How do philosophers change the world?

I had ended my last article on the 3rd Arab-Turkish Social Sciences Congress (ATCOSS) with a question about the role of social scientists in the transformation of the world we live in: "Or should we expect philosophers or social scientists to go on merely interpreting the world?"

The question had in fact been expressed, together with its answer, by Marx about 160 years ago. In the 11th of his theses on Feuerbach, Marx said that "philosophers have so far only been occupied with interpreting the world, whereas what matters is to change it." This "role of changing the world" that Marx ascribed to social scientists has always been confusing for many social scientists, among them Marxists. One reason it was confusing for Marxists was the inherent oddness of assigning a role to philosophers in this process, given their scientistic approach that saw socialism, revolution and change as a fate, a natural consequence of the course of the world.

If everything is going to come to pass anyway, if revolution is inevitable anyway, what was the point of expecting anything from philosophers?

Second, did attributing such a role to philosophers in the process of change, and believing that the world could change through philosophical interventions, mean opening a parenthesis within pure socialist thought? Third, was a kind of determining role as actors being given to philosophers as well, alongside the proletariat, the most important agent of change in the capitalist world?

Finally, this denial of the power of interpretation to change the world is a problem in itself. Today it is a far more widely accepted reality how effective and decisive interpretation is in the process of constructing the world.

Of course, without ignoring how much the history of Marxism as a whole has diversified through these debates and through the debates on structure and subject, it is worth remembering that the interpretations of this aphorism have also given an opportunity to confront this simple question. Does the social scientist content himself with observing and recording, like a neutral witness, the realities around him, what is going on in his own society? Or is there a responsibility that the social scientist must shoulder?

The relationship or tension between science and social responsibility was likewise one of the important elements that guided the work of ATCOSS this year.

In the face of the deep-rooted problems being experienced in the Islamic world today, should the Muslim social scientist content himself with taking a neutral photograph of what is happening, or should he intervene so that the reality he photographs may be better?

Louis Althusser, one of the structuralist Marxists, said that this aphorism of Marx, known as the 11th Thesis, represented an epistemological deviation or break from the real Marx. For according to him, with this statement Marx fell into the error of "constructing man as the agent-subject of social structures and processes," a common feature of all ideologies. Yet the idea that man is a subject is in itself an illusion, a great illusion that makes ideologies exist.

The most meaningful reply to the French philosopher Althusser, who made this scientistic-fatalist approach that ignores the subject suit Marxism better, comes again from a Marxist, the Algerian philosopher Abdallah Laroui. Laroui says, in essence, that "what we Eastern societies need is precisely the Marx who presupposes man as a subject, who thinks he is capable of change and of changing." Otherwise, from the anti-subject stance recommended by Marxists like Althusser nothing arises but the fatalistic political theology from which Eastern societies suffered for years.

Yet this is precisely the theology that we must overcome. It would be child's play for this kind of Marxism to turn into a theology of power and the status quo similar to the one Ash'arism played in the past in Islamic societies. Who can claim that there is no relationship between this political theology and the practices of Marxists or leftists, in both Arab countries and Turkey, of readily articulating the left with Kemalism or with the existing ruling ideologies?

Undoubtedly, however the debates on this subject go, there can be no question of our acting with indifference toward our own reality today. We do not have the luxury of acting with a purely scientistic approach.

The main theme chosen at ATCOSS this year was State, Society and Justice in the Arab Spring Process. It is a directly practical problem. These are the most important subjects on which the Arab and Turkish societies, who are living their springs, could receive the help of social scientists. That the revolutions have taken place is a great event. But after these revolutions the most urgent problem arises: what kind of state? what kind of society?

The masses naturally want from the new administrations a more successful, more efficient and, more importantly, more just government. For the most important motivation of all the uprisings has been anger at injustices. Bad governance, entrusting a trust to the unqualified, is an injustice. Though dictators never received a trust from the people; they seized that trust without ever asking the people. For Justice is the most important demand of all social movements.

In fact, it is no coincidence at all that the word "justice" appears in the names of many parties founded in the Arab countries after the revolutions. For revolutions start out from people's demands for a more just world.

While the Islamic countries living their springs are seeking better, more efficient, more just government and society within themselves, they also have to see, understand and question the by no means just international order and mentality. This injustice too must be brought to a halt. All these issues were only a few of those addressed at ATCOSS under the heading of state, society and justice. Our greatest wish is that a strong awareness and discourse built around these issues will create a strong climate and pool of thought for the Islamic world.