Absolute certainty and asouzu’s transcendent unity of consciousness
Bisong, Peter Bisong and Udo, Inameti Lawrence
ABSTRACT
It is generally believed that epistemology grew out of the sceptic challenge of the sophists. The sophists argued and taught that no knowledge is certain. These teachings woke up philosophers who attempted to show why knowledge could be certain. Right from the days of Socrates and Plato therefore, philosophers have battled strenuously to show that certain knowledge is possible and attempted to provide the best route to arrive at such knowledge. It is however, unfortunate that this quest has not yielded a satisfactory result. This has made a lot of philosophers to give up the search in despair and has resulted in the postmodern thinking, where attacks are directed at absolutes. Innocent Asouzu is one of the few philosophers who still believe in the possibility of attaining absolute certainty. This work therefore, surveys Asouzu Ibuanyidanda philosophy with the intent of unravelling his doctrine of absolute certainty. With this new insight into the way to absolute certainty given by Asouzu, this research hopes to quench the despair philosophers are presently enveloped in and thus, arouse anew the desire in them to theorize on absolute certainty. The research through Asouzu ideas would show why the various theories of knowledge failed in their attempt to reach absolute knowledge and thereby provide them with a better method to go about their quest.
Keywords: Absolute certainty, transcendent unity of consciousness, truth and authenticity criterion
INTRODUCTION
Innocent Asouzu is an African philosopher who is the founder of the philosophical movement known as ibuanyidandaism. Ibuanyidanda (which means no load is insurmountable for danda the ant) is derived from three Igbo words: ibu meaning load or task, anyi meaning not insurmountable for and danda which means a species of ants. This idea of Ibuanyidanda connotes to the Igbo people the importance of mutual dependence and interdependence in comple-mentarity. As the ants when working in unison and complementarity could lift loads that appear heavier than them, the African philosophers believe that humans could achieve or solve difficult tasks when acting in complementarity. Thus they hold that, “for anything to claim existence, it has to fulfil a minimum condition, which subsists in its commitment to a mutual complementary relationship between it and the other units with which it shares a common framework” (Asouzu, Ibuanyidanda 11-12).
The philosophy of Ibuanyidanda was therefore, contrived based on Asouzu’s personal knowledge of authentic African traditions in Igbo community. The world view of the traditional Africans he claims, shows to a large extent, “strong moments of the transcendent ontological categories of unity, totality, universality, comprehensiveness, wholeness and
future referentiality as authentic dimensions of thoroughgoing complementarity” (Heinz, A Reaction to Innocent Asouzu 10). Based on this African worldview therefore, Asouzu regards reality as an all-embracing whole, where all missing links of reality exist in complementarity. Being is not seen by this philosophy in its old traditional clothing, but as “that on account of which anything that exists serves a missing link of reality” (Asouzu Ibuanyidanda 10). Thus, a thing can be said to exist, it has the capacity to be grasped within the framework of mutual complementary relationship of all existent realities. Failure to perceive being as missing links of realities as many philosophers and thinkers are wont to do will lead to polarization, fragmentation, bifurcation, reduction, hegemonic tendencies and negative wisdom.
This paper attempts an exposition of ibuanyidandaism version of how to reach certainty in knowledge through complementarity.
40 postulated the world of Forms as a place where certitude could be found. It was in search of absolute knowledge that Aristotle the disciple of Plato bifurcate reality into two – substance and accidents. Substance is “that which is not predicated of a subject, but of which all else is predicated.” (1625). Thus substance for Aristotle when grasped fully by the mind produces absolute knowledge. The quest for this absolute knowledge also led Rene Descartes to the ‘cogito’ argument which ends up postulating reason as the seat of absolute knowledge. Other rationalists followed his lead in upholding absolute knowledge to be a product of reason. On the other hand, John Locke and other empiricists located absolute knowledge in sense experience. The pragmatists on their part claim that, what is absolutely true is what works in practical life. The traditional African philosophers believe that with recourse to the supernatural, man could know with certainty. Other strands of philosophy with their own idea of how to attain absolute certainty abound.
In spite of the efforts by philosophers over the years, the controversy as to absolute certainly and its mode of attainment is still on and has led to a lot of people giving up in despair. For instance, Voltaire exclaimed in despair, “doubt is not a pleasant condition, but
certainty is absurd.”
(http://www.singularityweblog.com/the-importance-of-doubt-asking-questions-and-not-knowing/). Carlo Rovellli adds, “Certainty in real life is useless or often damaging” ( http://www.pearltrees.com/u/44507639-sherlock-observation-deduction). According to Ozumba, “to insist on absolute certainty is completely outside the scope of human knowledge and will doubtless make epistemology an unnatural enquiry that is simply idealistic (100).
Innocent Asouzu is one of the philosophers that still believe absolute certainty is possible and attainable. But he believes this in a radically different way from the way majority of thinkers believe this. To Plato and Aristotle who bifurcated the world into two (for Plato, the sensible and the intelligible, for Aristotle, substance and accident), Asouzu would think of them as having a mythological mindset which sees the world in a divided mood. Asouzu calls this “the worst form of superstition” (Ibuaru 101) and declares that knowledge in terms of grasping the cause can only occur in the ontological horizon of Ibuanyidanda. To the traditional African philosophers who see the world only in terms of the transcendental, Asouzu would think of them as reductionists, which he describes as ‘supernaturalism’. To the empiricists and the
rationalists who see the world in terms of what is experienced by the senses and what is grasped by reason respectively, he accuses of a form of reduction, he calls ‘scientism.’
Supernaturalism according to Asouzu is a form of reduction that sees things only in the transcendental, and dismisses all knowledge claims that cannot be seen in this plane. In supernaturalistic reduction, “we are dealing with that situation where the mind submits to the existence of supernatural forces and believes that the explanation of all complex situations can be reduced only to ideas drawn from these forces and allied phenomena” (Asouzu, Ibuaru 102-103). This approach to reality for Asouzu, divides, discriminates, conceals unduly, creates cognitive barriers and most importantly creates special types of laws and conditions needed to penetrate its claims. Thus, only those in possession of these conditions and laws could obtain knowledge. The other type of reduction called scientism Asouzu claims is “overburdened with the tendency towards extremism” (Ibuaru 102). Empiricism and rationalism for him negate the complementary nature of all missing links in their mutual interrelatedness by their introducing an artificial divide in their dealing with phenomena. Scientism has that mindset he claims, “that makes human person the ultimate arbiter in all matters of inquiry, and which can always be called in to intervene at very critical moments in the form of dues ex machine” (Ibuaru 103).
Supernaturalism makes recourse to the transcendental alone shunning the human reason and other forms of acquisition of knowledge. Scientism on the other hand, enthrones reason or data gotten from sense experience as the only authentic source of certitude shunning other possible forms of knowing. The same is true of pragmatism, which tends to divide reality into what works in practical life and what does not. The former is considered as truth and the later false. To divide reality this way to Ibuanyidandaism is a crime that has hindered the grasping of ‘being’ making philosophy so abstruse and abstract devoid of life to the common man.
41 also to assume that what works in practical life is truth means that what cannot be proven to work is false. Asouzu sees these forms of reduction which many theories of knowledge are based on as limited and could lead to hegemonic wisdom. He avers that the
Mind could make true explanation of reality impossible where it places falsehood to resources unknown to it or where it unduly dismisses those regions of reality not immediately accessible to it as irrational, the mind find itself in a form of self imposed delimitation, which can make true explanation of reality impossible” (Ibuaru 103).
When this happen Asouzu claims, the mind is restricted in operations to known causes alone, such that explanation does not attain that level of refinement arising from comprehensiveness similar to the nature of reality. Reality is comprehensive, thus, every explanation or claim to knowledge must be comprehensive enough to capture it.
On the basis of this tendency to reductionism and polarization of reality by philosophers and thinkers all over the world Asouzu claim that certainty in knowledge will continually elude us. Unlike these two forms of reduction, Asouzu Ibuanyidanda recognizes the fact that human consciousness is not predetermined based on some sets of immutable laws. For Ibuanyidanda, all missing links are windows to reality and the way we manage them determines the level of truth we arrive at. To attain certainty, he introduced the concepts ‘transcendent categories of the unity of consciousness.’ He therefore opines that, if we allow “the mind to act in full harmony with the dictates of the transcendent categories … it can never err” (Ibuanyidanda 324). It is when the mind performs its operation in keeping with the dictate of these transcendent categories that it can never err. Asouzu’s transcendent categories of unity of consciousness: Asouzu believes that the mind can only have a clear and evident intuition of being not through reduction, but when it operates in keeping with the transcendent categories of unity of consciousness. When it operates in keeping with the transcendent categories, it recognizes the complementary relationship that exists in all beings. This is why he claims that, “that mind is fit and healthy in which the transcendent categories of the unity of consciousness, acts as its active ingredient or forms remain operative” (Ibuanyidanda 327). On the contrary therefore, we could say that, that mind is unhealthy which does not act according to the
dictates of the transcendent categories. Such minds Asouzu believes, would not reach absolute certainty. This is because it is the categories that aid the mind to perceive all beings in their fragmentation and relativity, and also in full consciousness of the comprehensive, whole future reference dimension of their determination – it is when being is captured this way that the subject grasps it real nature.
The transcendent categories according to Asouzu are the forms of the mind through which the harmonising faculty (Obi/mmuo eziokwu) secures the transcendent experience of the mind, so that its action is beyond all forms of arbitrariness and divisiveness. There are the natural forms or windows through which the mind perceives reality. But sometimes these forms are concealed, so that the mind no longer sees reality through them, thereby leading it to error. These transcendent categories, the mind operates with include: “fragmentation (relativity), unity, totality, universality, comprehensiveness, wholeness and future reference” (Asouzu, Ibuanyidanda 323). Whenever the mind grasps a thing with the full applicability of this, it can never err; in order words, the knowledge acquired would be certain. When the categories are totally active in an individual, Asouzu believes such an individual would capture being in its totality, relativity, comprehensiveness and future reference. When all the categories are not active, an individual could capture being only in fragmentation or universality and not in all its essential determination, thereby leading to error. This is the case with the empiricists, rationalists, pragmatists, supernaturalists, etc would capture being from one determination, in total neglect of others. One whose transcendent categories are fully active, would capture being in its fragmentation (relativity), unity, totality, universality, comprehensiveness, wholeness and future reference.
42 harmonising faculty is in control, it regulates our ambivalent tensions and makes the mind able to grasp reality through the transcendent categories. Most people are not able to operate in keeping with the transcendent categories, because their minds have been led astray by the ambivalent existential conditions and the phenomenon of concealment. Reality presents itself to us in ambivalences: good – bad, superior – inferior, powerful – weak, rich – poor, et cetera. The phenomenon of concealment often conceals the mind from these ambivalences of life, and thus making it to pursue and affirm one side of these ambivalences in total negation of the other side of the ambivalence that is also important. For instance, the mind concealed by the phenomenon of concealment could tend to affirm and uphold the existence of those closest to it, negating those who are not so close (the other side of the ambivalence). It is also the case where the poor are negated and the rich affirmed in all aspect of societal life including religious houses. The harmonising faculty works on the phenomenon of concealment, bringing them in control, so as the divide we often encounter in our daily lives would be bridged. When the harmonising faculty is at work therefore, the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak, members of one’s ethnic closet and non members would all be captured and equally affirmed as members of the same complementary horizon. When the harmonising faculty is functional in individuals, exaltation and upholding of one’s perspective, idea or opinion in total negation of the others’ would give way to the affirmation of the others viewpoints as units that add up to the complementary whole – which becomes absolute certainty.
The harmonising faculty in its capacity as the seat of mediation and equilibration of all existential tensions, harmonizes all differences in reality to a complementary absolute whole. Asouzu avers:
it is when we are imbued with this type of mindset that we have better chances of capturing being in its dynamic essentiality, truly, insightfully and authentically, and can share or communicate it content in the knowledge and experience of missing links in their fragmentary relational essentially devoid of ambivalences (Ibuanyidanda 321).
It is therefore from this transcendent mindset that we are capable of encountering the opposite other in its otherness and embrace the otherness as an extension of ego without discrimination.
Truth and authenticity criterion as the regulatior of the transcendent categories: Truth and
authenticity criterion according to Asouzu is “the measure by which we can state if a thing conforms to demands of the principles, method and imperative of complementarity as far as these are founded on the principle of non-contradiction.” (Complementary Reflection 310). The demand of this criterion is that we “never elevate a world immanent missing link to an absolute instance” (Ibuaru 197). It urges us to always “concede to the type of unity existing between world immanent realities and the foundation of all existing realities (Ibuanyidanda, 320). This means that all truth and knowledge claims must relate to the totality and comprehensiveness of being as the foundation of all existent realities. When this is so, we could claim certainty.
Getting at truth and authenticity is a transcendent act according to Asouzu, whereby the mind seeks to go beyond the immediacy. Therefore in all matters of truth and authenticity, the mind seeks the best possible way to comprehend and explain facts totally and comprehensively – this is its natural propensity. This is why all experiences that are not directed to the universal, total and comprehensive dimension of what is expected to be explained, would hardly give us an authentic and true insight into what we want. And when we do not have authentic and true insight into being, we cannot claim certainty. Therefore any “truth claim that ignores the relativity of human existential situation as to state apriori and apodictally what the case would be in all situations and fails to acknowledge the fragmentary and referential nature of all missing links of reality is bound to err” (complementary Reflection 315). The truth and authenticity of all modes of reality depends on how far the mind recognizes the total, comprehensive and ultimate foundation, which gives legitimacy to their existence.
43 rationalism, pragmatisms and other reductionist’s theories of knowledge that see themselves as absolute, bridge the truth and authenticity criterion of Asouzu.
All knowledge claims according to Asouzu, agree with the truth and authenticity criterion if it does not breach the harmonious unity existing in realities – that is, when it captures being “in a comprehensive, total and future referential and proleptic manner” (Complementary Reflection 316). All experiences and knowledge claims that do not encompass the universal, total and comprehensive dimension of what is expected to be explained would rarely give us any authentic insight into the actual nature of that thing we inquire after.
CONCLUSION
Ibuanyidanda philosophy as propounded by Asouzu is, against bifurcating and reductionist tendencies of some theories and asserts that in all modes of explanation, there is always something left unexplained and unattended to. This could be explained using the story of the four blind men that experienced the elephant. One touched the tail of the elephant and exclaimed that the elephant is like a snake. Another touched the leg and explained that the elephant is like a trunk of tree. Another touched the stomach and explained that the elephant is like a wall. The fourth touch the ear and explained that elephant is like mushroom.
Ibuanyidanda philosophy recognizes that, the ideas of the four blind men with respect to the elephant have some degree of truth. But when one blind man attempts to make his position absolute, negating the view of the others, it leads to error in knowledge. This is exactly what the empiricists, rationalists, pragmatists, supernaturalist and other claims to knowledge that see their position as absolute falls into. Absolute knowledge of the elephant according to Ochulor “is all that the blind men defined it to be and much more.” (Logical Thinking). Similarly, absolute knowledge or certainty to Ibuanyidanda philosophy goes beyond all that the empiricists, rationalists, pragmatists, supernaturalists individually believe. Because no single experience, taken on its own is sufficient as a guarantor for truth. Thus, “all
experiences that are not directed to the universal, total and comprehensive dimension of what is expected to be explained would hardly give us an authentic and true insight into what we want” (Complementary Reflection 314). Not seeing reality this way according to Asouzu, would lead to error in judgement and knowledge.
To capture being truly, one must operate with a global mindset. Any attempt to capture being in its absolute mode of existence leads to error of judgement as is the case with the blind men that tried to capture the whole elephant through part of it. To capture being in a global mindset means grasping being through the transcendent categories of unity of consciousness – which are fragmentation, unity, totality, universality, comprehensiveness, wholeness and future reference. These concepts are held into place the harmonising faculty, without which the transcendent categories cannot be operative.
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