Salahaddin Khalilov

Biography

Salahaddin Khalilov was born on February 22, 1952 in Marneuli, Republic of Georgia. After finishing the secondary school with honors in 1968, he studied at the Department of Physics of The Azerbaijan State University (now Baku State University - BSU) and graduated with honors from BSU in 1973. In the same year he was admitted to the Aspirantura (graduate school) in Philosophy.

Scientific-pedagogical activity

He defended his PhD (Kandidat nauk) thesis titled “Systematic Structural Analysis of Scientific and Technological Progress” in 1976. After completing his postdoctoral research he successfully defended a thesis titled “Logico-gnoseological issues of Scientific and Technological Progress” in 1989. In the same year he became a professor and the head of the Philosophy Department at Azerbaijan State Pedagogical University. He founded the University “Azerbaijan” [1]— the first private university in Azerbaijan in 1991 and was its rector up to 2006. Since 1994 he has been leading the Research Center “East and West”. Prof. S. Khalilov established the international socio-political journal “Ipek Yolu” (The Silk Road) in 1997 and was its Editor-in-Chief up to 2005. In 2002 he was elected as the Chairman of the Presidium of the Azerbaijan Association of Philosophy and Socio-Political Sciences (AFSEA). From 2003 he is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal “Felsefe ve Sosial-siyasi Elmler” (Philosophy and Socio-Political Sciences). Since 2006 he is a Member of the Presidium of the Higher Attestation Commission under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan. In 2007 Prof. Khalilov was elected as the Corresponding-Member of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences. From 2009 he is the Chairman of Scientific Council of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan on Philosophy, Political and Social Sciences.

Prof. Khalilov’s investigations are mainly focused on Philosophy of Science, Science about Science, Philosophical Comparativism, Phenomenology, Philosophical Aspects of Eastern and Western Civilizations, Philosophy of Abu Turkhan, Cognitive Theory.

Social and educational activity

S.Khalilov founded and was the first leader of the Junior Physicists School in Azerbaijan in 1972. He was elected as the Chairman of Young Scientists at Azerbaijan State Pedagogical University in 1981 and further in 1988 he was elected as the Chairman of Young Humanity Scientists of Azerbaijan. From 1997 he is the Chairman of Prize Committee named after Bahmaniar (award given for works on philosophy in Azerbaijan)

Prof. S.Khalilov was the Member of the Parliament of Azerbaijan and Deputy-Chairman of the “Science and Education” Permanent Commission of the Parliament during 2000-2005 ([2]).

Awards and membership in scientific organizations

Main ideas and conceptions

Researches of Prof. Salahaddin Khalilov elucidate the stages of the process of application of new scientific knowledge to production with logical-gnoseological way; they also determine the special place and specificities of scientific-technical knowledge in the classification of sciences, and draw comparative analysis of the notions of “applied sciences”, “technical sciences”, “scientific-technical knowledge”, “technological knowledge”. The comparative researches of science and economy, science and technology, science and language, science and religion, science and education, science and literature etc., are useful to appraise the role of science in the modern social life from different aspects. Some of his investigations are dealing with determination of the peculiarities of Eastern and Islamic way of thought. Prof. Khalilov discusses ideas which are presented in the West as intuition, irrational comprehension and mysticism in the context of Tasavvuf philosophy. His researches compare several Islamic philosophers with Western philosophers, such as comparison between Avicenna and Descartes, Suhravardi and Kant, Ibn Khaldun and Karl Marx and also give an explanation of similarities between Sufizm and Phenomenology. In his opinion the problem of determining the boundary between conscious and unconscious is in some sense equivalent to the problem of isolating the rational soul in the structure of internal life. From what does consciousness originate? The core condition for consciousness is the obviousness of an object. This is achieved by the concretion of a certain idea in the confines of the body. (For every object, reality is the synthesis of an infinite number of ideas.) Intentionality, phenomenological reduction, is the isolation of a single idea in pure form. Alongside Brentano’s and Husserl’s notably efficient idea about the intentionality of consciousness, other ideas and constructions of Husserl directed at the creation of an all-embracing theory seem to be argumentative and are sometimes also artificially constructed. For instance, there is the problem of the corporeal activity of man, the idea of kinetic consciousness, etc. where the functions of the body are seen as if detached from the functioning of the sensory organs. In his papers he discusses some peculiarities – simililarities and differences – of memory and remembrance (personal life memory). The mechanisms of storing knowledge and recollection have been analysed. It was shown that earlier used spirit-body or soul-body methods could not adequately explain the correlation between memory and remembrance . For consideration specific details of the correlation of memory and remembrance more realistic model of “spirit-soul-body” or “mind-soul-body” was developed. Some of Western ideologists have considered that Eastern Islamic countries, including Azerbaijan, stay behind Western countries in the economical competition based on modern technology, for the reasons of Islam and traditional thought. However, sciences which are bases of economical development do not depend on the religions of scientists. S. Khalilov explains that it could be a problem of relations of religion and science but not of religions of scientists. When we define the main attributes of the East and West, it becomes clear that all religions, including the Christianity are Eastern phenomena, regardless of their geographical location. So, it would be wrong if we relate Western civilization to the Christianity. According to the view of Prof. Khalilov, the modern civilization had been formulated by joint efforts of both the East and the West, in different stages of history.

Selected publications