A different kind of academy is possible

The habitus of our academic life is not a path undertaken in the name of fidelity to truth. Because it is not so, it cannot become a friendly undertaking of people who share the same fidelity. What defines this life is not confirming or refuting one another, but ignoring one another or, worse, every kind of rivalry that can be displayed against other academics in extra-academic arenas.

Yet there are countless examples showing that as friendship increases, so does productivity in academic life. Despite their differences in age and in views, the relations among Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were as friendly as could be. Thanks to this friendliness, they read one another, they explained one another, and perhaps each of them has come down to our day with his own separate influence. Note that their friendship did not require each of them to find the other flawed, to be annihilated, to melt away. Through dialogue, the trace and influence of the other is necessarily present in each one's production of thought. But this influence, whether in accepting or in criticizing, manifests itself neither as a wholly indifferent closing-off of oneself nor as blind submission.

The relationship between Imam Abu Hanifa's two students, Imam Abu Yusuf and Imam Muhammad, is typical in this sense as well. Being his students did not require them to think like him on every matter, nor did it take away their right to object; yet they continued to accompany him faithfully on the same path to the very end.

Let us look at the close followers of some philosophers who founded great schools of philosophy. Take the relationship between Karl Marx and F. Engels, for instance. They co-signed many works, but in many places they also presented one another to the public. What kept them together was not only a political struggle; their friendship perhaps made them conversation partners, who thought together, wrote together, and looked from the same place together.

Martin Heidegger's feelings toward Nietzsche, whatever he found in him, became an occasion for re-expressing himself, and in the process a Heidegger's Nietzsche took shape. Gadamer's manner of joining Heidegger's philosophical conversation is likewise decidedly noteworthy. In the history of philosophy he will be remembered as the person who made Heidegger, by whom he was considerably influenced, urbane. Likewise, there is Hannah Arendt's relationship with Heidegger, which began with her being his student and turned into friendship, and the groundbreaking thoughts it produced.

I find it more pleasant to hear Jacques Derrida, the author of "The Politics of Friendship," from one of his friends, John D. Caputo. In this way you also see an example of how the friendship that one academic shows another turns into a creative and productive event. Caputo, of course, has a reading of Derrida all his own. This particular reading in fact paints a quite different picture of Derrida. But thereby you become even more curious about Derrida. Moreover, as far as I know, Caputo and Derrida never worked together anywhere in the same academic environment. What made them dear to one another was only their ideas, but also their courage to bring those ideas into dialogue with one another, their willingness to take that risk.

On top of all this, let us not fail to mention İbrahim Hakkı's reverence and affection for his teacher İsmail Fakirullah of Tillo in Siirt. He may have received the greater part of the scholarly accumulation that produced the "Marifetname" in the madrasas of Istanbul, but İbrahim Hakkı experienced the summit of his love of truth with his teacher in Tillo. Probably, even while continuing his studies in the madrasas of Istanbul, he felt the gaze of his beloved teacher beside him or within him, and heard his voice. Finally, to show this affection, he crowned the works he produced with the arrangement of light that he dedicated to his teacher. By ensuring that on the days of the equinox the first sunrise of the year would illuminate his teacher's bedside first, he offered his teacher a gift full of love. Thus he exalted his teacher's name as much as he inscribed his own in the history of science and gnosis, or the reverse.

When one looks at the relations among these names, one sees complete submission to a teacher in none of them, and the dialogical openness shown toward the other demonstrates very well what development friendship can bring about in the academy. Of course, depending on the manner and quality of the doing, when one took an interest in the other's works and ideas and spoke with them, discussed them, and said something new starting from them, he was not diminished; on the contrary, both grew together, and their ideas gained esteem.

Unfortunately, this is a form of relationship never encountered in Turkish academic life; it is one of the most important reasons why no notable schools have formed. Even the best academic cannot develop a relationship that would amicably surpass himself in academic life. No one is interested in what his fellow academic is studying, researching, or thinking. That is why in academic works produced in Türkiye, not citing Turkish academics is almost considered a feat. There are tons of studies on the subjects one works on, but one does not see them and makes all one's citations to foreign sources, and takes pride in this too.

Even if we say that one of the most important motivations behind not citing Turkish sources is envy, we can say that another is despair, a lack of faith. Turkish academics do not believe that anything good will come from their fellow academics. Relations among academics run in a "we know each other" mode, so the academic activity carried out becomes an activity conducted from the outset without belief, without care, without love. Even when the subject of academic interest is loved, this love is not shared with others. Yet the best debt of loyalty that can be paid to a loved subject, to an academic subject one is interested in, is to bring it together with others who can love it.

Moreover, for something good to come about, one must begin by joining a certain idea, even the simplest-seeming idea, in a friendly way, by discussing it. You do not have to praise when you cite; you can also argue, but even this is withheld. Because the greatest lack of the academy in Türkiye is affection, sincerity, friendship. Yet the productivity of the academy can develop only in proportion to the level of these virtues, which are the essence of friendship.