Indigenous Shona Philosophy

Pascah Mungwini

Description

Some of the most provocative questions confronting philosophers in Africa are grounded in the historical memory of conquest and the peripheralisation the continent. Mungwini offers a critical reconstruction of indigenous Shona philosophy as an aspect of the African intellectual heritage held hostage by colonial modernity. In this comprehensive work, he lays bare the thoughts of the Shona, who are credited with the founding of the ancient Great Zimbabwe civilisation. Retracing the epistemic thread in the fabric of Shona culture and philosophy, he explores the assumptions that inform their thinking. The exchange of such knowledge is fundamental to the future of humanity.

Informations

• Publié par: NISC (Pty) Ltd
• Date de parution: 29 décembre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781920033521
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Dedication
To my family and those with interest in the African intellectual heritage
About the Series
The African Humanities Series is a partnership between the African Humanities Program (AHP) of the American Council of Learned Societies and academic publishers NISC (Pty) Ltd * . The Series covers topics in African histories, languages, literatures, philosophies, politics and cultures. Submissions are solicited from Fellows of the AHP, which is administered by the American Council of Learned Societies and financially supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
The purpose of the AHP is to encourage and enable the production of new knowledge by Africans in the five countries designated by the Carnegie Corporation: Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda. AHP fellowships support one year’s work free from teaching and other responsibilities to allow the Fellow to complete the project proposed. Eligibility for the fellowship in the five countries is by domicile, not nationality.
Book proposals are submitted to the AHP editorial board which manages the peer review process and selects manuscripts for publication by NISC. In some cases, the AHP board will commission a manuscript mentor to undertake substantive editing and to work with the author on refining the final manuscript.
The African Humanities Series aims to publish works of the highest quality that will foreground the best research being done by emerging scholars in the five Carnegie designated countries. The rigorous selection process before the fellowship award, as well as AHP editorial vetting of manuscripts, assures attention to quality. Books in the series are intended to speak to scholars in Africa as well as in other areas of the world.
The AHP is also committed to providing a copy of each publication in the series to university libraries in Africa.
* early titles in the series was published by Unisa Press, but the publishing rights to the entire series are now vested in NISC
AHP Editorial Board Members as at January 2019
AHP Series Editors:
Professor Adigun Agbaje * , University of Ibadan, Nigeria
Professor Emeritus Fred Hendricks, Rhodes University, South Africa
Consultant:
Professor Emeritus Sandra Barnes, University of Pennsylvania, USA (Anthropology)
Board Members:
1 Professor Akosua Adomako Ampofo, Institute of African Studies, Ghana (Gender Studies & Advocacy) (Vice President, African Studies Association of Africa)
2 Professor Kofi Anyidoho, University of Ghana, Ghana (African Studies & Literature) (Director, Codesria African Humanities Institute Program)
3 Professor Ibrahim Bello-Kano, Bayero University, Nigeria (Dept of English and French Studies)
4 Professor Sati Fwatshak, University of Jos, Nigeria (Dept of History & International Studies)
5 Professor Patricia Hayes, University of the Western Cape, South Africa (African History, Gender Studies and Visuality) (SARChI Chair in Visual History and Theory)
6 Associate Professor Wilfred Lajul, College of Humanities & Social Sciences, Makerere University, Uganda (Dept of Philosophy)
7 Professor Yusufu Lawi, University of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania (Dept of History)
8 Professor Bertram Mapunda, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (Dept of Archaeology & Heritage Studies)
9 Professor Innocent Pikirayi, University of Pretoria, South Africa (Chair & Head, Dept of Anthropology & Archaeology)
10 Professor Josephat Rugemalira, University of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania (Dept of Foreign Languages & Linguistics)
11 Professor Idayat Bola Udegbe, University of Ibadan, Nigeria (Dept of Psychology)
* replaced Professor Kwesi Yankah, Cental Univerity College, Ghana, co-editor from 2013–2016
Published in this series
Dominica Dipio, Gender terrains in African cinema , 2014
Ayo Adeduntan, What the forest told me: Yoruba hunter, culture and narrative performance, 2014
Sule E. Egya, Nation, power and dissidence in third-generation Nigerian poetry in English , 2014
Irikidzayi Manase, White narratives: The depiction of post-2000 land invasions in Zimbabwe , 2016
Pascah Mungwini, I ndigenous Shona Philosophy: Reconstructive insights , 2017
Sylvia Bruinders, Parading Respectability: The Cultural and Moral Aesthetics of the Christmas Bands Movement in the Western Cape, South Africa , 2017
Michael Andindilile, The Anglophone literary-linguistic continuum: English and indigenous languages in African literary discourse , 2018
Jeremiah Arowosegbe, Claude E Ake: the making of an organic intellectual , 2018
Romanus Aboh, Language and the construction of multiple identities in the Nigerian novel , 2018
Bernard Matolino, Consensus as Democracy in Africa, 2018
Babajide Ololajulo, Unshared Identity : Posthumous paternity in a contemporary Yoruba community, 2018

Originally published in 2017 by Unisa Press, South Africa under ISBN: 978-1-86888-841-2
This edition published in South Africa on behalf of the African Humanities Program by NISC (Pty) Ltd, PO Box 377, Grahamstown, 6140, South Africa www.nisc.co.za
NISC first edition, first impression 2019
Publication © African Humanities Program 2017, 2019 Text © Irikidzayi Manase 2017, 2019 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-920033-50-7 (print) ISBN: 978-1-920033-51-4 (PDF) ISBN: 978-1-920033-52-1 (ePub)
Book Designer: Thea Bester-Swanepoel Project Editor: Tshegofatso Sehlodimela Copyeditor: Shakira Hoosain Typesetting: Andri Steyn, Nozipho Noble


The author and the publisher have made every effort to obtain permission for and acknowledge the use of copyright material. Should an inadvertent infringement of copyright have occurred, please contact the publisher and we will rectify omissions or errors in any subsequent reprint or edition.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface
1 Introduction: Philosophy and its realities
2 Indigenous Shona philosophy
The quest for indigenous Shona philosophy
The question of method
The universal and the particular
The African intellectual heritage
Questioning the scriptocentric fallacy
Proverbs and Shona philosophy
3 Who are the Shona?
Concerning the Shona past
Who are the Shona?
The politics of naming
The ‘invention’ of tradition
4 Indigenous Shona metaphysical thought
The question of metaphysics
The question of appropriation
The concept of Mwari
Spirits and traditional leadership
The concept of chivanhu
Causality among the Shona
Causality in Shona life: An example
Death and immortality
The concept of person
Death and cremation
Belief in witchcraft and occult forces
Other metaphysical concepts
5 Knowledge among the indigenous Shona
The question of knowledge
African epistemology
Shona epistemology
Revealed and esoteric knowledge
The place of secrecy
Divination and knowledge
The question of efficacy
Proverbs and knowledge
6 Indigenous Shona morality
The nature of African morality
Morality among the Shona
Kuva munhu muvanhu
Shame cultures and the panoptic effect
The morality of relations
Proverbs and Shona morality
Shona ethics of nature
From the past to the future
7 Indigenous Shona aesthetics
Aesthetics and African culture
Art and philosophy
Beauty among the Shona
Metaphysical dimensions of Shona art
The soapstone birds of Great Zimbabwe
8 Conclusion
References
Index
Acknowledgements
The manuscript for this publication was prepared with the support of an African Humanities Fellowship, established by the American Council of Learned Societies and supported financially by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
By its very nature, the process of writing this book has left me indebted to so many individuals most of whom I cannot mention by name. These include many friends and colleagues with whom I have discussed some of the ideas in this book. However, I shall specifically single out Prof MB Ramose who took his time to go through my very first draft and gave me some eye-opening suggestions. I should also mention my friend and fellow philosopher, Dr Kudzai Matereke, with whom I often debate philosophical issues on Africa.
Special acknowledgement goes to the African Humanities Program (AHP) for awarding me the fellowship and to its editorial team and secretariat for their dedication and support to AHP fellows. I also wish to thank Unisa Press – publishers of the Africa Humanities Series – and the anonymous reviewers who provided valuable commentary on my draft manuscript. My special thanks also go to Dr David Kaulem, the development editor appointed by the AHP editorial team to guide me through the revision of the draft manuscript. His critical insights and suggestions helped me to clarify my thoughts on a number of philosophical issues. I of course, remain entirely responsible for all the mistakes and/or errors.
Finally, I wish to thank my family for all the support they have given me throughout my life and in my career as an academic.
Preface
African philosophers and theorists have pointed to the existence of an epistemic dimension to Africa’s problems in that intellectual traditions from other cultures are given priority at the expense of