Fəlsəfə və sosial-siyasi elmlər – 2016, № 2
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insan ölçeğindeki tezahürü gibi ele alınır. Epistemolojik açıdan ise İbn Sina
ve Sühreverdi Maktul hayvani nefsten düşünen nefse, içgüdüden sezgiye
kadar ruhun-nefsin bütün spektrumunu, farklı alanlarını analiz etmiş ve
onların karşılıklı ilişkilerini araştırmışlar. Bu alanda gerçekleştirilen faali-
yetler Yeniçağ Batı felsefesinde epistemolojik öğretilerin yaranması, ras-
yonalizmin oluşumu için temel rolü oynamıştır. Makalede John Locke
felsefesi, W.James ve C.Jung`un psikoloji öğretileri İbn Sina ve Sührever-
di`nin epistemolojisi bağlamında karşılaştırmalı olarak gözden geçirilmiştir.
Anahtar Kavramlar: Aristoteles, ruh, Doğu-İslam felsefesi,
rasyonalizm, epistemoloji.
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Fəlsəfə tarixi
The Reading of the Homo Viator* in the Light of
Islamic Mysticism
Fulya Bayraktar
**
The concept or metaphor Homo Viator, which is also the title of one
of the works of Gabriel Marcel, gains its meaning through the explanation
coming just after it in the same work: “Introduction to the Metaphysics of
Hope”. Here, it appears that Marcel puts the meanings he ascribes to that
metaphor as well as the concepts to be handled within this framework in the
centre of his metaphysics. By means of his ‘journey’ metaphor, he describes
man as an existence that finds the meaning in a call coming from someone
else. Man that can be referred to as an existence of call-response, is a pas-
senger who needs a road and who is engaged in his road. His journey is ma-
de with someone else, by witnessing others and by being witnessed by ot-
hers. Man’s journey towards the “self”, towards “you” and towards “abso-
lute thou” via you is an existential experience that leads to the “Being”. In-
deed, existence is nothing more than this journey. Marcel expresses this ex-
perience through the metaphor that man is a passenger. The road taken with
“hope” based on “trust” in the one who is waiting for the viator and who is
*
Gabriel Marcel, Homo Viator, Introduction to a Metaphysic of Hope, trans. E.
Craufurd, Chicago: Gateway Editions Ltd., 1978.
**
Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey.
Fəlsəfə və sosial-siyasi elmlər – 2016, № 2
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present is a road of mystery leading to God. Here, the road is both “towards
the absolute thou” and “with the absolute thou”. In other words, God ac-
companies man on this road.
This article analyses Marcel’s concept of Homo Viator connecting
“road” and “passenger”and “being” and “existence” through a comparison
of Islamic mysticism. Islamic Mysticism (also can be expressed as Classical
Sufism) is a way of internalizing the basic principles of Islam and bringing
them to an existential level, and thus forming an ethical system. It is a way
to perfection. Walking on such a road is a mysterious journey in a meta-
problematic field. Therefore, it is rather difficult to express such an experi-
ence via words. Marcel chooses to express this experience through the use
of metaphors, which is a method we are also familiar with in the tradition of
Islamic mysticism. That existence is a journey and that man experiences the
journey on this road is a frequently employed metaphor in Islamic mysti-
cism. Moreover, Islamic mysticism itself is a “road”, and walking on this
road means being a homo viator. Marcel’s philosophy provides us with con-
cepts for what Islamic mysticism makes efforts to describe and for use in the
re-naming of them today. We also find meanings in Islamic mysticism that
Marcel has difficulty in conceptualizing. In this context, the reading of Mar-
cel in the light of Islamic mysticism will present us a new language in the
system of the Western world on the one hand, and the possibility of reali-
zing the horizons pointed by Marcelian philosophy on the other. Further-
more, it will enable us to combine his concepts with the deep meanings in-
herent in Islamic mysticism, and thus to extend them to those new horizons.
It is not an easy task for a philosophy researcher to analyse the me-
taphysical journey of a philosopher who refers to the road and the journey as
a metaphor towards Being. Indeed, it means analysing man and the condi-
tions of his actualising the self; because we can maintain based on Islamic
mysticism that man’s life is, in fact, a journey. It is an existential experience
originating from and leading to Being. Here, what is important is returning
from “the self” to the “self” “with no ego”. That is to say, returning to the
self by setting out from the self and by giving up the bodily desires. It is re-
turning to the self by grasping the real meaning. And a person needs another
Fəlsəfə tarixi
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person to make him realise his transcendence. In other words, man gains ac-
cess to meaning by means of togetherness with another self.
Marcel also believes that man’s relations with the existence sur-
rounding him either become destructive and nihilistic or make the “self” ab-
solute unless they are established on the I-you basis. The self’s becoming
absolute is as negative as its becoming nihilistic. A form of existence igno-
ring the different one or the other one paves the way for violence, slaughter
and destruction. And this leads to an unbearable circle of existence. It can
even destroy a real existence. A real form of existence is available to pre-
vent the self’s perception as nihilism and like the absolute being: co-
existence. Evidently, Marcel suggests his definition of existence at this point
in relation to the other – that is to say, thou. The only thing that I can know
in reality is my experience of existence, and I experience it in its most com-
plete form in my relations with “the other”. Here, the other is a thou, which
I comprehend and perceive as a “self” just like myself.
The other is, to state in terms of Islamic mysticism, the being that I
perceive myself because of himself. That is, thou is the transcendence of I.
Marcel calls this transcendent thou the “absolute thou”. Islamic mysticism
prefers the term “He” so as to express the transcendence in contrast to all
the “thou”s. This preference is a sign of trenscendence rather than an emp-
hasis on a third person singular pronoun. All the ‘thou’s are within ‘He’, and
they are the real ‘thou’s if they assure walking towards Him. Therefore, in
the physical plan, man’s journey and the process of building the self find
their meaning in relations to be set up with ‘thou’s. If man devotes his exis-
tence to addressing to his own thou, man becomes the interlocutor to God in
this thou. Here the trenscendence of He is not a meaningless externality of
an object to another object; it is rather the transcendence in immanence.
This transcendence is both the guide and the guarantee of the journey of the
self.
The assurance of this journey is the hope in Marcelian philosophy. In
stating that man is a traveller, Marcel emphasises that this discourse is me-
taphysics of hope. In this context, the existential meaning of hope may be
said to lie in the background of man’s process of building the self. Marcel
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