Abstract

The intent of this dissertation is to bring together and study the system of thought developed by preliterate Hawaiian thinkers in the period before their discovery by the Europeans, in order to determine whether or not that system may be judged sufficiently astute to merit the designation, "philosophy." Although there is considerable material in print in the native tongue which reflects the indigenous, pre-European-contact, Hawaiian thought system, there are no works which address the philosophical tradition itself, and it has not been passed on orally. This dissertation, then, is also an initial effort to cull from that early material and to reconstruct the philosophical thought system itself. ;The dissertation proceeds by devising a set of criteria through which one might recognize philosophical content in preliterate thought systems. It then presents and discusses at length several interrelated areas of pre-European-contact Hawaiian thought, allowing the reader to judge the philosophical merit of the material in light of the proposed criteria. The summarizing chapter presumes that the reader has given the material favorable marks, and addresses the value of Hawaiian Philosophy for modern man. ;Several chapters deal with philosophical topics: "Cosmology" describes their evolutionary theory and explicates their principle that the things of the cosmos present themselves in paired opposites. "Mana" traces the indigenous theoretical innovations and fundamental, broad-reaching redirections which the Hawaiians gave to the received Polynesian concept of mana. "Divinity" discusses what constitutes a divine being--a spirit having an extraordinary degree of mana--and how mana can be transferred, two ideas basic to their theory of how the spirit world worked, including deification, sorcery, and healing. "Self" reviews three Hawaiian constructs, and develops one model in which the self is composed of body and an aggregate of spirit beings paralleling what Westerners call the waking consciousness, the multi-faceted subconscious, and helping spirit beings. "Hawaiian Philosophy of the Environment" discusses their world-view that man is a participant in a cosmic community in which all of nature is alive, aware, communicative, and interrelating