"The Effects of French Enlightenment on Atatürk and the Republic" Panel Organized at PAU

The panel was moderated by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Şevket Kadıoğlu from the Department of French Language and Literature and Prof. Dr. Ercan Hatyoğlu and Prof. Dr. Umut Karabulut from the Department of History. Prof. Dr. Umut Karabulut from the Department of History as panelists, the enlightenment, which briefly means breaking away from religion and tradition, explaining the universe and human beings on a scientific basis, using reason as a criterion, was examined in a historical perspective, starting with the Humanism, Reform Movements in the Renaissance Period and the Cartesian doctrine that gave impetus to the enlightenment in the 17th century.

The panelists, after mentioning the different manifestations of enlightenment in England, Scotland and Germany, which was defined by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant as "the liberation of man from a state of immaturity into which he had fallen through his own fault, that is, from the inability to use his own reason without the guidance of another", emphasized that the French enlightenment differed from the others with its rationalist and activist character, and underlined that it had both a destructive and constructive character with the reconstruction of man and society.