Mediating between Kant and German Romanticism: Gökalp on the aesthetic origins of nationhood

Abstract

Ziya G & ouml;kalp's political thought appears to fit neatly into the category of Romantic nationalism because of the emphasis on common language and culture in his conception of Turkish nationalism. Yet his account of the aesthetic origins of nationhood is grounded in Kant's Third Critique - a surprising choice, given Kant's view of aesthetic experience as a 'disinterested pleasure' divorced from both action and knowledge. This contrasts sharply with the German Romantics, who envisioned art as a vehicle for a totalizing vision of truth, uniting science and poetry in a new mythology where 'truth again becomes fable and fable truth' (Schelling). This article resolves the puzzle by explaining G & ouml;kalp's innovative adaptation of Kantian aesthetics along collectivist lines. He is drawn to Kant's aesthetics precisely because of its strict separation of truth and beauty (unlike the German Romantics). This separation allows G & ouml;kalp to grant scientifically trained, Westernized elites exclusive authority over truth-claims concerning the top-down reorganization of modern Turkish society. In doing so, he provides a philosophical foundation for his distinctive version of nationalism, which combines populism and expert rule in ways that sharply diverge from contemporary anti-intellectual populisms.