AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY AND THOUGHTS ABOUT LIFE
3.4. THEORIES OF AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY
3.4.1. Metaphysics
82 like the oppressed. Furthermore, Mandela (2006), gives us his explanation of Ubuntu, in an interview with South African journalist, Tim Modise:
A traveller through a country would stop at a village and he didn't have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food, entertain him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu, but it will have various aspects. Ubuntu does not mean that people should not enrich themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to be able to improve?
This understanding underpins the philosophical dimension of communalism (people are people through other people) found in Zulu communities, as well as the religious dimension in ubuntu perceptions about relationships among human beings. Mandela's assertion also reinforces the philosophical dimension of ubuntu which embraces diversity.
83 being besides the Supreme Being. These are the lesser spirits (variously referred to as spirits, deities, gods, nature gods, and divinities), ancestors (that is, ancestral spirits), man, and the physical world of natural objects and phenomena. Mbiti (1981), p.102) observed that “Myriads of spirits are reported from every African people”, and that “the class of the spirits is an essential and integral part of African ontology”.
Mbiti (1981) states that even after death a person continues to be part of the present, or 'Sasa', as long as they are remembered by those who are alive and can be recognised by name. However, when there is no one who personally remembers the dead person, then that individual passes from the 'Sasa' to the 'Zamani', and enters a state of collective immortality. Rituals commemorating the dead are thus an important way of allowing them to retain their personal identity and remain a part of the present (Mbiti, 1981). Mbiti (1969, cited in Mosley, 1995, p.87) states that in accordance with this view of time, there is a continuum of spirits between man and God; this consists of:
…the living, the living dead, the long dead, national heroes who have become deified, spirits who have never lived, and finally God. It is believed that spirits can communicate directly with God and often may possess the living and speak through them. In addition to the unseen world of spirits, there is also believed to be a mystical force or power that can be manipulated by magical means, both to help and to harm the living. Because spirits have a more direct access to this power, it is important that the living appease the dead and appeal to them for help and aid. For the African cause and a spiritual cause, and each must be identified for a full understanding of any event.
Mbiti's work has been widely discussed and debated (see Gyekye, 1987). Mosley (1995) concludes that the reality of the ancestral spirits is the basis of the so-called ancestor worship that has been considered by some as an important feature of African religion. Fortes (1965, p.122) states: “It has long been recognised that ancestor worship is a conspicuous feature of African religious systems. Parrinder (cited in Mosley, 1995, p.341) observed that “Thus, there is no doubt that ancestral spirits play a very large part in African thought; they are [so] prominent in the spiritual world.”
84 The physical world is also considered real in African ontology. Mbiti thought that in addition to the four entities in African ontology, namely God, the Absolute Being; lesser spirits (consisting of superhuman beings and ancestral spirits); man; and the world of natural objects, “there seems to be a force, power or energy permeating the whole universe” (Mbiti, 1969, p.21), which in his opinion is to be added as a separate ontological category.
Tempels (1969) attempts to articulate the basis of the African view of reality, stating that the basic categories of African thought are dynamic forces that ebb and flow, and that these are of different kinds, including divine forces, human forces, and so on. There is no idea among Africans of ‘being’, which is divorced from the idea of ‘force’. Without the element of ‘force’, ‘being’ cannot be conceived. Force is the nature of being, force is being; being is force. Based on the above argument, Onyewuenyi (cited in Mosley, 1995, p.421). states that the concept of force or dynamism nullifies the idea of separate beings, or independent entities that exist sidebyside.
Onyewuenyi (cited in Mosley, 1995, p.421) argues that the arts within traditional Africa were intimately involved with communal values and the practical realities of daily living, and concludes that traditional African aesthetic values were functional, depersonalised, contextualised and embedded within communal activities: “Existence in relation to communalism, being for self and others sum up the African conception of life and reality” (Onyewuenyi, 1977, cited in Mosley, 1995, p.424). Tempels, 1945, cited in Mosley, 1995, p.424) asserts that:
The African thought holds that created beings preserve a bond one with another, an intimate ontological relationship. There is an interaction of being with being ...
This is more so among rational beings, known as Muntu which includes the living and the dead, Orishas and God.
As a result of this ontological relationship among beings, the African knows and feels himself to be in an intimate and personal relationship with other forces acting above
85 and below him in the hierarchy of forces (Tempels, 1945, cited in Mosley, 1995, p.424).
A corollary to this relationship is the traditional African view of the world as one of extraordinary harmony. Moreover, in spontaneous religious outbursts references are made to the Supreme Being rather than to the lesser spirits (Mbiti, 1969, p.55). The lesser spirits are thus on the lower level of reality. African ontology is therefore hierarchical (McVeigh, 1974, p.139), with the Supreme Being at the apex and the world of natural objects and phenomena at the bottom. African ontology appears to be essentially spiritualistic, although this does not imply a denial of the reality of the non- spiritual, empirical world. Reality in African thought appears to be homogeneous (Mosley, 1995).