The long nineteenth century witnessed the larger scale reforms undertaken by the Ottoman state with its various agencies. These reforms and regulations (tanzimat) in a wide range of areas including education, judiciary, military, bureaucratic and medical institutions brought about reconstruction of concepts of science, religion, and politics as separate fields. The scholarship on the late Ottoman Empire so far has focused on reforms intiated and undertaken by the state. However, the role of the micro-scale discussions and contestations between intellectuals in forming new ideas of science, religion, politics and literature has not been studied in depth. In this paper I will point out the power and authority that shaped the micro-level discussions which entailed a reconfiguration of ideas of ilim (science), alim (learned man/scientist), hakim (philosopher) and edib (literati) through a study of the correspondence between two prominent intellectuals of the late Ottoman period namely Ahmed Midhat and Fatma Aliye. Midhat was the most prolific journalist intellectual of the late Ottoman Empire who played a huge role in popularizing modern science by exploiting the benefits of printing press and forms of mass media including novels, journals, and newspapers. Fatma Aliye, the protege of Midhat, was the leading female novelist and intellectual of the period. In their correspondence Ahmed Midhat and Fatma Aliye were taking the role of teacher and student respectively. Their correspondence shows that reconfiguration of concepts such as science, knowledge, and philosophy entailed a reconsideration of ideas of scientist, philosopher, and literati. Considering their intellectual formation, the style of reasoning, and the roles they assumed in the correspondence I argue that the discussion about these categories is nothing less than a confrontation between Islamic tradition and European Enlightenment, the man and the woman, the mentor and the student. I show that while Fatma Aliye was relying on the previous Islamic intellectual corpus in conceptualizing “scientist” “philosopher” and “literati,” Ahmed Midhat was using the enlightenment philosophers as authorities in rejecting Aliye’s arguments.