Background
Topcu, Nurettin was born in 1909 in Istanbul.
Bergsonian ‘spiritual idealist’
Topcu, Nurettin was born in 1909 in Istanbul.
Studied at Lycée Bordeaux. Strasbourg and at Sorbonne University, 1928-1934.
Philosophy teacher at Galatasaray Lycée in Istanbul in 1934, and at Atatürk Lycée in Izmir in 1935. Taught philosophy and sociology in various colleges in Istanbul, including Robert College in the 1940s and 1950s.
Topcu returned to Turkey in 1934 after studying at the Sorbonne. In 1939, while he was a high-school teacher in Izmir, he started publishing a journal called Haraket [Action]. In the 1940s he was associated with a Sufi circle led by Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bekkini. Topcu places humankind at the centre of his philosophy and sought to introduce a new approach to the concept of reality, one that was consonant with his Islamic background. He held that the real cannot be sought in the region of the accidental but in that of the immutable, the essential and the eternal. In the quest for the real the positivist sciences, he said, are useless, since they deal with accidents. They fragment being in an attempt to understand it and fail to realize that reality as a whole cannot be found in parts of reality. He insisted that only mystical experience, which is capable of comprehending being as a whole, is able to provide an apprehension of the real. Topcu claims that the basis of every civilization is a dynamic mystical passion. For him. only mysticism and faith are able to resuscitate religion from its static and unproductive state. He regards the human being not as an alien portion of being, but as a being who contains the entirety of existence. He sees in Surfism not only the reactualization of the ethical tenets of Islam but also a philosophical strand of Islamic life and thought. Topcu played a significant role in the revival of Islamic-Turkish culture in Turkey. He was founder of a ‘communitarian nationalist movement and his philosophical thought became a source of inspiration for middle-class right-wing intellectuals in Turkey.