This article outlines a program of ethnoontology that brings together empirical research in the ethnosciences with ontological debates in philosophy. First, we survey empirical evidence from heterogeneous cultural contexts and disciplines. Second, we propose a model of cross‐cultural relations between ontologies beyond a simple divide between universalist and relativist models. Third, we argue for an integrative model of ontology building that synthesizes insights from different fields such as biological taxonomy, cognitive science, cultural anthropology, and political ecology. We conclude by arguing (...) that a program of ethnoontology provides philosophers both with insights about traditional issues such as debates about natural kinds and with novel strategies for connecting philosophy with pressing global issues such as the conservation of local environments and the self‐determination of Indigenous communities. (shrink)

Are there limits to what it is morally okay to imagine? More particularly, is imaginatively inhabiting morally suspect perspectives something that is off-limits for truly virtuous people? In this paper, I investigate the surprisingly fraught relation between virtue and a familiar form of imaginative perspective taking I call empathy. I draw out a puzzle about the relation between empathy and virtuousness. First, I present an argument to the effect that empathy with vicious attitudes is not, in fact, something that the (...) fully virtuous person can indulge in. At least one prominent way of thinking about the psychology of the virtuous person excludes the possibility that the virtuous could emotionally apprehend the world in a less than virtuous way, and empathizing with vicious outlooks does seem to run afoul of that restriction. Then, I develop an argument that runs in the contrary direction: virtue in fact requires empathy with vicious outlooks, at least in some situations. There is reason to think that a crucial part of being virtuous is ministering effectively to others’ needs, and there is also reason to think that other people may need to be empathized with, even if their emotional outlooks are at least minorly vicious. Finally, I outline two different solutions to this puzzle. Both solutions hold some promise, but they also bring new challenges in their train. (shrink)

Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 8, August 2022.

Developing and implementing artificial intelligence (AI) systems in an ethical manner faces several challenges specific to the kind of technology at hand, including ensuring that decision-making systems making use of machine learning are just, fair, and intelligible, and are aligned with our human values. Given that values vary across cultures, an additional ethical challenge is to ensure that these AI systems are not developed according to some unquestioned but questionable assumption of universal norms but are in fact compatible with the (...) societies in which they operate. This is particularly pertinent for AI research and implementation across Africa, a ground where AI systems are and will be used but also a place with a history of imposition of outside values. In this paper, we thus critically examine one proposal for ensuring that decision-making systems are just, fair, and intelligible—that we adopt a principle of explicability to generate specific recommendations—to assess whether the principle should be adopted in an African research context. We argue that a principle of explicability not only can contribute to responsible and thoughtful development of AI that is sensitive to African interests and values, but can also advance tackling some of the computational challenges in machine learning research. In this way, the motivation for ensuring that a machine learning-based system is just, fair, and intelligible is not only to meet ethical requirements, but also to make effective progress in the field itself. (shrink)

This paper examines the fortunes of non-European philosophies in histories of philosophy written by European and American philosophers from the 17th century to the present day. It charts the shift from inclusive histories of philosophy, which included non-European philosophies, to exclusive histories of philosophy, which excluded and/or marginalized non-European philosophies, at the end of the 18th century. This shift was motivated by racial Eurocentrism, which cast a long shadow over histories of philosophy written during the 19th and 20th centuries. The (...) paper also considers recent attempts to produce a more inclusive history of philosophy. By examining the history of the inclusion and exclusion of non-European philosophies in histories of philosophy, this paper seeks to challenge the assumption that philosophy began and has been practised exclusively by European or western thinkers. (shrink)

At present, the debate on global justice, a debate which is at the core of global ethics, is largely being conducted by European and American scholars from different disciplines without taking into account views and concepts from other regions of the world, particularly, from the Global South. The lack of a truly intercultural, interreligious, and international exchange of ideas provokes doubts whether the concepts of global justice introduced so far are able to transcend regional and cultural horizons. The article introduces (...) concepts of justice from African scholars, whose voices have remained marginal until now, like the Kenyan philosopher Henry Odera Oruka, the Ethiopian philosopher Teodros Kiros, and the debate on ubuntu, one of the most controversial concepts in southern Africa today. These concepts focus on issues that are seldom considered in the debate on global justice, such as the importance of bodily needs as a prerequisite for human beings to act as moral beings and the importance of human rel.. (shrink)

This article invokes the idea of personhood (which it takes to be at the heart of Afrocommunitarian morality) to give an account of corrective/rectification justice. The idea of rectification justice by Robert Nozick is used heuristically to reveal the moral-theoretical resources availed by the idea of personhood to think about historical injustices and what would constitute a meaningful remedy for them. This notion of personhood has three facets: (1) a theory of moral status/dignity, (2) an account of historical conditions and (...) (3) the achievement of moral excellence by the agent (personhood). This article argues that a just society is a function of (1) and (2), and it further argues that the aim of rectification justice is to correct these two facets of a society, which are necessary for (3) to be possible. The aim of correcting history just is to make personhood a possibility for all humanity, particularly of those who were victims of past injustices. (shrink)

According to Wiredu, the Akan profess secular esteem rather than religious worship to supra-natural beings, who they perceive in an empirical sense. He backs this up by re-reading what he sees as the Akan general ontology in a way that denies them of the concepts of the supernatural, the transcendental, the mental, the spiritual, and an ontologically distinct mind. At the end of denying the three criteria of worship as well as all of these other concepts which might otherwise be (...) available to the Akan, one might struggle to find any evidence that the Akan even had a religion. I dispute this secular reading, and I more generally demonstrate that the characterizations of the Akan attitude to divinity as non-worshipping, non-supernatural, non-transcendent, and non-spiritual, are either conceptually flawed, factually incorrect, or both. (shrink)

On the assumption that theistic religious commitment takes place in the face of evidential ambiguity, the question arises under what conditions it is permissible to make a doxastic venture beyond one’s evidence in favour of a religious proposition. In this paper I explore the implications for orthodox theistic commitment of adopting, in answer to that question, a modest, moral coherentist, fideism. This extended Jamesian fideism crucially requires positive ethical evaluation of both the motivation and content of religious doxastic ventures. I (...) suggest that, even though the existence of horrendous evil does not resolve evidential ambiguity in favour of atheism, there are reasonable value commitments that would preclude those who hold them from satisfying extended Jamesian fideist conditions for committing themselves to classical theism. I then begin a discussion of a possible revisionary theistic alternative (in the Christian tradition) which – one might hope – may meet those conditions. An earlier, shorter, version of this paper was delivered as a keynote address at the APA Pacific 2007 Mini-Conference on Models of God. (shrink)

In this article, I offer concrete suggestions about which topics, texts, positions, arguments and authors from the African philosophical tradition one could usefully put into conversation with ones from the Western, especially the Anglo-American. In particular, I focus on materials that would make for revealing and productive contrasts between the two traditions. My aim is not to argue that one should teach by creating critical dialogue between African and Western philosophers, but rather is to provide strategic advice, supposing that is (...) a sensible goal to adopt. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The concept of vital force in African philosophy received its first full articulation in Placide Tempels’s Bantu Philosophy and has evolved over time from the ontological dimension of a universal actuation and energizing principle to an element of mind, notably in the work of Kwame Gyekye. In this essay, I present the concept of vital force and trace its evolution from the time of its first full articulation by Tempels up to its identification with spirit, or mind, in Gyekye’s (...) thought. I try to defend the thesis that the concept of vital force can ground the notion of mood that takes a pivotal position in the twenty-first century philosophy of consolationism. I adopt an analytical and constructive method in this paper. (shrink)

The International Bill of Human Rights (IBHR) enjoys universal acclaim as the source of the best standards and definition of human rights. This paper argues that the IBHR is inspired by liberalism and harbours ambiguities that open the door to a neoliberal seizure of the rights agenda; and that this effectively destabilises the focus on the IBHR on socio-economic and community rights, and therefore its stated ideal of the equal value of all human rights. I argue that Kwame Gyekye's moderate (...) communitarian political philosophy affords a viable philosophical basis for justification of a more balanced conception of human rights than the theoretical basis of the IBHR does. (shrink)

This paper seeks to address the problem of strangeness within the context of migration in Africa. I draw on historical realities that inform existing international and African discourses on migration. I hope to show that most African countries have unconsciously bought into international arguments that drive the legitimacy of building walls, visible and invisible, and the promotion of stringent migration policies that minimise the influx of African immigrants. I draw on political and philosophical positions of African thinkers like Kwame Nkrumah, (...) among others, in my theorisation of strangeness and the need to dispel the potential negative conception of strangeness within Africa’s migration policies. I juxtapose these positions with Western political theories with the hope of emphasizing African humanism as a key conception worth considering when decolonising borders. (shrink)

The power of the scientific enterprise presents multiple avenues for harnessing and increasingly controlling biological phenomena and instituting interventions in different areas of biomedicine (Af...

In his 2015 Theoria article titled ‘A Rejection of Humanism in African Moral Tradition’, Motsamai Molefe argues that Kwasi Wiredu's humanistic interpretation of traditional Akan ethics cannot be the best account of African ethics because Wiredu overlooks the significant sentiment in traditional African thought that regards reality as a holistic totality of spiritual, social and environmental components. I point out that Molefe's rejection of Wiredu's humanism follows from the latter's de-emphasising of supernaturalism. I argue that Molefe overlooks the fact that (...) the displacement of God in this humanism is consistent with the limited God sentiment in traditional African thought, which confirms Wiredu's humanistic ethics as one rooted in traditional African worldviews. Adopting the method of philosophical exposition and analysis, I show how Wiredu's limited God framework motivates scepticism about the possibility of a supernaturalist ethics and renders a humanistic orientation a more attractive account of African moral tradition. (shrink)

African perspectives on personhood and personal identity and their relation to those of the West have become far more central in mainstream Western discussion than they once were. Not only are African traditional views with their emphasis on the importance of community and social relations more widely discussed, but that emphasis has also received much wider acceptance and gained more influence among Western philosophers. Despite this convergence, there is at least one striking way in which the discussions remain apart and (...) that is on a point of method. The Western discussion makes widespread use of thought experiments. In the African discussion, they are almost entirely absent. In this article, we put forward a possible explanation for the method of thought experiment being avoided that is based on considerations stemming from John Mbiti’s account of the traditional African view of time. These considerations find an echo in criticism offered of the method in the Western debate. We consider whether a response to both trains of thought can be found that can further bring the Western and African philosophical traditions into fruitful dialogue. (shrink)

This paper examines the question of whether human rights are related to ontology. It examines perspectives on this question from human rights theories in the Western and African traditions of philosophy and defends the thesis that a good account of human rights requires an explicit ontology of the human, and that taking this seriously engenders divergent conclusions about what rights are. It then proceeds to claim that the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights adds substantive features to the International (...) Bill of Human Rights, and that the Charter expresses Kwame Gyekye’s ontology of the human being. (shrink)

Consensus has been highlighted by African philosophers as an element essential to African societies, past and present, that has not been assigned the importance it deserves. The philosophers involved have done this in part by drawing upon firsthand experience of their own indigenous cultures. Consensual governance presents a rather different view of the constitution of indigenous African societies and what should be their most appropriate form of political order today. A legitimate concern, therefore, is why this element supposedly foundational to (...) sub-Saharan African societies came to be underrated. (shrink)

The liberation of Africa and its peoples from centuries of racially discriminatory colonial rule and domination has far-reaching implications for educational thought and practice. The transformation of educational discourse in Africa requires a philosophical framework that respects diversity, acknowledges lived experience and challenges the hegemony of Western forms of universal knowledge. In this article I reflect critically on whether African philosophy, as a system of African knowledge(s), can provide a useful philosophical framework for the construction of empowering knowledge that will (...) enable communities in Africa to participate in their own educational development. (shrink)

Discussion of sexuality in African cultures has a long history, but since the 1990s ethical reflections on homosexuality on the continent have often degenerated into furors and provoked a spate of anti-gay legislation in several countries. Refutations of homophobic dispositions encounter as barrier a pervasive belief in African cultures, that childbearing for community replenishment is a cherished moral duty. Several philosophers consider these to be exaggerated inhibitions that unjustifiably impede social acceptance of homosexuality, and have proposed as a solution what (...) they consider to be self-justifying political-moral principles, that terminate in value-pluralistic ideas such as the acceptance of the equality of sexual orientations and vindication of the right to the freedom to choose and satisfy sexual desire. I question the adequacy of such self-justificatory normative principles and consider the solutions they proffer as depreciating the moral point of the African pro-natalist position. Consequently, I develop a moral argument grounded in the ontology of Kwame Gyekye’s moderate communitarian theory of personhood as the most persuasive justification for homosexuality. (shrink)

In recent times, informed consent has been adopted worldwide as a cornerstone to ensure autonomy during HIV testing. However, there are still ongoing debates on whether the edifice on which informed consent requirements are grounded, that is, personal autonomy, is philosophically, morally, and practically sound, especially in countries where HIV is an epidemic and/or may have a different ontological perspective or lived reality. This study explores the views of participants from Zambia. In-depth and focus group discussions were conducted at various (...) locations in Lusaka and Chongwe, Zambia. Participants came from various demographics, including people living with HIV, healthcare professionals and workers, policymakers, pregnant women, churchgoers, teachers, rural-based persons, and police officers. Data were manually analysed by conducting inductive and deductive thematic analyses. Results show that participants were not in favour of HIV policies that promote personal autonomy at the expense of pursuit of the common good. Participants viewed interdependence, not autonomy, as an essential characteristic of being human. The participants’ views have a realistic potential to provide a contextual and appropriate ethical, respectful, and realistic foundation for HIV testing policies. (shrink)

Kwame Gyekye has been called a dualist to the extent that he accepts the ontological distinction between mind and matter, with both phenomena interacting with each other. I argue in this article that Gyekye’s presentation of the sunsum as a universal animating principle that is itself nonmaterial and irreducible to a material base warrants a second look at his philosophy of mind to determine whether he can be considered a pan-psychist and whether a pan-psychist reading can resolve the Gyekyean problem (...) of interaction. I assert that, while Gyekye’s interpretation of the Akan notion of sunsum invites a pan-psychist scrutiny, the interpretive difficulties surrounding the concept, as highlighted by Kwasi Wiredu and Safro Kwame, render a pan-psychist conclusion problematic even if persuasive. I recommend that the notion of sunsum as a nonmaterial principle that underlies material entities is significant enough to warrant further interrogation by African philosophers of mind. (shrink)

This article attempts to defend Kwame Gyekye’s moderate communitarianism (MC) from the trenchant criticism that it is as defective as radical communitarianism (RC) since they both fail to take rights seriously. As part of my response, I raise two critical questions. Firstly, I question the supposition in the literature that there is such a thing as radical communitarianism. I point out that talk of radical communitarianism is tantamount to attacking a “straw-man.” Secondly, I question the efficacy of the criticism that (...) MC does not take rights seriously, given that there is no account of what it means to take rights seriously in the African tradition. This criticism, insofar as it does not specify a criterion of what it means to take rights seriously, remains defective. The central contribution of this article is to call our attention to the fact that the intellectual culture of rights will surely be affected by Afro-communitarianism, which emphasises our duties to all. (shrink)

The practice of the construction and articulation of knowledge according to principles that allow for universal comprehension and progressive appraisal has established itself as one of the self-dis...

The paper is about H. Odera Oruka's Sage Philosophy project. Oruka interviewed rural sages of Kenya, saying that like Socrates, these wise elders had been philosophizing without writing anything down. Paulin Hountondji (at the time) criticized efforts of oral philosophizing, saying that Africa needed a written tradition of philosophizing. Some philosophers were representatives of an "individualist" position which says that philosophical ideas must be attributed to specific named individuals. Kwame Gyekye instead argued that anonymous community wisdom of Africans had indeed (...) been created by individuals, but individual names were not important to Africans at the time they created the wisdom. The paper then argues that hearing a certain bit of wise philosophy coming from a particular person in an interpersonal oral communication at a certain time and in a certain context can impress an idea upon this listener, commanding their attention in a way that a written text does not, due to the importance of presence in interpersonal communication. Respect for the speaker, and the way in which the speaker uses voice inflection and facial and bodily expressions while communicating all play a role in the message's reception. The paper does not argue that written philosophy or oral philosophy are superior to each other in all ways; rather, each has a strength that the other does not have. (shrink)

Is normative theory grounded in ontology and if so, how? Taking a debate between Kwame Gyekye and Thaddeus Metz as my point of departure, my aim in this article is to show that something normative does indeed follow from ontological views: The social ontological, I maintain, circumscribes the normative without, however, fully determining its content. My argument proceeds in two steps: First, I argue that our social ontological position constrains what kind of normative theory we may plausibly defend. A relational (...) ontology as defended by Gyekye entails a relational normative theory, whereas an atomist ontology calls for an individualist normative approach and a collectivist ontology for a strong communitarian one. Second, this link between the ontological and the normative has substantive implications for how to interpret the normative content of a theory; it entails interpreting normative values in light of the appropriate kind of normative thought. I illustrate the importance of this implication by showing that it suggests a decidedly relational reading of the core value of well-being in Gyekye’s moderate communitarianism, that resolves the alleged tension between communal and individual values in his account. (shrink)

This paper focuses on evaluating Odera Oruka’s role as an expert witness in customary law for the Luo community during the Nairobi, Kenya-based trial in 1987 to decide on the place of the burial of S.M. Otieno. During that trial, an understanding of Luo burial and widow guardianship (ter) practices was essential. Odera Oruka described the practices carefully and defended them against misunderstanding and stereotype. He revisited related topics in several delivered papers, published articles, and even interviews and columns in (...) the Kenyan newspapers. The paper will raise the questions: How does Odera Oruka’s role as expert on Luo customs fit in with his sage philosophy project? In his testimony at the trial and subsequent public addresses and published work, does he accomplish two important goals, the first being defending African traditions against prejudice and anti-African bias, and secondly, does he champion reform of traditions when reform is needed? And, can Odera Oruka’s participation in the famous trial avoid seeming ethnic chauvinism and marginalization of women? My conclusion is that he achieves the first goal, but some problems remain in the achievement of the other goals. While he often asserted the need to evaluate traditions and to jettison those that have become unhelpful, in this context he evaluated traditions so strongly that the need for evaluation and possible change was muted. (shrink)

This paper explores how moderate communitarianism could bring about a greater sense of political morality in the practice of democracy in contemporary Africa. Moderate communitarianism is a thesis traceable to Kwame Gyekye, the Akan philosopher. This thesis is a moderation of the infl uence of the community in the Akan, an African social structure. In ensuring good political morality in the Akan, and therefore the African community, Gyekye proposes moral revolution over the enforcement of the law. I perform two main (...) tasks in this article: I reinforce the view that in a democratic framework, moderate communitarianism offers lessons on political morality, and I challenge the notion that moral revolution has greater prospects for bringing about political morality than law enforcement. (shrink)

Supposing that an African metaphysics grounded on the notion and/or value of vitality is true, can it do a better job in terms of informing an African religious ethics than its Western counterparts, specifically, the Divine Command theory (DCT)? By ‘religious ethics’, in this article, I have in a mind a meta-ethical theory i.e., an account of moral properties whether they are best understood in spiritual rather than physical terms. In this article, I articulate an under-explored African meta-ethical theory grounded (...) on vitality, and I argue that the Euthyphro problem is not a successful objection against it like it is usually thought to be for DCT. This relative advantage of the vitalist meta-ethics does not necessarily render it plausible, but it gives us some ground to seriously consider the future of African religious ethics grounded on it. (shrink)

A world faced with global climate change needs actionable ways to curb its effects. We suggest that Ubuntu philosophy is a way to achieve peaceful coexistence between humans and the ecosystem. From an African perspective, we use Ubuntu philosophy’s concepts to understand how humans can create environmental policies and environmental education pedagogy. We use historical ecology and document review to explore the connections between humans, ecology, and Ubuntu philosophy. An understanding of how philosophy and ecology relate is proposed to fill (...) the gap in the cosmological premise between the African person and ecology. The study first sets out a relational model of humans and the ecosystem, then applies the ecology of education to environmental policy formulation. The research demonstrates that humanness with humaneness and collectivism, afro-eco-communitarianism, Ubuntu consensus politics, and Ubuntugogy are concepts underlying how the essence of Ubuntu philosophy can inform an ecofriendly society. The ethno-philo-cological underpinnings help conceptualize these concepts of community. Finally, the study’s conclusion shows how the concepts of Ubuntu philosophy suggest ways to improve environmental education and policy formulation. Climate concerns can be resolved by handing responsibility to the community. (shrink)

Despite its prominence in traditional societies and its apparent commonsense appeal, the moral tradition of Role Ethics has been largely neglected in mainstream normative theory. Role Ethics is the view that the duties and/or virtues of social life are determined largely by the social roles we incur in the communities we inhabit. This essay aims to address two of the main challenges that hinder Role Ethics from garnering more serious consideration as a legitimate normative theory, namely that it is ill-suited (...) to support a theory of right action that can enhance moral reasoning, and that it countenances certain unjust roles such as that of slave or slave-owner. Taking inspiration from contemporary social science, we argue that proponents of Role Ethics can adopt a view that reduces the apparent diversity of role obligations to four prototypical types of role duties. We propose a contemporary version of Role Ethics that coheres with human moral psychology, and which lends itself to a relatively pragmatic theory of right action that precludes the possibility of unjust roles. (shrink)

The ethnophilosophy debate in African philosophy has been primarily concerned with the nature and future direction of African philosophy, but this paper approaches the debate in search of lessons about philosophy in general. The paper shows how this ongoing debate has been obscured by varying understandings of “ethnophilosophy” and that a de facto victory has long since transpired, since “ethnophilosophy,” in the sense recommended here, is flourishing. The paper argues that the political arguments with which Hountondji and Wiredu initiated the (...) debate in the 1970s supervene on the metaphilosophical view that ethnophilosophy, if philosophy at all, is of a poor standard. Showing that ethnophilosophy must indeed be philosophy, it argues that the critics' low opinions of it depend on unrealistic assumptions about how philosophy makes progress. The paper concludes that Africa is lucky to have ethnophilosophies and that the rest of the world should hope to develop some. (shrink)

In this article, I interrogate whether the deployment and development of the Metaverse should take into account African values and modes of knowing to foster the uptake of this hyped technology in Africa. Specifically, I draw on the moral norms arising from the components of communal interactions and humanness in Afro-communitarianism to contend that the deployment of the Metaverse and its development ought to reflect core African moral values to foster its uptake in the region. To adequately align the Metaverse (...) with African core values and thus foster its uptake among Africans, significant technological advancement that makes simulating genuine human experiences possible must occur. Additionally, it would be necessary for the developers and deployers to ensure that higher forms of spiritual activities can be had in the Metaverse to foster its uptake in Africa. Finally, I justify why the preceding points do not necessarily imply that the Metaverse will have a higher moral status than real life on the moral scale that can be grounded in Afro-communitarianism. (shrink)

Divided into eight sections, each with introductory essays, the selections offer rich and detailed insights into a diverse multinational philosophical landscape. Revealed in this pathbreaking work is the way in which traditional philosophical issues related to ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology, for instance, take on specific forms in Africa's postcolonial struggles. Much of its moral, political, and social philosophy is concerned with the turbulent processes of embracing modern identities while protecting ancient cultures.

There has been a strong impetus to set the definitional parameters of study in African political philosophy and theory. Many scholars advance the idea of a discipline intended to provide lessons that stem from “original” African moral, ideological, and political traditions. Often, these traditions and their ideas are presented as holding categorical moral substance in so far as they are seen to be specific to a culturally essentialist understanding of “Africa.” In turn, an influential part of the literature estimates the (...) normative value of the intellectual ideas and arguments afforded by a varied historical, socio‐cultural and economic African geography by the degree to which, in being tethered to a seemingly homogenous, “culturally African” influence, these ideas can be opposed to a “Western” equivalent. In this article, I argue that the effects on the discipline of attending to, and being defined by, this cultural essentialism are at best unclear, at worst detrimental. I aim to contribute to the side of those who advocate a universalist perspective to the study of African political philosophy and thought, and who argue for jettisoning an unhelpful dichotomy between “West” and “African,” in favour of a methodological, conceptual and historical specificity that allows the discipline to be truly useful to itself and to others. (shrink)

Kwame Gyekye’s interpretation of traditional Akan religious thought leads him to the conception of God as a being that possesses the properties of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence. Adopting an analytical and hermeneutical method, I argue in this article that Gyekye’s understanding of God as the direct source of the sunsum, or spirit, in the context of his presentation of the sunsum as a wholly immaterial and ubiquitous principle introduces a clear panpsychist dimension to his commitment to theism. I point out (...) that just as Gyekye’s account of the sunsum raises the question of its nature, so does his description of God as the direct source of the sunsum raise the question of God’s nature, whether he is indeed a wholly immaterial entity or not. I explore possible ways that Gyekye can defend the claim that a God who distributes sunsum in the physical world is wholly immaterial, and conclude that the claim cannot be sustained on account of the interpretive difficulty that the idea of sunsum raises. (shrink)

Philosophers have been intrigued by the problem of evil for centuries: How can God and evil coexist? This article tries to answer this question by using Kongolese religious thought from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. I contend that the Kongolese view gleaned from historical sources and complemented by contemporary African philosophical scholarship contains sufficient resources to reply to this problem coherently. Particularly, I argue that, from the Kongolese viewpoint, evil in the world can be explained as follows. God and other (...) morally good entities are not morally perfect and may commit moral errors. Moreover, God does not have unlimited power over morally bad entities who may commit moral wrongs. This view, I contend, deserves consideration since, unlike the mainstream Western perspective, it does not imply the unacceptable view that horrendous evils are morally justified. (shrink)

Wiredu has argued that traditional Akan (African) ethics is humanistic in orientation and that human welfare, rather than God’s will, is the basis of morality. In response, Motsamai Molefe asserts that Wiredu’s conclusion overlooks the supernaturalist dimension of traditional African ontology which presents God as the apex being in the universe and the ultimate ground of reality. According to Molefe, a vitalistic conception of God supports the claim that an African supernaturalist ethics is possible. He proceeds to develop an intriguing (...) supernaturalist vitality-based ethics that makes God the foundation of morality. I argue in this article that while Molefe indeed succeeds in demonstrating the possibility of an African supernaturalist ethics, Wiredu’s humanistic framework has a practical advantage over Molefe’s supernaturalist framework to the extent that the problem of revelation in African Traditional Religion forces Molefe’s supernaturalist ethics to assume a speculative aspect. I point out that a vitalistic God who acts intentionally may well define morality in terms of a divine property like knowledge rather than vitality. (shrink)

This paper looks at the metaphorical and metonymic expressions derived fromnsa, ‘hand’. I will analyse and discuss hand metaphoric and metonymic expressions in relation with the universal concept of the agility and versatility of the hand as an important aspect of the human being. The paper projects the concept of the hand in the Akan cultural system and looks at how it has expanded into compound words, idioms and proverbs. We will look at the cognitive, semantics, sociolinguistics and pragmatics ofnsa, (...) ‘hand’. The paper is discussed under the theory of conceptual metaphor as expounded by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and followed by many scholars in the western world, Asia and Africa. (shrink)

This paper looks at the metaphorical and metonymic expressions derived fromnsa, ‘hand’. I will analyse and discuss hand metaphoric and metonymic expressions in relation with the universal concept of the agility and versatility of the hand as an important aspect of the human being. The paper projects the concept of the hand in the Akan cultural system and looks at how it has expanded into compound words, idioms and proverbs. We will look at the cognitive, semantics, sociolinguistics and pragmatics ofnsa, (...) ‘hand’. The paper is discussed under the theory of conceptual metaphor as expounded by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and followed by many scholars in the western world, Asia and Africa. (shrink)