Revisiting Aristotle's Legacy: Ethics, Economics, Politics and Justice in the Anthropocene

This paper explores the relationship between ethics, economics, politics and justice, revisiting ancient philosophical concepts to address the challenges of the Anthropocene. It examines the translations and dissemination of the concepts of Aristotle’s practical philosophy into Ottoman Turkish via Arabic, Persian and Latin-rooted Western languages, especially French. By considering the relation between translation and philosophy this paper positions Ottoman Turkish in global historiography as an inheritor of Classical Tradition, and as a producer of heteronomous texts.

Given that oikonomia was translated in Arabic as ilm-i tedbir-i menzil, and the Ottomans used the same term until the 19th century, it is notable that économie politique from French was also translated as ilm-i tedbir-i menzil into Turkish. Utilizing textual analysis this paper reveals the references to Aristotelian understanding of justice both in the Ottoman reception of ilm-i tedbir-i menzil and économie politique.

The powerful literary and cultural critics of historiography inspired an appeal to write global histories encompassing every aspect of the human experience and have enhanced awareness of the role language plays. Emphasizing the references to Aristotle between heteronomous texts, this paper argues that Aristotle’s practical philosophy merged into political economy ultimately framing it as the science of acquiring wealth. This raises the critical question of what happenes to justice within this merger. The references to Aristotle are examined through several works: Ahlak-ı Alai of Kınalızade Ali Efendi (1510-1572), Traicté d’économie politique (1615) of Antoine de Montchrestien, Cateschism d’économie politique of J. Baptiste Say and its Ottoman Turkish translation Ilm-i tedbir-i menzil (1852) by Abru Sehak Efendi. [Note: This presentation is a part of my dissertation: from Oikonomia to Ilm-i Tedbir-i Menzil: the Reception of Political Economy in Ottoman].