BEING AS BELONGINGNESS:
An African Metaphysics of ‘To Be’
Pantaleon Iroegbu
Introduction
The classical Western definition of being as ‘Whatever is’ or ‘that which is’, has
remained abstract and above all, unclear as to what exactly it demands in consequence
to become being or reality. In this essay we shall attempt a redefinition of being based
on the African Weltanschauung (worldview). There, there is a togetherness of being
and sharing among beings that exist. When a reality is able to commune with others by
forming a belonging-part of these others, then it becomes reality.
The human being, Odi becomes being when she belongs to the
village/community Akanu: substantively and concretely. Otherwise she is not being.
Generally then whatever belongs to the totality of existing things, that is what is. In
other words, to belong, or to be part of reality: that is what it means to be. In this
understanding, Belongingness (Ibu onye otu, ibata n’otu), defines being. This we shall
argue, has immense concrete consequences for the human beings both for them as
persons, for their community, and for the global village-society of our one world.
1. To Be Is to Belong
1.1. Definition & four aspects of Belongingness 1
Belongingness means in very simple terms, to be part of, to be member of, to be
in the group of. I belong to the parish of Ezenobom/Nigeria means that I am part and
parcel of this parish or Christian community. Belong can also mean possession. This
book belongs to me in this sense means that the book is mine by ownership. It is my
property.
We shall however use the concept Belongingness in a deeper sense here to define
being. In the general sense of being, Belongingness is the reality of whatever is in so
far as it is part of, and thereby belonging to reality. To be reality is therefore to proceed
to become part of reality. To be is to share in reality with other real existing beings. In
this general sense, Belongingness is an abstract term, but substantive. It is as definition
of being, an ontological concept that specifies that a thing is, because it belongs. Thus:
To be is to belong.
To belong is to be.
We shall now express the four-fold inner connotations of Belongingness as defining
being in general.
1.2.
Four hermeneutic connotations of Belongingness
1.2.1 Be-(l)-on (Be on)
The ‘belong’ involved in Belongingness is a turning or tuning on of being viewed as
general and abstract into being seen as concrete expressible entity. It is a be-on in the
universe (what we have called the Uwa, meaning world) from which all concrete
realities derive their being. To become being in this sense is to become one’s Uwa
(world-reality). It is to have Uwa-m, Uwa-gi (my world, your world). To be on in this
sense is to escape its contrary, that of being off! To be off is to cease to exist, to be
nothing, i.e. to be adighi-adi (nothingness). Conclusively, to be off is to annihilate
being, the Uwa of the being, while to be on it to get that being to become, to belong to
being, to be.
1.2.2. Be-(l)-on-going
This second aspect of the interpretation of Belongingness means that having been
turned or tuned on in being (Uwa-m), the being now goes on (to be). The act of goingon is a process of beingness in itself-ness, its own particular Uwa or way of being.
1.2.3. Be-long
This simply means: to stay, abide or live long. This means that the being that has come
to become being, thanks to Belongingness, now stays long in being.
An example from African culture brings this home. A traditional ruler is greeted in
Igboland thus: Eze iga adi ruo mgbe ebighiebi! (King, you will live forever!). What
precisely is meant is not the person of the king. For all know that he will die. ‘Live for
ever’ here refers to this kingdom, dynasty, office and status. Thus to live is to live on
and unto life with the ancestors, therefore for ever.
1.2.4. Be-longing
This brings in and stresses the personal element. It underlines the longing for life, for
being, for one’s Uwa. To belong is to possess the desire for life. It is the will to march
along in life. It is founded on the awareness that nothing has a higher value than life.
Nduka (life is greater). Ndubuisi (life is the principal thing).
We now come to the how or process of Belongingness to being.
2. From Ek-xistence To In-xistence (Critique of Heidegger)
2.1. Heidegger’s Definition
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) analyzed being from the rational existential viewpoint
in which he sees existence as essentially a distancing. To exist, for Heidegger, is to
stand-out of hiddenness, It is to ek-xist, stand-out, to distance oneself from. In his Opus
Magnum, Sein und Zeit (Being and Time), he argues that there is an un-veiling of being
from an initial hiddenness 2. When this unveiling takes place, there is then a
manifestation, a revelation of being. The unveiledness from not-being to being is
existence, that is being. But from where does the hidden being come out to become
being? Heidegger would reply: from das Nichts (Nothingness). It means then that for
Heidegger, being comes from Nothingness, a Nothingness that hides it initially from
becoming being.
2.2.
Critique of Ek-xistence
To define the coming of being of realities as a standing-out, an ek-xistence from
an initial Nothingness is seriously problematic, among others on three grounds:
1. Heidegger makes Nothingness into Somethingness with an ontological status. This
is not possible because we know that Nothing can never ontologically be
Something. Above all both ordinary life and basic logic teaches us that from
nothing, nothing comes (Ex nihilo nihil fit).
2. Heidegger fails to identify or acknowledge the real source of the revealing of being
from Nothingness to Somethingness. Of course he would be in great difficulty to
identify a possible source of being if he maintains the thesis of standing-out from
Nothingness. Here we shall help him out by identifying that source as the Causal
principle.
3. Dichotomy of Being. Heidegger views being too individualistically and too
autonomously. He thereby dichotomizes it from its source. His theory makes being
not to belong to, and be an essential part of Uwa-being. Instead, it cuts being out of
mother-earth. By making being a reality out-of, Heidegger paradoxically destroys it,
seeing it as a possible reality coming out of Nothingness. To be real being demands
communion in beings. This is the sense of our thesis of In-xistence.
2.3.
Being as In-xistence
Rather than standing-out-of, we interpret the fact of being as a standing-in. To
be is to in-xist. It is to step-into, unfold or stand-into being. Being becomes being by
standing-into reality and not out of it. Being is being because something, abstract
being, enters into, forms part of, and thereby belongs to real realities in the totality of
Uwa-Reality. Hence rather than ek-xist, being in-xists. From the nothingness of a notyet, it enters into an Uwa-reality of a now-reality. There is no strict veil or hiddenness.
Instead, there is causality that makes what does not yet exist or better in-xist now, to
become so later. The process is causality.
3. Causality as Principle of Being (Critique of Aristotle)
3.1. Woher (Whence) Being?
While Heidegger of our era sees being as coming from Nothingness, Aristotle of old
enunciates four causes as the sources of being 3. The efficient cause is the maker of
something, e.g. the carpenter for the table. The material cause is the wood from which
the table is made. While the formal cause is the essence or definition of the table
(tableness), the final cause is the end or purpose for which the table is made, e.g. for
writing. Aristotle’s theory of causality has a big advantage over that of Heidegger in
that it is able to identify some elements that are really responsible for the coming into
existence of the reality, for instance the table. Heidegger leaves us all ignorant as to the
source of any reality whatsoever. He fails therefore to explain them fundamentally, at
their root origins: causality.
3.2.
African Background to Causality
African lived experience gives us the following expression of the reality of
causality drawn from the Igbo culture of the present author:
Ihe n’akpata ihe.
Anaghi ahu dike n’ehihie n’efu.
(Something is caused by something.
You cannot see the rabbit in the afternoon in vain).
Causality, defined as the act of bringing into reality what was not a reality, is at the
explanatory background of all experienced reality that are effects. Causality is a
universal phenomenon. It is universal both in the sense of being the fate of all created
reality, and in the sense of being the deepest explanation (a causal one), of all events
including persons, things, and situations.
Causal Theory in Uwa Ontology 4
Two major causes explain all caused reality:
1. The ontological (efficient) cause;
2. The functional cause.
Ontological
(Efficient Cause)
Immediate
Mediate (Ultimate Cause)
CAUSALITY
Functional
Teleological (Final C.)
Utilitarian (Practical C.)
Moral
Rewardive,
Punitive
Prognostic
Fig. Causal Theory in Uwa Ontology:
The ontological cause is the factor that explains the very being or coming into
existence of the effect, e.g. E. Without it, E would not be at all. It has two aspects:
mediate and immediate.
Mediate ontological cause is what produces E indirectly by producing the items
that combine to directly bring E into reality. In this sense, God is the mediate (indirect)
ontological cause of all that is produced by man. Immediate ontological cause is the
direct producer of a given item: the carpenter for a chair, the pot maker for a pot, the
bird for a nest.
Functional Cause, the second large species of causality, is the ground that explains the
reason for the operations, the purposive functioning, and the active involvement of the
being in its reality vis-a-vis other realities. It has three sub-species: teleological,
utilitarian and moral.
Teleological functional Cause of E is the end or purpose for which E exists or
functions. For man for instance it is the ultimate goal of attaining happiness in life-after
-this life. Utilitarian functional cause of E is the usefulness, the concrete use of E in its
existence here and now. It is what a thing serves for, e.g. drinking for a cup.
Moral functional Cause relates to willed actions. It has also three sub-species:
rewardive, punitive and prognostic. Rewardive Moral Functional Causality concerns
rewards of good or gallant actions performed by somebody. The punitive is exactly the
contrary. One is punished for evil deeds to others or to one’s community.
The last, the prognostic, is a causality that prevents one from undertaking a planned or
foreseen evil act against others. Onyeike can be struck ill or handicapped by thunder
because of he intends to go and kill a neighbor, or to reveal a village secret.
Thus the two broad species of causality: the ontological and the functional, run
through the span and breath of all reality. Whatever is caused or can be caused is
englobed in their explanatory labyrinth. This is both at the material, spiritual, personal,
communal, In all cases, there is a reason why?
3.4. Critique of Aristotle’s theory
The Aristotelian scheme of causality is highly limited to the being which he sees
as substance. It is only concerned with the being of the here and now and has no
reference to ultimacy as final source of explanation. In its details, the Aristotelian
scheme is also defective. We would reject his formal cause as too abstract and devoid
of any real explanation as cause. This is because formal cause is only the definition or
essence of a thing. But the definition is the thing’s identity. Causality goes to explain
that identity. One cannot explain identity with identity. And this is precisely what
Aristotle does, begging the question.
Even Aristotle’s material cause is also problematic. The matter from which a
thing is made does not in fact explain the why, the real reason for the existence or
operation of that thing. Material cause is no real cause. Properly interpreted, it is the
physical nature or constituent-structure of a thing.
The only two serious explanations of causes we find in Aristotle are the efficient
and the final causes. These say why a thing came to be. The efficient points to the
maker, while the final points to the ultimate goal (receiver) of the item. Note however
that these two noteworthy species of causes are sufficiently taken into account by the
ontological and the teleological aspects of Uwa causal theory briefly schematized
above.
The last chapter will make this more concrete by analyzing a symbolic African
Tree of Life where all are to perch as real-symbol of a Belongingness that has
relevance.
4. EBUB as Concretisation of Being as Belongingness
In full, EBUB means Egbe bere Ugo bere. When fully expressed, this Igbo
proverb says: Egbe bere Ugo bere, nke si ibe ya ebele, nku kwa ya (Let the kite perch,
let the eagle perch, if one says that the other should not perch, let that one’s wing
break). The scenery is the community where symbolically seen as a tree where all the
human beings (birds) are supposed to perch and to live in harmony and togetherness of
life and cooperation. Whoever is excluded from perching is denied existence, and this
is unfair.
4.1. Tree of Life
The tree on which Egbe and Ugo are to perch, and on which they actually perch
now is Uwa (the world) 5 . To perch in Uwa is to be born into it, live, grow and blossom
in it with necessary provisions by the community. Uwa is life, life-world. When
different persons live in it, they come face to face with one another in necessary
presence and mutuality.
4.2. To perch-to belong-to be
Isi okwu bu EBUB.
N’ihi na o nweghi onye ekere
Ka nani ya biri n’Uwa a.
(The central thing is live and let live.
For none is created to live alone in this world).
This is a clear statement of the inner content of the act of perching. It is the
crucial issue in being, in community. For none has the right to perch alone to the
exclusiveness of others. Further, none can make it in life alone. Equally to deny others
the right to perch is to logically declare oneself a possible victim of the denial of such
right to being. The different human beings in society, Egbe and Ugo as well as Faith
and Chuks receive their being by being allowed to perch in life, to come into existence.
What being is, is its activity of perching. To perch is to be. To be is to perch. To be is
to belong. To belong is to perch. Being defined as Belongingness has concrete
consequences for the human persons that are involved.
4.4. Consequences of Being defined as Belongingness
4.4.1. Sociopolitical Consequences
If ‘to be’ is to belong as we have argued above, then those who share the same
sociopolitical destiny must come to accept the logical and existential consequences of
the being of one another in their society. Ontology must seek ethics while ethics must
have ontological foundations. In all cases. Land can be used as a vivid example to
illustrate this commonness of being as belonging. All belong to the land and land (the
land) belongs to all.
Chiba Okadigbo has joined numerous others to emphasize this point. He writes:
In the pure African society governed by a humanistic community
spirit, land belongs to no one – land belongs to the people...
whether they were born in the African continent or not (Enugu, 1976) 6.
The social significance of land is that every member of the community shall have the
necessary tools, chances and means that he requires to make his life a success 7.
Economic survival and progress must be at the reach of all the members without undue
discrimination or exclusion.
At the political level, that all belong means that political offices, jobs and the
benefits therefrom must be fairly shared among the members of the political
community.
4.4.2. Cultural-religious Consequences
Being as Belongingness demands respect, tolerance and accommodation of
differences. Directly, it absolutely excludes religious persecution, radicalism and the
use of all forms of force or constraint to bring people to believe or practice other
people’s religion. Those who presume they have right to persecute others must be
brought to order by the force of the rule of law.
Further, the state shall be non-discriminatory in the provision of items for
religious practice. No religion should be regarded as state religion. No people or group
should be favored more than others because of their religion. All belong equally to the
land and must be appropriately treated as full members despite which religion they
choose to practice.
The principle of non-discrimination applies equally to cultural artefacts and
values in the nation. Belongingness demands fairness to all. Equal opportunity must be
given to all members to develop their talents an put these at the service of others. This
is important especially in African nations with multiplicity of cultural, tribal and
linguistic expressions. There also, firm coordination is fundamental. To avoid abuse or
chaos. Fair Sharing Criterion (proportional reward for proportional input for the
common good) will determine the distributive quota for each group and people 8. But
the basic law is clear: All must be made to belong. For that is what it is to be. The basic
ontology of Being is Belongingness.
CONCLUSION
Belongingness defines being as a participation in the act of existence. It is inxistence. Unlike Heidegger’s ek-xistence, being seen as standing-out-of, we rather
understand being as in-xistence, standing-in-into reality. It is to belong to reality
through the process of causality. In community, it is to perch in it. Being or to be, is
perching in Uwa-being. As a new understanding of what makes being, being, this redefinition has among others, the advantages of being realistic and consequential.
Further, it explains not only abstract, but also all real beings including events and
situations.
Thus to be is to belong, with consequences. Among others, the socioeconomic as
well as the religio-cultural givens of peoples must be reappraised and (re)structured to
tally with substantive Belongingness. All members must allowed to belong as all are
full beings. Not to do so is to declare these others less or even non-beings. This is not
only anti-ethical. It is also anti-ontological. If all are beings, then all must belongingly
perch-in-being.
Pantaleon Iroegbu, Ph. D.
Seat of Wisdom, Owerri/Nigeria & Louvain University, Belgium
REFERENCES
1. For detailed analysis, see Iroegbu, P. Metaphysics, the kpim of Philosophy, Owerri:
IUP, 1995, Ch 25.
2. Heidegger, M. Being and Time, Oxford: Blackwell Pub. 1990.
3. Aristotle, The Physics, 11, 3, 194b23-35,11,94a20f. See Metaphysics, A 3 983
1-6; in W. D. Ross, The Student’s Oxford Aristotle, Oxford: OUP, 1942.
4. Iroegbu , P. Metaphysics, Kpim of Philosophy, pp 366-371.
5. For detailed analysis of Uwa Ontology, see Metaphysics Kpim, Ch. 24.
6. See Iroegbu, P. Communalism, Toward Justice in Africa, Owerri: IUP, 1996, p. 79.
7. Ibid. pp. 80-81; See also Iroegbu, P. Kpim of Personality, Jülich: Eustel Pub, 2000,
Ch 4.
8. For details see Iroegbu, P. Communalism, pp. 127-128.