The African Treatment of Being: An Epistemic, Ontological and Scientific Inquiry

Abstract

Traditional African understanding and treatment of being has symmetry among Africans of all tribes and ethnic polarization perhaps with few “insignificant” variations. Hence, in the discussion of the hierarchy of being, there is God at the apex, down to plants and animals. Man occupies a prominent position in the whole scheme of things as he is at the middle of it all. This understanding of being with its fusion of the physical and spiritual dimension opens up a vista of interpretation of the whole gamut of reality with the spiritual given so much prominence by Africans. This preference affects the emphasis and outcome of reality for the Africans in matters of knowledge (epistemology), the nature of reality (ontology) and the structure and behavior of matter (science). As a consequence, this creates a problem of imbalance by the holistic assessment and interpretation of reality from a spiritual point of view thereby stifling the scientific spirit which sought to unveil nature’s mystery through observation, systematic experimentation, building of hypotheses and theories. The philosophical method of critical analysis was employed in the study to redirect the focus of Africans to the need for a balanced interpretation of reality with much attention paid on scientific inquiry because of its practical utility and gains in the contemporary world.