African Belief and Knowledge Systems: A Critical Perspective

Chapter Two

17 Chapter Two Uncovering African Metaphysics The subject of African metaphysics is a very broad and far reaching inquiry. In any case, there are two strategic hurdles to overcome. First, is how we can meaningfully talk about African metaphysics as an independent philosophical discipline? Second, is whether it is possible to cover the breadth and depth of African metaphysics in totality? Perhaps the consoling goad is the fact that no work can claim to say all that needs be said (in terms depth and breadth) on any subject matter. What is important in any given work is to have a clear vision of what is intended to be achieved. There is no one universal way of defining African metaphysics, but what I can do here is to provide a minimal guide for the idea of African metaphysics. That what is distinctively African in African metaphysics today derives from African traditional thought. Kwasi Wiredu is driving at this point when he observes that the conceptions of the African people, as a cultural group, on being, reality, God, the universe, as they grapple with the natural and supernatural entities in their environment are generally alike1 . This understanding is based on the belief that any group of human beings will certainly need to have some world outlook, that is, some general conceptions about the world in which they live and about themselves both as individuals and collectively as members of the same society. Having the same understanding of Africa and the African people, Ozumba2 defines African metaphysics as “the African way of perceiving, interpreting and making meaning out of interactions, among beings, and reality in general”. It is the totality of the African’s perception of reality. This will embrace the holistic conception of reality with its appurtenance of relations, qualities, characterizations, being and its subtleties universals, particular, ideas, minds, culture, logic, moral, theories and presuppositions. I have cited Wiredu and Ozumba’s definitions above at the risk of being accused of relativism. Nevertheless, it is important to emphasize that the issues dealt with in metaphysics, whether African metaphysics or Western metaphysics are universal. What is different is how each culture treats and 18 understands these issues as metaphysical issues are contingent on the values and cultures of the people in question. It is this crucial characteristic that distinguishes African metaphysics from western metaphysics. This is captured and underscored in the Belgian missionary, Placide Tempels’ claim that whereas the western people hold a static conception of being and maintain a certain detachment with the object, the African people hold a dynamic conception of being3 . It is also premised on the claim by Teffo and Roux that “reality is seen as a closed system so that everything hangs together and is affected by any change in the system”4 . The change can be variation within cultures, especially in the Western and African cultures. Recalling what has been said of African metaphysics by Temples, it can be remarked that the conception of reality in African metaphysics is holistic, interrelated and pragmatic. In fact if an idea, an explanation or a belief works, it is accepted even though it may not fulfil certain criteria of defining objective reality such as empirical validation. The logic of African metaphysics thus underpins the African standards and expectations. This is not to go with the impression that all African communities share the same standard even though the standard is community based. Borrowing from Willard V. O. Quine, each community operates from a background theory that penetrates its perception and metaphysics of reality. If you see things other than the way the community sees them, they will demean your understanding and systematize with your “alienness”. What I mean here is that Africans have a common general orientation and perception of reality. They have an important component to their conception of reality, a domain whose existence is explained mystically and not empirically. This is one of the Africans’ strongest beliefs in their cosmology. This belief has also influenced their understanding of reality as a composite of matter and spirit either co-existing or existing as separate entities. As such, Africans have a hierarchy of existence with God at the pinnacle followed by the ancestors in their perking order of seniority and down to the living beings-human beings still in their biological bodies. There is ample evidence among Africans that the activities of 19 the ancestors and God affect people...