What follows is a discussion, in three parts, of the African concept of ubuntu and related issues. In the first part of the discussion J.A.I. Bewaji assesses an essay by W.M.J. van Binsbergen on Ubuntu and the Globalisation of Southern African Thought and Society (2001). In the second part Bewaji reviews M.B. Ramose's African Philosophy through Ubuntu (2002). And in the third part Ramose responds to both Bewaji and Van Binsbergen. Although Ramose disagrees with some of (...) class='Hi'>Bewaji's comments and interpretations – especially with regard to the thesis on which ubuntu is, according to the former, founded (i.e. “that ontology proper is a rheology”) – both Bewaji and Ramose agree that Van Binsbergen's critique of ubuntu philosophy, and specifically of Ramose's explication thereof, is untenable. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.22(4) 2003: 378-414. (shrink)

BackgroundCoaching is increasingly viewed as a dyadic exchange of verbal and non-verbal interactions driving clients' progress. Yet, little is known about how the trajectory of dyadic interactions plays out in workplace coaching.MethodThis paper provides a multiple-step exploratory investigation of movement synchrony of dyads in workplace coaching. We analyzed a publicly available dataset of 173 video-taped dyads. Specifically, we averaged MS per session/dyad to explore the temporal patterns of MS across the cluster of dyads that completed 10 sessions, and a set (...) of 173 dyadic interactions with a varied number of sessions. Additionally, we linked that pattern to several demographic predictors. The results indicate a differential downward trend of MS.ResultsDemographic factors do not predict best fitting MS curve types, and only client age and coach experience show a small but significant correlation.DiscussionWe provide contextualized interpretations of these findings and propose conceptual considerations and recommendations for future coaching process research and practice. (shrink)

This essay examines the concept of "truth" from empiricist and pragmatist perspectives. This not without reference to other theories. The concern is to see how the ascendancy of pragmatism has affected humanity and may continue to affect humanity, the so-called objectivity in the practice of science and philosophy and the relationships between the diverse peoples of the world. An analysis of the pragmatist's preference for usefulness, rather than truth, it is argued, accounts for the deleterious consequences of pragmatism for humankind (...) in its almost irrational substitution of usefulness for truth. (shrink)

Identity Re-creation in Global African Encounters explores race, racial politics, and racial transformation in the context of Africa’s encounters with non-African communities through various perspectives including oppression, racialization of ethnic difference, and identity deconstruction. While the contributors recognize that ethnicity has long been a staple analytical category of engagements between African and non-African communities, they present a holistic view of the continent and its diaspora through race outside of both colonial and neocolonial binaries, allowing for a more nuanced study of (...) Africa and its diaspora. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Ethics and Morality in Africa Some Ethical Concepts in Yoruba Philosophy Concluding Remarks.

This book explores aspects of indigenous Yoruba philosophy of law and relates this philosophy to the Yoruba indigenous traditions of governance. It is written with an appreciation of the relevance of the Yoruba traditions of law and governance to contemporary African experiments with imported Western democracy in the twenty-first century.

Pearce's "African Philosophy and the Sociological Thesis" makes very interesting reading. Why it is interesting is not because it advances the frontiers of philosophical discourse in Africa or globally but because it shows that certain unwarranted dispositions die hard and that deliberate ignorance, if that is what is displayed, is hard to cure. In this article the author comments on the following contentions made by Pearce: (1) philosophy has no social relevance and/or responsibility; (2) philosophy is purely a linguistic activity (...) concerned with analysis of concepts and examination; (3) philosophy derives from religion; (4) because African philosophy cannot supplant world philosophy, it lacks locus and legitimacy; (5) African philosophy pursues intellectual apartheid through an ethnophilosophical agenda; and (6) African philosophy is vulnerable to the Sociological Thesis and is voided by it. The author's rebuttal consists of a critical and analytic examination of Pearce's views, counterfactual illustrations, and elicitation of enthymemic presuppositions. (shrink)

Der schlesische Spiritualist Johann Theodor von Tschesch (1595-1649) wurde bislang in Fachkreisen fast ausschliesslich als ein Nachfolger Jakob Böhmes wahrgenommen. Der Untersuchung von Tünde Beatrix Karnitscher gelingt es erstmals, ein differenzierteres Bild von Tschesch zu zeichnen. Durch intensive Recherche und mit grosser Akribie konnte eine Zusammenschau von bislang nicht zueinander in Beziehung gesetzten und zum Teil schwer zugänglichen Textcorpora zum Thema erfolgen und darüber hinaus am Lebenslauf von Tschesch eine Reihe gesellschaftlicher Phänomene sichtbar gemacht werden, die das 17. Jahrhundert und (...) besonders die Spiritualisten dieser Zeit charakterisieren. Karnitscher zeigt, wie Tscheschs wachsende Hinwendung zum geistigen Leben eine immer stärker werdende Spannung zwischen "Innen" und "Aussen" verursachte, welche sich im literarischen, gesellschaftlichen und geographischen Bereich beobachten lässt.0Zugleich leistet Karnitscher einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Erforschung der Traditionszusammenhänge zwischen Spiritualismus und Pietismus. (shrink)

Ontologized Ethics is a collection of essays in meta-ethics with an emphasis on philosophical discourse in the African context. It focuses primarily on the extent to which metaphysical beliefs may or may not justify moral beliefs, thereby revisiting the issue of the ‘is-ought’ relationship.

This paper examines the strategies for the legitimisation of power in courtroom encounters. It focuses on how discourse becomes the instrument for power and control during the judicial process of witness examination in a Nigerian courtroom context. Legitimisation, as used in this study, therefore, provides more insight into how language use within an institutionalised setting becomes the locus of social interactions designed to achieve specific social goals. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was adopted as the theoretical framework to undergird the description (...) and discussion of the data. The data for this study was drawn from the proceedings of two regional Election Petition Tribunals in South-western and North-eastern Nigeria in 2007 and 2011 respectively. The legal contexts provide the adversarial space for the use of discourse as power and control. The findings reveal that various legitimisation strategies such as confrontational move, circumlocution and pleading forgetfulness along with such traditional strategies as authorisation, moralisation and rationalisation are deployed by the discourse participants to legitimise and delegitimise power in this institutional setting. The paper shows that language is crucial in the judicial process and should be carefully handled so that litigants can have sufficient confidence in the process and be reassured of effective resolution to their legal matters. (shrink)

While scientific interest in the relationship between psychotherapeutic praxis and spirituality is growing, there is still little knowledge on this topic, especially in an East Central European context. To explore how psychotherapists understand spiritual issues and experiences they encounter in their work and to learn what happens to these issues in the course of psychotherapy, this study analyses semi-structured interviews with 30 Hungarian psychotherapists. Applying a grounded theory analytical strategy, three main topics were identified: the therapist's attitude towards spirituality leaves (...) a discernible trace in the psychoterapeutic treatment; the therapist influences the way spiritual issues are treated; and the therapist may have a shared spiritual experience with the client. We present individual variations of these experiences as they appear in the code tree. Results are interpreted with reference to a systemic view of the psychotherapeutic process, the intersubjective space of patient and therapist, and the notion of the therapists’ mentalizational capacity. (shrink)

This paper explores the contradiction of positing the existence of a God who is at once omnipotent and not omnipotent in respect of his power that arises in the thought of two African philosophers of religion, John A.I. Bewaji and Ademola Kazeem Fayemi who accept the limitation thesis that projects a limited God and deny the legitimacy of the transcendence view in Yoruba and, by extension, African thought. I demonstrate in this paper that the contradiction arises from the fact (...) that while Bewaji and Fayemi explicitly deny the legitimacy of the transcendence view in Yoruba and, by extension, African thought, they implicitly accept the view and unwittingly and illegitimately attempt to reconcile the conflicting views through the analysis of the notions of God’s creatorship, co-creatorship, and controllership. I conclude by recommending that instead of attempting to reconcile the antinomy of God’s existence in African philosophy of religion, African philosophers should acknowledge the legitimacy of the two conflicting theses constituting the antinomy and, accordingly, sustain logical consistency by strictly thinking within either the framework of limitedness or the framework of transcendence. (shrink)

Source: Author: Oluwayemisi Olusola Akinmameji Although the negative representation of women in Nollywood movies is worrisome to scholars, they have done little as regards exploring the feminist linguistic analysis of these movies. Studies have focused on the misrepresentations of women with emphasis on the literary perspectives. This paper attempts a lexical and sentential analysis of feminist ideology of two Nollywood movies. The study adopted Norman Fairclough’s model of Critical Discourse Analysis to explain way linguistic are used to instantiate feminist ideology (...) in the movies. Arugba and Maami produced by Tunde Kelani were purposively sampled because of the gender issues in them. Though some movies merely project women as witches and sex slaves, these two movies stand out among those that project the strengths of womanhood. The movies attempt to correct the negative impression about women. Linguistic features such as the lexical indices and mood system are examined. Larger scale features such as allusion and simile are also explored. The study suggests that despite the rot in the value system of the present day Nigeria, there are still women who pass for the ideal. Also, it was discovered that women can determine their fate regardless of what roles the society gives them and could survive even under the worst patriarchy. Beyond their weaknesses, women are necessary to maintain tranquility in the home and the larger society. This paper recommends that movie stakeholders should give responsible roles to women and women should be sensitive and alive to their responsibilities as regulators of the social political Nigerian entity. ]]>. (shrink)

In Nwapa’s novel, Dora and Rose are both confronted with the rituals of Tunde, but engage with them in different ways. I attempt a somewhat pained contrast: Dora’s way is closer to that of the functionalist participant observer, whereas Rose’s way is closer to that of earlier armchair anthropologists who sought the origins of rituals. I also note a puzzle to do with literary realism.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Changes in CharacterSeth Robertson (bio)I expect that many readers and most reviewers of John M. Doris’ Character Trouble will find tempting some quip about how the book counterexamples itself. After all, it puts on display a remarkable consistency of character, spanning over 20 years, from Doris. Virtue ethics and virtue theory have undergone substantial evolution, psychology is (according to some) undergoing a revolution, and, through it all, Doris’ skepticism (...) about moral character has remained steadfast. I hope that, should this temptation arise, it would be followed quickly by the thought that such quips evince a misunderstanding of Doris’ view. After all, entrenched skepticism about moral character (or moral character theorized a certain way) would be exactly the kind of narrow trait that has not overly worried Doris.In fact, one of the most helpful aspects of the book is that it makes it more difficult to misunderstand or dismiss Doris’ views. I’ll have more to say about this shortly, but first I should mention that my main goal here is not to write a general or detailed review of Character Trouble, but instead to write [End Page 541] a review aimed primarily at an audience of those interested in the intersection of moral psychology, moral character, and comparative or cross-cultural moral philosophy. Moral character has received much attention in cross-cultural philosophy both broadly (for example, Gyeke 1995; Bewaji 2004; Singh 2021; Hanner 2021; Cokelet 2016; Kim 2016; Sim 2015; Van Norden 2003, 2002; Sarkissian 2010; Wong 2015), and specifically regarding the situationist critique of virtue ethics (Hutton 2006; Slingerland 2011; Mower 2013; Robertson 2018), and these topics continue to attract interest.1 And they do so with good reason: accounts of, and ideas about, moral psychology and moral character from outside the Western philosophical canon are both fascinating in and of themselves and also immensely philosophically valuable for refining our understanding of what human morality and ethics could and should be.For scholars interested in these cross-cultural projects, Character Trouble is incredibly helpful. Doris has long maintained that certain non-Western ways of thinking about human moral psychology may be less susceptible to some of the concerns he raises (Doris 2022, p. 40). Even if one disagrees (or disagrees heartily) with some of the conclusions Doris draws, his questions are consistently excellent ones, especially for those trying to develop interpretations of historical works without inadvertently or unknowingly importing contentious assumptions about human moral psychology. Doris’ “Lotta-Little Principle,” which underlies a great deal of his argumentation throughout the anthology, is especially valuable for those working in cross-cultural philosophy. It states, “typically, many factors are implicated in complex psychological outcomes, and relatively seldom are individual factors implicated especially strongly” (p. 172; see pp. 172–173). Beyond simply being true, the principle is an incredibly helpful guide for doing good, rich, non-overly reductive moral philosophy. Saliently for this discussion, adherence to the Lotta-Little Principle also should incentivize doing (or supporting) more cross-cultural moral philosophy because (a) oftentimes, moral philosophy outside the Western canon adheres or adheres relatively more to the Lotta-Little Principle, and (b) if our aim is to better notice and appreciate moral psychological complexity, one of the obvious places to start, should we wish to do so well, is cross-cultural moral philosophy (to better ensure that our assumptions and intuitions about moral psychology aren’t simply parochial).Character Trouble contains 11 essays and an appendix, including the classic “Persons, Situations, and Character” (1998), and two new essays, “Making Good” and “The Future of Character.” The appendix (“An Open Letter to Our Students,” co-written with Edouard Machery) contains a great deal of helpful advice that any graduate student interested in ethics would benefit from reading. Around half of the essays focus on issues at the intersection of moral psychology and moral responsibility and agency, topics that, despite receiving serious attention in cross-cultural philosophy (e.g., [End Page 542] Seok 2017; Finnigan 2022; Sommers 2012), deserve much more: mainstream discussions of agency and responsibility stand to benefit a great deal from a richer understanding of how intuitions, attitudes, and ways of theorizing about culpability, blameworthiness, praiseworthiness, and related... (shrink)

This article discusses a relationship between the philosophical praxis of Ọ̀rúnmìlà and aesthetics of Èjìgbèdè Ẹ̀kú (i.e., the costume of the living and the costume of the dead) in Saworoidẹ (dir. Túndé Kèlání’s, 1999). I construct the Yorùbá/Ọ̀rúnmìlà philosophical method of Èjìgbèdè Ẹ̀kú in the contemporary Nigerian narrative film as case study of how contemporary African filmmakers, like their oral artiste counterparts, continue to articulate their inherited traditions via cinematic storytelling. In doing that I draw on what I call the (...) Ọ̀rúnmìliàn “parable of Eégún” (masquerade) to establish what I designate the philosophical/therapeutic questions of Èjìgbèdè Ẹ̀kú; and thus, argue that Èjìgbèdè Ẹ̀kú gives “presence to non-presence” so that the living/present can dialogue with the dead/past as a way of healing, re-moralizing, and/or decolonizing the living through cinematic storytelling. I conclude that Ọ̀rúnmìliàn film does not solely rekindle, and teach us, a valuable aesthetic practice of self-reflection or self-reevaluation but also decolonize and de-westernize film-philosophy. (shrink)