Philosophy of Globalization

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Kadro Journal was published between 1932–1934 by an intellectual group whose founding members were Şevket Süreyya Aydemir, İsmail Hüsrev Tökin, Vedat Nedim Tör, Burhan Asaf Belge and Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu. Apart from Karaosmanoğlu, the mentality of the group’s members was significantly influenced by Marxism. The Journal, which was published in the times when discussions of development and statism were most intensive, didn’t just join the ideological and economic discussions, but also undertook as its agenda to give Turkish revolution a theoretical frame by interpreting it. Kadro was shut down by Atatürk, who didn’t lean toward any idea of modernization other than his own. Hence Kadro Journal passed into history as a concrete example in which the pathological relation between Turkish intellectual and state can be traced. For further information about Kadro Journal, see: Türkeş 1998, pp. 92–119; Türkeş 1999, pp. 47–68.

Şevket Süreyya Aydemir (1897–1976) was the child of a landless peasant and studied to become a teacher. In 1919, upon the Azerbaijan government demanding teachers from Turkey, he went to the Nuha district. He attended the Congress of the Peoples of the East in Baku in 1920, and as a Nuha teacher representative he met with members of the Turkish Communist Party based there. Influenced by their anti-colonialist vision, he began to lean toward socialism. From 1921–1923, he studied at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East in Moscow. During his time in Baku and Moscow, he followed the discussions (that included names like Lenin, Trotsky and Zinoviev) about how to struggle against Western imperialism. Throughout this process, one of the most important issues that bothered Aydemir was how the peoples of the east would be freed of Western imperialism’s oppression. For Aydemir’s biography and the progression of his thoughts, see: Aydemir 1965; 2003.

Doğan Avcıoğlu (1926–1983), after studying political sciences and economics in France, returned to Turkey in 1955 and worked as a research assistant in the Public Administration Institute for Turkey and Middle East, which was founded based on a technical assistance agreement between Turkey and the United Nations. He wrote for dissident media organs when the Democratic Party was in power, and participated in the group commissioned to prepare the 1961 constitution. He was the lead author of Yön Journal and one of the most influential intellectual personalities of the era. He passionately defended the idea of a socially and financially independent Turkey and the principle of anti-imperialism—not just in his writings for Yön Journal, but throughout his life (Macar 2001, pp. 162–169).

‘Experience’ and ‘expectation’ are two central historical conceptual categories for Reinhart Koselleck. Similarly to Kula, he sees what is new in modernity as the increasing gap between experience and expectation. He argues (though without giving examples) that the reason for this change is the transition from a circular to a linear view of history: “The peasant world, which two hundred years ago comprised up to 80 percent of all persons in many parts of Europe, lived with the cycle of nature. Excepting the structure of social organization, fluctuations in market conditions, especially long-distance trade in agricultural products, and monetary fluctuations, the everyday world was marked by whatever nature had to offer. […] Technical developments, which did exist, took so long to become established that they did not cause a rupture in the pattern of life.” (Koselleck 1989, p. 360)

Heinz-Dieter Kittsteiner, a cultural historian who died in 2008, was of a similar view. Following Kant and Marx, he assumes that people can extend their idea, but not their actions, to the whole: “Man does not readily ‘make’ his history, history evolves—in the context of society, admittedly—unconsciously, so to speak, when uncoordinated actions encounter one another.” (Kittsteiner 1997, p. 83) Unlike Kula, Kittstein has a distinct historical-philosophical approach. He looks for non-teleological options in a philosophy of history that maintains insight into the non-availability of events. To this end, he strives to subject certain key categories of the history of philosophy to a rational analysis; his last book, Die Stabilisierungsmoderne: Deutschland und Europa 1618–1715, represents such an endeavor. For an in-depth analysis, see: Pufelska 2010, pp. 173–195.

In The Human Condition (1958), Arendt displays her ontology of agency regarding human activities in their various forms. ‘Labor’ is the craft by means of which we take care of our biological needs, and ultimately serve the chain-of-being incarnated in reproduction. The genus, the species, overlaps the individual. There is no end to it as activity; we are talking about ‘work’ if our labor has an end; a beginning impregnated by an idea, a purpose, some disposed means and lastly an end. Here, the human world comes into play, as production transforms the inertia of the natural realm. The genus is slowly substituted by individuality and its teleology; ‘action’ is the highest and most significative activity a human can endeavor to undertake. For by an ‘action’, we are individuals among other individuals, and for the sake of individuals in a community. By ‘action’, we make a place for us as unique members of a shared res publica and seek to recognize and be recognized. The 1998 edition of The Human Condition (University of Chicago Press), with substantial text additions and an introduction by Margaret Canovan, is worthy of consultation.

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Table of Contents for
Philosophy of Globalization