A human being is born three times. The first birth is surrounded by culture. Second birth is to be born into education; being shaped by pedagogical, psychological and scientific methods. Third birth is to arise from oneself, which means shaping one’s own life with one’s own free will. A human being who is born from oneself is revolutionary.
A human being is born three times. The first birth is surrounded by culture. Second birth is to be born into education; being shaped by pedagogical, psychological and scientific methods. Third birth is to arise from oneself, which means shaping one’s own life with one’s own free will. A human being who is born from oneself is revolutionary.
Utopia
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 [...]
About Art
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 [...]
Art
“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 [...]
The Problem of Akhlaq in Sufism
“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 [...]
Comparative Eastern and Western Aesthetics
The Distinction between Aesthetics and Fine Art What Did Hegel Mean When He Said “Art Is a Thing of the Past”? Evolution of Craft into Art A Work of Art Can Be Critiqued by a Critic Trained in Aesthetics The Historical Development of Systematic Philosophy Why Is It Assumed That Philosophy First Began in Greece? Philosophy Is an Evolution from Mythos to Logos [...]
An Interview on “Artificial Intelligence”
The Age of Pythagoras is Coming to an End, and We Are Entering the Age of Plato... Ayşe Acar: Regarding Artificial Intelligence, one of the most popular topics of discussion is Technological Singularity. This refers to the fear of a super Artificial Intelligence overtaking the world in the future, and ending humanity. This is not what I understand by the term “technological singularity.” I argue that singularity may arise in [...]
Anatolian Enlightenment and the Republic – Part 2
The Turkish revolution is not a revolution that took place under normal conditions; it is a society gaining self-awareness after emerging victorious from the War of Independence. In other words, enlightenment here was realized through action. You tell people about the idea of enlightenment in order to motivate them to take an action.But the peoples of Anatolia gained this by themselves, emerging victorious from a war of survival by relying [...]
Anatolian Enlightenment and the Republic – Part 1
Following the age of Enlightenment, following the movements of the Renaissance and Enlightenment, the individual and individualism gained significant ground in the European world. The problematic of individualism was balanced by socialism, and the individual, or being an individual served as the main principle of permanent modernity. The three basic principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity were born out of the Enlightenment, and their reflection in society, their reception [...]
An Important Barrier to Making Conscious Use of Consciousness: The Religion of Science
Doing Philosophy on the Basis of Physics Theories Is There Certainty in Science? Does Enlightenment Flow from Society to Individual? Changing the Habits That Organize Consciousness Facing Up to the Dogma of Scientific Religion The Difference between Faith and Belief The Intellectual Impasse that Hegel Resolved Types of Reason According to How They Are Used The Use of Consciousness to Make [...]
Is “Enlightenment” Possible Without Understanding the Paradigm-Shifting Theory of Relativity?
As Times Change, So Do the Contents of Concepts Kant's Distinction between Phenomena and Noumena The East Started But Failed to Complete; the West Went Slow and Steady What is Not Related is Not Defined The Theory of Objective Relativity is the Most Revolutionary Theory of Our Age Another Look at Kant’s Phenomena through This Understanding How Did Hegel Overcome the Dilemma? [...]
The Dogmatic Scientific Attitude
Intellect under Tutelage Science as a Religion Creativity is at an Impasse, as the Age of Communication Provides Access to “Data,” Rather Than to “Knowledge” The Difference between the Enlightened and the Intellectual The Brain also Gets Hungry The Physics of an Age Affects the Forms of the Consciousness of the Age Questioning the Type of Our Consciousness through the Theory of Relativity [...]
It Is No Longer Possible to Engage in Philosophy without Understanding the Paradigm Shift in Physics
Physics Providing Guidance to the Intellectual World Time is Not External to Objects but a Part of Their Existence How Do You Comprehend Motion Where Immobility Does Not Exist? If the Speed of Light is the Highest Possible Speed, What is the Speed of Light Squared? From Moving Objects to Movement that Appears as Object Space is not a Place [...]
Books
Listen from Ney* / Dinle Ney’den
Metin Bobaroğlu
Sufism begins with individual wisdom and is a work of freedom.
Sufism is a kind of inner experience, but it also has a side related to wisdom and reason. In Sufism, knowledge is not only based on logical inference, but also on intuition and discovery.
It is the way to make sense of oneself, man, nature and the universe, starting from one’s own source. While defining itself, Sufism addresses man directly, the human heart and places man at the center. The target in Sufism is the Perfect Man. When man meets God, he becomes the Perfect Man. The Perfect Man tells the way for each man to seek his own perfection and is actually the secret of man, who is a whole universe. Everyone must walk this path on his own journey.
This journey that man makes from humanity to divinity in his own self takes place within the boundaries of the concept of the Perfect Man. It is said that truth is three letters and five dots. Ayn-Sin-Kaf is three letters, Kaf has two dots, with five dots it becomes Love.
* Ney: reed flute
Language: Turkish
The Problem of Enlightenment and Values / Aydınlanma Sorunu ve Değerler
Metin Bobaroğlu
“Man is born three times. The first birth is surrounded by the environment of culture. The second birth is to be born into education; man is shaped by pedagogical, psychological and scientific methods. The third birth is man’s birth from himself, which is man’s shaping his own life with his own free will.
A man born from himself is a revolutionary. A revolutionary man is a man who sees the conditions that will carry the historical process to a qualitative leap and reveals it as an independent character in himself. People born from themselves are the subjects of history. They do not exist only for their own individual lives, but most of the time, they disregard their own individual lives and attach themselves to a human ideal with all their being and internalize it as a passion in themselves.”
Thinker and writer Metin Bobaroğlu addresses enlightenment as a problem in his book The Problem of Enlightenment and Values. He says that every person in the enlightenment process creates his intellectual, psychic, social and spiritual life depending on the values he chooses, and that the social and individual spirit is produced in this way. He emphasizes that the foundation that creates civilization is concepts that turn into values.
Language: Turkish
Symbolic Thinking / Simgesel Düşünme
Metin Bobaroğlu
“Symbolic thinking is a way of thinking that transcends reality and enables the search for the ideal beyond the existing reality. While the ideal is limited by concepts, the symbol offers new possibilities to overcome these limits. The symbol is an umbilical cord; it functions to develop understanding rather than understanding, and serves the processes of discovery and invention rather than knowing. Every consciousness is a seeker of meaning in its relationship with the symbol.”
In Symbolic Thinking, compiled from his writings and speeches spanning over fifteen years, Metin Bobaroğlu emphasizes that symbols are attributed a meaning in proportion to the person’s cultural structure, life experience, knowledge accumulation, level of perception and spiritual tendencies, and says that symbolic language can also be defined as the abundance of a tradition that has developed and deepened throughout history.
Bobaroğlu, drawing attention to the fact that the symbol is related to the unconscious, dreams and myths as much as it is to the conscious, establishes its necessary relationship with the concepts of ritual and temple within ancient wisdom and takes the reader on an unconventional journey of thought.
Language: Turkish