“Political Philosophy” and the Moralist Tradition^97
man), which correspond to different stages of knowledge. Thus, he recog-
nized: (a) the spiritual sciences, further divided into practical and theoretical
and again subdivided into those based on reason and those based on religion66
(what is described as the “science of government” above belongs to the prac-
tical and rational sciences); (b) the intellectual sciences (makûlât-ı sâniyya),
such as logic, dialectics, and the art of debate; (c) the oral sciences (ulûm-ı
lafzıyya), i.e. those pertaining to language; and (d) the written sciences (ulûm-ı
hattiyya), i.e. calligraphy etc. Taşköprüzade’s system is partly influenced by al-
Ghazali and partly by the fourtheenth-century Avicennian encyclopedist Ibn
al-Akfani, but does not follow any of the earlier categorizations.67
Yet Tusi’s system must have seemed too elaborate or, perhaps more accu-
rately, too abstract for the Ottoman authors. We have to wait until the mid-
seventeenth century and Kâtib Çelebi to see another theorist with a tendency
for general explanatory systems (and, this time, dynamic ones). It was, per-
haps, the very static character of these descriptions of human society that
made them sound somehow obsolete to the ears of late sixteenth-century
authors, who were witnessing constant changes in fortunes, institutions, and
moralities. Kınalızade, himself rather late in this respect (and the first after
almost 50 years to take up a Tusian system in Ottoman literature), had no
major followers, at least as far as the political part of his treatise is concerned.68
In general, authors from the second half of the sixteenth century and the
beginning of the seventeenth seem to have felt that concrete advice was
more useful for their times, and so concrete advice was what they offered. On
the other hand, and although the emphasis on the cardinal virtues faded away
66 This classification eventually produces four classes: (1) philosophical (or theoretical-
rational) sciences (ulûm-ı hikemiyya), which include metaphysics (the science of man’s
soul), theology (angelology, prophetology etc.), natural sciences and medicine (including
magic, alchemy, and the interpretation of dreams), mathematics and music; (2) practical
philosophy (hikmet-i ameliyya) or the practical-rational sciences, i.e. ethics and adminis-
tration (from the household to politics and the army); religious or theoretical-religious
sciences (ulûm-ı şer’iyya), i.e. Quranic exegesis and jurisprudence; finally, esoteric or prac-
tical-religious sciences (ulûm-ı bâtiniyya), i.e. mysticism.
67 On Taşköprüzade’s views see also Gökbilgin 1975–1976; Unan 1997; Yılmaz 2005, 93–99;
Karabela 2010, 165–169; Hagen 2013, 409–411. On previous Islamicate categorizations of
knowledge see Gardet– Anawati 1970, 101–124; Treiger 2011; Kaya 2014.
68 There have been some continuators but of a rather marginal importance: Sariyannis
2011a, 139; cf. also Yılmaz 2005, 30, fn. 13. We must also note that the notions of moral phi-
losophy used in these works were also present in the kelam literature that formed the cur-
riculum of Ottoman medreses (see Fazlıoğlu 2003). In general, however, Ottoman moral
philosophy followed a more ethics-centered approach with Sufi connotations, discard-
ing the political and economic part of the felsefe tradition: for an early example, see Ali
Cemali Efendi – Kaplan – Yıldız 2013.