BELONGINGNESS AS IGWEBUIKE AND AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY A CRITICAL RELATIONSHIP

Abstract

To be is to belong. That is to say being fundamentally belongs. Being is belonging. Belonging is being. To be, therefore, is to belong in one way or the other. By being and consequently belonging, human beings and realities are identified as such. Being foundationally relates to belongingness and belongingness to being. Belongingness, therefore, is an essential and indispensable character and intrinsic way of being. Hence, belongingness defines and describes a being, thereby justifying the conclusion thus: to be is to belong; not to be is not to belong. Until a being belongs, there is no identifying possibility with regard to what it can become or do amidst other realities. So, there is unity in strength by and in belonging. This is belongingness as Igwebuike. Belongingness guarantees the expression of relational unity as Igwebuike, which literally translates to unity is strength and guarantees pragmatic relationship that is symbiotic. These concepts, belongingness and Igwebuike, nevertheless are critically examined and philosophically contemplated within the paradigm of African philosophy amidst doubts of possibility and questions of existence with regard to nature, method, scholarship and history, which are genuinely part of world philosophical heritage.