Papers by Anthony Asekhauno
International Journal of Development Strategies in Humanities Management and Social Sciences, Mar 25, 2021
Many, including traditional rulers and scholars alike have admonished subjects and, indeed all in... more Many, including traditional rulers and scholars alike have admonished subjects and, indeed all indigenous citizens all over Africa, to reinvigorate commitment to the value and employment of indigenous language because it’s uniquely a people’s ultimate source of identity and solidarity as against the lasciviousness or abstruseness offered by the foreign or imported format/electronic social media. This opinion implies that the imported platforms offer indigenous languages relegation, disuse, stagnation and disappearance as means of communication—which, of course, is the transference of thought and meaning, achieved through language. And through language one communicates values, admittedly also across cultures. And developments in modern technology have mostly enhanced (whether or not they apply) those media (social) of internalizing foreign accretions universally with untold consequences for indigenous cultural values and morality. Accordingly, the imperative of this paper is to perspectives those sociological (social impact) and philosophical issues (ethical consideration) arising from that development. By critical analysis, the paper adumbrates how the adaptation and application of contemporary social media has adversely affected cherished traditional values. It concludes that modern social media is replete with both transmitting immorality and affording the widest medium for anyone to communicate same across the world. The work recommends, however, that although the social media has enhanced channels of communication, its applicability should be censored and subjected to cultural suitability test, which is the only way to preserve cherished core traditional values/morality—which essence should be taught to the youthful user at some early stage in life.
SIASAT Journal, Apr 30, 2021
This work locates the African philosophical system in spiritualism a doctrine recrudescent of pra... more This work locates the African philosophical system in spiritualism a doctrine recrudescent of pragmatism. Spiritualism is typical and topical all around traditional African cultures, empirically manifested in all areas of human knowledge and experience including its manifestations in medicine, communication and transportation, entertainment, and justice. An African machinative/spiritual capacity is a pragmatic reflection of African didactic strides towards untapped development; it makes possible the 'talking donkey just as the unpiloted drone-jet-plane, cell transplant, robotic and other artificial intelligences and animations; an African spiritual prudence is reductive/defiant of million distances apart to mere centimeters; and, in the least, it radically rebuts the authenticity of elasticity/elastic limit and is defies of the law of gravitation. While this categorization may be apt and adequate for those sympathetic with truth and the African course, it, however, is either untrue or a mark primitivism, unscientific, outmoded and untenable for others. Surprisingly, one of the foremost but critical views on this realistic depiction of African pragmatism is also an African, the Beninese Pauline Hountondji, born on 11th April, 1942 in Abidjan Cote D'Ivoire. In this work, the major substance of his views is here tersely represented and reviewed. Particularly, much interest would be cast on and critical of Hountondji's views to the extent such are contradicted by the favorable ones offered by the Abstract Arguably, spiritualism is the most central of African philosophical systems. Amongst Africans, all reality is replete with spiritual involvement a pragmatic involvement. Spiritualism is typical and topical all around traditional African cultures, empirically manifested in all areas of human knowledge and experience including medicine, communication and transportation, entertainment, and the disquisition of justice. African spiritual capacity is a pragmatic reflection of African didactic strides. While this categorization may be apt and adequate for those sympathetic with truth and the African course, it, however, is either untrue or unscientific, a mark of primitivism. Clearly, it is outmoded and untenable to some others, including the Ivoirian-born Beninese Paulin Hountondji. This work reviews the major substance of Hountondji's critical views on African spiritualism with a view to debunking them by adducing by the canons set by the process philosophies of Henry Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead. The trajectory attempts to build a theoretical pedestal for the grounding of an African esoteric philosophy, which is at once uniquely spiritual and pragmatic-hence the phrase, pragmatic spiritualism or spiritual pragmatism; a method and model recommended for wider feat in all human affairs and dealings with nature.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Oct 1, 2021
Truth and knowledge are essentially the dictates of some rationality or metaphysical ordainment. ... more Truth and knowledge are essentially the dictates of some rationality or metaphysical ordainment. By sense experience man is capable of accounting for his past, contemplate his life and predict his future and all of reality, for traditional Africa, however (as is the case with most native societies), there is another mode of knowing beyond man’s immediate capacity in search of truth and reality. An analysis of this perception indicates that there is some metaphysical tinge to epistemology or knowledge claims—whether in the spheres of justice, morality/ethics, religion, political authority, prosperity, law, or ontology/world-view. Put on a plain pedestal: Isn’t there an African mode of knowing? By the study among the Afemai-Etsako of Nigeria, this article tersely adumbrates the scope and nature of knowledge and discovers that, beside the common routes to it (experience and reason), the gamut of knowledge among the traditional Africans also have several metaphysical strands reducible to creative determinism, reactive interference, and representativeness in timing and naming.
By its very nature and philosophy, non-violence (and the practice or action of civil disobedience... more By its very nature and philosophy, non-violence (and the practice or action of civil disobedience) amounts to violence. In its best, non-violence is the philosophy of using peaceful means, not force, to bring about political or social change. Civil disobedience implies the willful and deliberate violation of certain law, civil rule and political authority in resistance to some real or perceived injustice. In other words, civil disobedience is the philosophical tradition that upholds non-violence as the sole route to resisting oppression and injustice. This implies psychological retaliation. But the question is, is the very idea of civil disobedience, as the practice of non-violence, not itself violent? In consideration of this, this article indicated the nature of civil disobedience, provided a typology of violence, and there-from argued that if violence implies violation (whether physical or psychological); that if non-violence denounces violence; and that if civil disobedience is ...
By its very nature and philosophy, non-violence (and the practice or action of civil disobedience... more By its very nature and philosophy, non-violence (and the practice or action of civil disobedience) amounts to violence. In its best, non-violence is the philosophy of using peaceful means, not force, to bring about political or social change. Civil disobedience implies the willful and deliberate violation of certain law, civil rule and political authority in resistance to some real or perceived injustice. In other words, civil disobedience is the philosophical tradition that upholds non-violence as the sole route to resisting oppression and injustice. This implies psychological retaliation. But the question is, is the very idea of civil disobedience, as the practice of non-violence, not itself violent? In consideration of this, this article indicated the nature of civil disobedience, provided a typology of violence, and there-from argued that if violence implies violation (whether physical or psychological); that if non-violence denounces violence; and that if civil disobedience is ...
Humans could manifest behavioral patterns that may not be true reflection of their inner will. in... more Humans could manifest behavioral patterns that may not be true reflection of their inner will. in this sense, man is a being that doubts, thinks, wills, intends, desires, and is dynamically rational. How do these features apply in the predictability of man? In short, what is the dept and reliability of our pry into an individual‟s will? Prominently, there are conflicting two accounts on whether or not a scientific study of human social behavior is possible, and these base on four basic claims: one, that there are regularities in humans‟ behaviors; two, that the world is rule-governed and humans are part of that world; three, following Spencer and Comte, like the study of parts and their function in an organism, that humans are part of larger society and therefore can be functionally studied; and four, following Pratt, that humans‟ social behavior could be studied like animals‟ in characteristic situations. Yet, man is a rational/intelligent and dynamic being and many believe he is f...
Journal of Information Ethics, 2017
From its classical roots (the Gita, Socrates, and Christ), the world has experienced many apostle... more From its classical roots (the Gita, Socrates, and Christ), the world has experienced many apostles of the doctrine of non-violence—effectively interpreting and using it as a social weapon for transforming society and moderating social policy formulation. For example, the efficacy of non-violence was demonstrated in India by the practical dimension (though this is less validly claimed about Africa) given to the Gita by Gandhi, in the United States by both David Thoreau and the ebullient, resilient Nobel laureate, Luther King Jnr.; they perfected and variously adapted the principles of non-violence (organized matches, strikes, sit-ins, dissenting rallies, demonstrations, etc.) to the redress perceived or real socio-political infamies of their respective era. In some way, nevertheless, modern Africa has witnessed no known more application of non-violence than in Nigeria where strike action has become the single overriding and common industrial weapon for seeking redress such that the p...
Recently, there has been an increase among gender sensitivists’ agitation for women equality with... more Recently, there has been an increase among gender sensitivists’ agitation for women equality with men—despite their obvious or obscure physical dissimilarities or uniqueness, natural/social-condition. So what is the basis of quest for gender equality? Is this possible or necessary? Although several plausible claims are made by the equalitarians, this paper explains the formidable and seemingly insurmountable barriers to an ‘impeccable’ level of women equality with men existing in their respective natural-condition (disabling or enabling), or other social/cultural-condition. Accordingly, it reviews the conception of women among the Etsako of Nigeria so as to be enabled to sift such culture-base barriers. Thus, it point out that though developments in science and technology have tended to develop some schemes and mechanisms to enhance women’s natural disablements to fit in social participation as man, custom, tradition and cultural accretions have tended to be formidable barriers. Aff...
Journal of Information Ethics, 2015
IntroductionThe Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is damaged by many inept legal ac... more IntroductionThe Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is damaged by many inept legal actions, most particularly the signing into law of the Freedom of Information Bill (F.o.I.B.). This signing apparently has three implications: one, the F.o.I.B. became a law, an act-Freedom of Information Act (F.o.I.A.), 2011; two, it is an affront to the national constitution; and three, it marks a breach of morality and, therefore, leads to national moral bereavement-as the rule of law has been supplanted by the rule of the jungle: it violates the principles of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights (UNDHR) and the African Charter of Human and People's Rights (A.C.H.P.R.). Some of these claims are intrinsic and obscure; others are apparent and perceptible. These features are marks of aberration of law and, therefore, contra natura (against public interest and morality). Does any law with such features carry the force of law, or is such a law not void ab initio and citizens ow...
It is apt and usual to cogitate and ratiocinate man and human rights; it is less so about or with... more It is apt and usual to cogitate and ratiocinate man and human rights; it is less so about or with (other) animal rights; and much more less and lesser so with/about "plant rights" and those of cloned/the artificially intelligent agents'. This condition is unfair and not ideal because man, other animals, plants, and other human manipulations (AI) from nature constitute varying levels of being; therefore, they possess varying levels of rights. Hence there is a need to espouse the nature/levels of being, on the one hand, and to adumbrate the nature/types of rights and as related to being as such-which is the imperative of this article. Dwelling on the cornucopia of literature/hard common biological and other in nature as a basis for analysis, this article, first, seeks to establish that man, other animals, plants, and other human manipulations of nature constitute varying levels of being; and second, argues that each level of being as such possesses some rights associated with it. It argues further that either all beings have rights, or they don't. The work concludes that if one accepts that all the levels of being possess rights (accordingly, including plant, cloned and AI agents), then one has an obligation to all levels of being; but accepting the latter poses the most existential and ontological threat to humanity and all of nature (climate.
Kiabàrà: Journal of the Humanities, 2011
Over the centuries, beginning with the classic Greeks through the trends of the mid-20 th century... more Over the centuries, beginning with the classic Greeks through the trends of the mid-20 th century, philosophical enterprise has been intricately and seemingly irretrievably rooted in the theory of the given-an edification of philosophy as that giant mirror and standard for measuring what counts as knowledge; but is it thus synonymous with or reducible to epistemology? How or why? There are two answers to both of these questions. The attempt in this work is to delineate those separate concerns, their areas of convergence and disparity, but also indicated the genesis of edifying philosophy rooted in epistemology but which has been discredited in the works of some postmodernist reformers-Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Dewey, Quine, and Rorty. Against theirs, this piece shows that historically, philosophizing has had a methodology and some perceptual axioms; that it is not easy to abdicate it from this mode, no matter the will and zeal-for success is not a matter of will alone; that the post-modernists revolution is nothing new with its swollen nerves and arteries (as others before it, it soon wanes). It concludes that the urge for philosophic understanding shows no sign of abating and so the philosophical journey will probably go on and on, each stage building on and rewriting its past and ruminating specific but perennial problematic; that while some of the issues seemingly do appear resolved, others may have endured and eloped any final solution; and finally that the philosophical method and basic assumptions have seriously remained firmly even beyond post-modernist restructurers.
Idea. Studia nad strukturą i rozwojem pojęć filozoficznych, 2017
Idea. Studia nad strukturą i rozwojem pojęć filozoficznych, 2017
Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences, 2016
In its best, non-violence is the philosophy of using peaceful means, not force, to bring about po... more In its best, non-violence is the philosophy of using peaceful means, not force, to bring about political or social change. Civil disobedience implies the willful and deliberate violation of certain law, civil rule and political authority in resistance to some real or perceived injustice. In other words, civil disobedience is the philosophical tradition that upholds non-violence as the sole route to resisting oppression and injustice. This implies psychological retaliation. But the question is, is the very idea of civil disobedience, as the practice of non-violence, not itself violent? In consideration of this, this article indicated the nature of civil disobedience, provided a typology of violence, and therefrom argued that if violence implies violation (whether physical or psychological); that if non-violence denounces violence; and that if civil disobedience is the praxis of non-violence, then, going by its very nature, theory and practice, non-violence/civil disobedience amounts to some form of violation or violence-the supposed evil that it is meant to cure.
Matatu, 2012
It is normal to scheme and employ any weapon to achieve the defeat of an opponent in warfare. Amo... more It is normal to scheme and employ any weapon to achieve the defeat of an opponent in warfare. Among modern states, such weapons include diplomacy, guns, machine guns, bombs, and missiles; but traditional Africa, such weapons include the use of craft, magic, sorcery and other spiritual forces. This is because it is believed that the involvement of spiritual forces in warfare is far more potent than simply reliance on human/material forces and techniques. This is exactly the belief and practice among the Etsako of Nigeria in their approach to their communal warfare. But the question remains: How is sorcery and witchcraft employed in warfare? Is the use of those spiritual elements in traditional African setting potent and relevant in modern warfare? This essay indicates that in Africa, as in the example of the Etsako of Nigeria, the use of witchcraft, magic, and sorcery is always a potent force in warfare, both traditional and modern.
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Papers by Anthony Asekhauno