About Metin Bobaroğlu

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So far Metin Bobaroğlu has created 118 blog entries.

Utopia

2020-11-08T22:32:43+03:00By |Categories: Essays|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Philosophy in ancient Greece acquired a systematic unity with Aristotle. A logical method was adopted to unite different disciplines. With Aristotle, philosophy gained a rational narrative through prose with logical and substantive consistency. Philosophers prior to Aristotle, pre-Socratics in particular, expressed philosophy in the form of poetry. Aristotle’s philosophy was a philosophy of solid objects; it carried the status of spatial objects “here and now” to rational concept by way of the union between their substantial and accidental qualities. In ancient Greece, the perception of time was rhythmic; past and future tenses were not used to express reality. The Ancient [...]

About Art

2020-11-08T19:41:15+03:00By |Categories: Essays|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Modern civilization is built on four foundations: Sports, Science, Art, and Philosophy. Sports deals with the discipline of movement, Science with concepts and terminology specific to science, Art with images, and Philosophy with concepts. Artistic endeavor has existed in all cultures since the earliest periods in history, but art gained self-consciousness in Ancient Greece. This was no accident because Ancient Greece was also where people gained consciousness of philosophy, or of their own thoughts. Andrey Tarkovski “Art emerges and develops where there is a yearning for the ideal,” says A. Tarkovsky, and adds, “Art is a symbol of this [...]

Art

2020-11-08T19:26:14+03:00By |Categories: Essays|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |

“Art emerges and develops where there is a yearning for the ideal,” says A. Tarkovsky, and adds, “Art is a symbol of this world that is intertwined with the spiritual reality hidden from us by a utilitarian practice.” Even though the idea is a highly controversial concept, the idea in terms of art represents, at its most basic, “unity” and “integrity.” It expresses the “common essence” or “common form” that holds what is different together. The work of art is at one with its essence; it is unique and original. Artistic endeavor is found in all cultures, from the earliest periods [...]

The Problem of Akhlaq in Sufism

2021-02-15T03:35:08+03:00By |Categories: Essays|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |

“Religion is morality in practice. Knowledge is but an instrument.” Lütfi Filiz Any treatise on akhlaq (morality/character) and Sufism (Tasawwuf) needs to make references to specialized literature and a set of concepts. The concepts of Sufism have both a philosophical and a poetic character, meaning that philosophical concepts alone would not be sufficient to explain Sufism. If philosophical concepts are like “day and night” to the mind, and mystic concepts are like “light and dark”, then Sufi concepts are like “dawn and twilight”, in that the language of Sufism contains both concepts and symbols. It addresses both aql (reason) and [...]

Reason, Conscience and Courage in Civilization

2020-10-01T15:34:48+03:00By |Categories: Essays|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |

There are two basic worldviews, two languages in the world: one is the language of the Eastern civilization with Sanskrit roots, and the other is the language of the Western civilization with Ancient Egyptian roots. Further divisions are within these two basic worldviews. The term Indo-European languages points both to the connections between the two civilizations due to Alexander’s conquests and the Silk Road, and the differences between them. Egypt had a Hermetic-esoteric and closed system that revealed knowledge, attitudes, states, and experiences to its students and followers only, through initiation, but concealed it from the outside. We can assume [...]

On the Science of Art

2020-07-18T18:40:15+03:00By |Categories: Transcripts|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Until Immanuel Kant –with the possible exception of Aristotle in antiquity– art was mostly described as an awe-inspiring product of imagination that bypasses the reason, and treated this way in the literature. After Kant, however, Hegel in particular said –along with his criticism of Kant– “No, art is not merely a product of our imagination.” Imagination can create certain products by taking inputs from the objects in the outside world and processing them in a cinematographic manner –as in dreams– but we also use our reason, the faculty said to be bypassed in this whole process, to make judgments [...]

A “Stranger” on Earth

2020-10-01T15:27:25+03:00By |Categories: Essays|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |

“Through painful toil you will eat food from the ground all the days of your life.” Genesis 3:17 The “identity crisis” that emerged after the two world wars left people uncertain about how to define themselves, what to believe in and what to hope for. Neither the institution of religion, nor the state authorities had been able to protect humanity from these disasters. Following the French Revolution, in particular, “nation-state” organizations and “humanist” and “positivist” approaches to education were adopted throughout the world. This was the new way of existence for societies, and the rally cry of this new [...]

Atatürk is a Pioneer

2020-12-15T00:42:39+03:00By |Categories: Transcripts|Tags: , , , , , , |

First of all, I would like to express my condolences to our nation, or rather to all humanity, for Atatürk was a pioneer not only for our nation, but for the entire world. In what sense? We could say because of his achievements or the Republic he founded, but he is also a pioneer in terms of enlightenment. I will focus on the enlightenment-related aspects of Atatürk, for history is not just a collection of facts and events, it also comprises the people who shape these events and act as subjects. Therefore, we would be mistaken if we were [...]

Philosophy

2020-07-16T00:40:06+03:00By |Categories: Essays|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

From Plato to this day, what leads people to philosophize is that they view themselves as in-between. People are stranded between nature that surrounds them and infinity (God) that transcends them. Ever since Plato and Aristotle, this in-betweenness has always been an object of wonder and curiosity. This curiosity is about objects, facts, events, and the riddle of the universe, but it is also felt regarding the inner world of humans. All attempts to provide solutions throughout the history of philosophy, whether positive or negative, have aimed to comprehend this state of in-betweenness. Many philosophical arguments have been put [...]

Eastern and Western Aesthetics

2020-07-16T00:32:22+03:00By |Categories: Essays|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Aesthetics is a philosophical discipline, and its subject matter is art, or more accurately, fine art. The word aesthetics is derived from the Greek word for “science of sensations” or “science of emotions”, although this definition fails to do full justice to the concept of aesthetics, as aesthetics today is also used to refer to the “philosophy of art” or the “philosophy of fine art”. Aesthetics is the science of beauty, investigating the essence of art and laws of evolution, but also various manifestations of beauty. Aesthetics cannot be reduced to an examination of the sensory pleasure derived from [...]

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