AYDINLANMANIN ARAÇSAL AKLINA KARŞI YENİ BİR DÜŞÜNME OLANAĞI: ODYSSEUS'A KARŞI SALUR KAZAN.

The opposition between reason and nature has been one of the fundamental criteria that has shaped the dominant conceptions of humanity throughout cultural history. Nietzsche believes that the fundamental fallacy of the West is its fixation with the idea that there is something that dichotomies humanity and nature. This idea, for Nietzsche, originates from the Platonic binary oppositions. For Adorno and Horkheimer, the history of individual has been grounded in its ethical stance in relation to this dichotomy. They argue that Homer's Odysseus is one of the earliest exemplars of the culture-nature dichotomy that represents the aforementioned tradition engrained in the vital codes of the Western civilization. Odysseus's cunningness, his belief that any action will be legitimate if it grants victory and his reductive view of nature based on the absolute benefit for humans is the first exemplar of the Western enlightened individual. For Horkheimer, Nietzsche yearns for an approach to reason that goes beyond the nature-human dialectics, and his hope points to a cultural sphere other than the Homeric culture shaped by 'the established realities of the West'. Such sphere of culture belongs to a different intellectual and social world where reason is not considered as a moment of nature-culture dichotomy. We can find a similar conception in the Thirteenth Epic Story of the Book of Dede Korkut, Salur Kazan Kills the Seven Headed Dragon, which was introduced by Professor Metin Ekici in 2019. This story offers a philosophical position and is in deep opposition to the Platonist tradition dominated the Western Enlightenment thought. This study claims that Salur Kazan can be exempt from the criticism of the enlightened reason and put in opposition to Odysseus. Salur Kazan, the beylerbeyi in the Book of Dede Korkut, is a kind of hero who can be used to reevaluate the chaos-cosmos and nature-appearance dichotomies. Therefore, Salur Kazan makes it possible to imagine a totally different tradition of thought in contrast with the dominant patterns of the Enlightenment thought. In this paper, the theoretical basis of the contrast between Odysseus and Salur Kazan stems from the criticism of the enlightened individual. The findings show that Salur Kazan stands in opposition to Odysseus, through whom Adorno and Horkheimer discuss topics such as labour exploitation, the abuse of nature and cultural corruption. In this story, whilst confronting extraordinary events, Salur Kazan acts virtuously to promote the benefit of community and takes a peculiar stance on the culturenature dichotomy. Thus, Salur Kazan embodies a new possibility to assess the concept of reason. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]