Harun Kucuk, MPI Berlin

“Cosmopolitan Science and the Ottoman State in the Eighteenth Century”

Abstract:

This talk investigates the early eighteenth-century Ottoman idea of “the new order,” which involved, among other things, the reformulation of the state’s relationship with science and technology. This new order was the culmination of a number of interlinked discussions in Istanbul about the relationship between Islamic and Ottoman identities, about textual authority, about craft knowledge and philosophy, and about how to save the Empire from its dismal state. Some of the views expressed in the Ottoman literature were the result of the authors’ engagement with European ideas and practices, but they also revealed and reinforced structural changes within Ottoman society. Such changes included the parallel rise of mercantilism and cosmopolitanism and, the formulation of new mechanisms of government and governance.