Morality As Philosophy Practical Field By Taskopruzade

Even though the subjects about morality had become systematized with Plato, the first independent work on morality arose with Aristoteles’ book, The Nicomachean Ethics. At this book the science of morality is a part of the practical philosophy and it’s about the human behaviors. Just like middle age western world, many of the Islamic philosophers had sided with this approach. The concept of Aristotelian philosophical morality, which was started with Kindi, had been developed by Farabi, Ibn Miskeveyn, Ibn Sina, Fahreddin er-Razi, Nasiruddin et-Tusi, and had continued with Ottoman philosophers such as Kinalizade and Taskopruzade. Although this moral sentiment has a philosophical structure, it’s not entirely separated from Koran or Sunna. In Islamic world the moral system, which can be called Sufi morality as well and is synthesized with revelation, had become widespread along with the philosophical morality. In Ottoman world these kind of studies had been developed more as a part of the gloss and annotation traditions. In this article the Taskopruzade Ahmet Efendi’s (1495-1561) thoughts on the science of morality, which he believed as the area of human’s practical maturity, is being discussed. In his work called Miftahu’s-saade and misbahu’s-siyade he did a detailed partition of sciences and he mentioned the science of morality as a practical branch of philosophy. Taskopruzade commented on Ici’s work Ahlak-i Audiyye, which is one of the most important works on morality in the Ottoman Empire, and gave significant information about practical maturation and virtues in this work of his. In this study the philosopher’s view on morality in terms of philosophy and religion will be discussed and the importance which he gave for this science in terms of its definition, subject, purpose and sense of virtue will be evaluated