Mr. Peyami Safa in Turkish Thought

Abstract

Peyami Safa defends East-West synthesis in Turkey's modernization debate and asserts that Turkey is also in a position of achieving this synthesis in concordance with its geography and history. Mr. Peyami who analysed Islamic and Western civilizations going in depth to their sources states that those two civilizations are not alien to each other, they affected each other in various periods, even they fed each other. Criticizing Turkish intellectual's obsessions with the 19th century positivist thought, he says the scientific mentality entered in a mystic orientation and we have more acquirements in understanding this orientation. Accepting the European Union as well, the author emphazises that nations should have achieved their national identity and personality in order that this hope will be succesful.