What is personhood in African philosophy?

What is personhood in African philosophy?

The communitarian conception of person is the dominant view of personhood in African philosophy. This view centrally holds that personhood is something that is attained in direct proportion to one’s moral worth and one’s relations with her surrounding community. Whatever happens to her happens to the whole community.

What is a community according to menkiti?

In “Person and Community in African Traditional Thought” (1984), Menkiti argued that, in Africa, the community had priority over the individual. Menkiti stated emphatically that personhood is defined by community and not by qualities such as rationality, will, or memory. …

What role does community play in traditional African thought?

the community plays a vital role as catalyst and as prescriber o f norms . Hence, the Africa n emphasized the rituals of incorporation and the overarchin g necessity of learning the social rules by which the community lives, so that what was initially biologically given can come to attain social self-hood, i .

What does this mean when we say all persons are humans but not all humans persons?

In this wise one can say that all persons are human beings but not all human beings are persons. At bottom, all human beings are potential moral agents. This is a status (capacity for rationality and morality) that a colt cannot be accorded because even a horse cannot become a moral agent.

What is Kant’s end principle?

The philosopher Immanuel Kant said that rational human beings should be treated as an end in themselves and not as a means to something else. The fact that we are human has value in itself. We shouldn’t treat ourselves as a means to our own ends; instead we should respect our inherent worth.

What is the concept of a person?

A person (plural people or persons) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, or legal responsibility.

What is philosophy Kwame gyekye?

Philosophical work Gyekye challenges the view that in African thought, community confers personhood on the individual and thus the individual’s identity is merely derivative of the community. This intrinsic value, it is argued, makes nonsense of the view that the individual’s value stems solely from the community.

What is the meaning of community in the African culture?

The community or society i. within which social equilibration, social balance an. very powerful, and almost individuality submer. rules in the indigenous African world.

What is philosophy according to gyekye?

What does it means if we say that all human beings deserve respect because all have human dignity?

According to it saying that a person has human dignity just means that the person has got certain basic rights and that all persons are free and equal.

What is Gyekye’s argument about African culture?

This can be seen in Gyekye argument that a human person in African cultures is a communitarian being (2002: 24). They are born into a community and are shaped and influenced by it. Gyekye claims that the community plays a vital role in the formation of the individual’s personhood or identity.

What defines the person as person according to Gyekye?

Gyekye citing Menkiti’s proponents of this communitarianism, suggest it is the community that defines the person as person. This is because the community has priority over the individual person. According to Gyekye the individual is wholly moulded by his/her immediate community.

What does Gyekye argue about the relationship between human and community?

Gyekye argues, a human person is a person regardless of age. In light of this, Gyekye articulates what he believes to be the actual relationship between the individual and the community.

What is communitarianism According to gygyekye?

Gyekye argues that a human person in African cultures is a communitarian being (p. 24). He or she is born into a community and is shaped and influenced by it. But what is communitarianism? Communitarianism is a philosophy that emphasizes the connection between the individual and the community.