Suchergebnisse

The pivotal role which education plays in helping humanity to come to terms with existential imperatives cannot be over emphasized. It is the management of the flux concomitant to existential imperatives that can ensure social order, understood in normative perspective. In this paper, I address the development and conception of education within the African continent, particularly Nigeria and argue that the foundation of education must be predicted on humane values which the humanities, other than the natural sciences in spite of their utilitarian values, provide. Furthermore, I argue that given the humanistic basis of education predicated on certain human and communal values, existential predicaments can be addressed thereby paving way for social order and by extension human happiness which is the goal of development in any part of the world. The paper concludes that government is the greatest teacher and the actions and inactions of government, as the sustainer of right values, in Africa matter more in ensuring development-oriented education that can adequately combat our existential challenges as well as ensure the entrenchment of social order for sustainable development. ; Ключову роль, яку відіграє освіта в тому, щоб допомогти людству дійти згоди щодо екзистенційних імперативів, неможливо переоцінити. Тільки управління життєвим потоком відповідно до екзистенційних імперативів може забезпечити соціальний порядок, який розуміється з нормативної точки зору. У даній статті я розглядаю розвиток і концепцію освіти на африканському континенті, зокрема, в Нігерії, і стверджую, що основа освіти повинна передбачати гуманістичні цінності, які забезпечують гуманітарні науки, на відміну від природничих наук, незважаючи на їх утилітарну цінність. Крім того, я стверджую, що, з огляду на гуманістичну основу освіти, що передбачає певні особистісні та колективні цінності, екзистенційні проблеми можуть бути вирішені за допомогою руху шляхом до соціального порядку і за допомогою поширення людського щастя, що є метою розвитку в будь-якій частині світу. У статті робиться висновок, що уряд є найбільшим учителем, а дії або бездіяльність уряду як носія правильних цінностей в Африці мають велике значення для забезпечення освіти, орієнтованої на розвиток, яка може адекватно сприяти боротьбі з нашими екзистенційними проблемами, а також зміцненню соціального порядку для сталого розвитку.

We cannot evade the fact that Africa is in dire need of sustainable development. Yet as the minutes of the twenty-first century tick away, we seem to be still far from the desirable development results. Many reasons account for this: bad leadership; ethnic conflict; political crisis; corruption; dearth of scientific and technological development; religious crisis and many more. All these reasons are interconnected. How? We cannot talk about sustainable development without a desirable social order. Then how do we achieve the desirable social order that will serve as the necessary condition for development in Africa? This work provides an answer by examining the role of morality in achieving the desired level of social order in Africa. It is our contention that if we internalize certain precepts of morality, some which are universal and some which are culturally based, then it would be easier to provide solutions to our problem in Africa. The state and those in leadership position have the task of providing an environment conducive to the application of moral values that will engender social order, and which can serve as the basis for sustainable development in Africa. And since morality strives at human wellbeing which presupposes the well-being of the moral agent and the others in society, then the proper appreciation of moral values and their application within the context of the larger society will be a valuable avenue for achieving social order.

Sense of Community and its Sustenance in Africa
There is no gainsaying the fact that Africa is inundated with many problems which have made the development and the attainment of social order, conceived in normative terms, daunting tasks. It is also a fact that there are many causes of this scenario such as political marginalization, ethnic chauvinism, economic mismanagement, religious bigotry and corruption in its various facets. However, in this disquisition we identify the lack of the development, internalization and application of the sense of community, loosely tagged community consciousness, as a major factor that has aggravated the African crisis and which if addressed can reverse the order of things positively. It is the contention of this paper that fundamentally in the case of Africa, as shown in countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia and Nigeria, there has been a blind pursuit of private or individual interests to the detriment of the public sphere or public good. Ironically too, when leaders put up repressive laws in the pretense to pursue the public good, the underlying motive has always been the pursuit of selfish private whims and caprices. We noted that in contemporary Africa a major way towards a desired level of social order and development consists in engendering the required sense of community (a situation in which there is mutual co-operation, interdependence and fellow-feeling) on which other developments can be predicated. Although, the quest and realization of the sense of community is not a grand solution to our myriad of problems in Africa, at least it forms the basis on which we can start to address our problems in Africa in a meaningful way.

Given the urgency to transcend its image as a "dark continent," every African should be concerned about the need to arrest the level of disorder which has made corruption and ethnic warfare the trade mark of most African states. The problem of African development has been traced among other factors to political instability, economic crises, societal breakdown, demographic pressures, Christian, Moslem and pagan religious conflicts, and the incompatible ethnic configuration of African states due to amalgamation of diverse tribal and ethnic groups within political borders established under colonial rule. We therefore argue that the traditional African emphasis on communal values needs to be reinvigorated while remembering that African leaders need to be more ready to adopt new values and ideas such as will promote future development. Adapted from the source document.

"This collection is about composing thought at the level of modernism and decomposing it at the postmodern level where many cocks might crow with African philosophy as a focal point. It has two parts: part one is titled 'The journey of reason in African philosophy', and part two is titled 'African philosophy and postmodern thinking'. There are seven chapters in both parts. Five of the essays are reprinted here as important selections while nine are completely new essays commissioned for this book. As their titles suggest, in part one, African philosophy is unfolded in the manifestation of reason as embedded in modern thought while in part two, it draws the effect of reason as implicated in the postmodern orientation. The idea of the book is to open new vistas for the discipline of African philosophy. African philosophy is thus presented as a disagreement discourse. Without rivalry of thoughts, Africa will settle for far less. This gives postmodernism an important place, perhaps deservedly more important than history of philosophy allocates to it. It is that philosophical moment that says 'philosophers must cease speaking like gods in their hegemonic cultural shrines and begin to converse across borders with one another'. In this conversation, the goal for African philosophers must not be to find final answers but to sustain the conversation which alone can extend human reason to its furthermost reaches."--