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Haitian Epistemology, Haitian/Vilokan Idealism, and Its Anti- Humanism

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Haitian Epistemology, Haitian/Vilokan Idealism, and Its Anti- Humanism International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Studies Volume 5, Issue 11, 2018, PP 32-39 ISSN 2394-6288 (Print) & ISSN 2394-6296 (Online) Haitian Epistemology, Haitian/Vilokan Idealism, and its Anti- Humanism Paul C. Mocombe West Virginia State University,The Mocombeian Foundation, Inc. *Corresponding Author: Paul C. Mocombe, West Virginia State University,\The Mocombeian Foundation, Inc. [email protected] ABSTRACT This work posits that Haitian metaphysics and ontology, Vodou/Vilokan, gave rise to its epistemology, Haitian/Vilokan Idealism, which subsequently gave rise to the Vodou Ethic and the spirit of communism and the lakou system as its form of social and system integration, respectively. In the final analysis, I conclude that the antidialectical approach to the historical process found in Haitian/Vilokan idealism gave rise to an anti- humanist philosophy, in favor of an existential (Heideggerian) phenomenology, which emphasizes the total liberty of the individual vis-à-vis nature over historical and societal constraints as the purposive- rationality of the Vodou Ethic and the spirit of communism and the lakou system. Keywords: Haitian/Vilokan Idealism, Vodou Ethic and the Spirit of Communism, Religiosity, Haitian Epistemology, Vodou, Anti-dialectical, INTRODUCTION integration so that Being or human existential existence can achieve perfection, embodying the The evolution and rationalization of the concepts of the noumenal world, and harmony phenomenology, materialism, and antidialectics over sixteen life-cycles. Be that as it may, of Haitian/Vilokan Idealism becomes unlike German Idealism whose intellectual institutionalized and reified via its form of development from Kant to Schopenhauer, system and social integration called the Lakou Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, and the Vodou Ethic and the spirit of and the Frankfurt school produced the dialectic, communism, respectively, where human actors Marxist materialism, Nietzscheian antidialectics, are allowed to exercise their practical phenomenology, and deontological ethics. consciousness as they understand the meaning Haitian/Vilokan Idealism, as defined, produces of ideas, concepts, and ideals, lwa yo, which phenomenology, materialism, and an stem from the noumenal world, i.e., the world of antidialectical process to history enframed by a Vilokan (i.e., the world of forms). So unlike the reciprocal justice as its normative ethics. The antidialectic of Nietzsche which promotes an latter, reciprocal justice, is constantly being existential phenomenology against system and invoked by individual social actors, not in terms social integration, i.e., the dialectics and holism of rights to protect themselves against of Hegel, the antidialectics of Haitian/Vilokan capitalistic egoistic conflict, as a normative ethic idealism, via its Lakou system, promotes a to reconcile the noumenal (sacred—ideational) social phenomenology wherein individuals, and phenomenal (profane—material) subjective depending on their spiritual court, intellectual world in order to maintain balance and harmony capacity, developmental stage, etc., attempt to between the two so that the human actor can live constitute their existence based on their freely and happy with all of being without interpretations and understanding of the distinctions or masters. As such, Haitian concepts of the noumenal world in order to epistemology as a form of transcendental maintain balance and harmony between nature, realism and idealism is phenomenological, in the individual, and their social interactions as the Heideggerian sense (i.e., hermeneutical), they provide for their material well-being via material in the Marxist sense, and agricultural production and trade against other antidialectical. It refutes Hegel’s claims for the interpretive forms. Difference or freedom of importance of historical formations and other expression and egalitarianism become the people to the development of self- contents of their form of system and social International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Studies V5 ● I11 ●2018 32 Haitian Epistemology, Haitian/Vilokan Idealism, and its Anti-Humanism consciousness. Instead, Haitian/Vilokan nanm) seek perfection and reunification idealism emphasizes the things in the (reintegration) with God, the energy consciousness (lwa or concepts, ideas, ideals) of force/source. the individual as they stem from the That is to say, it, Bondye, provided humanity noumenal/Vilokan world (the world of forms), with objects, concepts, ideas, ideals, and and get interpreted according to their level of practices, i.e., lwa yo of Vodou, proverbs, learning, development, capacity for knowledge, rituals, dance, geometry, knowledge of herbal and modality, i.e., the way they know more medicine, trades, and skills, by which they profoundly—kinesthetically, visually, etc., as ought to know, interpret, and make sense of the they antidialectically seek to reproduce them in external (phenomenal profane) world and live in the phenomenal world as their practical it comfortably. These transcendentally real consciousness against other interpretive objects, concepts, ideas, ideals, and practices formations in the material world. Hence in can either be known through dreams, Haitian/Vilokan Idealism as it would emerge divinations, experience or rationality, and amongst the Africans of the provinces and becomes the structure (once reified and mountains against the bourgeoisie of the cities, institutionalized as proverbs, husbandry, dance, the emphasis is not on the universality of the un rituals, institutions, etc.), form of sensibility and integrated and conditioned human being, an understanding, through which humanity come to autonomous self, endowed with reason and know, hold beliefs and truth-claims. So rationality. Instead, Haitian/Vilokan Idealism Bondye, a powerful energy force that always emphasizes the unfolding of the in determinancy existed created the world and humanity out of of the contents of the consciousness of a human itself using four hundred and one being, however, irrational or rational, over transcendentally real concepts (God and four- sixteen life-cycles as they seek perfecting hundred lwa), ideas, and ideals (geometric existence. So the emphasis is not on a universal principles, mathematics, etc.). Humanity and condition of human existence based on reason the world around it is an aggregation of and rationality as expressed in humanism. bondye’s material energy, the energy of God, Instead, the emphasis as in Heideggerian which constitutes its existence. In humanity this phenomenology is on Being and experiencing existence is composed of three distinct the lived-world no matter the form that Being aggregation of energy (ti bon anj; gwo bon anj; may take whether it is rational or irrational ko, the body), all of which are material stuff, amidst and at times against other interpretive which constitute our nanm (souls) where forms via the lakou system and the Vodou Ethic personality, truth-claims, knowledge, and beliefs and the spirit of communism as the form of are deposited, via dreams, revelations, system and social integration, respectively. extrasensory perceptions, divinations, BACKGROUND OF THE PROBLEM: HAITIAN experience, reason, the energy source of a God METAPHYSICS, VODOU as manifested via a lwa, and can be examined and explored as the synthetic a priori of the Ontologically speaking, within the Haitian human agent. metaphysical worldview, Vilokan/Vodou, the world is a unitary (energy) material world For humanity to constitute its existence and be created out of Bondye. The world is a creation in the world according to the will of God or of a good God, Bondye Bon, which created the Bondye, in other words, transcendentally real world and humanity out of itself composed of concepts stemming from God’s will (the two intersecting spheres, the profane (the mirrored world of the profane, Vilokan) are phenomenal world) and sacred embedded in the material world, which is God, (noumenal/Vilokanic, mirrored -ideational- and can be ascertain and embodied by humanity world of the profane). Embedded in that via their constituted being as a material being pantheistic material world are concepts, lwa yo with extrasensory perceptions, reason and in Haitian metaphysics, from the parallel rationality, and or through experience. As these mirrored (Vilokanic) world, that humanity can transcendentally real concepts are ascertain, ascertain via experience and the structure of its they are constituted and institutionalized, and being, form of understanding and sensibility passed on through humanity via (dreams, reason and rationality, extrasensory priests/priestesses and early ancestors who perceptions), to help make sense of their institutionalized (reify)/ institutionalize them in experience and live in the world, which is the natural world via religious ceremonies, Bondye, and therefore sacred, as they (via their dance, rituals, herbal medicine, trades, concepts, 33 International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Studies V5 ● I11 ● 2018 Haitian Epistemology, Haitian/Vilokan Idealism, and its Anti-Humanism and proverbs. These trades, ideals, proverbs, is on Being, i.e., existence, and the individual and or concepts are truisms, mechanisms to human actors’ right to recursively organize and ascertain and constitute knowledge, which reproduce their existence in the world as they although they are deduced from the constituted understand the concepts of the noumenal world
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