Today, we will focus on a concept that, unfortunately, is on the verge of being forgotten—a concept for which we can no longer find a clear terminological equivalent, and therefore cannot put into practice in our social lives. Because we cannot practice it, we have also lost our sense of its spiritual presence. Yet, this concept is of vital importance for modern societies, as it establishes, in an integrated manner, both the individual’s place within society and the responsibilities society imposes upon the individual. Though this concept has been historically coined in our intellectual tradition as muhayyile, and has come to occupy a significant place within the psychosociological literature, it is clear that—despite being derived from the word hayal (imagination)—it transcends the mere notion of fantasy. For this reason, instead of translating muhayyile into modern terms such as “imagination,” “imagining,” or “creative fantasy,” all of which suggest a future-oriented, one-dimensional notion of creativity or fiction, it would be more accurate to render it into contemporary language as “thinking” (düşünüş)—a term that captures its inherent capacity to simultaneously represent the past, present, and future in accordance with its nature and intended meaning.
Throughout this text, I will generally use the term thinking (düşünüş) to refer to this concept, and at times, depending on the context, I may also use the original term muhayyile. At this initial stage, it is important to note that since thinking (düşünüş) may initially evoke the notion of thought (düşünce) in the reader’s mind, the conceptual distinctions between the two—particularly those centered on memory, imagination, and feeling—ought to be addressed separately in another dedicated essay. With that clarification in place, we may now proceed to explore what social thinking might entail.
Human beings are imaginative creatures—they are not content with what merely exists; they envision what does not yet exist. They can think, conceive, and reason; they can attribute emotional significance to both individual and social life, and assign meaning to people, places, events, and time. For this reason, humans are beings who possess “thinking,” that is, muhayyile. Therefore, we may define social thinking as the individual’s capacity to comprehend, interpret, and reconstruct the web of relationships that transcend both society and the self. However, this capacity is not merely a product of individual cognition; on the contrary, it is the manifestation of a structure shaped through historical continuity, woven with cultural codes, and deeply intertwined with language, ritual, and collective consciousness. C. Wright Mills defines the concept of social thinking as the ability of the individual to connect personal experiences with historical and societal structures. Mills’ conceptualization removes the individual from the position of a passive object within the social order, and instead places them as a meaning-making subject embedded in historical flow. The framework he proposes—signaled by the duality of “history and biography”—makes it possible for the individual to comprehend their own story within a social context.
Although the modern version of this concept may have developed in Europe, it would be misleading to consider it solely within the boundaries of Western thought. The term “thinking,” in its original form muhayyile, constitutes a foundational element in the structure of Islamic intellectual tradition—especially in its theory of social consciousness and ideal society. For instance, in the works of Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā), muhayyile is situated within a metaphysical framework. In his Kitāb al-Shifāʾ (The Book of Healing), Avicenna extends the function of muhayyile beyond mere sensory data, assigning it the capacity to construct and design social dynamics and collective mental cohesion. In doing so, he opens the way not only for individual thought, but also for the possibilities of collective thinking. Similarly, when we examine al-Fārābī’s vision of the virtuous society, it becomes clear that it is, in essence, a direct appeal to a form of social imagination. According to al-Fārābī, a society can only exist through a shared universe of meaning, a collective imagination. It is thus evident that muhayyile is not merely a mental process, but also a political, ethical—and therefore aesthetic—domain of imagination. In this context, al-Fārābī regards muhayyile as one of the primary mechanisms that enable a society’s collective symbolic order. His answer to the question “How is social virtue (iʿjtimāʿī faḍīlah) possible?” forms the theoretical and practical foundation of multiculturalism, while also outlining the conceptual framework of social imagination. According to al-Fārābī, the most essential factor enabling a city and its society to reach a “virtuous” (fāḍil) state—an ideal level of collective consciousness—is the society’s cumulative engagement with diverse cultures, beliefs, ethnic groups, and languages. The more the social mind remains in contact with this diversity, the more “virtuous” it becomes; conversely, the more it isolates itself from such diversity and retreats into inward living, the more “deficient” (nāqiṣ) it becomes. In this way, al-Fārābī ties the advancement of a society’s social imaginative capacity directly to the richness of cultural, linguistic, religious, and ethnic plurality within that society.
In his 1975 work The Imaginary Institution of Society, Cornelius Castoriadis emphasizes that societies construct their institutions not merely through rational necessity, but also through imagination and symbolic creation. According to Castoriadis, a society’s ability to establish and constitute itself is only possible through a social imaginary. Here, the image (imago) should not be understood as a product of individual fantasy, but rather as a creative power operating on a collective plane—one nourished by myths, symbols, and cultural memory.
Although it may at first seem to appeal solely to the realm of “knowledge,” it is clear that this concept also deeply concerns ethics and aesthetics, alongside existence itself. At this point, Hannah Arendt’s notion of natality—her idea of “beginning anew,” which she frames within the broader concept of vita activa encompassing all human activity—enters the discussion meaningfully. For Arendt, societies can only attain freedom to the extent that they are capable of imagining new beginnings.
The concept of social thinking is clearly and organically linked to an epistemic form of knowledge—that is, a qualified, reflective form of knowing—as well as to a society’s comprehensive awareness of such knowledge. At the same time, we must acknowledge that this social competence is not merely epistemological, but also ontological and even axiological—that is, it concerns ethics and aesthetics as well. For thinking (düşünüş) is not simply a faculty of thought, but a way of making sense of existence, and even, so to speak, of adorning that existence with refined aesthetic judgment (zevk-i selîm). This marks one of many distinctions between “thinking” and “thought.” This process forms the foundation for both individual imagination and collective imagery. Immanuel Kant’s views on thinking or imagination (muhayyile) in this context seem to confirm the earlier theories of Avicenna. For Kant, imagination is an integral part of cognition; without it, no perception or processed, universal knowledge—whether on an individual or societal level—can meaningfully occur.
Can we, from this perspective, establish a relationship between social thinking and collective memory? Maurice Halbwachs’ theory of collective memory allows us to affirm such a connection. According to Halbwachs, an individual does not remember in isolation; every act of remembering takes shape within the cultural and historical coordinates of the social group to which one belongs. In this context, the way the past is remembered determines how the future will be imagined. It is precisely here that the mental and emotional universal capacity we refer to as social imagination enables the construction of a shared semantic web within a society. It brings together fragments of memory, cultural myths, and historical experiences to forge a collective “now.” This cognitive formation is exactly what Avicenna described as hiss al-mushtarak—the common inner sense or social faculty. If we turn to the 19th century Ottoman Empire, a striking example of the relationship between social thinking and historical consciousness is revealed in the mental framework underlying Ottoman modernization. The Tanzimat reforms were not merely a legal initiative offered to the public but represented an entirely new regime of imagination concerning the practical life of Ottoman society. Namık Kemal, one of the prominent intellectuals of the period, who was deeply engaged with the political, cultural, aesthetic, and philosophical concepts of his time, called for the re-imagining of society around notions like liberty and deliberation. This call was essentially an invitation to adopt a new mode of thinking, a new form of imagination, and a new hiss al-mushtarak—and, in Halbwachs’ terms, to undertake the creation of a new collective memory.
It is important to emphasize that the concept of thinking (düşünüş) does not refer to a mental act isolated from historical context. On the contrary, thinking constitutes a regime of thought shaped within the political, cultural, and epistemological fabric of each era and the societies that witness it. It defines the imaginative domain specific to that time. If we approach the matter from the perspective of our own socio-political experience in shaping historical consciousness—from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic and onward to contemporary Turkey—we see that changes in modes of thinking reflect not only a transformation of images, but also of values, boundaries, and possibilities. When viewed from a holistic standpoint, this historical continuum reveals that each period is marked by a distinct mental universe, a different regime of imagery, and a unique ethical/aesthetic imagination. In Ottoman society, thinking, or muhayyile as it was then called, was not merely an individual capacity, but rather an integral part of a cosmological order—under the patronage of the monarchy. The conception of society as a terrestrial reflection of the Almighty’s will, a nizām-i ālem (cosmic order), shows that imagination was embedded in both sacred and political contexts. Here, to imagine was to do so in fidelity to a notion of absolute form; ethical and aesthetic domains were tightly bound to metaphysical order, and most importantly, imagination functioned within a communal structure devoid of modern individual consciousness. This epistemological framework aligns with what Max Weber termed ars demonstrandi—a cognitive identity that links epistemic, ontological, and ethical dimensions. At the same time, this identity reveals the aesthetic nature of imagination: classical Ottoman literature, in my view, is the most refined expression of this collective muhayyile. Take, for example, the imagery of the rose and the nightingale in a ghazal—it does not merely evoke love, but also reflects the emotional regime, representational system, and cosmic hierarchy of society. In this sense, Ottoman imagination constructs a vision of order grounded in aesthetic representation: a symbolic continuity is evident in architecture, music, calligraphy, and conceptions of the city. Consider these lines by Bâkî, the great 16th-century poet:
“Nam ü nişâne kalmadı fasl-ı bahardan / Düşdi çemende berg-i dıraht itibârdan”
(“No trace remains of the season of spring / In the meadow, the leaves have fallen from the tree of honor”). When read in the socio-political context of the era, it becomes clear that these verses are not merely expressions of poetic sentiment, but convey a deeper unease with the transformation of a long-established imaginative identity within Ottoman society. Similarly, a century later, in his famous ghazal with the refrain usandık (“we are weary”), Nâbî writes:
“Nâbî ile ol âfetün ahvâlini nakil it / Efsâne-i Mecnûn ile Leylâ’dan usandık” (“Tell the tale of that calamity with Nâbî / We are weary of the legend of Majnun and Layla”). Here too, we observe a yearning for a new sociology and a desire for the emergence of a new social imagination. His words signal the fatigue with old narrative forms and the aspiration to establish a fresh collective imaginary grounded in contemporary realities.
The early Republican period, drawing upon the experiences of the Tanzimat and Constitutionalist eras, sought to radically break from the monarchical, community-centered mode of thinking and to reconstruct it around a society-centered framework. The mental rupture that began with the Tanzimat reforms now transformed into a kind of foundational imaginative explosion. The imagination of the nation-state was not only the emergence of a new political structure, but also the beginning of an entirely new ethical and aesthetic construction. The muhayyile of this period was grounded in a rationalist, progressive, and secular foundation. Reforms such as the alphabet revolution, dress code laws, urban planning, and the musical revolution were not merely institutional adjustments; they were efforts to construct a new cognitive, mental, and imaginative order. Within the visual memory of the Republic, images such as factory chimneys, the modern woman, the peasant plowing a field, and the child reading a book represent, in their simplest form, the aesthetic components of this new imaginative vision.
Of course, alongside the radical breaks between the Ottoman Empire, the Republic, and present-day Turkey in terms of the concept of thinking, there are also significant continuities. The cosmological symbolism of the Ottoman period evolved into a rationalist mode of representation in Republican aesthetics; and the singular identity imagination of the Republic has gradually transformed into contemporary debates over identity plurality. However, none of these transitions has been fully or conclusively completed. Turkey’s intellectual landscape continues to be shaped by the tense convergence of these three modes of imagination. While the current state of social muhayyile in Turkey warrants a separate and extensive discussion beyond the scope of this essay, if I were to offer a brief remark, I would say that the space of thinking/imagination in today’s Turkey has evolved into a fragmented, transient, and often contradictory terrain—where grand narratives have been replaced by dispersed images. These images oscillate between the traditional and the modern, the secular and the religious, the local and the global. Unfortunately, they frequently produce mutually exclusive representations, which in turn contribute to a disintegration—a kind of collective narrowing—of society’s capacity to dream and to converge around shared values. Although we may speak of a certain kind of symbolic production, this production is often shallow, repetitive, and ideologically charged. One of the most critical crises facing contemporary Turkey is the absence of shared imaginative domains. There is no collective ethical sensibility or aesthetic depth being cultivated; worse yet, the public sphere has been reduced to a battlefield of symbols and images.
By Way of Conclusion…
Social thinking refers to the theoretical and practical totality that shapes a society’s fundamental assumptions, its collective attitudes, behavioral patterns, modes of perception, imagination, and reflection. It encompasses the shared emotions, historical consciousness, cultural codes, value systems, and the entire mental and moral architecture of a community—from its most abstract conceptualizations to its most concrete actions. It is not merely an intellectual tool for understanding how society functions; it is, more importantly, the very capacity through which a society can reconstruct itself. It is neither just a mode of representation nor simply a domain of imagination; rather, it is a dynamic transitional space established between the way the past is remembered and the way the future is envisioned. This transition may manifest as a metaphor, a tone of voice, or even a form of collective silence. A society’s imagination of itself determines not only how it sees itself, but also how it perceives the other. Thus, thinking/imagination is intimately bound up with the vital responsibilities of social ethics. Imagination, at this point, becomes not just a mental activity, but—perhaps even more fundamentally—an ethical and moral act. Aesthetics, then, is the language of this thinking system, of the faculty of imagination, of abstraction and universalization. It is the space that constructs meaning behind what is seen, that transforms form into spirit, object into symbol, space into memory, and sound into evocation. Each generation bears the responsibility of building its own social imaginary. And every society can only attain freedom to the extent that it can imagine—and enrich—its modes of thinking.
One of the most profound cognitive crises of contemporary societies—both in Turkey and globally, though seldom recognized—is the inertia in abstraction, which lies at the core of meaning-making. This emotional and intellectual stagnation is not merely epistemological; it also brings about an ethical, and therefore aesthetic, impoverishment. Over the course of a century, modern democracies—focused almost exclusively on the legal dimension of the “human”—have found themselves unable to generate a new aesthetic discourse. As a result, they have resorted to repurposing the aesthetic material of monarchic eras, reproducing it in lifeless forms. Can we truly dismiss the idea that this predicament stems from a lack of social thinking—from the erosion of imagination itself? Today’s societies are struggling not only to survive economically but also to dream. In such a climate, calling back the motivational force of the social imaginary is not a purely elitist appeal to consciousness and awareness. Rather, it confronts us as an existential imperative—one filled with urgency and vitality—for modern societies to emerge from their current state of axiological paralysis and to shake off the dead weight that has settled over their moral and imaginative faculties.
