Metaphysical thinking in Africa - a particular way of conceptualizing reality

Introduction

“Metaphysics is that branch of philosophy concerned with the most fundamental questions: existence, essence, space and time, the nature of universals, cause and effect, etc.’ (A.W.Sparkes., 1991, p. 207)
Teffo and Abraham however argue that in our efforts to understand the ultimate nature of reality we are confronted with the problem that some see the determination of reality is an objective and mechanistic affair. He argues instead that this view of universal knowledge as universal truth has long been rejected.  He argues that
“[o]ur perceptions are influenced by our expectations, beliefs and emotions, but also by our conceptual schemes, our histories and social circumstances, and the language we talk. That is to say, the conception of the nature of reality varies from culture to culture, almost suggesting that different cultural communities live in different worlds”. (LEBISA J.TEFFO AND ABRAHAM P.J.ROUX, 2005)
It is thus within this understanding that the assertion of an African Philosophy stands to be counted as one of those conceptual schemes, influenced as it is by our history, social circumstances and languages. We shall not here revisit the veracity of this claim but except, as do the authors we will reference, that African Philosophy as a metaphysical enquiry is valid and necessary pursuit that enriches the broad corpus of philosophical enquiry.

African Metaphysics , investigating and unpacking  as it does, the ultimate nature of reality as understood
from the perspective of African history,  social circumstance,  and languages is therefore necessarily a branch of African Philosophy.

This essay will briefly consider the key philosophical themes that African metaphysics address, and then draw some conclusions about these themes.

African Philosophical Themes

Before we consider the broad themes of African metaphysical study, it is useful to note some aspects of the African world view, or “cosmovision…the way people conceive their world and existence”. (Mungwini, 2015, p. 2)
Innocent I. Asouza, as quoted by Mungwini , argues that African Metaphysics “is instrumental to the African in tackling fundamental issues of ethics and society and as such has been instrumental to questions of cohesion, social control, law and order within African societies”. (Mungwini, 2015, p. 3)
With the question of African philosophy and particularly African Metaphysics have been established as necessary contributors to the philosophical project and having located metaphysic s at it centre while going beyond the western theory of rationality to assert the importance of situatedness to develop knowledge claims, it is now important to foreground the African concept of Holism to understand how the different themes should be approached.
Holism in African metaphysics is informed by an understanding which does not divide the material and the spiritual into dual opposites in the same way that western philosophy does but these realities “hang together” and are inseparably intertwined in cause and effect. As we will discover rather than a dual conception of different realities, African metaphysics views the human existence as consisting of many intertwined and connected aspects of being all influenced and connected to the environment within which being is experienced.
Using Tefo and Roux`s analysis (LEBISA J.TEFFO AND ABRAHAM P.J.ROUX, 2005), The main themes are:

God

Where God  is divided into three subheadings, namely, God in Arican Life, God as Supreme being and God as Creator. God is essentially not apart from the world and is the universe is one whole with God at the top of a hierarchy which includes spirits, humans, animals and inanimate objects.

Ancestors

Where the belief that the living and the spirit of those who passed on are in constant interaction and that they are able to communicate through rituals.

Witchcraft

Believing that nothing happens without a cause, and that every event serves some purpose, African traditional thought often revert to witchcraft to explain the unexplainable.

Personhood

In contrast to western conceptions of personhood as a duality between mind and matter, African conceptions stress the interconnectedness of the whole cosmos and specifically relations to and with people. African conceptions stress that “I am because we are and since we are therefore I am”.

Dualism

This should most likely be described as connectedness. African philosophical concepts do not conceive reality in opposing terms but rather as interconnected and interrelated systems which bear on each other in a constant dialectic.

Destiny

The interconnected nature of African conceptions of reality includes an element of destiny which depends on and is related to a number of variable aspects such as gender, clan, personality, experiences and a range of other factors. Teffo and Roux however argue that the concept of destiny is not incompatible with human choices and freedoms.

Conclusion.

African Metaphysics and African cosmology is based on a non-binary, non-mechanistic, situated and holistic engagement with other people, the environment and the spirits.  It is fundamentally interested in understanding the causal nature of events and thus is at the core a philosophical worldview, even extending beyond the empirical and common sense to bring into unity their understanding of the world and the events of the world

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