This thesis is a critical study of the traditional mind-body problem from the perspective of the Yoruba (African) concept of a person. The thesis attempted to see a plausible Yoruba response to the mind-body problem vis-à-vis the problem of defining a person. The methods of inquiry are those of critical exposition, conceptual clarification and analytical evaluation. The research involved consultation and analysis of existing inter-disciplinary literature on the Philosophy of Mind; a critical study of relevant published Ifa Literary Corpus; and discussion sessions with practitioners of Ifá and other genres of Yoruba folktales, as well as Yoruba-speaking individuals on their ideas of the Yoruba concept of a person.
The specific objectives are to critically outline the nature of the mind-body problem, analytically present what may be regarded as a plausible account of the Yoruba concept of a person, see whether the mind-body problem arises for the Yoruba concept of a person, do a comparative study of contemporary scientific concepts of a person and the Yoruba concept of a person and finally, to do a philosophical appraisal of the Yoruba concept of a person vis-à-vis its response to the mind-body problem, and the implication of that concept of a person for social existence.
The thesis uncovered what may be identified as the Yoruba Multiple-aspect concept of a person, in the light of which the mind-body problem does not arise when, rather than viewed as a separate entity the mind is viewed as a state or ability of the body. The research concluded, in the light of what it outlines as the Yoruba Multiple-aspect concept of a person, that the socio-ethical problems and the destructive and negative uses to which the fruits of the advancements of the physical sciences have been put are the unfortunate consequences of man’s rather unfortunate attempt to define himself in the simplest and most parsimonious terms.
At a glance
- Uses one focus-group interview with Yoruba-speaking participants from varied walks of life
- Combines oral Ifá materials, discussions with Ifá exponents and African scholars, and Yoruba proverbs
- Conducts discussion sessions with at least two Ifá exponents from different locations in southwestern Nigeria
Table of Contents
1. 0 INTRODUCTION
1. 1. BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
1. 2. DUALISM AND THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM
1.3. DUALIST THEORIES OF A PERSON
1. 3. 1. CARTESIAN DUALISM
1. 3. 2. OCCASSIONALISM AND PSYCHO-PHYSICAL PARALLELISM
1. 4. SOME MONIST RESPONSES TO MIND-BODY DUALISM
1. 4. 1. THE IDEALIST RESPONSE
1. 4. 2. THE MATERIALIST RESPONSE
1. 5. NON-COMMITTAL RESPONSES
2. 0. INTRODUCTION:
2. 1. THE YORUBA CONCEPTION OF REALITY
2. 2. THE YORUBA COSMOGONY
2. 3. YORUBA COSMOLOGY
2. 4.THE IFA LITERARY CORPUS AND RELATED DOCUMENTED UNDOCUMENTED ORAL SOURCES ON THE YORUBA ONTOLOGY OF A PERSON
2. 5. MATERIAL ASPECTS OF THE YORUBA ONTOLOGY OF A PERSON
2. 5. 1. NON-MATERIAL ASPECTS OF THE YORUBA ONTOLOGY OF A PERSON
2. 6. CRITICAL INTERPRETATION
3. 0. INTRODUCTION
3. 1. DISTINCTION BETWEEN SUBSTANCE THEORIES OF MIND AND NON-SUBSTANCE THEORIES OF MIND
3. 2. YORUBA ACCOUNT OF MENTAL PHENOMENA
3. 3.THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM IN RELATION TO THE YORUBA CONCEPT OF A PERSON
3. 3. 1 THE IDEA OF A ‘CATEGORY MISTAKE’ AND THE YORUBA ACCOUNT OF THE MENTAL
3. 3. 2. LOGICAL BEHAVIORISM AND THE YORUBA ACCOUNT OF MENTAL PHENOMENA
4. 0. INTRODUCTION
4. 1. FORMULATIONS OF MATERIALISM
4. 1. 1. Dialectical Materialism
4. 1. 2. Reductive Materialism
4. 2 REDUCTIVE MATERIALISM AND THE SCIENTIFIC CONCEPT OF A PERSON
4. 2. 2.SMART AND ARMSTRONG ON THE MIND-BRAIN IDENTITY THEORY
4. 2. 3. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, NEURO-SCIENCE AND THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM
4. 3. A COMPARISON OF THE YORUBA AND CONTEMPORARY SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS OF A PERSON WITH REFERENCE TO THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM
4. 3. 1. SOME POINTS OF SIMILARITIES
4. 3. 2. DISSIMILARITIES: DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE DESCRIPTIVE AND NORMATIVE ACCOUNT OF CAUSATION
5. 0. INTRODUCTION
5. 1. YORUBA CONCEPT OF A PERSON: FURTHER CRITICAL INTERPRETATION
5. 2. THE YORUBA MULTIPLE-ASPECT CONCEPT OF A PERSON
5. 2. 1. A YORUBA INTERPRETATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE MENTAL AND OTHER ASPECTS OF A PERSON
5. 3. AN OUTLINE OF THE SOCIAL (OR NORMATIVE) DIMENSION TO THE YORUBA CONCEPT OF A PERSON
5. 4. ORÍ AND ÈNÌYÀN (PERSON) IN THE YORUBA SOCIETY
5. 4. 1. A SOCIAL INTERPRETATION OF ORÍ
5. 5. IMPLICATIONS FOR SOCIAL EXISTENCE
5. 6. CONCLUDING REMARKS
Purpose and Themes
This thesis critically appraises the mind-body problem through the Yoruba concept of a person, asking whether the problem arises within that framework and how the Yoruba account compares with contemporary Western scientific theories. It uses explanatory analysis, conceptual clarification, evaluation, documented oral sources, discussions with Yoruba scholars and Ifá exponents, and a focus-group interview.
- Dualist accounts of mind and body and their monist alternatives
- Yoruba oral traditions, cosmology, and concepts including ènìyàn, èmí, orí, ara, and ọkàn
- The Yoruba account of mental phenomena and non-substance theories of mind
- Comparison with scientific materialism, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence
- The multiple-aspect account of personhood and its social and normative dimensions
- Orí, character, destiny, free will, and social existence
Excerpt from the Book
A Social Interpretation of Orí
This research is of the view that the import of the use of the concept of Orí in the Yoruba ontological account of the person is not to convey the idea that Orí is an ontologically distinct entity capable of independent disembodied existence. Rather the concept of Orí, when applied to humans or ènìyàn does not refer simply to the human head together with the neuro-physiological processes that go on in that part of the human body but also in addition serves as an expression symbolizing character.
‘Orí’ as a concept does not essentially carry the idea of a soul. Rather it more appropriately carries the idea of ‘self-chosen’ character or ‘self-chosen’ way of life. It has no direct equivalence in the English Language. It is a value-loaded concept employed and strictly employable by humans, to refer, technically and more appropriately to the actions, history and aspirations of persons. Hence the mythological account that Orí symbolizes human destiny.
The mythological suggestion that individuals ‘picked’ or ‘negotiated’ or ‘covenanted’ their Orí has a social significance: Your life is what you make of it. Your Akunleyan (another term for destiny) is that way of life you have reflectively chosen or socially contracted. Your Ayanmo (also signifying destiny) is that which is sure to be the end of your chosen way of life.
It is in this social sense that one can appreciate the fact that Orí is not an entity. When de-mythologized, Orí serves a social function: it guides, directs and controls each individual’s life or conduct in society. For example, suppose an individual’s admired way of life is that of a lawyer. That desire will ‘direct’ him to go to school, ‘guide’ him from becoming some other professional and ‘control’ his mannerisms in accordance with those of lawyers.
Some linguistic supports for the plausibility of our social interpretation of the concept of Orí are hereby highlighted. When employed in the ordinary day-to-day usage of the Yoruba Language, the concept of Orí has a pragmatic ethical and social significance. To illustrate, we shall return to the two instances mentioned earlier.
When the Yoruba say of a person that ‘Orí inu re lo ba to de je’ (It is his / her ‘inner head’ that has spoilt the outer one for him / her), they are passing the ethical judgment that it is the person’s (bad) character (inner person) that spoiled (destroyed) his life. The same thing as in ‘A’ applies to the advice – ‘Mu Orí lo ma m’ewa lo. Ojo l’ewa ‘bo, Orí ni ba ni gbe le Oko’ (Take good conduct along, do not take beauty along; beauty returns in a day (is ephemeral); it is Orí that abides with one in the house of one’s husband). In this case the bride is being advised to go to her husband’s house with good character and not just with beauty.
The plausibility of our social conception of Orí is lent further credence by the Yoruba belief that Orí is not unalterable. If one is to suppose that Orí or ‘destiny’ is unalterable then one shall be committed to the thesis that the Yoruba have a fatalist attitude to life. Thus, when a man is destined to be poor he will have no choice but to accept his fate. The reality however is that the Yoruba believe that they can influence and determine their lot in the society.
Chapter Summaries
1. 0 INTRODUCTION: Outlines the mind-body problem, the Yoruba concept of a person, and the thesis’s comparative and evaluative aims and methods.
1. 1. BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY: Places the inquiry within debates about culture, philosophy, and African oral traditions, explaining why Yoruba thought merits critical analysis.
1. 2. DUALISM AND THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM: Introduces the metaphysical question of what a person is and explains how mind-body dualism creates a problem about the relation between mind and body.
1.3. DUALIST THEORIES OF A PERSON: Describes dualist accounts and the challenges they face in explaining the relationship between distinct mental and bodily substances.
1. 3. 1. CARTESIAN DUALISM: Examines Descartes’s distinction between thinking mind and extended body, interactionism, and objections including Ryle’s category-mistake critique.
1. 3. 2. OCCASSIONALISM AND PSYCHO-PHYSICAL PARALLELISM: Explains accounts that deny direct mind-body causation and consider divine intervention or pre-established harmony.
1. 4. SOME MONIST RESPONSES TO MIND-BODY DUALISM: Surveys monist approaches that reject the dualist division of persons.
1. 4. 1. THE IDEALIST RESPONSE: Discusses idealist accounts of reality as spiritual or mental and the problems they encounter.
1. 4. 2. THE MATERIALIST RESPONSE: Presents materialist accounts that explain persons and mental phenomena through matter and physical processes.
1. 5. NON-COMMITTAL RESPONSES: Considers double-aspect and neutral-monist approaches and their difficulties in defining an underlying reality.
2. 0. INTRODUCTION: Establishes the scope and approach for outlining the Yoruba concept of a person, emphasizing oral sources and contextual interpretation.
2. 1. THE YORUBA CONCEPTION OF REALITY: Introduces Yoruba metaphysics as a context for understanding personhood and the interrelated spiritual and material worlds.
2. 2. THE YORUBA COSMOGONY: Relates Yoruba accounts of creation, including the roles of Olódùmarè, Òrìsàńlá, and the formation of human bodies.
2. 3. YORUBA COSMOLOGY: Describes the connected planes of Ayé and Òrun and their place in a hierarchical, religiously understood universe.
2. 4.THE IFA LITERARY CORPUS AND RELATED DOCUMENTED UNDOCUMENTED ORAL SOURCES ON THE YORUBA ONTOLOGY OF A PERSON: Identifies Ifá, oral traditions, language, and related sources as evidence for Yoruba ideas of personhood.
2. 5. MATERIAL ASPECTS OF THE YORUBA ONTOLOGY OF A PERSON: Explains the body, ara, as the physical and perishable aspect of a person.
2. 5. 1. NON-MATERIAL ASPECTS OF THE YORUBA ONTOLOGY OF A PERSON: Examines èmí and orí among the spiritual and non-material aspects of Yoruba personhood.
2. 6. CRITICAL INTERPRETATION: Interprets the Yoruba accounts of personhood and proposes a complex, multiple-aspect understanding.
3. 0. INTRODUCTION: Asks whether the traditional mind-body problem applies to the Yoruba multiple-aspect concept of a person.
3. 1. DISTINCTION BETWEEN SUBSTANCE THEORIES OF MIND AND NON-SUBSTANCE THEORIES OF MIND: Distinguishes theories that treat mind as an entity from those that explain mental phenomena without a separate mental substance.
3. 2. YORUBA ACCOUNT OF MENTAL PHENOMENA: Discusses how Yoruba language and thought associate mental phenomena with bodily aspects without positing a single mind entity.
3. 3.THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM IN RELATION TO THE YORUBA CONCEPT OF A PERSON: Argues that the classic problem may not arise in the same form for the Yoruba account.
3. 3. 1 THE IDEA OF A ‘CATEGORY MISTAKE’ AND THE YORUBA ACCOUNT OF THE MENTAL: Uses Ryle’s critique of Cartesian dualism to illuminate the Yoruba non-substance account of mental phenomena.
3. 3. 2. LOGICAL BEHAVIORISM AND THE YORUBA ACCOUNT OF MENTAL PHENOMENA: Assesses whether logical behaviorism helps describe the Yoruba account of mental experience.
4. 0. INTRODUCTION: Sets up a comparison between contemporary scientific and Yoruba accounts of a person.
4. 1. FORMULATIONS OF MATERIALISM: Introduces materialism as the philosophical background to contemporary scientific accounts.
4. 1. 1. Dialectical Materialism: Explains the view that mental life originates in matter but is not reducible to it.
4. 1. 2. Reductive Materialism: Presents the view that human actions and mental events can be explained in terms of material processes.
4. 2 REDUCTIVE MATERIALISM AND THE SCIENTIFIC CONCEPT OF A PERSON: Traces materialist accounts of persons from classical atomism to contemporary scientific theories.
4. 2. 2.SMART AND ARMSTRONG ON THE MIND-BRAIN IDENTITY THEORY: Examines Smart’s and Armstrong’s accounts identifying mental events or states with brain processes.
4. 2. 3. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, NEURO-SCIENCE AND THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM: Considers whether artificial intelligence and neuroscience support physicalist explanations of human mental capacities.
4. 3. A COMPARISON OF THE YORUBA AND CONTEMPORARY SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS OF A PERSON WITH REFERENCE TO THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM: Compares the two accounts, emphasizing shared rejection of a separate mind entity and differing explanations of causation.
4. 3. 1. SOME POINTS OF SIMILARITIES: Identifies shared attention to physiology and bodily processes in explaining mental phenomena.
4. 3. 2. DISSIMILARITIES: DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE DESCRIPTIVE AND NORMATIVE ACCOUNT OF CAUSATION: Contrasts scientific descriptive causation with the Yoruba normative account of mental powers and states.
5. 0. INTRODUCTION: Frames the final appraisal around relations among the aspects of a person and the social implications of Yoruba personhood.
5. 1. YORUBA CONCEPT OF A PERSON: FURTHER CRITICAL INTERPRETATION: Reconsiders the Yoruba account as neither simply dualist nor monist.
5. 2. THE YORUBA MULTIPLE-ASPECT CONCEPT OF A PERSON: Develops the view of a person as an integrated whole with physiological, spiritual, mental, and social dimensions.
5. 2. 1. A YORUBA INTERPRETATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE MENTAL AND OTHER ASPECTS OF A PERSON: Explores how mental phenomena relate to bodily and spiritual dimensions within the Yoruba account.
5. 3. AN OUTLINE OF THE SOCIAL (OR NORMATIVE) DIMENSION TO THE YORUBA CONCEPT OF A PERSON: Explains how social norms and moral development contribute to personhood.
5. 4. ORÍ AND ÈNÌYÀN (PERSON) IN THE YORUBA SOCIETY: Reviews interpretations of orí and its significance for a person’s identity and life course.
5. 4. 1. A SOCIAL INTERPRETATION OF ORÍ: Interprets orí as a socially meaningful symbol of character and chosen way of life.
5. 5. IMPLICATIONS FOR SOCIAL EXISTENCE: Discusses personhood, moral responsibility, rights, social integration, and the obligations that sustain community life.
5. 6. CONCLUDING REMARKS: Recaps the thesis’s account of Yoruba personhood and its implications for philosophy, culture, and scientific understandings of human life.
Keywords
mind-body problem, Yoruba philosophy, concept of a person, multiple-aspect theory, dualism, materialism, mental phenomena, orí, èmí, ara, Ifá, African philosophy, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, social existence
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the thesis about?
It examines the mind-body problem from the perspective of the Yoruba concept of a person and compares that account with Western scientific theories.
What are its central themes?
Its themes include dualism and materialism, Yoruba cosmology and oral sources, mental phenomena, personhood, orí, and social and moral life.
What is the main research question?
It asks whether the traditional mind-body problem arises for the Yoruba concept of a person and how that concept accounts for human nature.
What method does the author use?
The thesis uses explanatory analysis and evaluation, critical and logical analysis, documented oral sources, discussions with Yoruba scholars and Ifá exponents, and a focus-group interview.
What does the main body examine?
It outlines dualist and monist theories, develops a Yoruba account of personhood, compares it with scientific materialism, and appraises its social implications.
Which keywords characterize the work?
Key terms include the mind-body problem, Yoruba philosophy, multiple-aspect personhood, orí, èmí, ara, Ifá, and mental phenomena.
What does the thesis mean by a multiple-aspect concept of a person?
It describes a person as an integrated whole whose interrelated aspects are physiological, spiritual, mental, and social or evaluative.
How does the work interpret orí?
It interprets orí not simply as a separate soul or entity, but as a value-laden symbol associated with character and a person’s socially shaped way of life.
What research materials inform the Yoruba account?
The work draws on the Ifá Literary Corpus, Yoruba oral traditions and language, proverbs and other genres, discussions with Yoruba scholars and Ifá exponents, and a focus-group interview.
- Quote paper
- Amodu Akeem (Author), 2003, The Mind-Body-Problem from the perspective of the Yoruba (african) Concept of a Person, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/382488
