Cvilisation problematic in the Turkish Thought Journal

During the period when the Journal of Turkish Thought was published, it became a journal publishing the opinions of many authors giving direction to Turkish intellectual life. The subject of civilization and features to be possessed by civilization were investigated and discussed by many authors in the journal. When the literature is reviewed, it is seen that there is no definition of the concept of civilization widely agreed upon. Some thinkers view civilization as a technological superiority, some others view it as progress in science and some others see it as an order where aesthetic and architecture are greatly emphasized. In addition to this, there are some schools of thoughts seeing civilization as making progress in the fields of law and justice. The Journal of Turkish Thought included analyzes of the concept of civilization conducted from a critical point of view. In the journal, issues such as civilization, civilization crisis, westernization and the concepts of reform and personality were subjected to in-depth analysis and the idea of east and west synthesis was discussed. The Journal of Turkish Thought, whose first issue was published in 1953, published totally 63 issues. With the military coup in 1960, the publishing of the journal ended. The editor and the owner of the journal was one of the prominent writers of Turkish literature, Peyami Safa. But, Peyami Safha did not write any literary work and we can see his intellectual side in his writings published in the journal. Safa conducted philosophical analyses on westernization, civilization and moral crisis. Other authors drawing the intellectual framework of the journal were İsmail Hakkı Baltacıoğlu, Hilmi Ziya Ülken and Mustafa Şekil Tunç. The concept of civilization extensively analyzed in the Journal of Turkish Thought was primarily considered to be an ethical order. According to the journal, there are some factors affecting the establishment and development of civilization. These factors are language, religion, culture, science, philosophy, art and literature. These factors were detected in the journal and investigated under different headings. According to one of the basic claims expressed in the journal, western civilization is in turbulence and decline. Particularly, the articles penned by Peyami Safa, it is contended that despite the technological advancement of the western world, it is in an ethical turbulence. According to the journal, civilization crisis mostly comes after the collapse of the morality and then personality of the citizens of the society. It is remarkable that analogies are made between civilization and personality in the journal. It is also argued that civilization has its own personality and this personality is built on its own. Thus, just as there is ethics on the basis of personality, there is ethics on the basis of civilization. The current study was conducted to analyze civilization crisis discussed in the Journal of Turkish Thought from a philosophical viewpoint. Within the framework of this viewpoint, reforms, west-east synthesis and personality issues were analyzed. Key Words: Journal of Turkish Thought, Civilization, Westernization