Philosophy, modern, in literature; 20th century; criticism.

The problem of environment is the leading common problem of people living on Earth, the sky and soil of which have been polluted. I believe that pollution in a broad sense is the basis for all other important problems of this world. Man has polluted himself and Earth. In the former, which is called cultural pollution, man becomes alienated from other members of his own species and in the latter, which is called physical pollution, man becomes alienated from nature of (...) which he is a child. Both problems, which are based on alienation, show the deficiency in the implementation of the idea of the unity of man and nature, of the unity of mankind. The unity of humanity presupposes the consciousness of living in a common world and of the fact that man is a child of Earth. The possibility of and the necessity for such a consciousness to come into being in a physical-geographical space, which is metaphorically represented by Istanbul, in which different cultures managed to exist side by side throughout history, shows itself more clearly in the present day. Istanbul might be seen as the city which is probably most suitable for being seen as a metaphor for a world in which the idea of the unity of humanity may be realized in the future, because it is an entrance to Asia with its eastern side and to Europe with its western side and as such the point of intersection of the eastern and western cultures. It was a cosmopolitan city and still is. Having a look at the world from Istanbul as a metaphor is in a sense the same as having a look at Istanbul itself. (shrink)

A belief commonly held in linguistics and philosophy is that semantics is defined by syntax. In this article, I will demonstrate that this does not hold true for Turkish. A fundamental syntactical rule builds around the successive order of words or speech units in a sentence. The order determines the meaning of the sentence, which in turn is rendered meaningless if the rule is not observed. In a given language, if a sentence retains meaning without this rule being applied, then (...) the rule cannot be said to determine meaning. Turkish, with its mathematical structure, is one such language. In effect, the degree to which semantics is determined by syntax varies considerably from one language to the other. If meaning is constructed through dissimilar means in different languages, then it is not possible to talk about a single theory of meaningfulness valid for all languages. Each language is uniquely determined, and is a reflection of its proper cultural background. A theory of language must take into account this cultural framework. In this paper, I shall deal with a different way of constructing meaning whereby syntax does not determine semantics, and present the linguistic possibilities it gives rise to. (shrink)