The Concept of Person in African Society and Its Implication on Human Thinking

Abstract

This article unveils African concept of person and its implication on human thinking. It expounds the two schools of thought on the concept of person found in the continent: Communitarian, and Ontological school. The former holds that personhood is community given and thus it can only be ascribed to the one who live and acts according to the norms prescribed by the society. The latter describes the notion of personhood from innate perspective. It eschews all communal attributes in the description of the idea of personhood. The article endorse communitarian school of thought as it affirms that African person is a communitarian being. On the other side, it refutes ontological school of thought by asserting that ontological concept of personhood is Western notion which has been Africanized and presented in local languages. The article claims that African communitarian nature has always eradicated heterogeneous thinking and exalted homogeneous mentality in the continent.