JOURNALS

ABSTRACT

The longer it takes the African people to reclaim their African Religion, spiritual philosophy and metaphysics, the longer will be the advent of genuine development or renaissance for Africa. At the heart of African Religion and Spiritual philosophy is the metaphysics of oneness—the interconnection of all that is, visible and invisible, the human and non-human, the living and the living-dead. Within this paradigm, all is in one and one is in all; it is the African intuition of the cosmic unity. Ubuntu encapsulates this paradigm. The revival of consciousness of this paradigm could trigger levels of knowledge of the interconnections and would likely propel Africa in the discoveries of what does not lend itself to empirical reasoning. This could reboot Africa’s unique scientific enquiry and constitute a real comparative advantage. However, the conditioning of the prevailing education system would have to be overcome or transcended. This education dismisses Africans’ logic of knowing and displaces them from their own knowledge system. This education system is also known to create deep cleavages between the individual and the community, the haves and the have-nots, science and religion, the sacred and the profane. It is in fundamental contradiction and rupture with an African holistic epistemology. The paper contends that the path to African renaissance and development ought to include reclaiming African Religion and spiritual philosophy, conceptualized in Ubuntu—a way of knowing, relating and experiencing, which is fundamentally ethical, convivial, and all inclusive.