A Philosophical Rationalization of Initiative-Democracy and Covenant-based Authority as Inspired by Igbo Non-Philosophy

Abstract

The paper studies some aspects of the Igbo non-philosophy, which include elements such as cosmology, myth, language, culture, belief system, folklore, and so on which, though not philosophy, can offer materials for philosophical reflection. It then goes ahead to conceptualize ‘initiative-democracy’ and ‘covenant-based authority’ as implicit in Igbo non-philosophy. By making explicit what is implicit in Igbo non-philosophy, the author hopes to offer some grounds for answering the question of why political centralization was/is resisted in Igbo society. Initiative-democracy is a form of social structure, while covenant-based authority is a an ordered or prescriptive way of securing the well-being of persons and communities. Both social engagements, as existential and dispositional attitudes, will foreground the organization of human affairs within the Igbo environment of occurrence. The Igbo are a people for whom reality is hugely encountered from the standpoint of process; hence, one thinks they are primarily inclined to abhor a centralized system of control. The method of hermeneutics is adopted in this study to reveal the philosophy hidden in the non-philosophical corpus of some aspects of Igbo life.