Parallel Structures of Civilizational and Scientific Processes

"In the perception of civilizations, we often judge a society by its concrete achievements, but ignore the motives that give birth and feed civilizations, which can be discovered by rationally analyzing the phenomena leading to the rise of a civilization. In this paper, I define a civilization as a universalized local culture emerging as a result of an accumulation which builds up through the manifestation of the human inner world within a social context. According to this definition, a civilization is primarily a culture; but a local culture which has been universalized. However, it would be difficult to define a civilization as a genus and such a definition would lead us to problems. On the other hand, we need a definition in order to solve some problems concerning the scientific process and civilizational process. In this paper, I would like to discuss these two phenomena as leading to the universalization of a local culture to turn it into a civilization, which is itself called “civilizational process” (of a local culture). What I shall try to show is that in this process there is a parallel process which causes such a civilizational development. In this respect, as in Islamic civilization, when societies pass through the process of civilization, at the same time they go through the scientific process, and thus the local elements within the community acquire a universal character and lead the society to reach the phenomenon of civilization."