Philosophia Africana

ISSN: 1539-8250

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  1.  5
    Africa Is Not for Softies: On Oyowe, Menkiti, and Conventionalism.Simon Beck - 2024 - Philosophia Africana 23 (1):43-56.
    In Menkiti’s Moral Man, Oyowe argues that Menkiti’s persons are “soft persons.” They are different in kind from human beings in that they find their existence in a social ontology, whereas humans find theirs in a natural ontology, but this does not make them any less real. This understanding, Oyowe contends, is consistent with Menkiti’s texts and allows for a satisfying explanation of a possibly problematic relationship between human being and person. He acknowledges that their placement in social ontology makes (...)
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  2.  6
    Ancestral Existence and the Mind’s Afterlife.Katrin A. Flikschuh - 2024 - Philosophia Africana 23 (1):76-95.
    This article examines Oyowe’s highly distinctive socio-ontological account of ancestral existence. According to Oyowe, ancestors are intentional objects. Ancestors thus constitute a social kind and are ontologically distinct from natural kinds. The article critiques and rejects Oyowe’s distinction between social and natural kinds. The article then goes on to outline a possible alternative approach that draws on quasi-materialist and pan-psychic metaphysics to argue that ancestors exist as a natural kind—more specifically, ancestral existence consists in the this-worldly survival of the mentalistic (...)
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  3.  14
    On the Importance of an Endogenous Ontological Account of Ancestors.Lindokuhle Bagezile Gama - 2024 - Philosophia Africana 23 (1):96-110.
    This article critiques Oritsegbubemi Anthony Oyowe’s “Ontology, Realism and the Persistence of Ancestral Persons” response to Katrina Flikschuh’s “The Arc of Personhood” argument on the theoretical grounding of ancestors in Ifeanyi Menkiti’s work. Flikschuh argues that ancestors are uncertain and redundant such that one can only account for them practically. Contrastingly, Oyowe defends Menkiti’s concept of ancestors as social kinds in his innovative attempt to theoretically ground them. The article argues that the dialogue between these thinkers reflects an exogenous reading (...)
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  4.  11
    Communal Social Architecture, Individual Capacities, and Menkiti’s Personhood.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2024 - Philosophia Africana 23 (1):57-75.
    This article examines two issues raised and addressed by Oyowe in his book, Menkiti’s Moral Man. The first involves two of Oyowe’s criticisms of Menkiti: One criticism is that his conception of personhood is unfairly gendered; the other is that Menkiti’s view involves the priority of the community over individuals. The second issue involves Oyowe’s criticisms of Ikuenobe’s analysis of some aspects of Menkiti’s view in the context of the above criticisms. Oyowe indicates that, although he is “a repentant critic” (...)
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  5.  2
    A Critique of Oyowe’s Mind-Dependent Ancestral Persistence Thesis.Dennis Masaka - 2024 - Philosophia Africana 23 (1):21-28.
    This article reacts to Oyowe’s understanding of the personal existence of ancestral persons as real mind-dependent entities. The article’s author’s contention is that Oyowe has not managed to rule out the alternative that the author is sympathetic to, namely, that ancestral persons are real mind-independent entities that continue to exist even when, through forgetfulness, they cease to exist in the memory of humans. This article calls Oyowe’s mind-dependent alternative the “safe” one, as it appears easier to defend than the “unsafe,” (...)
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  6.  10
    Why Personhood Is Not So Social: Reflections on Oyowe’s Menkiti.Thaddeus Metz - 2024 - Philosophia Africana 23 (1):1-20.
    In Menkiti’s Moral Man, Oritsegbubemi Oyowe aims to provide a sympathetic interpretation of the works of Ifeanyi Menkiti as they address personhood, community, and other facets of morality. In my contribution I maintain that, while Oyowe’s Menkiti is more plausible than the way Menkiti has often been read, there are still respects in which the account of personhood advanced invites criticism. One criticism is that it is implausible to think that personhood is constituted by others recognizing one as a person. (...)
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  7.  5
    The Politics of Exclusion and Inclusive Recognition: Unveiling Social and Epistemic Injustice.Ovett Nwosimiri - 2024 - Philosophia Africana 23 (1):29-42.
    The subject of personhood has received substantial discussion in contemporary African philosophy where communitarianism happens to be the dominant approach. In his new book Menkiti’s Moral Man, Oritsegbubemi Anthony Oyowe enters this discussion as a repentant critic of Ifeanyi Menkiti’s version of communitarianism, the plausibility of which he attempts to defend with compelling arguments and interpretations. In this book, especially in chapter 4, Oyowe addresses the subject of women’s social recognition and inclusion in the African community. In view of this, (...)
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  8.  10
    Menkiti’s Moral Man: Engaging with Critics.Oritsegbubemi Oyowe - 2024 - Philosophia Africana 23 (1):111-133.
    In this article, Oritsegbubemi Oyowe responds to seven critics of Menkiti’s Moral Man on a range of issues and questions and, along the way, clarifies further some of the ideas and proposals in the book. Some of these issues and questions concern what it means to interrogate other cultures, what social recognition really entails, whether persons are social kinds, and, by extension, whether Oyowe’s appeal to a special social ontology is superfluous, whether Oyowe’s account of the existence and persistence of (...)
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