Like the notion of the soul, the idea of be~ as such remains insuffi-ciently clear in. the minds of Igbo thinkers. However, the Igbo idea of what is follows the two-fold division of the universe: the visible and the invisible. The visible world is a world inhabited by two kinds of being: human and non-human.
Human beings are the principal focus of the visible world. The Igbos express this idea in their names1 and proverbs, for instance:
Madu-ka Human beings are the
greatest.
Ndu-b‟isi: Human life is the first.
98 AN IGBO UNDERSTANDING OF BEING
Confronted with the question: How do you become aware of what is? the Igbo, it seems, would say that an awareness of what is could begin with an awareness of man as a visible concrete instance of what exists. A review of the answers to my questionnaire will support his assertion:
Q.l. Gini bu ife·di? What is being?
A.
Ife-di bu ife-di. Being is being.Q.2. Gini di? What is?
A.
lie: nine bu ife-di. All things are beings.Q.3. Kedu k'isi maIu na ife How do you know that be-
di? ings are?
A.
:Emegi ife ClZQ, amalum I know this at least from 'nkea maka na mad¥di, the fact that human beings malea n' anyi di. are. We are.
Q.4. Kedu ~ isi ama ife bu How do you know what it
n'ife di? is that beings are?
A.
Ofu uzo bu sita na Una One way is by knowing ife bu na madu. di (mma-di). what it is that man is.It is interesting to note that the number one answer, "Ife-di bu ife'di,"
is a tautology, yet it brings out an important point. A tautology of this type is used by the Igbo elder to indicate that what he is talking about cannot be defined. Thus in saying that being is being my informant was acknowledging the fact that being, even though it is a common concept, cannot be defined in the way ordinary concepts are defined.
Here the Igbos would subscribe to what St. Thomas said in De Veritate, that being cannot be defined in the way essences are defined.
We cannot, strictly speaking, form an essential idea of being. It is the most evident concept to which every other concept is reducible.2 This first conceptualization of being is almost wholly implicit, and any attempt at this level to formulate explicitly the content of this idea invariably produces tautology. Although we can say that being is what is, is what is real, and that reality is being, we have no grasp of the meaning of "to be" and "to be real." From the first answer of my informant, one can understand the Igbo mind struggling with the perennial problem of how to grasp what it is "to be."
Being and man’s understanding of being 99 Not knowing what to do, he states it in a tautological form. This is nothing but a way of over-simplifying being into an empty concept, a point Heidegger warns us against:
It has been maintained that 'Being' is the most universal concept.
…But the universality of 'Being' is not that of a class or genus. The term 'Being' does not define that realm of entities which is uppermost when these are articulated conceptually according to genus and species ... The universality of 'Being' transcends any universality of genus . So if it is said that 'Being' is the most uni- versal concept, this cannot mean that it is the one which
is
clearest or that it needs no further discussion. It is rather the darkest of all.3My references to Aquinas and Heidegger show that the Igbos bear witness to the philosophical tradition of maintaining that being is not an essence and hence cannot be defined as an essence is defined, by genus and specific difference.
The second answer of my informant takes a step further: Ife nine bu ife-di (all things are beings., This is a way, I think, of stating that the notion of being penetrates all other contents; hence it is present in the formulation of every concept. This is keeping with the view expressed by Bernard Lonergan:
... the notion of being is unique; for it is the core of all acts of meaning; and it underpins, penetrates, and goes beyond all cogni-tional contents. Hence it is idle to characterize the notion of being by appealing to the ordinary roles or laws of conception .... Other thoughts result from some insight either into the use of their name, or into things-for-us, or into things-themselves. The notion of being
· .. cannot result from an insight into beings, for such an insight would be an understanding of everything about everything, and such understanding we have not attained.4
The views of Heidegger and Lonergan corroborate the Igbo un-certainty at this point regarding a defined notion of being. In the Western tradition, dating from Aristotle, being is not an essence and therefore indefinable. Ideas of essences are formed by abstraction, that is, by leaving out of consideration nonessential characteristics. Because being encompasses the whole of reality, there are disputes within the tradition on how the concept of being is formed. Still, it is generally agreed that being is not a universal concept, for universals are "essential" concepts, predicated in the exact same sense of all that falls under the concept.
100 AN IGBO UNDERSTANDING OF BEING
In the third answer my information‟s idea takes a dramatic turn:
Q. Kedu k'isi malu na ife di? (How do you know that beings are?)
A. Emegi ife QZQ amalum nkea maka na madu, di (I know this at least from the fact that human beings arel maka n'anyi di, (We human beings are).
In this statement the Igbo is suggesting that a notion of being could derive from our concept of man. If so, the question is: What is there in the Igbo concept of man that will respect both the diver- sity and unity of being?
What is common in all being is the act of existence. But how do we move to this common notion from a concept of man?
The Igbo word for man (the human) is “madu." Etymologically
"madu" is a short form of mmadi (mma-di) "Mma” is the Igbo word for "good," "a good," or "the good." "Di” is from "idi," which as we have seen is the Igbo verb "to be.1I For example:
Okwute-di: The stone that· exists (is)
Osisi-di: The tree that exists (is)
In like manner, a combination of “mma” and "di" that is, "mma-di,”
means "good that is." .
From this exposition of the meaning of the word for man. (madu), we discover that in man the Igbo is able to discern the notion of "good that is.” At this point two important questions must be answered: First} how are we to understand “good that is”? Second, how far does this notion respect the diversity of being?
The Igbo notion of “ good that is" must be understood in the context of creation. For the Igbos the notion of "good" is derived from divine creation. To say that man is the “ good that is" is not to say that man is
"good in se” for no one is “good in se" except God. This is made manifest in such Igbo expressions as: (a) "So Chukwu di mma ezie,” that is, "Only God is good in the true sense,” (b) "Onye di mma belu so Chukwu?" a question which translated literally means: "Who is good but only God?"
The Igbos share the religious idea common to many peoples that man's goodness is participated. Man is