Özet:

Abstract Secularism and laicism are concepts covering a broad area in socio-economy, culture and sociology. In this respect, the definition of secularism, its historical development in Europe, and the mainstream thoughts that had given its origins are the primary focus of this study. Most significant one of these thoughts is positivism, which rejects all the metaphysical information and proposes that the truth can only be found by experimentation and observation. Materialism, evolutionism and liberalism together with positivism, had significant influence on the development of secular thought/laicism as well. Besides the process in Europe, the study also looks into the development of secular thought in The Ottoman State and makes an emphasis on the fact that this process had begun during the recession era of the State. In order to save the State, the governors of the time had begun to try the Western system and had made some reforms, which in some respects, caused the secular thought and laicism to be influential in Ottoman State. This influence, a new generation of people had also grown who adopted secularism deeply and perceived it to be the only way to save the State from its weak position. With the help of the press and the support of western states, these people had the chance to explain their thoughts in some newspapers and journals of the time. One of the significant ones of those journals was Ulûm-i İktisâdiye ve İçtimâiye Journal, which had been published between 1908 and 1911. The main subject of this study is to show what thoughts had been re-addressed from the secular/laicism point of view in this journal. Summary             Laicism and secularism concepts are broadly used in socio-economic, cultural and sociological domains. In this study these two concepts were defined and their development process were investigated together with the mainstream ideologies in Europe. These two terms are used interchangeably most of the time. While secularism insists on leaving metaphysics and focusing on material world, laicism refers to a system, thought or a person without religious influence. Laicism is mostly used to indicate the separation of religion and politics in government.             In the early times, religious thoughts had significant influence on the government decisions and actions. However, during the 15th and 16th centuries this situation began to change. The enlightenment, renaissance and reform movement had paved the way for a new world order. The late 18th century ideologies started to question the legitimacy of the states and proposed that the authority should not come from the God but from the very earth and the people. During this era the ideological infrastructure of Europe evolved to question the theological and monarchical basis of the political system. One of these ideologies was the Doctrine of Natural Law, which is well-known for its thoughts about the birth of the states. In this thought, people were living happily before state institutions were created. Later on though, due to the requirements for security and division of labor, they had made a contract and created the government. Therefore, the origin of the state authority was not the God but people. In 18th century, encyclopedists and enlightenment supporters published the book named "Encyclopedia" and hence influenced the laicist thought in France. They were  apparently criticizing the religious subjects and the current state structure.Moreover, they were also proposing that only natural laws were valid in universe, not the laws of God.             Positivism was of the most significant basis of the secular/laicist thought. Positivism believed that the observation and explanation of natural phenomena is the only and the most useful means for humanity. In this thought the fact was solely the senses and the perceptions. According to August Comte who is one of the founders of positivism, humanity had evolved eventually to positivism going through theological and metaphysical stages and the specialty of this stage was that it was the ultimate stage humanity could reach, in which phenomena were explained by observation and experimentation, not by theological or metaphysical forces.             Materialist philosophy denied metaphysics as well and accepted only the conclusions of positive sciences. Their reasoning proposed that since everything in universe is of material nature, no other metaphysical entity or phenomena could exist. Karl Marks and Friedrich Engels were the most significant defenders of materialism.             Meanwhile, the theory of French naturalist Jean Baptiste Lamarck, which stated that living things had developed through a kind of evolutionary process was conflicting with the religious idea that the species were constant and not changing in any way. According to this theory, living things had emerged from non-living things and they had elevated to more complex forms from primitive ones. Charles Darwin improved Lamarck's theory proposing that this evolutionary process was based on adaptation, inheritance and natural selection. Herbert Spencer on the other hand, thought that such an evolution was the fundamental law in every field.             Another ideology which was in parallel with secularism/laicism was liberalism. Liberalism was an ideology that presented liberty and independence to individuals in every aspect of life. This thought assumed that the overall good of the whole society was nothing but the sum of the individuals' self interests and therefore they should be freed from any constraints. The implied liberty concept was a rather individualistic comprehension. An English Economist, Adam Smith was the one who systematically investigated this liberal approach which was based on individual liberty and independence.             Besides Europe, Ottoman State had also been influenced by these ideologies. This study investigates in which circumstances and to what extent Ottomans had been influenced by these thoughts. For the regression of the Ottoman State various solutions were being sought during this stage. As a result, systems of some of the European States were taken as examples and some reforms were made accordingly. At the same time a new generation had grown up who believed that the only solution for the decline of the State was nothing but adopting secularism/laicism. They published their thoughts in various newspapers and journals with the help of their European counterparts. In 1908, after the announcement of 2nd constitutional monarchy, elections were made and İttihat and Terakki Party took the control. They made significant changes towards becoming a secular/laicist government until 1918. This can also be observed in the media publications of the time. One of the media channels İttihat ve Terakki Party was influenced by was Ulûm-i İktisâdiye ve İçtimâiye Mecmuası, which was published in İstanbul in 1908-1911.This journal was almost the spokesperson of positivism in Ottoman borders. The authors of the journal were significantly influenced by August Comte and Herbert Spencer. They were writing especially about evolutionary and organics society ideologies. Since these authors were important people in both politics and public, their publications were mostly inline with the ideology of the ruling party. Below given the brief summaries of their backgrounds, their thoughts forming the basis of their secular/laicist approach, and their interpretations of these ideas.             In the journal, secularism and laicism were interpreted from the "government" and "religion" perspectives of the Western ideology. These thoughts were defended against all the other ideologies and practices adopted to that date and provoked for change. They were investigated in detail from education to human relations, covering all of the public domains. This study shows that there are four pillars all of these publications had based on: positivism, materialism, evolution-ism and liberalism.             Since one of the pillars, positivism, rejects anything other than scientific information and provable propositions, it also questions the religions. Therefore, according to positivism religion should be removed from individual and public lives. In the journal, laicist ideology was investigated in the "government" subject and it was described in terms of the consequence of the formation of the government, individuals' security and division of labor among the society. Hence, it was especially stressed that the government had no theological or metaphysical meaning at all. As a consequence, the leader of the state did not have any divine meanings, either. According to the authors of the journal, states and societies also evolve by "natural laws" similar to organisms. As a result, the government should operate based on rules determined by sociology and should be secular.             The journal took role in the adoption of fundamental ideologies in Ottoman State that paved the way for a new democratic, liberal and secular state, in which only the society had control over. The journal not only influenced the structure of politics and public life during İttihat ve Terakki Party, but also contributed to the foundational ideologies of modern Republic of Turkey.

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