitude about ideas. Sadrā's first attitude is to match the theologians' teaching of names, Suhrawardi's view of the master of genres, the sufists' a'yan al-sābita theory and the Peripatetics’ concept of (...) universal with ideas. His second attitude is that he is alone at the point of understanding Plato and reaching the clearness of the issue. In other words, he states that there has been no one who have understood and explained the issue as it should be. Sadrā attributes his own success on the subject both to discovery and inspiration, and to his intellectual research on existence. The aim of Sadrā is to try to unite between Plato and Aristotle. Therefore, he also follows Plotinos and Fārābī, who had this purpose before him. Sadrā, who criticizes Avicenna on the subject, sees Suhrawardī as the philosopher who comes closest to the truth, but states that he is also inadequate in some points. (shrink)

Though the names “Judith Butler” and “Martin Heidegger” rarely come together in Butler and Heidegger scholarship, the critical encounter between these philosophers might help us conceptualize the relationship between freedom and marginalization. In this paper, I will read Butler from the perspective of the Heidegger of Being and Time and claim that what Butler's philosophy suggests is the radical dependency of one's freedom on the cultural resuscitation of socially murdered racial, sexual, ethnic, religious, and sectarian/confessional minorities. More specifically, I will (...) claim that the socially sanctioned subject's freedom is dependent on the marginalized Other's freedom, and, conversely, the marginalized Other's freedom is dependent on the socially sanctioned subject's freedom. (shrink)

This article assesses the prospects for the adoption of Rawls’s political liberalism in non‐Western contexts. The argument centers on the religious resurgence in non‐Western societies and presents an evaluation of the viability and acceptability of political liberal principles in the face of the normative, theoretical and practical challenges posed by this development. Political liberalism emerges as a significant theoretical and normative resource; nevertheless, the socio‐political conditions in non‐Western societies may fall short of satisfying the sociological requirements of political liberalism. A (...) strong historical interpretation of Rawls’s sociological assumptions suggests that relatively younger and developing democracies where religious movements are in the ascendant, will have to wait centuries to live up to the social and moral standards of political liberalism. This article comes to a less negative conclusion. The normative arguments of political liberalism can rest on weaker sociological assumptions that do not require such a long period of time to emerge as Rawls appears to suppose. Indeed, the institution of a political liberal regime may be the condition of its own success, encouraging in its own right the necessary political reasonableness among religious views. (shrink)

David Lewis is most famous in the analytical metaphysics literature for his analysis of the truth conditions of counterfactual conditionals in terms of possible worlds, and for his analysis of causation in terms of counterfactual conditionals. He uses a notion of comparative similarity of possible worlds in his analysis of counterfactual conditionals. However, since he attributes reality to possible worlds he has attracted many criticisms. The aim of our paper is to present some counterfactuals whose account cannot be given within (...) a Lewisian framework, and to point to some devastating results for Lewis of such an inadequacy. (shrink)

Foucault's philosophy is often divided into three periods: the archeological period of the 1960's, the geneological period of the 1970's, and the ethical period of the 1980's. Considering the subjects Foucault worked on, the methods he employed, and the nature of his analyses in the 1960's, 1970's, and 1980's, it seems prima facie that there is a considerable difference between the different periods of Foucault's career. Nevertheless, Fooucault claims that he has been working on the same subject, that is, the (...) construction of subjective experience, throughout most of his career. The aim of this paper is to question, via the presentation of two sexual case studies taken from the history of psychiatry, what kind of portrait of Foucault has painted if we take him by his word. These studies will also help us ask how we can give an account of the construction of sexual experience from the perspective of Foucault the archaeologist, the genealogist, and at the same time, the ethicist. (shrink)

Özet: 20. yüzyılın son çeyreğinde, çıkış noktasını mensubu olduğu kültüre, ulusa veya devlete karşı korunması için bireysel haklarla donatılmış ve içerisinde yetiştiği kültürü rasyonel yetileri ile değerlendirip terk edebilme gücüne sahip “birey” anlayışında bulan “bireyci” liberalizmin içerisinden, bireylerin “kültürel” varlıklar olduklarını, bireysel özgürlüğün “kültürlerin korunması” olmaksızın icra edilemeyeceğini, bunun için de “kültürel azınlık hakları”nın liberalizmin olmazsa olmazı olduğunu savunan “liberal çokkültürcülük” doğmuştur. Bu yazıda, liberal çokkültürcülüğün en önemli versiyonlarından biri olan “ulusalcı liberalizm” incelenecek ve onun kadınlardan, LGBTİ bireylerinden ve dini (...) veya mezhepsel muhaliflerden oluşan “azınlık-içindeki-azınlık” gruplarının ortaya çıkardığı çoğulculuğu kapsayacak teorik araçlar geliştiremediği; bu yüzden de yeterince çoğulcu olmadığı iddia edilecektir.In the last quarter of the 20th century, liberal multiculturalism was born out of individualistic liberalism. Whereas the latter takes as its starting point the individual, who is supposed to be protected against the intrusions of his/her culture, nation, or state via individual rights, and who is capable of leaving the cultural heritage s/he was raised into; the former takes human beings as cultural entities, and defends that individual freedom cannot be performed without the protection of culture and that cultural minority rights are the sine qua non for liberalism. In this essay, I will examine one of the most important versions of liberal multiculturalism, namely national liberalism, and argue that it is not pluralistic enough due to the fact that it has not created the necessary tools to accommodate the sort of pluralism that is formed out of minorities-within-minorities. (shrink)

Ethno‐cultural minority rights have been regarded as a part of human rights since the last decade of the twentieth century. These rights are often formulated in predominantly culturalist terms. Citing the importance of culture in the lives of members, they are conceptualized as tools for protecting the distinct identity of minority cultures. This paper claims that this way of formulating minority rights is to portray minority communities as if they were not concerned with the pathologies of modern democracies, such as (...) the increasing marginalization of citizens from democratic life, far‐right populism, and the subordination of democracy into the functional requirements of economy. Accordingly, it argues for a theory of minority rights that formulates these rights as tools for protecting democracy against such pathologies. In doing so, it takes its point of departure from Jürgen Habermas’s communicative action theory and his understanding of democracy and public autonomy. (shrink)

Queering Multiculturalism argues for group-specific rights for ethno-cultural minorities, but without ignoring the possibility that such rights may lead to ethnic chauvinism, balkanization, and the cultural marginalization of minorities-within-minorities, such as ethnic LGBT people.

Martin Heidegger was not only one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century but also a supporter of and a contributor to one of the most discriminatory ideologies of the recent past. Thus, "the Heidegger's case" gives us philosophers an opportunity to work on discrimination from a philosophical perspective. My aim in this essay is to question the relationship between freedom and discrimination via Heidegger's philosophy. I will show that what bridges the gap between Heidegger's philosophy and a discriminatory (...) ideology such as the National Socialist ideology is Heidegger's conceptualization of freedom with the aid of a monolithic understanding of history--one that refuses to acknowledge the plurality and heterogeneity in the socio-historical existence of human beings. Accordingly, I will claim that the Heideggerian freedom depends on the social, if not literal, murder of the marginalized segments of a given society. However, I will refuse to conclude that Heidegger's philosophy is a Nazi philosophy and that it should never be appropriated as long as we want to purify our thoughts from discriminatory ideas. Rather, I will re-appropriate Heidegger, against Heidegger, to read and interpret Michel Foucault's and Judith Butler's philosophies. My aim here is to construct a social ontology that may justify anti-discriminatory policies. More specifically, through my Heideggerian readings of Foucault and Butler, I will argue that one's freedom is dependent on the cultural resuscitation of socially, and sometimes literally, murdered racial, sexual, ethnic, religious, and sectarian/confessional minorities. (shrink)

In his very last, now famous, interview, Michel Foucault states that his philosophical thought was shaped by his reading of Heidegger, even though he does not specify what aspects of Heidegger’s philosophy inspired him in the first place. However, his last interview is not the only place where Foucault refers to Heidegger as his intellectual guide. In his 1981/1982 lecture course, The Hermeneutics of the Subject, Foucault confesses that the way Heidegger conceptualized the relationship between subject and truth was a (...) starting point for him for thinking about the relationship between truth, subject, subjective-transformation, and freedom. Accordingly, the aim of this paper is to reconstruct the Foucault-Heidegger encounter from the perspective of subject-truth relation. I will ask how Heidegger and Foucault conceptualized the relationship between truth, self-transformation, and freedom. And I will claim that for both Foucault and Heidegger, freedom lies in constantly and creatively repeating the traditional possibilities of existence in order to question the reified patterns of interpretation, and in order to reveal the anxiety–engendering–truth that what is regarded as natural and inevitable in human life is historically contingent and transformable. (shrink)