I aim to establish in this article why Aribiah Attoe, like other determinists before him, got it wrong in arguing for the possibility of predeterminism in a materially evolving universe. I will do this by proving two things: I will first establish the inconsistency of the idea of predeterminism in an evolving universe. Then, I argue that the adirectionality presupposed by an evolutionary universe gives room for free will and negates the argument for a predeterministic universe. I aim to achieve (...) the above by exposing why the view which upholds the universe and all existents within it as lacking free will – or the possibility of adirectionality – stems from a category error on the part of the determinists. Lastly, I defend the position that for predeterminism to stand a chance against the free will of animate things-in-the-world, it must deny the possibility of an evolving/expanding universe that is adirectional and suggestive of boundlessness, and the possibility that some events are not fundamentally necessary reactions to previous states of affairs. (shrink)

The word “privilege” has become a part of our everyday conversations. However, it is not evident whether the various interlocutors in discussions on privilege are using it in the same sense. While different instances of privilege like white, male, or caste privilege have been discussed in contemporary academic discourses, we believe there is a lack of clarity regarding the notion of privilege. We critically analyse existing accounts of privilege to show that they leave some room for improvement. We offer an (...) alternative account of privilege as “entitlements that fail to track deserts” that circumvents prevalent definitional ambiguities and emphasises the inherent undeserving nature of privilege. The hitherto underexplored links between privileges, deserts, entitlements, and rights can help us formulate a more accurate grasp of privilege. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to analyse Adam Smith’s view of death in The Theory of Moral Sentiments for commercial society to determine whether the current commodification of goods (e.g. pharmaceuticals) and services (e.g. cryogenics) to assist people to deal with the fear of death was what Smith envisioned for meaningful existence and to find out what he proposed as a means to manage the fear of death in existence. The investigation revealed that Smith’s book contains many references to (...) death as a source of anxiety that negatively influences the lives of people, their happiness and meaning in life, and ignites fear and anxiety. The cultural measure of Smith’s time to manage the fear of death are magnanimity (e.g. war and suffering), the comfort of wealth, posthumous happiness (e.g. duty and sacrifice) and philosophy (e.g. Stoicism). The problem for Smith is that wealth and commodities, as is the case with the other means to deal with the fear of death, do not result in being-for-itself without the assistance of the impartial spectator which is a cognitive mechanism for self-awareness and socially located meaning-creation in the world with others. (shrink)

We argue that the problem of violence persists, to a certain degree, because of our refusal or inability to think about traumatic, difficult or “senseless” material systematically. We explore the connection between thinking and violence, and specifically Arendt’s question whether thinking can make men abstain from violence. We are interested in the relationship and tension between knowing and not knowing – as products of thinking – in relation to (also our own capacities for) violence. The tension presents in two main (...) ways. First, thinking is employed to shed light on dark or difficult knowable material, thereby increasing our understanding of ourselves, our place in a troubled society and our relation to violence. Second, thinking bumps up against our ability to know, and it is this unknowability that exposes us to our limits as thinking beings as well as a place of humility and mutual vulnerability. We suggest that paying closer and more nuanced attention to the gender dimensions of the above questions reveals something important about the reasons that gender-based violence persists. We argue, with Arendt, that violence results from non-mastery and that the equation of male power with violence is a lie that violence perpetuates about itself. Similarly, Heberle argues that violence results from the fragile non-cohesiveness of masculine subjectivity and thus also traces the roots of violence to weakness and fragility rather than strength or power. We argue that the antidote for this false mastery and control is thinking. (shrink)

This article primarily sets out to investigate whether Igbo (African) thoughts on death might be considered Heideggerian or not. It does so by analysing and juxtaposing five key elements of Heidegger’s existentialist analysis of Dasein’s death with some important features of Igbo (African) thoughts on death. This is aimed at challenging an identifiable attempt by scholars like Chukwuelobe and Onwuanibe to couch the Igbo metaphysics of death in Heideggerian terms. Therefore, the main argument of the article is that the important (...) features of Igbo thoughts on death, as outlined by these scholars, substantially conflict with key elements of Heidegger’s existentialist analysis of Dasein’s death. To make this case, the article thoroughly examines the key elements in both the Heideggerian and the Igbo frameworks, showing that they could hardly be reconciled. Though the article identifies some scholars and zeroes in on them, it simultaneously serves a larger pre-emptive purpose of pointing out the many hurdles that may have to be overcome in any attempt to align Igbo thoughts on death with Heidegger’s framework. This pre-emptive aspect is a worthwhile philosophical task in itself, given that the theme of death occupies an important place in both the existentialist tradition and in Igbo philosophy. (shrink)

The question of violence and how society can emancipate oneself from it has occupied many philosophers. Walter Benjamin attempted to answer this question in 1920 through the notion of divine violence. This idea has recently been resurrected by philosophers such as Jacques Derrida, Jürgen Habermas, Slavoj Žižek and Judith Butler. Divine violence is turned to as a means of emancipating society from systemic oppression and coercive law. However, it is a notion that has been met by major critiques. Most notable (...) is Jacques Derrida’s critique given in Force of Law: The Mystical Foundations of Authority. This article examines Judith Butler’s turn to divine violence in opposition to the critique of divine violence given by Derrida. Butler attempts to merge divine violence and non-violence to create a means of non-violent revolution capable of emancipating society from oppression and coercive law. However, to make this argument, Butler needs to overcome Derrida’s objection that suggests that divine violence is a dangerous notion with the potential to justify horrendous forms of political violence. Does Butler successfully create a non-violent divine violence capable of achieving this desired emancipation? Or does divine violence continue to be a notion with a dangerously destructive potential as Derrida suggests? These are the questions that this article attempts to answer through a detailed examination of both Butler’s and Derrida’s work on divine violence. Ultimately, it is established that divine violence should be jettisoned into the realm of the divine, rather than harnessed for political ends. (shrink)