THE MAIN SOURCE OF MILITARY EDUCATION: A PHILOSOPHICAL EVALUATION OF ORDER, AUTHORITY AND DISCIPLINE

Abstract

The philosophical evaluation of the sources of Military Education, which was the beginning of modernization in the Ottoman Empire, is extremely important in terms of making sense of the military policies of the period. It is known that the history of Turkish Military Education is as old as Turkish history. In the historical process, the understanding of order of the Turkish Military system has been tightly intertwined from the smallest military unit to the largest armies, and the changes and innovations that have come together in the structure dominated by a permanent atmosphere of discipline continue to modernize today. The continuity of the military order created as a result of the concepts of discipline and authority was ensured by political balance in Turkish states. The heritage of military education, which was synthesized with the Asian tradition and the Islamic Conquests and shaped by the contributions of 16 Turkish states in history, was transferred to the Ottoman Empire. Adopting and developing these values, the Ottoman Empire became the world's superpower. However, in the following periods, the Ottoman Empire lagged behind the developments in Europe and thus military defeats became inevitable. In this study, the reasons why the military education system in the Ottoman Empire lagged Europe were evaluated and the effects of the philosophical methodology, ontological and epistemological development of the period were analyzed by following the theories and developments of national education based on the foundations of many ideas such as Kant, Hegel, Peitism, Pestalozzi, which started with the Neo Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution in the West.