German Geist on the Bosphorus. On the Reception of Ontology and Philosophical Anthropology at Istanbul University (1933–1960)

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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).