Science, a remedy for all ills. Healing 'the sick man of Europe': A case for Ottoman scientism (Seyyid Mustafa)

This thesis traces the development of a scientistic attitude on the part of late Ottoman intellectuals as they sought to save their Empire from external and internal threats to stability. After humiliating defeats at the hands of the Ottoman Empire's rivals beginning in the eighteenth century, the Ottomans initially adopted modern science with the sole aim of strengthening their military. Once it became clear, however, that this was not sufficient, science expanded into the social and cultural arenas and gradually became seen as a remedy for all the Empire's ills.; Chapter One explores how Turkish historiography has treated the relationship between modern science and Ottoman-Turkish history. Chapter Two explores the first stage of an Ottoman "politics of science" by tracing the initial entry of modern science into the Ottoman Empire during the eighteenth century and the subsequent formation of a new breed of Ottoman intellectual: the military engineer.; Chapter Three explores the thoughts of one of the first of these Ottoman engineers, Seyyid Mustafa. Chapter Four examines the second stage of the Ottoman "politics of science", during which Ottoman statesmen acknowledged the need for social reform. This acknowledgement in turn led to the emergence of public education and journalism as well as to a second type of intellectual: the bureaucrat-journalist. Chapter Five examines the efforts of the bureaucrat-journalists during the Tanzimat Era (1839--1876) to create the rational, devout and loyal Ottoman citizen through "scientific" writings via journalism. Although science and religion were seen as two complementary and necessary categories of knowledge during this period, the efforts of these reformist intellectuals did sow the seeds of doubt and skepticism concerning divine matters and prepared the ground for a later generation of intellectuals, who regarded religion and science as two opposite and contradictory categories of knowledge. Chapter Six looks at the next step at shaping the Ottoman citizen, under Sultan Abdulhamid II (1876--1908). During this period scientism showed signs of a significant shift toward materialism, which was to be firmly established during the following period, the Young Turk Era (1908--1918).