Lost in the depressing maze of a financial spreadsheet, my mind drifted to what is most certainly the most epic contest in contemporary African philosophy: the clash between internationally renowned Ghanaian academics: Professors Gyekye and Wiredu on certain notions of being and belonging. Their arguments can be summarised as follows: dwelling mainly on the Akan worldview, how is Personhood (the essence and reality of being a human person) framed in African philosophy? Both of these formidable philosophers take a linguistic probe to the search for traditional philosophical meaning of such terms as humanity, personality and social belonging. Relying on such linguistic devices as proverbs and idioms (an approach the critical Kwame Kyei-baffour tends to dislike), Gyekye and Wiredu attempts to deny each other the credit of their arguments. Gyekye argues that Wiredu is wrong in denying the capacity for full personhood to social misfits in an African setting. Wiredu does insist that in an African context, certainly in an Akan geography, one is on probation after birth until one can establish ones bonafides as a genuine person. The biological endowments that make one human do not automatically make one a person. He cites the use of nipa hun, onye nipa, wei nso ye nipa etc. as evidence that personhood is conferred by the community in response to ones growing capacity to fulfill their social contracts, which then credits them with membership in a moral commune. Gyekye fervently and thoroughly disputes this. As far as he is concerned, such a view is inconsistent with the notion of a soul, and in general with the spiritual dimension of the African personality, which takes away from the temporal domain the rights of community enforcers to award or deny personhood. Personhood is a priori, primeval and cosmic. Our common humanity enjoins the acknowledgement of the moral autonomy of the individual, who then negotiates with the community the areas of submission and devolution. I think our own KKB and the cosmopolitanists in the African philosophical tradition, notably Kwame Anthony Appiah, are right to be suspicious of the Africanisation of these kinds of philosophical discourses, as if by mere identification of African particularities one necessarily approaches a genuine African strain in philosophy. For example, a careful observation of the contest between Gyekye and Wiredu reveals an underlying tension that dates back to the old Platonic - Aristotelian conflict. And it is noteworthy that Gyekyes training was in the Graeco-Roman tradition. Gyekye clearly takes the Platonic path in his insistence of a metaphysical element in Personhood that denies material norms and dogma of any serious say in the matter of what makes a human being a person. Where the person is not merely an ontological validity, but a participant in some cosmic process of moral agency which overrides particularistic materialisms bound to place and time. Wiredu comes across as Aristotelian. As one concerned about the course of human development which enables the human being to become participant in a human societys specific process in finding shared purpose in a particular place and time. It is this daily struggle to take part that manifest in the ebbing and flowing of personhood. When a person finds that he is finally in moral communion with his co-participants, she finds *eudamonia*, the philosophic essence of happiness. And because personhood fluctuates, so does the state of happiness and fulfillment. In fact, the Akan worldview lends itself readily, even if at the risk of vulgarisation, to such Aristotelian memes. Ni-pa literally means a good individual. When one says onii or oyaa in Akan, they are referring to an individual stripped of our judgment of her moral status. Onipa on the other hand is fully subject to the moral confirmation of the category. To be a nipa gyangyan or nipa bone is to inhabit a contradiction full of opprobrium. It is to be the negation of Arete, in the full Aristotelian essence of the matter. But the debate between these two colossuses of African philosophy has not been settled by the Greeks. It will be ridiculously arrogant to take that line. It is true, for instance, that virtually no African society understands the virtue of the hermitage. The idea that someone can retire into a cave and become a symbol of piety is laughable to the extreme. Asante priests, who have been touched by the God, can only be allowed their anti-social eccentricities in the moments of possession. When the God leaves they must return to the community, farming, weaving, hunting, answering to the call of her Chief and family head. Nor is there any respect for the abstract genius, who sits on palm fronds contemplating platonic ideals and sublime geometries. Or the abstract (or is it post-modernist now?) artist whose work refuses to embody any shared ritual. Or the craftman who cannot serve his chief with material tribute of any kind. Who makes objects that impersonify neither known idiom nor accounts of historical exploits. One may make fetish, but not propound myths about gods that are hard to verify by long pedigree. Ovidian poets are suspect. They are not welcome to the Court. In that sense, Personhood in the context of what others think of the one who claims it is certainly an interesting domain of investigation in a particular African-centered fashion. The path to self-fulfillment of the individual that is considered valid and legitimate by those who inhabit the same environmental milieu does appear to manifest certain African peculiarities, and thus appears to be worthy of careful examination. The question, however, is whether philosophy, qua philosophy, has much to say about the appropriate method. It seems to me, in all due humility and modesty, that these are sociological problems distorted through a philosophical dark lens.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 15:48:44 +0000
Trending Topics
© 2015