Abstract

With the Socratic injunction: “man know thyself”; the West began a formal search for the nature of man. What is man? What is his essence in real life; what exactly makes him what he is? These questions, apart from dividing philosophers in the West into different warring camps, also portray man as incapable of self knowledge; hence man is described as a paradox. This seemingly insoluble problem among Western philosophers is grounded on their conception of reality as static and dichotomised. In Africa with the understanding of reality as one unitary whole, though distinct and yet complementary, penetrating and interacting with each other, the dualism disappears and there is what we call the “harmony of African conceptions”. In this article, using comparative analysis, the essence of man is critically examined within a particular African culture, namely, Bantu ontology and with their conception of reality as dynamic, a conception in contradistinction to the Western static conception of reality The conclusion is that a new definition of man emerges, a definition which is one of the essential characteristics of who is an African?

Highlights

  • The history of philosophy reveals that the formal anthropological question: What is man is coeval with Greek civilization and philosophy; even though the early Greek philosophers turned their attention primarily to unravelling the cause or causes of the material universe, yet the problem of man’s nature was interwoven with that of the universe since man was regarded as part of nature

  • We tie up our discussion by answering the question posed by Kant, namely, what is man? In the light of our analysis of Bantu ontology, we agree with Tempels that man is the supreme force, the most powerful among created beings

  • All we are saying is that such a system created by Bantu conception of man in relation to others is in sharp distinction to the system created by Western culture which paved the way for so much individualism and egotism and personal freedom in the Western world

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Summary

Introduction

The history of philosophy reveals that the formal anthropological question: What is man is coeval with Greek civilization and philosophy; even though the early Greek philosophers turned their attention primarily to unravelling the cause or causes of the material universe, yet the problem of man’s nature was interwoven with that of the universe since man was regarded as part of nature This fact is well articulated by Okolo The Bantu concept of man is rooted in their ontology which is white different from Western thought This is a major contribution to world knowledge from Bantu of Rwanda in Africa. That is to say, having studied the essence of man in both cultures, namely, Western and Bantu, we should be able to see the contributions of Western thought to Bantu notions of man and vice-versa.

The Question of Man’s Essence in Western Philosophy
Idealist View
Man as All Matter
Placide Tempels’ Bantu Ontology
Man in Bantu Ontology
Concluding Reflections
Full Text
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