African Metaphysics, Epistemology and a New Logic

In African Metaphysics, Epistemology and a New Logic, Jonathan O. Chimakonam and L. Uchenna Ogbonnaya investigated the idea of metaphysics and epistemology from the African place. This book is relevant on several levels. First, it is an engagement in the decolonial project, and by this I mean that it recognizes and engages in ideas that are foundational to knowledge that is culturally inspired but not culturally bound. Second, it is not a tug-of-war attempting to prove the superiority of one form of knowledge over another. Finally, it creates avenues that will allow scholars from different backgrounds/cultures to develop and reinvent forms of credible knowledge that can contribute to the space of academic discourse and provide opportunities for the villagization of knowledge(s) with which specific communities can identify. In the book, there is a reiteration that the work qualifies as decolonial research and that decoloniality is “not a war of sides” (1). This, I think, is what separates decolonial from postcolonial studies. The latter engages in critique of epistemic hegemons, while the former provides an epistemic foundation for otherness. Providing that foundation comes with its own method and logic, and that is why Chimakonam and Ogbonnaya introduce conversational thinking—to accommodate the peculiarities of the African place.In chapters 1 and 2, Chimakonam and Ogbonnaya argue for the interaction of realities; they hold that realities should be in either conjunctive or disjunctive motion. While the former complements, the latter operates contextually. While they are in a complementary encounter, conversationalists are in a relationship otherwise referred to as nmeko. The relationship is either one of notional solidarity (between two similar variables) or one of creative struggle (between two seemingly opposing variables that produce new ideas). This is important because it shows the clarity and distinctiveness of a trivalent logic as distinct from the Aristotelian bivalent one. Nmeko is insured by a trivalent logic whereby the intermediate value is a truth glut rather than a truth gap. What this suggests is the fact that the intermediate value makes it possible for a statement to be both true and false at the same time (truth glut), as against a statement that is either true or false (truth gap), as exemplified by Aristotelian bivalence. Chimakonam and Ogbonnaya introduce nmekoka and arumaruka (discourse) to amplify complementarity.In chapters 3–5, Chimakonam and Ogbonnaya interrogate, respectively, the consolationist philosophy of Ada Agada (2015), the uwa (world, or globe) ontology of Pantaleon Iroegbu (1995) and Innocent Asouzu’s (2004)ibuanyidanda (complementarity). Mood is the centrality of Agada’s consolation philosophy. At the ontological level, everything that exists in the universe has mood as its essence. There is also the state of melancholy that characterizes the system. According to Chimakonam and Ogbonnaya: “Wherever there is mood, there is also melancholy” (53). At the same time, there is a relationship between consciousness and melancholy because, when nonliving things become aware of their condition, they become melancholy beings. At the same time, nonliving things experience melancholy potentially. Chimakonam and Ogbonnaya averred that God is the eternal mood in the philosophy of consolation, not in the sense of being outside mood, but in the sense of living as one who embodies mood in its totality and understands it fully. For this reason, consolationist theory believes that it is better to justify the existence of God than, like Kant, to attempt to prove it, as proof suggests certainty, which cannot be fully determined within the context of science. Iroegbu maintains that, in uwa ontology, reality and being are one and the same thing. However, Chimakonam and Ogbonnaya hold a slightly different view. Reality includes being. It is, therefore, a broader concept that being necessarily falls under. Chimakonam and Ogbonnaya also hold that being is both physical and nonphysical. For Innocent Asouzu, every unit of existence is a missing link, and, to put the pieces together, bifurcation should be eschewed. People have different idols that prevent them from embracing a global mindset. The way to escape this situation is through obioha, a global mindset that prepares you for different realities so that you do not approach a particular reality with a preconceived stereotype. Ultimately, they show how complementarity works in African ontology.In chapter 6, Chimakonam and Ogbonnaya consider personhood as a central theme in African metaphysics. In doing so, they analyze some key personhood theorists. What sets these concepts apart is that, for Western theorists, personhood inheres in the individual and, for African theorists, it idheres in the community. Chimakonam and Ogbonnaya highlight three trajectories of personhood in Africa: ontological, cosmological, and metaphysical. Generally speaking, there are two groups of scholars split along various ideological lines. John Mbiti (1970), Ifeanyi Menkiti (2004), and Polycarp Ikuenobe (2006), among others, hold on to the normative concept of personhood according to which personhood is earned, while Kwame Gyekye (1992) and Bernard Matolino (2014) (leading another group of scholars) prioritize the metaphysical notion of personhood, according to which there are inherent ontological qualities that are essential to all people by virtue of being human. However, Gyekye (1992) held a slightly divergent view according to which there are gradations of personhood, and being human is one of those gradations. With the conversational notion of personhood, Chimakonam and Ogbonnaya hold that all scholars see the presence of the community in the attainment of personhood no matter how slight such influence is.There are some African philosophers who have attempted to develop theories of knowledge. Chimakonam and Ogbonnaya identified some of those in chapters 7 and 8. Leopold Senghor (1961), for example, claimed that emotion is the preferred mode of knowing for the African, although he did not rule out reason. Still, emotion was, for him, what differentiated the African from the European. K. C. Anyanwu (1984) considers knowledge to involve experience and reason. Kwasi Wiredu (1996) holds that, in Akan culture, truth is both moral and cognitive. Chris Ijiomah (2011) considers knowledge to be socially centered and contextual. Paulin Hountondji (2004) advocates for a blend of knowledge that is both externally and internally generated in a critically rigorous manner. For Godfrey Ozumba and Jonathan Chimakonam, integrative epistemology is a tripartite form that is empirical, rational, and spiritual, and this involves a blend of all as one cannot be emphasized at the expense of others. They therefore see all theories of knowledge as necessary links. Chimakonam and Ogbonnaya quote them as follows: “Knowledge has physical and nonphysical dimensions as well as cognitive and normative dimensions” (158). Chimakonam (2015, 73–79) went further to speak of the fact that knowledge is not only cognitive but moral; it deals with not only the nature of knowledge but also what to know, with emphasis on the value of knowledge. Sophie Oluwole (2017) also holds that knowledge is contextually based and that the Yoruba conception of knowledge is built on an inclusive logic. Finally, Leyla Tavernaro-Haidarian’s (2018) deliberative epistemology shows that it is inspired by the African place but at the same time universalizable.In an attempt to extend the theory of cognonormativity in chapter 9, Chimakonam and Ogbonnaya use different illustrations to justify that knowledge controls people even though, initially, such knowledge at its inventive stage could be a human creation. Furthermore, they seem to suggest that people do not have the freedom to make choices and that, in fact, they have only one absolute choice, which is whether to take one’s own life, and the knowledge to do that is not acquired. Knowledge is, on the other hand, the combination of quantitative (data) and qualitative (ideas) components. This understanding of knowledge seeks to bring out the complementary dimension of what knowledge is made of. In addition, Chimakonam and Ogbonnaya think that the domain of nescience should be taken into account because, just as there is the study of knowledge, there should also be the study of ignorance. Knowledge includes action; therefore, our knowledge must be of value in order to be worthwhile.There are some areas that should be interrogated because they are what I consider to be challenges for the future. One is the question of what ethnophilosophy should be. When an individual takes inspiration from a place, there is the presence of ethnoconsciousness in that place. Interrogating such a worldview with a critical-analytic lens expresses the intention to be borderless because reason is universal. This then takes an individual from “place” to “space,” where it is possible for people from different worldviews and traditions to travel ideologically. If that is the case, then there is the problem of defining what ethnophilosophy should be, not what we have always known it to be. Thus, I think, we re-create a border that we try to destroy if we adopt definitions of concepts simply because they come from a region. The definition of ethnophilosophy is still a strictly marginalized form of knowledge because the power to define is taken away by the suffix that is added to ethno-.In African Metaphysics, Epistemology and a New Logic, there is the true (T)/false (F) distinction in Boolean logic according to which African epistemology attempts a T and F complementarity. If these entities correspond to the three Boolean values of the ezumezu logical system,1 where T is true, F is false, and TF is true and false, I still find it problematic. Is it accident or substance that would be F in this context of opposing variables before complementarity is achieved? The necessity of this question stems, it seems to me, from the fact that, if either substance or accident is F, it is still problematic. Do addition and negation have the same value within the human context? It is on this ground that I think that Chimakonam and Ogbonnaya have not been able to show how the theory of truth propounded by Kwasi Wiredu is a relationship of seemingly opposed variables. How are the cognitive and moral aspects of truth in opposition in the first place? Although it is clear enough that both aspects are related, no clear-cut oppositionality exists between them in the first place.Every philosophy arises out of the desire to solve problems in a society and the world generally. People study problem-solving models and adopt what can work for their own communities from other communities. The Greek philosophers looked to Egypt; part of the heritage of French philosophy came from Hegel and Schelling; in studying Kant, reference will be made to Hume; most of German philosophy was the result of critical interrogation of Enlightenment thinking. What this tells us is that there is a global outlook that philosophy should have even from the cultural contexts of different societies. Neither the German nor the English philosophers set out to solve the problems of the world from the onset. Every philosophy has some touch of emotion the moment cultural/societal inspiration becomes the basis for philosophizing. All cultures have their contextual issues yet still invent solutions that are universalizable. In order that my position not be misread, I should say that universalizable solutions are ideas taken from other people/cultures and modified to cater to the needs of other cultures. That is why “the truly universal philosophy cannot possibly be the property of a single nation” (Hösle 2017, 2). Its capacity for universalizability goes a long way toward showing how a philosophy can stand the test of time if it travels across borders. Chimakonam and Ogbonnaya have contributed to the task of producing philosophy inspired from the African place, but the universalizability of African Metaphysics, Epistemology and a New Logic is not in doubt because across borders philosophers are exploring the possibility of multivalent systems based on complementarity

Epistemology · Metaphysics · African cultural and philosophical studies · Philosophy

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• Deliberative epistemology

  Leyla Tavernaro-Haidarian•South African Journal of Philosophy•2018

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