Harmonious Monism: A Philosophical Logic of Explanation for Ontological Issues in Supernaturalism in African Thought.

By Chris Ijiomah

This book is a reaction against young Levy Bruhl's position that the world's (African) thought is pre- logical. Systematically therefore it exposes first the influence of positivism and two valued Logic on Bruhl which made him to be anti- spiritualism and second interpreted African thought from two- valued logic point of view. This wrong interpretational tool resulted to his ''onslaught on African thought'' which is the subject of the book's reaction. This book 's position is that every interpretation stems from a particular logic and this logic needs to evolve from the same ontological context with the phenomenon that is to be interpreted.
The implication of this is that, there is a bio conditional structural relationship between every logic and its cultural ontology. The book investigates this assertion using prevalent (2vl) of the West and the prevalent ontology of the the same culture. The investigation proved positive. On the above discovery the book developed the theory of structural analogy and logical functionalism (SAALF) as a justification for the derivation of a prevalent trinitarian logic from African trinitarian prevalent ontology. From this theoretical standpoint, the book in agreement with some twentieth century analytic logicians defines logic as a science of relation between realities from which principles of argumentation and reasoning can be developed. This book goes ahead to use this logic to explain some African phenomena such as the concept of African healing oath-taking and education. For the benefit of doubt the book differentiates between Harmonious monism and Hermeneutics as an answer to some questions of the critics.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 23, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514472842

Chris Ijiomah

The author is born in Uzuakoli in Bende local government of Abia State of Nigeria. He holds a B.A degree 2nd class upper in philosophy from Urban University of Rome. He came to the United States of America and acquired another first degree and M.A from Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green Kentucky. In Nigeria he attained a PhD degree in philosophy of mathematics of Gotttlob Frege. His publications in and outside Africa earned him professorship in logic, philosophy of mathematics and African philosophy. He is a contextualist in philosophy and has been consistent about his inclination in his numerous journal articles and books. He is happily married to Evangelist Evelyn Ijiomah (Mrs) and is blessed with four wonderful children and four exciting grandchildren. His hobby includes listening to gospel music and watching African films. He is of a non-denominational orientation in Christianity.

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Copyright © 2016 by Chris Ijiomah.

ISBN:  Softcover   978-1-5144-7285-9

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Rev. date: 03/09/2016

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Contents

Chapter One: Background

Introduction - The Coinage of the Third-World Concept

Levy –Bruhl’s Scholarship

Some Observations on Levy-Bruh’ls Final On-slaught

Criticism of the Laws of Thought

Chapter Two: Copernican Revolution: A Model

Introduction of the Man, Copernicus

His Revolution as a Methodological Model

An Adoption of the Model

Chapter Three: HISTORY, SOME SYSTEMS OF AND FUNDAMENTAL CHARACTERISTIC OF LOGIC

Hellenic Period

Aristotle

Magarianism—The Origin of Stoics Logic

Medieval

Modern Period (14th – 19th Centuries)

Kant (1724 – 1804)

Bolzano (1781 – 1848)

Contemporary Logic

Three-Valued Logic

Specific Constructions of Three-valued Logic

Marxian Logicians

Another Development

New Areas in Logic

Different Functions of Logic

Chapter Four: THEORY OF REALITY (ONTOLOGY)

Introduction

Hamlyn’s Contribution

Relativism in Theory of Reality

Chapter Five: CORRELATION BETWEEN LOGIC AND ONTOLOGY

Introduction

Negative Assent

Positive Assent

Chapter Six: RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PREVALENTLY DUALISTIC ONTOLOGY AND PREVALENT DUALISTIC LOGIC IN THE WEST: A MODEL FOR A CONSTRUCTION OF A LOGIC

Introduction

The Starting Points of Prevalent Ontology and Logic in the West

Ancient Period

Plato’s dualistic ontology

Dualism in Aristotle’s Ontology

Major principles of Aristotle’s Dualistic Ontology

Metaphysical structure of being: substance and accident

Matter and Form

Aristotle’s Doctrine of Potency and Act

Dualistic ontology in medieval period

Dualism in St. Augustine

Man: A Composite of Soul and Body

The City of God and the City of Man

Thomas Aquinas Dualistic Ontology

MODERN PERIOD

Descartes’ Dualistic Ontology

Kant’s Dualistic Ontology

Contemporary Period—Hegel’s dualistic Ontology

Whitehead Alfred-North dualistic Ontology

Prevalent Dualistic Logic of the West: An Isomorph of Western Prevalent Ontology

Syllogism

The Rules for Determining Validity

Stroking Method

Predicate Logic (of Frege)

Chapter Seven: AFRICAN WORLD-VIEW (ONTOLOGY)

Introduction- Connection between Philosophy and Culture

African Ontology

Curvilinear Motif in African Artistic Expression

False Paradigms in Western Value Judgment

The Nature of Relationships between Realities in African World-View

Structural Analogy and Logical Functionalism: A Justification for the Derivation of a Logic from African Cultural Ontology

Chapter Eight: APPLICATION OF RELATIONAL DYNAMIC FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF A LOGIC IN AFRICA – HARMONIOUS MONISM

The Difference between Harmonious Monism and Hermeneutics

Chapter Nine: POSSIBLE APPLICATION OF HARMONIOUS MONISM TO SOME AFRICAN EXPERIENCES

Introduction:

Healing and Harmonious Monism

Oath-Taking and Harmonious Monism

Education and Harmonious Monism

Analysis of the Concept of Equality

The Concept of Equal Opportunity

Equal Opportunity: Nature and Nurture

Result of Our Analysis

Equal Opportunity and Maximization Of Our Productivity

Acknowledgement

I have been working on this book since 1982 when I was in the United States of America doing my post graduate programmes. Like a confused philosophical weaver who, however, knew what he wanted to achieve but did not know exactly the how and the materials to lay his hand on, I wrote, tore and re-wrote and published articles and dissertations on the issues connected with the ideas in this work. My prayer has been that of Job: I will (work) and wait till my change and release comes (Job 14:14).

During these years I have been sustained by direct and indirect generous help and advice of many well wishers. Sometimes this help and advice have taken the form of discussions and reactions to my supervised projects or written articles, which are related to the issues in this present work. At some other times, it has taken the form of a provision of reading materials for a chapter or two. The list of such helpers is lengthy: some are dead, others are still alive. These include: Nash, Bill lane, Mayhew E. Edward, Schoem, R. Horton, Hebga, M. T Okere, B. Okolo U. Etuk, Uduma U., Olu-Jacob D., K. Ojong, John Edor, Chris Akpan, I Nkanta etc.

I owe a special depth of gratitude to my own academic household, Philosophy Department at the University of Calabar who generously allowed me to spend my sabbatical leave in the University of Uyo. In this regard the registrar and my friend, Dr. Omang and the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Epoke are highly acknowledged. The University of Uyo deserves a special mention for the great honour they did me by accepting me in their department of philosophy as a visiting scholar. This invitation provided me with time and additional resources for the burdensome finances required of me by the publishers.

I would also like to thank Mabel Essiet for her generous and very positive and convincing commitment in re-copying my awkward and very difficult to discern handwriting. May God bless them.

Finally, but fundamentaly, I would say that the help of the members of my family in the bid to realize this book is immeasurable. I just want to say that I warmly love you all – Evang. Mrs Evy Ijiomah, Drs. Uchenna and Chinyere and their husbands; Drs. Ikechukwu Anaje and Jide Omeh, Barr. Amarachukwu Ijiomah, Obinna E. Ijiomah, and my grandchildren: Nicole, Chimama, Ike Jnr. and Baby Christine. May God bless you all.

Prefactory Note

I began the preparation of this book with some basic convictions which have been a part of my philosophical foundation, since my many years of teaching: First, Philosophy is culture bound, second, Africa is a multi-cultural entity that has cross-borderline marks or unconsciously rooted assumptions called root paradigms or touch-stone propositions which serve as criteria that determine which propositions that should be included into or excluded from African epistemology, third, every part of philosophy is coloured by the root-paradigms of the culture in which the philosophy is domicile; fourth; every explanation has a logical base. Fifth, every logic has a correlation with the configuration or structure of the reality-combination in its culture, and sixth, the functions of logic can be understood from the following perspectives; the study of objective relations between proposition (realities) which conditions the validity of the inference by which we pass from one premise to another (Cohem and Nagel, 110), logic is an instrument that explains the structure of reality therefore it can be used to know and understand reality without distortion of what the reality is in itself (Veatch, 18-20), formalism in-as-much as it can make the process of material mode of logic considerably easy, it is not a sina-qua-non in the development of logic. This is because a purely formalized logic lacks eidetic meaning and hence cannot represent a statement of ontology. In such a pure state logic can only produce a valid and not a sound argument. From what I have said, some logicians lean more to purely syntactic systems, some others lean to semantic aspect of logic and a third group may have a complement of the two.

Because of what I have said about logic, philosophers notoriously vary in their answers to the same questions. The cause of this stems from differences in scholars logical backgrounds. This scandal, the logic of answer variations, however, is to philosophy what African proverbs are to African discussions. Infact this scandal is the root of intellectual freedom and academic democracy in philosophy. In-as-much as this scandal has its problem of non-homogeneity in thoughts, it reflects the humour found in nature. Without this, philosophy would be monotonous. An additional importance of this scandal is that it creates jobs for logic of explanation. However this kind of disagreement is not only peculiar to philosophy. In physical sciences such a conflict arises when there is a question, whose reference to the observable data is or is not appropriate. But in philosophy, controversies are driven to abstract level where data includes terms or concepts used in discussions. For example, J. M. Bochenski presented a query; "If demonstrations are to be carried out, a logical system must be assumed, but there are now many such systems which one should be chosen? (79).

There might have been far less confusion in tackling this question had all the parties to the question realized that there are various forms of options to that question. If this was appreciated, the parties could have little to discuss. This is not because the question is meaningless, but because the question exposes the fact that there are many systems of independent logics. The implication of this is that no particular logical system is adequate for the explanation of all social experiences. The lesson from this is that logicians could benefit from a conscious interest in constructing alternative logics that could serve as good explanatory tools for analyses of different phenomena.

Contrary to the above position, Kant would say that there is only one logic (two valued logic of Aristotle) that is universally adequate for all cultural explanations. On the other hand philosophers (ethnocentric logicians) like Dewey, would point out that every analysis and therefore explanation presumes a logical standpoint. Scholars like him would go on to say that most appropriate logical stand point for an explanation of a doctrine or concept is the logic that is cultural to the doctrine (Bochenski 79, Conkin 364-379).

Following the above two scholars prescription my position is that in a situation like that of Africa where there conceptions of more than one structurally ontological arrangements (Kaseem, 5), there is a need to submit the explanations of our realities to different logics, such as the logic of dualism (two-valued logic) the logic of duality or supernalism (three-valued logic) or any other. The appropriation of each of these logics will depend on the ontological- configuration that is involved. The objective of this work is therefore to construct that alternative logic otherwise called the logic of Harmonious Monism which will take care of the prevalent configuration of realities in African. This thesis is not a sectarian position whose defence is against all other logics. Rather the logic plays a harmonious role as to bring out a wholistic explanatory attempt to African experiences.

In this work, my standard line of approach is to use the syntactical (structure oriented) development process of logic where necessary. However my inclination will be heavy towards the semantical, intentional or the ontological-based (meaning oriented) logic. In trying to do this, I shall contextualize this logic within African world-view.

Christ Okey Ijiomah

University of Calabar, Nigeria

2016

Foreword

It is a very striking feature of most African philosophers to tie their philosophical reasoning to Greeco-European-American two valued logic which has its root in Aristotle’s subject-predicate thought. The assumption of these thinkers is that the mode of logic of reasoning developed in the western tradition exhausts the mode of reasoning characteristic of human beings. The issue that gave rise to this thinking goes beyond mere conceptualization. It is within the premise of a struggle to demarcate between those who are human beings and those who are not. This struggle started in the second century BC when Aristotle characterized man as a rational or reasoning animal and limited the reasoning within the ambit of two-valued logic.

Hegel Wilhem supports this and to a point of concretness, the young Levy-Bruhl celebrates it with an impression that the cognitive status of Africans, before the advent of the Europeans, had no logic. By implication, this stands to mean that Africans by tradition are semi human beings.

The book, Harmonious Monism: The logic of Explanation for Ontological Issues in Sueprnaturalism in African Thought (shortened to Harmonious Monism) comes at a propitious time when Africa is in need of redeeming its image.

This book is authored by Prof. Chris O. Ijiomah who is known in an academic circle as a man whose logical prowess is ever in search of ways logic can tackle problems contextually. In this connection, Ijiomah is of the idea that there are different types of logic and each has a structural correlation with the ontology of its social culture. Otherwise put; his idea is that some sort of logic is always presumed in every explanation or interpretation and that every logic is biconditionally related to its cultural ontology. He proves this rigorously with an erudite mind that has a good grasp of history of prevalent and ontology of the west logic. With the above and a contemporary definition of logic, he comes out with a type of logic in Africa which is three-valued, in line with the conceived structure of African ontology.

This kind of logic as at now is the logic that can explain supernaturalistic thought in Africa. This work, therefore, proves young Levy-Bruhl wrong and hence stands as an anti-rejection of supernatural premises. This means that Harmonious Monism is against secularization. In this understanding the author presents a logical reawakening of a new awareness which is important to any Afro-centric scholar and those who want to have an insight into philosophy of logic.

I therefore recommend this book to lovers of new insight into logic and scholars interested in African thought.

Prof. Cyril Osim Ndifon

Professor of International Law

Dean, Faculty of Law

University of Calabar

Chapter One

Background

Introduction - The Coinage of the Third-World Concept

In 1776 America got her independence from Britain. Some years later few countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America also got their political freedom. Irrespective of their political status, these countries according to France cultural mind-set description, were nick-named, ‘third-world’, ‘underdeveloped’ and ‘primitive’ countries.

This coinage was informed by the fact that irrespective of the liberation of these countries from the stronghold of their colonialists, the countries at that time, lacked, education, technological development and economic viability (Okafor, 221-224).