JUXTAPOSITION OF WESTERN, ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN METAPHYSICAL ORIENTATIONS

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to trace the metaphysical orientations of western, oriental, and African traditions and how they inform their development and progress. Metaphysical orientation is the sum total of metaphysical doctrines that form the foundational assumption about reality. Metaphysical orientations makes explicit the way a tradition grasps and conceptualizes being. The paper discovers that the metaphysical orientations of the western tradition is dualistic in outlook, while the oriental is monistic, and African is complementarity (or duality). Though metaphysical orientations are what provide the foundation for the epistemology, ethics and socio-political arrangements of the various intellectual traditions and civilizations we studied. Nonetheless, in Africa it is not the case, due to web of complex historical and existential issues. Therefore the paper argues that metaphysical orientation provides the primordial principles that formed the basis for epistemology, ethics, and sociopolitical arrangement that serves as the gateway for development or modernization. However, in the case of Africa it is somewhat different. The paper employs the comparative method.