PHILOSOPHY OF ESSENCE, IBUANYIDANDA AND AYATUTU ONTOLOGY: SEEKING THE WHOLE FROM THE UNITS

Abstract

It has been argued that Aristotle’s Philosophy of Essence is linked to the crisis of relationship and global disorder. In politics, economy and religion, his theory of substance and accidents has been argued as a bivalent metaphysics that draws a line between what is and what is not. This paper argues that, this thesis has wider implication not only in metaphysics but also in all the sciences of human relations because the same line runs through race, faith, gender and ethnicity, but that it draws a wedge between the "self" and the "other" thus creating the most dangerous problems of relationships in humanity today. Drawing largely from Asouzu’s Ibuanyidanda Ontology, paper deconstructs the substance/accident dualism and unveils an authentic understanding of and the relationship between the "self" and the "other" that has polarized humanity into ethnic and religious cleavages. The paper argues further that philosophical inquiry could take many approaches, from bivalent to multi-valent logical systems though a multi-valent system where divisions between the self and the other will be bridged is argued as an alternative existential necessity. Every reality serves a missing link in a complementary relationship of all there is.  I argue the conclusion that through Ayatutu; seeking the whole from the units, a form of socialization that advances human personality, life grows more meaningfully in solidarity within the human community- a viable alternative for recalibrating humanity from the perspective of its interconnectedness and interrelatedness for social harmony and unity of purpose for human beneficence.