Stanley U . Anozie
BIOGRAPHY:
Professor Stanley Uche Anozie taught Philosophy and Ethics at University of Indianapolis, Indiana. He taught Indigenous Religions in Global Context at Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He also taught Philosophy and Logic/Critical Thinking at William Paterson University, Wayne, New Jersey and Felician University, in Lodi, New Jersey, USA, respectively. In 2007, he was awarded a Master’s Scholarship from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and a Doctoral Fellowship from Ontario Graduate Scholarship (Canada) for 2011-2012. He obtained his PhD (Philosophy) from Dominican University College/Carleton University, Ottawa and MA (Philosophy) from Dominican University College, Ottawa, Canada. He also received an MA Public Ethics at Saint Paul University, Ottawa. Anozie is Vice-President Alternative Perspectives and Global Concerns (AP-GC), an Ottawa-based research and scholarly organization. He has published works in socio-political philosophy, philosophical hermeneutics and political belongingness, world religions and ethics, African hermeneutical philosophy, collaborative governance, contemporary concepts of the human person, continental and existential philosophy, Western and non-Western philosophy of thought, etc.
Published Works:
Anozie has written some published works:
2001---“The Impact of Christianity in African Development so far” in Africa and the Challenges of the 21st Century (Enwisdomization Journal, 2001);
2012----“Human Rights and Terrorism: Nigeria-Niger Delta Oil War” in Morality and Terrorism (Nortia Press, 2012); “The Paradox of Non-violent Religions and Violent Cultural Practices: Igbo- Nigeria Africans” (African Philosophy and Religion) in The Root Causes of Terrorism: A Religious Studies Perspective, edited by Mahmoud Masaeli and Rico Sneller, (Cambridge Scholars Publishing) (January 2017) (ISBN-13: 978-1-4438-1680-9; ISBN-10: 1-4438-1680-9.)
In 2016, he published--“Ethics of Duty Reassessed: Alan Gewirth’s Community of Rights’ Alternative critical perspective” (Book Chapter 5) in Globality, Unequal Development, and Ethics of Duty, edited by Mahmoud Masaeli, (UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing) (ISBN-13: 978-1-4438-9699-3; ISBN (10): 1-4438-9699-3.)
In 2017, he published--The Nigerian Government War Against Boko Haram/Terrorism, (Saarbrücken, Germany, Omniscriptum Publishing Group), Editions universitaires europeennes,(ISBN-13: 978-3-639-62342-0; ISBN-10: 3639623428). Also in 2017, he published--“African Esoterism with a Concentration on Igbo Tradition” in Spirituality and Global Ethics, edited by Mahmoud Masaeli, (UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing) (February 2017)(ISBN-13: 978-1-44385073-5; ISBN-10: 1-4438-5073-X.)
For 2018, he is working on his books on -Foundations of Political Thought: Liberalism and its Antagonists, with Mahmoud Masaeli, (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press) and on African Perspectives on Global Development, (UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishers).
He is also working on “Africa’s Illuminating Consciousness in an Era of Raising Global Consciousness Awakening” (Book Chapter 21) in Cosmic Consciousness and Human Excellence Implications for Global Ethics.
Supervisors: Jean-Francois Methot
Professor Stanley Uche Anozie taught Philosophy and Ethics at University of Indianapolis, Indiana. He taught Indigenous Religions in Global Context at Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He also taught Philosophy and Logic/Critical Thinking at William Paterson University, Wayne, New Jersey and Felician University, in Lodi, New Jersey, USA, respectively. In 2007, he was awarded a Master’s Scholarship from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and a Doctoral Fellowship from Ontario Graduate Scholarship (Canada) for 2011-2012. He obtained his PhD (Philosophy) from Dominican University College/Carleton University, Ottawa and MA (Philosophy) from Dominican University College, Ottawa, Canada. He also received an MA Public Ethics at Saint Paul University, Ottawa. Anozie is Vice-President Alternative Perspectives and Global Concerns (AP-GC), an Ottawa-based research and scholarly organization. He has published works in socio-political philosophy, philosophical hermeneutics and political belongingness, world religions and ethics, African hermeneutical philosophy, collaborative governance, contemporary concepts of the human person, continental and existential philosophy, Western and non-Western philosophy of thought, etc.
Published Works:
Anozie has written some published works:
2001---“The Impact of Christianity in African Development so far” in Africa and the Challenges of the 21st Century (Enwisdomization Journal, 2001);
2012----“Human Rights and Terrorism: Nigeria-Niger Delta Oil War” in Morality and Terrorism (Nortia Press, 2012); “The Paradox of Non-violent Religions and Violent Cultural Practices: Igbo- Nigeria Africans” (African Philosophy and Religion) in The Root Causes of Terrorism: A Religious Studies Perspective, edited by Mahmoud Masaeli and Rico Sneller, (Cambridge Scholars Publishing) (January 2017) (ISBN-13: 978-1-4438-1680-9; ISBN-10: 1-4438-1680-9.)
In 2016, he published--“Ethics of Duty Reassessed: Alan Gewirth’s Community of Rights’ Alternative critical perspective” (Book Chapter 5) in Globality, Unequal Development, and Ethics of Duty, edited by Mahmoud Masaeli, (UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing) (ISBN-13: 978-1-4438-9699-3; ISBN (10): 1-4438-9699-3.)
In 2017, he published--The Nigerian Government War Against Boko Haram/Terrorism, (Saarbrücken, Germany, Omniscriptum Publishing Group), Editions universitaires europeennes,(ISBN-13: 978-3-639-62342-0; ISBN-10: 3639623428). Also in 2017, he published--“African Esoterism with a Concentration on Igbo Tradition” in Spirituality and Global Ethics, edited by Mahmoud Masaeli, (UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing) (February 2017)(ISBN-13: 978-1-44385073-5; ISBN-10: 1-4438-5073-X.)
For 2018, he is working on his books on -Foundations of Political Thought: Liberalism and its Antagonists, with Mahmoud Masaeli, (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press) and on African Perspectives on Global Development, (UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishers).
He is also working on “Africa’s Illuminating Consciousness in an Era of Raising Global Consciousness Awakening” (Book Chapter 21) in Cosmic Consciousness and Human Excellence Implications for Global Ethics.
Supervisors: Jean-Francois Methot
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I addressed my presentation from the perspectives of Prof. Pantaleon Iroegbu's "Nkuzi" (Igbo word for Teach/Teaching. Life teaches us. Life 'knocks' us aright. Life 'crafts' us. It is like Greek "Paideia"-education or upbringing) and Jean-Paul Sartre's "Existentialist Humanism" or Existentialist Dialectics (Continuity of Being). The Human Person is an unfinished being. The Human Person is a becoming being. To be is to be becoming. Being (like Nature) is known known as well as unknown known. Hope is part of being's ontological transformation or unfolding. Hope points the Human Person to the "unknown known." (the fulfilment of being).
Talks by Stanley U . Anozie
Conference Presentations by Stanley U . Anozie
Stanley Uche Anozie
In light of the central theme of this year’s symposium focused on “Integral Humanism and Political Action”, Maritain is credited to have proposed “a new integral humanism that is theocentric and communitarian and that can preserve authentic human freedom. An integral humanism is a complete
and whole humanism, one that integrates all the essential aspects of human nature into a holistic understanding without excluding any.” Maritain’s affirmed theocentric and communitarian humanism. In response to Maritain’s clarion call on an inclusive theory of human nature, I will hermeneutically analyze Paulo Freire’s philosophical views on human nature. For Freire, human beings are ontological beings in the world with political duties. These political duties, as “political actions”, originate from what Freire described as “beings for themselves” (Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, translated by
Myra Bergman Ramos (UK: Penguin Books 2017), p. 47) whose purpose is “their ontological vocation to be more fully human.” (Freire, Ibid, p. 47) In other words, human persons (as ontological being with ontological vocation) in its own facticity to be and to be for themselves (as ontological and historical being in his/her/their vocation as process beings) have a political responsibility to their own purposefulness or beingness in the world.
beingness
Our knowledge of ourselves is linguistic and it is essential to our being human. Language ought not to be seen as an object for it is in essence what we are, i.e., our language, and it speaks us. When Hans-Georg
Gadamer says that language speaks us, it implies that our language of existence (any language) is capable of expressing our worldviews. As human beings who have languages, we are spoken to through our respective or universal /inner language as an essential part of our humanism (dialogic humanism).
Jacques Maritain was critical of Renaissance Humanism and Reformation in the area of Religion/Christianity, especially because of their failure to embrace theocentric/integral humanism. What could be the implications of Maritain’s criticism of Renaissance and Reformation in relation to contemporary crises of African Christianism, especially in terms of ‘the image of God’ of the African person (dialogic humanism), the natural rights of Indigenous African Peoples and their Religions, and the decolonization of mind through hermeneutics and language (if we are essentially linguistic beings and integrally dialogic beings)?
Paper Abstract: (Dr. Stanley Uche Anozie, Sacred Heart College, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada)
Jacques Maritain’s socio-political philosophy focused on the advancing thoughts on human well-being through discourses on the nature of our interpersonal relationship, shared humanity, and fraternal intimacy of persons in community. Integral Humanism, for me, is central to Maritain’s political thought on the essence of human existence or essential relationality. As an African-Canadian scholar, it is important to consider African philosophical notion of the person and community in order to see what contributions it may provide to our understanding of Maritain’s integral humanism in a multicultural and ever-changing Canadian society.
The African notion of the person, in my analysis, has two views that essentially complement each other: (i) Person as the beauty of life, and (ii) Person as relational
i). Person as the Beauty of Life : Like most African communities, the Igbo, a major ethnic group in Southeastern Nigeria, uses the terms “human being” and “person” interchangeably. Igbo language considers person as Mma-du, which is the combination of Mma (Beauty) and Ndu (Life.) The concept of person is the concept of the beauty of life. Human beings make the world beautiful and meaningful (as an end in itself, a subject). An African scholar Richard Onwuanibe states, “[O]bject-oriented thinking aims at controlling and exploiting the other.” Person is not to be used, abused, and exploited. As person, the individual is an end in itself with dignity. This is where the notion of ethics clearly shows itself since we all SHOULD share a common humanity and a sense of belongingness. The basis of this belongingness is in person as relational (relationality, mutuality).
ii). Person as Relational: African philosophy of the person centers on “I am because we are, and since we are therefore I am.” It puts more emphasis on the community than on the individuals. “Ours is a community society.” This ‘communitarian’ notion of person does affirm independent rational beings and also insists on the intrinsic relational nature of the person in the community.
These principles/themes will be required in advancing thought on integral humanity and integrative ethics of community that identify with African hermeneutical ethics. I will argue that for Africans, ontology (being as beauty, beautiful) sustains ethics, and ethics (relational, mutuality) dignifies ontology (or beingness, beauty). These themes are also the ‘essence and existence’ of humanism in Maritain’s socio-political philosophy, political action, his criticism against egocentric subjectivity, and his promotion of human freedom.
I addressed my presentation from the perspectives of Prof. Pantaleon Iroegbu's "Nkuzi" (Igbo word for Teach/Teaching. Life teaches us. Life 'knocks' us aright. Life 'crafts' us. It is like Greek "Paideia"-education or upbringing) and Jean-Paul Sartre's "Existentialist Humanism" or Existentialist Dialectics (Continuity of Being). The Human Person is an unfinished being. The Human Person is a becoming being. To be is to be becoming. Being (like Nature) is known known as well as unknown known. Hope is part of being's ontological transformation or unfolding. Hope points the Human Person to the "unknown known." (the fulfilment of being).
Stanley Uche Anozie
In light of the central theme of this year’s symposium focused on “Integral Humanism and Political Action”, Maritain is credited to have proposed “a new integral humanism that is theocentric and communitarian and that can preserve authentic human freedom. An integral humanism is a complete
and whole humanism, one that integrates all the essential aspects of human nature into a holistic understanding without excluding any.” Maritain’s affirmed theocentric and communitarian humanism. In response to Maritain’s clarion call on an inclusive theory of human nature, I will hermeneutically analyze Paulo Freire’s philosophical views on human nature. For Freire, human beings are ontological beings in the world with political duties. These political duties, as “political actions”, originate from what Freire described as “beings for themselves” (Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, translated by
Myra Bergman Ramos (UK: Penguin Books 2017), p. 47) whose purpose is “their ontological vocation to be more fully human.” (Freire, Ibid, p. 47) In other words, human persons (as ontological being with ontological vocation) in its own facticity to be and to be for themselves (as ontological and historical being in his/her/their vocation as process beings) have a political responsibility to their own purposefulness or beingness in the world.
beingness
Our knowledge of ourselves is linguistic and it is essential to our being human. Language ought not to be seen as an object for it is in essence what we are, i.e., our language, and it speaks us. When Hans-Georg
Gadamer says that language speaks us, it implies that our language of existence (any language) is capable of expressing our worldviews. As human beings who have languages, we are spoken to through our respective or universal /inner language as an essential part of our humanism (dialogic humanism).
Jacques Maritain was critical of Renaissance Humanism and Reformation in the area of Religion/Christianity, especially because of their failure to embrace theocentric/integral humanism. What could be the implications of Maritain’s criticism of Renaissance and Reformation in relation to contemporary crises of African Christianism, especially in terms of ‘the image of God’ of the African person (dialogic humanism), the natural rights of Indigenous African Peoples and their Religions, and the decolonization of mind through hermeneutics and language (if we are essentially linguistic beings and integrally dialogic beings)?
Paper Abstract: (Dr. Stanley Uche Anozie, Sacred Heart College, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada)
Jacques Maritain’s socio-political philosophy focused on the advancing thoughts on human well-being through discourses on the nature of our interpersonal relationship, shared humanity, and fraternal intimacy of persons in community. Integral Humanism, for me, is central to Maritain’s political thought on the essence of human existence or essential relationality. As an African-Canadian scholar, it is important to consider African philosophical notion of the person and community in order to see what contributions it may provide to our understanding of Maritain’s integral humanism in a multicultural and ever-changing Canadian society.
The African notion of the person, in my analysis, has two views that essentially complement each other: (i) Person as the beauty of life, and (ii) Person as relational
i). Person as the Beauty of Life : Like most African communities, the Igbo, a major ethnic group in Southeastern Nigeria, uses the terms “human being” and “person” interchangeably. Igbo language considers person as Mma-du, which is the combination of Mma (Beauty) and Ndu (Life.) The concept of person is the concept of the beauty of life. Human beings make the world beautiful and meaningful (as an end in itself, a subject). An African scholar Richard Onwuanibe states, “[O]bject-oriented thinking aims at controlling and exploiting the other.” Person is not to be used, abused, and exploited. As person, the individual is an end in itself with dignity. This is where the notion of ethics clearly shows itself since we all SHOULD share a common humanity and a sense of belongingness. The basis of this belongingness is in person as relational (relationality, mutuality).
ii). Person as Relational: African philosophy of the person centers on “I am because we are, and since we are therefore I am.” It puts more emphasis on the community than on the individuals. “Ours is a community society.” This ‘communitarian’ notion of person does affirm independent rational beings and also insists on the intrinsic relational nature of the person in the community.
These principles/themes will be required in advancing thought on integral humanity and integrative ethics of community that identify with African hermeneutical ethics. I will argue that for Africans, ontology (being as beauty, beautiful) sustains ethics, and ethics (relational, mutuality) dignifies ontology (or beingness, beauty). These themes are also the ‘essence and existence’ of humanism in Maritain’s socio-political philosophy, political action, his criticism against egocentric subjectivity, and his promotion of human freedom.
What does it mean to be a human being in Igbo African Thought?
Could we develop an ethics of political belongingness from Igbo African Ontology?
As a scholar-- who has been shaped by the experiences of life (Ihe uwa or Ihe ije uwa), Iroegbu adumbrates that Nkuzi or Paideia/teaching aligns with the Kpim of education. Kpim “is the quintessence, which is the thingness of a thing and the somethingness of something (Iroegbu, 2002:17).” In this sense, for me, the African Igbo words Ihe and Kpim are related to Nkuzi (teaching or cultivating) in African Igbo worldview or Bildung in German socio-cultural world.
In Professor Panteleon Iroegbu’s trend of African Ontology or Metaphysics: The Kpim of philosophy, one is drawn to his generative philosophical themes. For instance, “Kpim” is Igbo word for ‘the kernel’, the substance, the essence of a thing, the reality or the most real of reality, Hypo-kaimenon, etc.) In attempt to advance the philosophical richness of Professor Iroegbu’s contributions to African Ontology or Metaphysics (or science of being), I have articulated and advanced a hermeneutical equivalent to Iroegbu’s Kpim (Igbo word for the kernel, the substance, the core of a thing, etc.) to another Igbo word “Ihe” (Thingness/Substance/Essence).
With language at the center of interpretation and understanding, Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics claims to provide a solution of the intercultural problem of language and hermeneutics. He moves us to a higher universality, especially with regard to literature or texts and inner meaning. If this is the case, his approach would be relevant
to the problems present in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Hence the goal of this book is to apply this claim to universality to a hermeneutic or narrative text like Achebe’s. Achebe’s narrative text, like the Greek texts, is an excellent work for the application of universal hermeneutics. I am not questioning the validity of the universality of hermeneutics, but rather expressing how significant Gadamer’s approach is to understanding other people, cultural texts and worldviews if hermeneutics is universal. Gadamer provides the philosophical optimism and platform that most African scholars’ need in the interpretation and understanding of their own cultural texts and being understood by other non-African and European cultures and philosophical persuasions. Hermeneutics considers every text or people’s worldviews as interpretive or capable of communicating meaning despite being different, foreign or strange to us. The universality of hermeneutics at its best leads to a dialogic hermeneutics in a world of global understanding/peaceful co-existence.
This timely intervention by the Government of Canada helped to facilitate a new level of international relationship between the two countries. It also gained South African black peoples’ trust and international respect for Canada. These trust and mutual respect have helped to boast political diplomacy, encouraged economic diplomacy, and other forms of cooperation between the two countries. Their relationship has moved from mere foreign based aid relationship to that of bilateral business treaties.
Gilles Paquet’s Collaborative Governance, or what I prefer to call Collaborative Ethics of Globality (a philosophy of stewardship), is similar to Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics that requires the fusion of horizons. The focus of both approaches is the encounter of meanings and understanding as well as the required pragmatic quality of understanding what works for human development and well-being. Hermeneutics is what happens when we engage in direct conversation with other people in order to accomplish genuine understanding of the other (in an ethical encounter with the other person), especially in public collaborative ethics genuinely fashioned for global development and human general progress.
Keywords: Collaborative Governance, Ethics, Belongingness, Moral, Contract, Social Learning, Development, Paquet, Gadamer.
In global ethics or integrative ethics of globality, what should be central is that every individual person or relational being of beauty demands dignity, equity, freedom, justice, peace, tolerance, respect, common good and happiness or satisfaction (flourishing). These concepts are at the heart of Igbo Nigeria Africans’ communitarian ethics of common good or African hermeneutical philosophy of person/community but we have to arrive at them through the exercise of epistemologies and interpretations of values. We are required to merge these values in order to provide content for contemporary global ethics’. Achieving this goal clearly demands a thorough systematic and holistic nudging—that is a continual ethics process.
Keywords: Igbo Nigeria Africans, Hermeneutical Philosophy, Human Person, Individual Person, Community, Common Good, Humanity.
This work is simply set to relate Hans-Georg Gadamer’s approach to hermeneutics with African philosophical reflections and narrative texts that ‘capture the emergence’ of African illuminating consciousness. The intercultural problem of language strictly focuses on the written tradition (literature) and the linguistic implications of African narrative texts like Chinua Achebe’s use of English language in Things Fall Apart, and why Igbo African language could have been better used in advancing African intellectual consciousness. Each language is able to communicate meaning through dialogue rather than in the use of exact words or similar words in translations. There is understanding in the act of dialogue itself. The intercultural problem of hermeneutics addresses understanding the hermeneutical meanings in Achebe’s Igbo African (tragedy) narrative, without focusing solely on language (linguistic re-presentation) but also on meaningfulness, hermeneutical re-presentation and the communication of communitarian understanding of African tragedy (of losing their frame of mind) as part of African hermeneutics of self-consciousness or African intellectual/intercultural experience communicated through a Western culture/colonial language agency in Achebe. The continued emergence of this self-consciousness should be at the basis of a global ethics of authenticity (Professor Charles Taylor), especially if there is no morality without an authentic self-consciousness and disclosure.
To understand the correlation between poverty and development is extremely important. There are various ethical reasonings regarding the duty to help and duty to justice for those who live in impoverished and developing countries. Alan Gewirth’s introduces the theory of rights which outlines major frameworks to understand the morality of rights from different perspectives. Gewirth applies his theories to two contested situations of the victims of ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) in Iraq and the Ebola crisis in Africa. He completes an empirical study of the global society’s actions to justify humans’ morality and their capabilities. It is vital to understand the assumption of the wellbeing of humanity in a globalized society, if individuals are obligated to provide a duty to help or duty to justice in situations regarding the impoverished society.
This course will introduce you to the study of ethics and the practice of applying ethical theories and ethical thinking to situations of everyday life. Your interests and ideas, combined with the direction we gain from our texts, will help determine which questions we will address as a class, and how we will address them.
This course is listed on the University Core Curriculum for Humanities. It fulfills a RWS (Reading, Writing and Speaking Intensive Course) requirement. It is also a transferIN course.