Hilmi Ziya Ülken (1901–1974) was a Turkish scholar and writer who had an influential role in the development of sociological and philosophical views in Turkey.

[1] His father, Mehmet Ziya Bey, was a faculty member at Darulfünun, precursor of Istanbul University, where he taught chemistry and served as the dean of the School of Dentistry and Pharmaceutics.

[2] His mother, Müşfike Hanım, was part of a family from Kazan, and her father, Kerim Hazret, was a religious figure who settled in Constantinople in the 1850s when the Ottoman Sultan Abdulaziz invited him during the Crimean War.

[3] After obtaining further education at Darulfünun in the fields of ethics, sociology and history of philosophy he continued to work as a teacher in Ankara and Istanbul.

[6] The same year Darulfünun was reorganized as Istanbul University and following his return to Turkey he joined the Department of Philosophy as an assistant professor of Turkish cultural history.

[3] One of his colleagues at the department was the German philosopher Hans Reichenbach who settled in Istanbul due to the Nazi rule in Germany.

[2] His views were mostly influenced from the work by various Muslim, Turkish and European figures such as Ibn Arabi, Mehmet Fuat Köprülü, Ziya Gökalp, Mehmet İzzet, Émile Durkheim, Henri Bergson, Émile Boutroux, Baruch Spinoza, Max Scheler and Martin Heidegger.

[16] Ülken cofounded and published İnsan (Turkish: Man) magazine together with Nurullah Ataç, Sabahattin Eyüboğlu and Celaleddin Ezine from 1938 to 1943.

[3] From 1943 Ülken started and edited Sosyoloji Dergisi (Turkish: Journal of Sociology) which was a publication of the Faculty of Arts at Istanbul University.

[12] During the preparations to establish the International Sociological Association (ISA) in 1949 the preparatory committee of the Constituent Congress contacted with two scholars from Turkey, Ülken and Ziyaeddin Fahri Fındıkoğlu.