Philosopher and Historian of Science Prof. Dr. İhsan Fazlıoğlu, Left Deep Marks on the Concepts of Material and Spiritual Homeland at the MAKÜ BEST Conference

The conference series named MAKÜ BEST started with the famous philosopher and historian of science Prof. Dr. İhsan Fazlıoğlu. MAKÜ BEST, which will be held by Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University (MAKÜ) with the participation of experts in the fields of science, literature, art, sports, history and technology, has started.

The first of the conference series, titled "Living in this-'place', together: The literature of human-being", in which İhsan Fazlıoğlu participated, was held at the MAKÜ Conference and Exhibition Hall.

The program, which started with a moment of silence and the reading of the National Anthem, was opened by Rector Prof. Dr. Hüseyin Dalgar. Rector Dalgar, who started his words by saying, "I thank our esteemed teacher İhsan Fazlıoğlu, who is with us today when philosophy will be discussed, for his participation," summarized what they wanted to do at MAKÜ BEST with the following words: "The MAKÜ BEST project also means 'the best' and from our perspective, we want to hold a conference series that will nourish our students in the main subjects of Science, Literature, Art-Sports, Technology-History. Our goal is to bring you together with important and deep names in the field. İhsan teacher is an important scientist who opens the horizons of thought for all of us in the field of philosophy in Turkey. I would like to express that, in the new world trend, what we sometimes tell our students is not to let your diploma limit you. What field of education you have received is important, but the world conditions are changing so fast that we need to be able to adapt ourselves to new fields and new openings very quickly and update ourselves with the software language. For this, it is not enough to be specialized in only one field. It is no longer valid today to be ignorant of many fields while being an expert in one field. Therefore, it is very important for us to have a perspective and awareness at a certain basic level in different fields such as sociology, psychology, philosophy, history, literature or technology. This gives us the opportunity to adapt quickly to new developments and analyze issues more healthily. Of course, there is another issue that we highlight and insist on. We have all seen in recent history that it is not enough to raise good engineers, good economists, good doctors alone. It is also very important to raise experts who know their responsibilities and affiliations. In this sense, I find these meetings very valuable."

The conference titled "Living in this-'place', together: The literature of human-being" was then held by philosopher and historian of science, Istanbul Medeniyet University Faculty Member Prof. Dr. İhsan Fazlıoğlu.

We turn into lions while defending our material homeland, but we turn into cats while defending our spiritual homeland!

Prof. Dr. İhsan Fazlıoğlu, emphasizing the material and spiritual homeland, said: “We are feeding an army of approximately 800 thousand people to protect our material geography, that is, the material geography we call homeland. This is an incredible number. Why? We do it so that our honor, our dignity, our dignity is not violated, our flag does not fall, our values are not harmed. Yes, there is a material homeland and we see that there are technological developments and an arms race in almost every country to protect this material homeland. We also make SİHAs, İHAs, planes. This is not a wrong thing but it is incomplete. Because a nation does not only live in a material geography. There is also a spiritual geography on that material geography, which is called the spiritual homeland. Our question is, I think, as Turkish intellectuals at the threshold of the 21st century: How much of the effort we put into protecting the material homeland do we spend to protect our spiritual homeland? When I say spiritual homeland, don't think of religion first. Religion is a part of spirituality. Spirituality is a very broad concept, it comes from the word meaning. Our world of meaning and value. We live in a world of meaning and value. We have aesthetic values, religious-moral values, political values. These values that belong to us form a whole. It forms an electromagnetic field and we live in it. So what are we doing to protect it? Just as we produce SİHAs, İHAs, we need to make similar efforts to protect the spiritual homeland. Aren't our philosophical theories, moral theories, aesthetic theories? Where are they? So there is a situation like this: Imagine a lion, it hunts, it works. And think of a cat, it is fed by others. Now we turn into lions while defending our material homeland, but we turn into cats while defending our spiritual homeland.”

Let's not just be a Thought Dealer, Art Dealer!

Emphasizing the need to produce new perspectives, Fazlıoğlu said: “We need to develop theories and perspectives about the basic concepts that humanity lives on within a certain perspective and perspective framework. Of course, it may be difficult to open a grocery store while there is a holding at first, but as long as we have our shop, let's open it, we can enlarge it in the future and turn it into a holding. Otherwise, we live as a dealer for life. Thought dealership, art dealership... I repeat, don't get me wrong; benefiting from experience is a different thing. Every segment in Turkey is doing this. Of course, let's consider all knowledge as experience, but doesn't these lands have any experience? The ideas produced by the intellectuals of the countries are meaningful for that society. I do not object to this, but when these ideas are transferred here, I have not lived that experience, so I accept the solutions offered to me. No one is different from each other in this regard. There is an agreement on the issue of datelessness in Turkey. We are probably the only nation that produces history only from discourse by neglecting material culture so much.”

After the speeches, the program, which continued in the form of question and answer, ended with Rector Prof. Dr. Hüseyin Dalgar presenting a gift in memory of the day to Prof. Dr. İhsan Fazlıoğlu.