The Hatata Inquiries are two extraordinary texts of African philosophy composed in Ethiopia in the 1600s. Written in the ancient African language of Geʿez (Classical Ethiopic), these explorations of meaning and reason are deeply considered works of rhetoric. They advocate for women’s rights and rail against slavery. They offer ontological proofs for God and question biblical commands while delighting in the language of Psalms. They advise on right living. They put reason above belief, desire above asceticism, love above sectarianism, and (...) the natural world above the human. They explore the nature of being as well as the nature of knowledge, the human, ethics, and the human relation with the divine. They are remarkable examples of something many assume doesn’t exist: early written African thought. This accessible English translation of the Hatata Inquiries, along with extensive footnotes documenting the cultural and historical context and the work’s many textual allusions, enables all to read it and scholars to teach with it. The Hatata Inquiries are essential to understanding the global history of philosophy, being among the early works of rational philosophy. The book includes a translation by Ralph Lee with Mehari Worku and Wendy Laura Belcher of the Hatata Zara Yaqob and the Hatata Walda Heywat. The appendices by Jeremy R. Brown provide information on the scribal interventions in and the differences between the manuscripts of the two Hatatas. The book also includes a map, chronology, summary of the translation principles, and a discussion of the authorship debate about the Hatata Inquiries. (shrink)

On Ethiopian philosophy, originally written in the 17th century by Walda Heywat.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Master and the Disciple The Light and the Shadow Conclusion.

Research based on traditional linear techniques has yet not been able to clearly identify the role of cognitive skills in reading problems, presumably because the process of reading and the factors that are associated with reading reside within a system of multiple interacting and moderating factors that cannot be captured within traditional statistical models. If cognitive skills are indeed indicative of reading problems, the relatively new nonlinear techniques of machine learning should make better predictions. The aim of the present study (...) was to investigate whether cognitive factors play any role in reading skill, questioning the extent to what cognitive skills are indicative of present reading level, and the extent to what cognitive skills are indicative of future reading progress. In three studies with varying groups of participants, the results of four supervised machine learning techniques were compared to the traditional General Linear Models technique. Results of all models appeared to be comparable, producing poor to acceptable results, which are however inadequate for making a thorough prediction of reading development. Assumably, cognitive skills are not predictive of reading problems, although they do correlate with one another. This insight has consequences for scientific theories of reading development, as well as for the prevention and remediation of reading difficulties. (shrink)

Humanist sociologists are activists rooted in the reality of history and change and guided by a concern for the 'real life' problems of equality, peace, and social justice. They view people as active shapers of social life, capable of creating societies in which everyone's potential can unfold. Alfred McClung Lee introduces this volume with 'Sociology: Humanist and Scientific' and develops the theme that a sociology that is humanist is also scientific. The other nine selections are grouped into four parts: 'The (...) Individual and Social Life;' 'Social Institutions: Technology, Science, and Formal Organization;' 'Political Structures: Issues of Justice and Equality;' and 'Methodological Critiques and Counterproposals.'. (shrink)

“African thinking,” “African thought,” and “African philosophy.” These phrases are often used indiscriminately to refer to intellectual activities in and/or about Africa. This large field, which sits at the crossroads between analytic philosophy, continental thought, political philosophy and even linguistics is apparently limitless in its ability to submit the object “Africa” to a multiplicity of disciplinary approaches. This absence of limits has far-reaching historical origins. Indeed it needs to be understood as a legacy of the period leading to African independence (...) and to the context in which African philosophy emerged not so much as a discipline as a point of departure to think colonial strictures and the constraints of colonial modes of thinking. That the first exponents of African philosophy were Westerners speaks volumes. Placide Tempels but also some of his predecessors such as Paul Radin and Vernon Brelsford were the first scholars to envisage this extension of philosophy into the realm of the African “primitive.” The material explored in this article – Statues Also Die, Bantu Philosophy, The Cultural Unity of Negro Africa, and It For Others - resonates with this initial gesture but also with the ambition on part of African philosophers such as VY Mudimbe to challenge the limits of a discipline shaped by late colonialism and then subsequently recaptured by ethnophilosophers. Statues Also Die is thus used here as a text to appraise the limitations of African philosophy at an early stage. The term “stage,” however, is purely arbitrary and the work of African philosophers has since the 1950s often been absorbed by an effort to retrieve African philosophizing practices before, or away from, the colonial matrix. This activity has gained momentum and has been characterized by an ambition to excavate and identify figures and traditions that had hitherto remained unacknowledged: from Ptah-hotep in ancient Egypt and North-African Church fathers such as Saint Augustine, Tertullian and Arnobius of Sicca, to “falsafa”-practising Islamic thinkers, from the Ethiopian tradition of Zera Yacob and Walda Heywat, to Anton-Wilhelm Arno, the Germany-trained but Ghana-born Enlightenment philosopher. (shrink)

The Hatata Inquiries are two extraordinary texts of African philosophy composed in Ethiopia in the 1600s. Written in the ancient African language of Geʿez (Classical Ethiopic), these explorations of meaning and reason are deeply considered works of rhetoric. They advocate for women's rights and rail against slavery. They offer ontological proofs for God and question biblical commands while delighting in the language of Psalms. They advise on right living. They put reason above belief, desire above asceticism, love above sectarianism, and (...) the natural world above the human. They explore the nature of being as well as the nature of knowledge, the human, ethics, and the human relation with the divine. They are remarkable examples of something many assume doesn't exist: early written African thought. This accessible English translation of the Hatata Inquiries, along with extensive footnotes documenting the cultural and historical context and the work's many textual allusions, enables all to read it and scholars to teach with it. The Hatata Inquiries are essential to understanding the global history of philosophy, being among the early works of rational philosophy. The book includes a translation by Ralph Lee with Mehari Worku and Wendy Laura Belcher of the Hatata Zara Yaqob and the Hatata Walda Heywat. The appendices by Jeremy R. Brown provide information on the scribal interventions in and the differences between the manuscripts of the two Hatatas. The book also includes a map, chronology, summary of the translation principles, and a discussion of the authorship debate about the Hatata Inquiries. (shrink)

v. 1. The Book of the wise philosophers.--v. 2-3. The treatise of Zärʼa Yaʻe̳qob and of Wäldä Ḥe̳ywåt.--v. 4. The life and maxims of Ske̳nde̳s.--v. 5. The Fisalgw̳os.

Niniejszy artykuł stawia sobie za cel udzie lenie odpowiedzi na pytanie, jak przedstawia się zagadnienie postępu oraz końca historii w myśli Kanta i tzw. filozofii postępu. Usiłuje to uczynić z punktu widzenia myśli Piepera – najbardziej uznanego filozofa nurtu realistycznego w XX wieku w Niemczech. Podstawową literaturą tych analiz stały się jego dwie najważniejsze pozycje: U¨ ber das Ende der Zeit i Hoffnung und Geschichte. Ważne uzupeł nienia stanowią informacje pochodzące od prof. Bertholda Walda, najwybitniejszego ucznia Pie pera i (...) zarazem kontynuatora jego myśli. Autor zaczerpnął je z licznych rozmów i konsultacji przeprowadzonych w 2005 i 2006 r. Pozwalają one sądzić, że wiernie odczytał on spojrzenie myśliciela z Mu¨nster. Autor odwołał się również do rozpraw Kanta z zakresu filozofii dziejów: Der Streit der Fakulta¨ten, Das Ende aller Dinge. Wychodząc więc z tej perspektywy i od takich danych, autor artykułu wskazuje na elementy wspólne występujące u powyższych myślicieli w spojrzeniu na problem postępu oraz końca historii. Należy do nich m.in. wiara w ciągły postęp ludzkości, przeświadczenie o pomyślnym kresie historii, możliwości zbudowania Miasta Bożego na ziemi, spełnienia siebie i swego przeznaczenia wewnątrz historii za sprawą działania człowieka, a nie Boga. Owszem, brzmi to dziś niewiarygodnie, ale oświecenie, którego wyrazicielem była myśl wymienionych filozofów, obwieszczało tak bardzo obiecujące oblicze postępu, że zapewnić on miał realizację siebie i wszystkich swych żądań oraz oczekiwań. W artykule tym wskazuje się iluzje w ten sposób rozumianego postępu, biegu dziejów i jego końca. Idea postępu oraz rozwoju historycznego ma teologiczne źródło, a okazuje się nim pozaczasowy koniec, czyli idea Nowego Nieba i Nowej Ziemi. Zarówno Kant, jak i myśliciele postępu przejmują tę ostatnią ideę od chrześcijaństwa, nie uwzględniając jej treści. Innymi słowy, kreś- ląc wizje postępu, dziejów i ich końca posługują się pojęciami teologicznymi w ich nieteologicznym znaczeniu, czyli sekularyzują je. W artykule ukazana zostanie również pewna odmienność, zachodząca pomiędzy ujęciem filozofii postępu a myślą Kanta jako bardziej realistyczną, bliższą chrześcijaństwu. Podczas gdy Hegel, Fichte, Go¨res, Novalis nie liczą się z możliwością wewnętrzczasowego złego końca dziejów, o jakim mówi Apokalipsa, Kant nie wyklucza słuszności interpretacji chrześcijańskiej. Podstawowy zarzut Piepera względem koncepcji Kanta i filozofii postępu dotyczy złudnego i rodzącego rozpacz przeświadczenia, że podmiotem historii jest wy- łącznie człowiek. W artykule wskazuje się na właściwą postawę w obliczu wewnątrzczasowego złego końca dziejów w postaci katastrofy, czy na nadzieję. Katastrofa bowiem poprzedza pozaczasowy koniec – Nowe Niebo i Nową Ziemię. (shrink)