There is no doubt that we think with concepts. A “concept” is the expression of defined thoughts with determined frameworks. Every new thought brings its own concepts along with it to explain itself; it strives to explain these concepts, to place them within certain molds, and if there are similar concepts used before, to state the differences of the new thought. Thus, you see that a word used in everyday language is elevated to the level of a “concept” with that new thought…
However, concepts also age. A concept that was thought to be striking and explanatory of many things when first used gradually begins to become widespread, entering everyday general language, and as it does so, the boundaries of that concept begin to blur. Nevertheless, that concept continues to be used as if it expresses a definite, defined meaning.
When Bergson came before us with the concept of “intuition,” it was thought to explain many things. The word “intuition,” of course, was among our everyday words. However, Bergson had also loaded it with new meanings. In a time perspective of around 50 years, this word will require new explanations to be used in the sense that Bergson used it.
Today, we do not know very clearly what many “conceptual words” that seem explanatory to us and have become established in our daily language express. Nevertheless, when we use these concepts, we think we are expressing our meaning. However, when we rethink these concepts, it is possible for us to see that we are not faced with very clear expressions at all.
Concepts are formed and established in the human mind through experiences. For a concept to become our own, we may need to pass it through our personal experiences many times.
If you pay attention to the speech of children, especially those aged 2-3 who have just learned to speak, you will see that they cannot use words in their proper places. Especially if a child has learned a new word, they can often use that word incorrectly or inappropriately. Adults listen to these kinds of conversations of children with a smile. Mistakes are made with incorrectly used words. But the child learns how to use a word through their experiences. Thus, the concept that the word signifies becomes established in the child’s mind.
Every language has its own inherent logic. It takes a long time to grasp the inherent logic of that language. In fact, the need to refer to foreign languages may even arise for us to fully comprehend that inherent logic. If an adult has later started to learn a foreign language, they can easily see this inherent logic of both their native language and the foreign language they are learning, as well as the differences between these logics. With such a comparison, it is not surprising that one grasps even their native language more closely and deeply. It would not be an exaggeration to say that in this way, a person tests their own language once more and brings it to life once again.
To make a concept our own, to make it a part of our lives, is not easy. What is easily learned, or rather, what is learned by taking the easy way out, is also easily forgotten and erased.
Our acceptance of the West is a result of “romantic sentiments.” To put it mildly, we accepted the West with a naiveté that could be called quite pure and with an enthusiasm that did not feel the need for a reckoning.
Today, we come across almost everyone speaking about Islam in one way or another. Concepts related to Islam are being used inappropriately and out of place. It is clear that for these concepts to settle properly, we need to make Islam a part of our lives. Otherwise, as is often the case, falling into errors and misconceptions is both inevitable and natural.
What needs to be understood from the commands and prohibitions of Islam is learned by living it. Unless what is learned from books is transferred to practice and our personal lives, the things we have learned may have a value as an object in our minds, but the extent to which we have internalized it still remains a question. To be able to claim that we have internalized a concept, we must look at whether we can use that concept in every phase of our lives, under all kinds of conditions we encounter. Our ability to have control over concepts depends on us having passed that concept through various physical and mental experiences in our personal lives. Otherwise, that concept means it is sitting precariously in our minds: like a “loan” that you will return one day. That is, we cannot exercise control over it even if we want to.
Whatever the difference is between keeping something as a loan and keeping it as property, that is the difference between keeping concepts as loans and keeping them as our own property. Making concepts our personal property becomes possible by transferring them to our personal lives.
We, as people of a society that lived Islam in its past, have not yet entered into a definite reckoning with the West. Not in the political arena, nor in intellectual thought, nor in any other field.
Our acceptance of the West is a result of “romantic sentiments.” To put it mildly, we accepted the West with an enthusiasm that could be called quite pure and without feeling the need for a reckoning. Let us recall some specific names between the Tanzimat and the Republic: Namık Kemal, Recâizâde Ekrem, Abdülhak Hâmid, Tevfik Fikret, Hüseyin Cahit, Halit Ziya, Mehmet Rauf, and the like. All these writers and poets were fascinated by the West with quite naive feelings. But within this admiration, like all other kinds of admiration, there was no particular calculation, no measuring and weighing. For these people, the West was the cradle of science, civilization, and humanity. If the Ottoman Empire was to be saved, we had to adopt the science, civilization, and humanity of the West. We had to adopt the law of the West. Although the word “law” was not pronounced “with all its letters.” The proposal to transfer the forms of government of the West to the Ottoman state was nothing more than expressing this thought.
The Ottoman writers we mentioned, when they actually said, “Let us take the science and civilization of the West,” I believe, were also quite naive in their feelings about concepts like science and civilization. It can be easily guessed that they harbored the illusion that the science praised in Islam was the same as the science developed in the West. Similarly, words such as freedom, brotherhood, justice, and equality also had enthusiastic, magical effects on these people. Humanism, likewise, was a concept of this kind.
Ottoman thinkers and writers evaluated and thus adopted these concepts as if looking through the lens of Islam. These words could neither be fully understood with the meanings shaped entirely in Western culture nor with the forms envisioned by Islam. A strange, blurred conceptual map was forming in their minds, but these concepts showed a nature that could be stretched in any direction one pulled.
In Namık Kemal’s famous Ode to Freedom, the line: “Although we became prisoners of love, we were freed from captivity” is interesting. It is a declaration of love in which an Easterner embraces a political Western concept. He approaches the issue entirely on an emotional level. Essentially, these writers encountered romanticism for the first time when they met the West.
Our initial impressions from the period when we first encountered the West have not been easily erased. They have continued from that day to this. When we said earlier that we have not entered into a definite reckoning with the West, this is the situation we wanted to emphasize.
Today, we are not easily in a position to assert that many concepts specific to the West are used in their original meaning.
Essentially, understanding the West is synonymous with understanding its terms; without understanding this, there is no way to engage in an intellectual reckoning with the West.
However, I say that when engaging in a reckoning with the West, a lengthy section will need to be opened on the subject of terms. Because these terms, used with shifts in their meanings, can neither find a place in our culture nor serve the proper reflection of concepts specific to Western culture. Essentially, understanding the West is synonymous with understanding its terms; without understanding this, there is no way to engage in an intellectual reckoning with the West.
With the Westernization process that began with the Tanzimat in the political arena, many concepts from Western culture were also transferred into Turkish. These concepts were generally used with their equivalents in Turkish dictionaries. Without much attention being paid to what the meaning of a particular concept was in Western languages, it was thought that the concept was transferred into Turkish by looking at the name given for that concept in dictionaries. This incorrect attitude, which we see as the origin of the conceptual confusion and conceptual complexity in today’s Turkish, maintains its validity even today, nearly one hundred and fifty years later.
The problem carries a meaning beyond whether or not a Turkish equivalent is found for a certain concept in Western culture. What is important is whether the equivalent found for that concept in Turkish is loaded with the same meaning(s) in Western culture, and therefore whether it expresses the meaning(s) contained in that concept. Some words that have equivalents in dictionaries but are actually foreign to our culture are almost always used in Turkish with meaning shifts, as if it were a rule.
Since the beginning of the Westernization process, some idioms that have gained a specific content in Western culture have been tried to be transferred into Turkish by resorting to the kind of meaning shifts we have mentioned. The concepts expressed by these idioms have been instilled in minds by being filtered through (and therefore incorrectly) our native culture. It has been desired to take advantage of the ways these idioms are perceived in Turkish. Some philosophical movements entirely and fundamentally outside of Islam, such as “rationalism,” have been able to be accepted with misleading claims that Islam attaches importance to reason and is a “rational” religion. Today, there is no shortage of Muslims who give or understand a rationalist, positivist, or other philosophical view an Islamic meaning according to their own subjective understanding. At the root of this distorted attitude lies, on the one hand, deliberately made meaning shifts, and on the other hand, the failure to embrace concepts specific to Islamic culture.
If the confusion in idioms and concepts had remained solely a linguistic phenomenon, it might have been said that it was not worth dwelling on. However, the roots of this confusion extend very deeply, and the minds of those who are called intellectuals today are swimming in a dense turbidity created by this conceptual confusion. Those who think or think they think according to Western concepts are forced to be content with mere attributions when they embark on interpreting our own history. Indeed, those who harbor the delusion that a historical process of successive stages such as feudalism, bourgeoisie, industrial period, and post-industrial period in Western Europe is also valid for our history can only engage in an interpretation that remains nothing more than attribution when they approach our own history.
In a country like Turkey, where “terminology confusion” is intense, the first difficulty encountered in the discussion of issues stems from this point. Firstly, it is a question of whether everyone understands the same thing from the same term. The confusion regarding terms does not only arise from the meaning shifts in the use of subjective and arbitrary terms. For example, it is not a matter of words like progressiveness, reactionariness, revolutionism, conservatism, which can take shape according to the intention of the person using these words and whose meaning can change according to the identity of the speaker. At the same time, even some concepts and idioms used in philosophy, which are actually expected to be used by everyone in the same sense, are subject to very different interpretations in countries like Turkey that have undergone cultural shifts. For example, even concepts like rationalism, positivism, idealism, and materialism are used in ways that will mean very different and diverse things.
In other words, are these concepts being exploited because the dangers of abandoning a concept that is thought to be generally accepted cannot be risked in the public eye?
To better illustrate the issue, it would be appropriate to proceed with a concrete example. Let’s take Iran. Let’s imagine we are negotiating the recent Iranian revolution. One of the negotiators says: “Sir, the new administration prevented Iran’s Westernization. The Shah had engaged in multifaceted relations with the USA and Western Europe in economic and commercial areas for Iran’s ‘modernization.’ Thus, with the investments to be made in Iran, this country would ‘develop.’ Now that all this has been prevented, the Iranian revolution has not been good. It has been to Iran’s detriment.”
Now, what should we say in response to these words? Will you approve of these words? Or will you reject them?
Two expressions in the speeches of this negotiator draw our attention: modernization and development. These words were used to reinforce the Shah’s intention and move towards Westernization. If you have adopted Westernization, you will agree with the words of the imaginary negotiator we quoted. But if you are not inclined in this direction, you will feel the need to dwell on some words and express our doubts about them. For example, you will say: “What does modernization mean? What does development mean? Let’s first discuss the meanings of these words. Words like modernization and development are concepts that have been instilled in us as ‘fixed ideas.’ These words will be used by shifting their meanings to something different from the meanings within the words themselves.”
However, saying these things will not be enough either. What these claims are made in the name of is also important. That is, your position is important.
Because you can oppose the concept of modernization and development as an American philosopher who has seen their harm and complains about environmental pollution, or as a Muslim. Thus, even if there is a similarity in your starting point, the conclusions you reach will still be different. Therefore, where our position is will gain additional importance.
What I mean is that what is called conceptual confusion or complexity arises not so much from a concept being indefinable, but from it being defined according to intentions. Confusion is more likely to appear when a set of abstract frameworks needs to be filled with concrete content. When it is desired to fill an abstract framework, to which no one objects, with concrete content, disputes begin. During this dispute, it becomes surprisingly clear how differently everyone understands the same concept.
Now, for example, it seems that generally no one is against democracy. But if a simple survey were conducted on what democracy is, it could be revealed that, apart from some commonplace, stereotypical lines, no one pursues a common purpose, and everyone has their own understanding of democracy.
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Some concepts are believed to be “indispensable” from the outset. The very thing called “democracy” has taken its place among these indispensables in our preconceived notions. To abandon this “indispensable,” that is, to shape minds in this direction, is a difficult path. However, it is easier to give democracy a meaning according to ourselves, according to our intentions. Moreover, it is thought that in such a path, it is also possible to achieve the desired result without attacking anyone’s idol, without breaking anyone’s idol.
Let’s continue with the example of democracy. Is the real intention of someone who attaches any adjective such as “true” or “real” or “libertarian” to the beginning of this concept really democracy, or do they want to distort this concept with a certain intention? In other words, are these concepts being exploited because the dangers of abandoning a concept that is thought to be generally accepted cannot be risked in the public eye? Since there is a need to give an adjective to a simple concept, it means that concept is actually being renamed. This is nothing more than expressing that the old, simple meaning of that concept has been lost, and a new meaning is desired to be loaded onto it. More clearly, the name and framework are not changed, but the content is changed. Thus, a game is being played without damaging a set of preconceived notions, without breaking mental idols, and without offending people.
For many years, the number of those who could free themselves from the compartmentalized mindset has been very small, both among Muslims and Westernizers.
In countries like Turkey, where new, unexperienced concepts (concepts belonging to Western civilization) constantly enter from one extreme, this game is being played out with all its intensity. Behind the concepts that are believed to be indispensable and, on the other hand, are thoroughly blurred in dim environments, everyone is swinging their swords here and there in a blind fight. In my opinion, this scene is natural. Because in such countries, showing one’s true pronoun can be considered dangerous by some. Dangers can only be warded off by hiding behind the shield of some generally accepted concepts (like democracy) and by distorting concepts from their original meanings.
Thus, the “compartmentalized institutions” that began with the Tanzimat in the administrative structure gradually made minds compartmentalized as well. The dual institutions, considered one of the main features of the Tanzimat, also created a dual category in minds. For example, the separation of Sharia courts/Nizami courts or schools/madrasahs led to the establishment of a belief in minds that what is Islamic and what is non-Islamic could exist side by side, intertwined.
Such a compartmentalized mind was not a characteristic peculiar only to those who wanted to remain attached to Islamic belief; those who adopted Western thought also carried the same compartmentalized mindset.
For many years, the number of those who could free themselves from the compartmentalized mindset has been very small, both among Muslims and Westernizers.
While some, fundamentally Westernizers, believed that religion (Islam) could be preserved as a culture, there were also those who, fundamentally wanting to remain Muslim, were convinced that Western institutions could be imported, even that they should be imported.
The number of those who saw and accepted that these two fundamental ideologies would not agree is very small, countable on one’s fingers.
Those with a compartmentalized mindset made great efforts to rationalize and make their ideas reasonable under the name of syncretism or eclecticism. One of the extreme examples of these is Ziya Gökalp. His famous “trinity” of Turkification, Islamization, and Modernization can be seen as the effort of a compartmentalized mind in this direction.
Likewise, those who basically desired to remain Muslim but tried to mix Islam with non-Islamic views by qualifying it with those views are among the peculiarities that began to be seen in the Islamic world in the last century. For example, the efforts of those who want to reconcile Islam with socialism, secularism, or interest through banking can be counted among these.
The latest stage reached in Turkey by those who still carry the “compartmentalized mindset” is seen in those who adopt the concept of “nationalism.” This concept is desired to be given such a definition that especially for young people, such a concept is accepted as a master key assumed to be able to open every door. Such a concept, into which many things such as religion, history, cultural values, and even racist ambitions can be squeezed, can appear very attractive, almost an indispensable “doctrine,” to many people.
Socialists of the Kemal Tahir type also show considerable favor to similar views.
The strange thing is that those who adopt such views are not easily inclined to understand what those who only want to remain Muslim and do not favor any other eclectic or syncretic thought mean, and they can assume that their own syncretic thoughts “also include Islam.”
Therefore, I think that among the issues that need to be confronted today, there should be concepts that have been made untouchable (taboo) in one way or another. Because the person who hides behind one of these taboos thinks that what they say will be accepted by everyone.
Today’s Muslim has been accustomed to looking at Islam with the criteria of non-Islamic worldviews instead of looking at all kinds of political and intellectual concepts with the criteria of Islam.
Almost all of these taboos have been borrowed from the West in the last century. All sorts of imaginable and unimaginable efforts have been made to put “local” clothes on many of them. Sometimes, adding an Islamic flavor to these Western-origin concepts has not been neglected either. So much so that if you stop a person on the street today and ask for their opinion on one of these still-taboo concepts, they may even claim that these are Islamic concepts.
Today’s Muslim has been accustomed to looking at Islam with the criteria of non-Islamic worldviews instead of looking at all kinds of political and intellectual concepts with the criteria of Islam.
When this is the case, it is not looked at whether a concept is of infidel origin, but the issue of what place that concept should have in Islam is investigated.
In each of today’s Muslim countries, such different taboos have been formed. While socialism is considered a taboo in some countries, nationalism has become a taboo in others. Thus, in one country, Islam can be viewed through the glasses of socialism, while in another, it can be viewed through the glasses of nationalism.
Thus, we can say that today, those who receive the most share of the harm arising from the confusion of concepts in the world are, I think, Muslims.
Not only have Muslims been made to forget the original meaning of their own terms, but these terms have also been used by distorting them in a very widespread manner. There is no end to these widespread incorrect expressions.
Starting from the concept of “religion” to the expressions of sin and reward, from the expressions of justice and brotherhood, all imaginable Islamic concepts are largely used today by loading them with non-Islamic content.
Some words have been so squeezed, battered, and licked clean that one hesitates to use them. Just as it is futile to try to fasten a screw to a stripped thread, it is that difficult, perhaps impossible, to hold an idea with stripped words. Therefore, we have to create new threads, new sets according to the screw we have.
Since the words of Islam, the concepts belonging to Islam, began to be used entirely in non-Islamic areas in the last century, those words have not only been distorted from their specific meanings but have also been stripped of any credibility.
Thus, Muslims both have difficulty understanding their own concepts by looking at these words, whose original meanings have been distorted from time to time and place to place, and they encounter difficulties when explaining Islam to others.
I do not know how to explain to a person educated according to Western standards in today’s rationalist, positivist schools, where the concept of “religion” has its own unique meaning in Islam. Because a mind trained according to Western standards is inclined to understand religion as an invention of the human mind, just like philosophical systems of thought. Unless the irreconcilable nature of these fundamental approaches is perceived, the target in the end becomes religion itself and its concepts.
A famous writer of ours said in an article that Western men earned money in a “halal” way. That writer loaded the concept of “halal” with a meaning according to himself. When he said halal, he almost meant only money earned in return for labor. However, the boundaries of halal and haram are drawn by religion. If we try to shape meanings according to ourselves through certain attributions to these concepts, we will have murdered the essence, content, and nature of the concepts. Indeed, if the measure of halal were merely certain values (money, etc.) obtained in return for labor, one could also call the earnings of a thief or a prostitute obtained in return for their labor halal. A usurer can also take certain risks while dealing with interest, just like a merchant. But the profit he obtains through interest, no matter how high the risk he takes, no matter how low he keeps the amount of interest he will receive, for example, does not cease to be haram.
We do not think that such significant changes can be found in terms of conceptual confusion between the Ottoman Turkish-speaking intellectual of the last century and the “pure Turkish”-speaking intellectual of today.
What does someone who says they work with “ikhlas” in everyday language today mean? Undoubtedly, words have a dictionary meaning as well as a terminological meaning. A word whose meaning in the dictionary is properly placed may not at the same time contain the terminological meaning of the word. This situation is most prevalent today in countries that have undergone cultural change and whose concepts have been turned upside down. Therefore, in today’s Turkey, there is a difference in meaning, or rather, a “difference in intention,” between the meaning intended by someone who says they work with “ikhlas” and the same words spoken by a Muslim who is aware of their own concepts in an Islamic social order.
While someone who has adopted a “secular” mindset here wants to express that they are working with good intentions and sincere effort with the word ikhlas they use, the word used by a Muslim means striving to gain Allah’s pleasure and working in the way of Truth, avoiding all kinds of shirk (associating partners with Allah).
Therefore, in a social order that Islam fundamentally forbids, it has no Islamic meaning for people to say that they are engaged in an activity using the word “ikhlas.” A usurer’s working in accordance with the rules he has set and conducting his business “honorably” and with “ikhlas” by informing his customers of these rules from the beginning, and taking great care not to violate the rules set at the beginning, is a completely irrelevant event to the concept of “ikhlas” in Islamic terminology. The word may be used in accordance with its dictionary meaning, but the meaning in Islamic terminology remains entirely beside the point.
One of the most frequently used words in recent years is “israf” (extravagance). In a capitalist system, the meaning of this word carries a relative and proportional content. The meaning that Islam loads onto the word “israf” and the content of this same word in non-Islamic usage do not always coincide (overlap).
The word israf, in its broadest sense in Islam, means “spending in the way of haram (forbidden),” and in this sense, every “unit value” allocated to haram is israf, whether much or little. Therefore, a person who avoids spending his money and goods and deposits them in the bank does not get rid of israf in the Islamic sense. However, in a capitalist economic order, this is seen as “saving.” This means that the definition of this word in the dictionary as “unnecessary spending” may not always be useful to us. A spending considered “necessary” in a capitalist system can be considered completely unnecessary in Islam. Israf, in the Islamic understanding, is also one of the boundaries where halal turns into haram.
While the topic has come up, it is also useful to touch upon a discussion that is still current: the discussion about language.
Those who mention the existence of a conceptual confusion in today’s Turkish generally reduce the issue to the language issue by addressing the topic in the context of “old language/new language.” When this happens, the claim of “conceptual confusion,” which is actually an important problem, turns into a simple language debate, and mutual accusations begin. However, it cannot be easily asserted that there is a significant difference of opinion between the parties who are vehemently opposed to each other on the issue of language. Since the disagreements on the surface, often in the details, are thought to arise from the initial point of separation, the main problem is pushed aside, and those who see themselves as one of the parties in this debate begin to investigate the ulterior motives of the other side. Another strange aspect of the issue is this: those who carry out the debate by reducing the main problem to the language issue can actually use the language they have made the subject of debate in similar ways.
Of course, we accept that there is a conceptual confusion in today’s Turkish. However, we do not see the confusion in question as a simple language phenomenon. There is not much connection between the “old language/new language” debate and the conceptual confusion we want to talk about. Although we have been saying “today’s” Turkish from above, conceptual confusion has settled in Turkish since the mid-19th century. We do not think that such significant changes can be found in terms of conceptual confusion between the Ottoman Turkish-speaking intellectual of the last century and the pure Turkish-speaking intellectual of today.
When we, as members of a society that lived Islam in its past, encountered the West, we perceived the political, social, legal, and economic idioms we saw in Western languages according to the values that our culture instilled in us. Since the dictionary equivalents of these idioms matched each other, we thought that the contents of those idioms also overlapped.
While the first Ottoman “intellectuals” who turned to the West tried to understand the West with the head habits peculiar to Islam, they actually could neither comprehend the nature of the West nor keep Islam in their minds.
Whether the equivalent of the word “science” is “ilim” in our dictionaries or is met with “bilim,” we fell into the illusion that the same meanings were intended with all these words. Indeed, it is interesting that the Ottoman intellectual who encountered the term “science” presented justifications from Islam in the name of defending “ilim” and claimed that the concept of “ilim” was not foreign to us.
Although there are judgments in Islam that encourage “seeking knowledge” and, where appropriate, emphasize “seeking knowledge” as a command, are these judgments the same as the concept that gained a certain meaning in Western languages, especially starting from the 17th century, and is expressed by the word “science”? Did Islam envision us adopting every kind of thought that, in a long war waged against religion in the West, called itself “ilim” (or call it science if you wish)? Or is what it understands by science something very different?
The same confusion has occurred over the word “religion” itself. While a group of writers who have weight in Western culture speak about religion (religion), develop theses against religion, and specifically aim Christianity with this word; our “intellectuals” who turned to the West also perceived this word by looking at its dictionary equivalent and, thinking that all religions were intended by it, could be eager to use this word against Islam.
In this context, a series of words such as freedom, brotherhood, justice, equality, property, individual, family, which were loaded with very specific meanings in the West, especially with the Renaissance, were adopted with a completely arbitrary and subjective understanding, being aware of the meanings loaded onto them.
While the first Ottoman “intellectuals” who turned to the West tried to understand the West with the head habits peculiar to Islam, they actually could neither comprehend the nature of the West nor keep Islam in their minds. While they evaluated the culture peculiar to Islam according to concepts borrowed from the West, they also tried to perceive and evaluate Western culture with concepts peculiar to Islam. Thus, strange Muslims emerged in the Islamic world who could claim to be “individualistic” or “collectivist,” capitalist or socialist, etc.
The views put forward by the most swaggering of our thinkers of this kind (for example, Ziya Gökalp and his followers) eventually culminated in reaching a reconciliation (synthesis) between Western culture and our own culture.
At the root of the conceptual confusion prevailing in today’s Turkish lies not a language problem, but the meaning shifts between concepts specific to Western civilization and concepts specific to Islam. The problem does not arise from calling a certain phenomenon “individual” or “fert” or “birey,” but from the meaning loaded onto this concept.
Therefore, we refuse to participate in a study developed in the form of “old language/new language” and keep this topic outside of our “issues.” For us, the issue concerns terminology, that is, the meanings loaded onto words are important. It is for this reason that we can also say that infidelity can be done with “ikhlas.”
Now, as an example, let’s try to examine the meanings that a simple sentence can be loaded with.
Just as a spoken word can have various meanings and aspects open to interpretation, an occurred event can also have various interpretations. An event can carry more meaning than its apparent simplicity. The sentence “Ahmet is walking” informs us that a person is walking. But to fully know what this walking means, we must first know who Ahmet is.
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After knowing Ahmet’s personality and his intention, our mental operation, which combines that person with his intention, will come into play. From the sentence “Ahmet is walking,” we will this time reach the following conclusion in our own minds: Ahmet has set out to kill someone, but he cannot be a murderer (we think he cannot be). Or, Ahmet has set out, this is the first step of a dangerous consequence, and so on, we reach a number of conclusions required by the situation and conditions. The reactions that these conclusions arouse within us are a separate matter. These can also change more according to whether we share the same intentions as Ahmet. If our intentions regarding Ahmet buying bread or killing someone coincide (overlap), we approve of his setting out. Otherwise, we take a negative attitude towards his walking. It is natural that we can have countless and different reactions here.
An event that seems very simple, plain, and straightforward to some of us may not seem so simple to those who have established an inner connection with that event.
We are doing all these mental speculations for this reason: no behavior, no event is as simple and straightforward as it seems. Especially, words and events whose content we are unaware of are like this for those who are unaware of this content. An event that seems very simple, plain, and straightforward to some of us may not seem so simple to those who have established an inner connection with that event.
There is a scene in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov: While Dimitri is accused of murdering his father and is being interrogated, he has a dream. In his dream, he witnesses burned huts in the middle of the steppe, mothers with dried-up breasts, and scenes of misery. He is traveling in a carriage. When he sees crying babies, with a pang of emotion, he asks the coachman why these children are crying. The peasant coachman replies in a very natural way: “Children cry, sir.”
Now, is the coachman’s answer meaningless? No. But this is not the answer the questioner expected either. Nevertheless, our ability to understand why a crying child is crying is largely closely related to the reasons we attribute to it. The coachman himself is in misery. But he has no idea about misery. Therefore, he can easily attribute a child’s crying to a natural state. However, Dimitri was prepared for a tragic answer to his question. Perhaps he gave the answer to his question inwardly, or he is answering us with this question sentence. We must not forget that under an expression, an attitude, and a behavior that seems very simple and even ordinary to us, there may lie reasons that are so vague, intricate, and deep that we cannot even imagine. We can approach and interpret an event like Dimitri’s coachman, but such an interpretation may not always be sufficient for what is expected of us.
