SOURCE AND TRANSCENDENCE OF ‘VALUE’ IN HILMI ZIYA ULKEN’S THOUGHT

Hilmi Ziya Ülken is a multifaceted thinker known for his extensive range of interests and contributions across various fields. He produced numerous works that have significantly impacted diverse areas of thought. The concept of value holds a crucial position in his writings. His creation of works across multiple disciplines and the varying influences throughout different stages of his intellectual growth have led to challenges articulating his ideas. However, we can see these difficulties as an effect of Ülken’s rich intellectual heritage. This article deals with Hilmi Ziya Ülken’s approach to ‘value’ and his thoughts on the source of values. Ülken analyses values in the context of human needs, subject-object relationships, and transcendent objects. He argues that values are not internal creations of human beings but are discovered because of their interaction with transcendent beings outside of human beings. Ülken presents a model that explains the emergence of values by centering on the concept of ‘need.’ This model is based on a ‘transcendental need-object’ description. The bipolarity of values (e.g. beautiful-ugly, good-bad) and their transcendental nature are handled within a dialectic, encompassing human beings’ material and spiritual world. Ülken summarizes the essence of values in three basic elements: Real data, transcendental object and subject. He also considers the concept of ‘other’ as a transcendental object in interpersonal relations and explains how values shape the processes of action and evaluation in the social context. In this study, Ülken’s thoughts on the source of value and the grounds on which these thoughts are based, his philosophical perspective on the idea of the transcendence of value are examined in detail, and the central role of values in human life is emphasized.