Abstract
Those who oppose the assertion that metaphysics is the core of philosophy often argue that metaphysics should be regarded as nothing more than a study in illusion and sophistry. They claim that metaphysical assertions are often found to be meaningless, and hence empty, assertions that do not count for knowledge. In fact, the “anti-metaphysics” philosophers are of the view that published or documented materials of metaphysics should be “committed to flames” since they have no practical relevance. David Hume, A.J. Ayer and, indeed, the logical positivists are staunch members of this group.
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Notes
- 1.
Jim Unah, “Metaphysics as the Foundation of Knowledge,” in Metaphysics, Phenomenology and African Philosophy, ed. Jim Unah (Lagos: FADEC Publishers, 1996), 10.
- 2.
William James. Cited in Richard Taylor, Metaphysics (New York: Prentice Hall Inc., 1962), 1.
- 3.
Unah, “Metaphysics as the Foundation of Knowledge,” 10.
- 4.
W. H. Walsh, “Nature of Metaphysics,” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards (New York: Macmillan and the Free Press, 1967), 301.
- 5.
Unah, “Metaphysics as the Foundation of Knowledge,” 10.
- 6.
Ibid., 63.
- 7.
Placide Tempels, “Bantu Ontology,” in African Philosophy: An Anthology, ed. Emmanuel ChukwudiEze (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998), 430.
- 8.
Lesiba J. Teffo and Abraham P. J. Roux, “Metaphysical Thinking in Africa,” in The African Philosophy Reader, ed. P. H. Coetzee and A. P. J. Roux (New York: Routledge, 1998), 137–138.
- 9.
The Oxford Reference Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 527.
- 10.
Ibid.
- 11.
A. S. Cohan, “Metallurgy,” in The Encyclopedia Americana (Dansbury, Connecticut: Grolier Inc., 1997), 764.
- 12.
Ibid.
- 13.
Ibid.
- 14.
Theodore A. Wertime, “Man’s First Encounter with Metallurgy,” Science (New Series) 146, no. 3649 (1964):1257.
- 15.
Cohan, “Metallurgy,” 764.
- 16.
S. A. Babalola, The Content and Form of YorùbáÌjálá.(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966), 3.
- 17.
Susan Wenger and Gert Chesi, A Life With the Gods in their Yoruba Homeland (Worgl: Perlinger, 1983), 152.
- 18.
Sandra T. Barnes, “The Many Faces of Ogun: Introduction to the First Edition,” in Africa’s Ogun: Old World and New, ed. Sandra T. Barnes (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 3.
- 19.
Ibid.
- 20.
Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss, Primitive Classification (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 81.
- 21.
Barnes, “The Many Faces of Ogun,” 3.
- 22.
Ibid., 4.
- 23.
Ibid., 5.
- 24.
N. J. van der Merwe and D. H. Avery, “Science and Magic in African Technology: Traditional Iron Smelting in Malawi,” Africa 57, no. 2 (1987):143.
- 25.
Robert G. Armstrong, “The Etymology of the Word “Ogun”,” in Africa’s Ogun: Old World and New, ed. Sandra T. Barnes (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 29–38.
- 26.
Sandra T. Barnes and Paula Girshick Ben-Amos, “Ogun, the Empire Builder,” in Africa’s Ogun: Old World and New, ed. Sandra T. Barnes (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 39.
- 27.
Barnes, “The Many Faces of Ogun,” 5.
- 28.
Denis Williams, Icon and Image: A Study of Sacred and Secular Forms of African Classical Art (London: Allen Lane, 1974), 83.
- 29.
Barnes and Ben-Amos, “Ogun, the Empire Builder,” 39–64.
- 30.
Dona Richards, “The Nyama of the Blacksmith: The Metaphysical Significance of Metallurgy in Africa,” Journal of Black Studies 12, no. 2, (1981):218–219.
- 31.
Ibid., 219.
- 32.
Ibid.
- 33.
Ibid., 220.
- 34.
Ibid.
- 35.
Ibid., 222–223.
- 36.
Ibid., 226.
- 37.
Ibid.
- 38.
Ibid.
- 39.
Ibid., 226–227.
- 40.
Wole Soyinka, Myth Literature and the African World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 28.
- 41.
Richards, “The Nyama of the Blacksmith,” 228.
- 42.
Mircea Eliade, The Forge and the Crucible, trans. Stephen Corrin (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1971), 170.
- 43.
Onwuka N. Njoku, “Magic, Religion and Iron Technology in Pre-colonial North-Western Igboland,” Journal of Religion in Africa, 21, no. 3 (1991):194–215.
- 44.
S. T. Childs and David Killick, “Indigenous African Metallurgy: Nature and Culture,” Annual Review of Anthropology 22, (1993): 325.
- 45.
Ibid.
- 46.
Ibid.
- 47.
Ibid.
- 48.
Ibid., 326–327.
- 49.
Ibid., 328.
- 50.
Ibid.
- 51.
Ibid.
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Williams, D.Icon and Image: A Study of Sacred and Secular Forms of African Classical Art. London: Allen Lane, 1974.
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Adegbindin, O. (2017). Critical Notes on the Metaphysics of Metallurgy in an African Culture. In: Ukpokolo, I. (eds) Themes, Issues and Problems in African Philosophy . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40796-8_4
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