Themes, Issues and Problems in African Isaac E. Ukpokolo Editor Themes, Issues and Problems in African Philosophy Editor Isaac E. Ukpokolo Department of Philosophy of Ibadan Ibadan, Oyo State,

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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Acknowledgments

As I complete this volume, Themes, Issues and Problems in African Philosophy, I wish to express my appreciation to all the contributors who cooperated with me in producing the work. Special thanks go to my friends and students, including Peter A. Ikhane, Timi Olujohungbe and Elvis Imafidon, who were at the very center of the production of this work. I extend this ­appreciation to my ­colleagues in the Department of Philosophy, University of Ibadan, who encouraged me and pepped me up when I was faced with frustrating ­challenges. I thank my dear wife, Francesca C. Ukpokolo, who, in addition to providing an enabling environment around me, read through some of the manuscript for correctness and alignment with the theme of the book. I am grateful to my children, Oseighele, Ebosetale, Irenose and Eseleose, and my nephew Jesse, who provided tranquility to enable me to concentrate on the ­writings. I appreciate the role played by Palgrave Macmillan in the ­publication and advertisement of the book. Above all, I give glory and praise to God, the holy mystery in whose eternal today has always existed the ­production of this book.

v Contents

1 Introduction: The Shifting Focus of Philosophy in Africa 1 Isaac E. Ukpokolo

2 Revisiting the Terms of African Philosophy 11 C.B.N. Ogbogbo

3 African Metaphysics: Traditional and Modern Discussions 19 Wilfred Lajul

4 Critical Notes on the Metaphysics of Metallurgy in an African Culture 49 Omotade Adegbindin

5 An Overview of African Ethics 61 Thaddeus Metz

6 Transnational Ethics, Justice and Anyiam-­Osigwe’s Philosophy of the Family 77 Ronald Olufemi Badru

7 Toward an African Moral Theory (Revised Edition) 97 Thaddeus Metz

vii viii Contents

8 An African Theory of Knowledge 121 Anselm Kole Jimoh

9 Epistemic Insight from an African Way of Knowing 137 Peter A. Ikhane

10 The Imperative of Epistemic Decolonization in Contemporary Africa 145 Abosede Priscilla Ipadeola

11 A Gendered Interrogation of Virtue Ascription in an African Thought System 161 Isaac E. Ukpokolo

12 Women’s Agency and the Re-negotiation of Gender Depiction in an African Media Space 179 Benjamin Timi Olujohungbe

13 The Imperative of Developing African Eco-philosophy 191 Kevin Behrens

14 The Nature of African Aesthetics 205 Mathew A. Izibili

15 Philosophy and Existence in an African Condition 217 Anthony Akinwale

16 Human Life and the Question of Meaning in African Existentialism 237 Monday Lewis Igbafen

17 Western Specifications, African Approximations: Time, Colour and Existential Attitudes 255 Elvis Imafidon Contents ix

18 Probable Limits of Particularism in African Existential Discourse 267 Wale Olajide

19 Philosophy and the Challenge of Development in Africa 277 Peter A. Ikhane

20 Political Philosophy in the African Context 289 Joseph Osei

21 Concepts of Justice in Africa: Past and Present 305 Anke Graness

22 African Worldview and the Question of Democratic Substance 333 Christopher O. Agulanna and Peter Osimiri

23 Philosophy: Interrogating the Public Space and Culture 351 O. B. Lawuyi

24 Mandela’s Legacy for Political Philosophy in Africa 365 Joseph Osei

Index 383 Notes on Contributors

Omotade Adegbindin, Ph.D is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. Christopher O. Agulanna, Ph.D is a professor in the Department of Philosophy, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. Anthony Akinwale, Ph.D a Dominican friar of the Province of Nigeria, holds a PhD degree from Boston College in the USA. He is a professor at the Dominican Institute, Ibadan, and a visiting professor at Institut Saint Thomas d’Aquin de Yamoussoukro in Cote d’Ivoire. He specializes in systematic theology and the philosophy­ of Thomas Aquinas. His research interests include retrieving the philosophical­ and theological insights of Thomas Aquinas in addressing­philosophical, religious and political issues in Africa. He has authored The Congress and the Council: Towards a Nigerian Reception of Vatican II and co-edited with Joseph Kenny Preaching in Contemporary Nigeria and Tradition and Compromises: Essays on the Challenge of Pentecostalism. He has also pub- lished essays in several academic journals within and outside Nigeria. Ronald Olufemi Badru, Ph.D is a lecturer in philosophy and politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations, Lead City University, Ibadan, Nigeria, as well as an associate lecturer in philosophy at the Major Seminary of Ss. Peter and Paul, Ibadan, Nigeria. He is also an associate lecturer in the Faculty of Law, Lead City University, Ibadan, where he teaches Argument and Evidence (Logic and Legal Epistemology). Dr. Badru’s core areas of academic research are political, moral and legal philosophy. He has published in peer-reviewed, scholarly international journals in countries outside of Nigeria, such as the USA, Romania, Poland, Ghana, Mozambique and South Africa, to mention a few. Moreover, he has ­contributed ­quality chapters to edited academic books in his areas of research. He has also been invited to present scholarly papers at various international ­academic conferences and ­workshops in many countries, such as Russia, the USA, Germany, Scotland, Malaysia, Greece, South Africa and Portugal. Dr. Badru is a Senior Research Fellow of “Institut Français de Recherche en Afrique, Nigeria.”

xi xii Notes on Contributors

Kevin G. Behrens, Ph.D is a senior lecturer at the Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics, School of Clinical , Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg. He holds a Doctorate in Public Philosophy and Ethics from the University of Johannesburg and a Master’s Degree in Applied Ethics for Professionals from Wits. Kevin is the academic coordinator of the PhD program in Bioethics and Health Law and the unit head for the “Foundations of Bioethics” unit in the Master of Science in Medicine in the Bioethics and Health Law program. His research interests lie in the area of applied ethics, in particular with regard to bioethics and environmental ethics. A major emphasis in his work is on applying sub-Saharan African moral philosophical notions to ethical questions. He has published widely in international and national journals and is on the editorial board of the South African Journal of Bioethics and Law. He holds a rating as an “Established Researcher” (C1) from the National Research Foundation. Anke Graness is Elise Richter Fellow at the Chair Philosophy in a Global World/ Intercultural Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, University of Vienna (Austria). She is the author of Das menschliche Minimum. Globale Gerechtigkeit aus afrikanischer Sicht: Henry Odera Oruka. She has also co-edited an anthology on the Kenyan phi- losopher Henry Odera Oruka, Sagacious Reasoning. H. Odera Oruka in memo- riam (with K. Kresse), and a book on intercultural philosophy, Perspektiven interkulturellen Philosophierens. Beiträge zur Geschichte und Methodik von Polylogen (with F. Gmainer-Pranzl). Graness has published a number of articles in peer-reviewed journals in the areas of African philosophy, intercultural philosophy and global ­justice. Her research interests include history of philosophy, ethics, political philosophy and feminist theory. Anke Graness is currently project leader of a FWF-funded­ research project on the history of philosophy in Africa at the University of Vienna. Monday Lewis Igbafen, Ph.D is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Nigeria. His areas of specialization/interest include social and political philosophy, existentialism and African philosophy. Peter A. Ikhane is a doctoral student in the Department of Philosophy, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. He teaches philosophy in the Department of Philosophy, Dominican Institute, Ibadan, Nigeria. Elvis Imafidon is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Nigeria. His areas of specialization include African ontology and ethics, philosophy of modernity and philosophy of science. He has published several papers in various fields of African philosophy in learned journals. He is the editor of Ontologized Ethics: New Essays in African Meta-ethics (2014) and The Ethics of Subjectivity: Perspectives since the Dawn of Modernity (2015), and he is the author of The Question of the Rationality of African Traditional Thought: An Introduction (2013). Abosede P. Ipadeola, Ph.D is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. Notes on Contributors xiii

Matthew A. Izibili, Ph.D is an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Nigeria. He specializes in philoso- phy of art, African philosophy and medieval philosophy. Anselm Kole Jimoh, Ph.D is a Catholic Priest and has a PhD in Philosophy from Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Nigeria. His particular area of research is African epistemology. He is a senior lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the Major Seminary of Ss. Peter and Paul, Ibadan, Nigeria (affiliated with the University of Ibadan, Nigeria). He has published articles and books in epistemology, philosophy of religion and history of philosophy, and he is currently completing a commissioned textbook on metaphysics. Some of his publications include: “Context Dependency of Human Knowledge: Justification of An African Epistemology” (WAJOPS: West African Journal of Philosophical Studies, 1999), “Evil in the Creation of a Good God? A Philosophical Discourse” (EPHA: Ekpoma Journal of Religious Studies, 2003), “Knowledge and Truth in African Epistemology” (Ekpoma Review, 2004), and Certitude and Doubt: A Study Guide in Epistemology (2013). Wilfred Lajul, Ph.D is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda. He also has a Postgraduate Diploma in Education from Makerere University, Diplomas in Theological and Pastoral Studies and in Philosophical and Pastoral Studies (Alokolum—Gulu, Uganda). Over the years he has taught African philosophy, social and political philoso- phy, epistemology, logic, philosophy of law, development ethics and philosophical foundations of human rights. His research interests have been in the areas of African philosophy, ethics, epistemology, philosophy of education and human rights. He has published two books: The Role of Man in the Dynamics of History: Reflections on Kant (1994) and African Philosophy: Critical Dimensions (2014), along with book chapters and several articles in reputable journals. O.B. Lawuyi, Ph.D is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Ibadan. He trained as an anthropologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, USA, and has served as department head in four across Africa. An ­outstanding scholar, he has published over one hundred articles in learned journals and has seven books to his credit. Thaddeus Metz, Ph.D is Distinguished Professor (2015–2019) and a research ­professor at the University of Johannesburg, where he is affiliated with the Philosophy Department and the Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation. Among his more than 175 professional works accepted for publication are the books A Relational Moral Theory: Africa’s Contribution to Global Ethics and Jurisprudence in an African Context (with D. Bilchitz and A. Oyowe), both appearing with Oxford University Press. xiv Notes on Contributors

C.B.N. Ogbogbo, Ph.D, LLM, FHSN is Professor and Head of the Department of History, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. He is currently the president of the Historical Society of Nigeria. Wale Olajide, Ph.D is a Professor of African Philosophy and Existentialism with over three decades of teaching experience of postgraduate and undergraduate students in Nigerian and overseas universities. He attended the University of Ibadan, where he obtained his Combined Honors Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy and Religions. His MA and PhD were also obtained at the University of Ibadan. Beyond his teaching career and regular engagements as a motivational speaker, Professor Olajide has worked in the three arms of the media and was for more than a decade a banker sad- dled with the task of human capital training, research and corporate reputation man- agement. He presently teaches philosophy at University, , Nigeria. Benjamin Timi Olujohungbe is a doctoral student in the Department of Philosophy of the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. Joseph Osei, Ph.D is a Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Fayetteville State University, North Carolina. He earned his PhD in Philosophy from Ohio State University in 1991, his MA in Philosophy from Ohio University, Athens, OH, in 1986, and a Double Major in Philosophy and Religion from the University of Ghana in 1991. Dr. Osei’s research interests include ethics, social and political philosophy, African philosophy, philosophy of religion and philosophy of education. His publica- tions include five books, 12 book chapters and over 30 journal articles and confer- ence proceedings. Among his most recent publications are: “Kant’s Contribution to Moral Evolution: From Modernism to Post-Modernism”; The Ethics of Subjectivity: Perspectives since the Dawn of Modernity, edited by Dr. Elvis Imafidon; “Karl Popper’s Contribution to Postmodernist Ethics”; Eugenics: A Critical Examination of Eugenics as a Public Policy Construct with Dr. Kwame Boakye Sarpong (2014); “The Legacy of Harvard Professor Ronald Dworkin for the Civil Rights Movement” in US China Law Review (2014); Ethical Issues in Third World Development: A Theory of Social Change (2011); and The Challenge of Sustaining Emergent Democracies (2009). Dr. Osei is also the editor-in-chief of the e-journal Philosophical Papers and Review. Peter Osimiri is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos, Nigeria. Isaac E. Ukpokolo, Ph.D is a professor in the Department of Philosophy, University of Ibadan. He is a specialist in epistemology and philosophy of science, metaphysics and philosophy of culture. He has directed a number of PhD theses and Master’s ­dissertations and has supervised undergraduate teaching assignments and projects. He has taught philosophy for over two decades in the University of Ibadan and is widely published in several journals of international standard, such as Journal of Black Studies and Cultura: International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology. He is also the author of Methodology of Research and Writing in Philosophy: A Guide.