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Life and the Love of Wisdom:
From Technocratic to Sapiential Anthropology1
Anthony Akinwale, O.P.
Dominican Institute
Ibadan
I have been invited to speak on the topic, “Philosophy and Life”, a topic with two key
words, neither of which lends itself to pedestrian definition. The topic, so formulated,
raises two questions: what is philosophy? What is life? In trying to reflection on these
two questions, I saw the need to reformulate the question, and indeed took the liberty to
do so. By way of modification, I shall, instead, speak of “Life and the Love of Wisdom:
From Technocratic to Sapiential Anthropology”. My modification is not without
justification.
Love of Wisdom
It is perhaps easier to arrive at a consensus on what philosophy is about than it is to arrive
at a consensus on what life is about. We know what philosophy is and we learn how to
philosophize the way we know what it means to drive a car and how a car is driven. We
know what philosophy is when we observe what philosophers do, and we learn to do
what philosophers do by imitating philosophers, that is, by doing what philosophers do.
Here I touch on why I differ from the way philosophy is taught in many of our Nigerian
universities and Catholic seminaries. It is by reading and studying the writings of
philosophers that one learns how to philosophize. Read Plato’s Dialogues, study the
manner in which Plato’s Socrates engages in dialogues, and you learn right away that the
philosopher is a spirit who raises questions. A question is a quest. So, a philosopher is in
quest. What is the object of this quest? It can be identified by recalling Socrates’ famous
rebuttal at his trial.
Arraigned in an Athenian court, accused of impiety and corruption of the young,
his accusers asked the jury to be careful in trying him because he was a clever speaker.
Opening his defense, in words that delight and teach, Socrates the accused person turned
his accusers into the accused. An orator, I am not, orators, my accusers are.
I do not know what effect my accusers have had upon you, gentlemen, but for my
own part I was almost carried away by them—their arguments were so
convincing. On the other hand, scarcely a word of what they said was true. I was
especially astonished at one of their many misrepresentations; I mean when they
told you that you must be careful not to let me deceive you—the implication
being that I am a skillful speaker. I thought that it was peculiarly brazen of them
to tell you this without a blush, since they must know that they will soon be
1
Graduation Day Lecture at the Salesian Institute of Philosophy, Ogungbade, Ibadan, Oyo State,
on June 30, 2012.
2
effectively confuted, when it becomes obvious that I have not the slightest skill as
a speaker—unless, of course, by a skillful speaker they mean one who speaks the
truth. If that is what they mean, I would agree that I am an orator, though not after
their pattern.2
Painted in this rebuttal is not so much the portrait of a speaker, nor that of a seer,
but of a seeker. It is therefore logical to conclude that philosophy is the preoccupation of
a seeker, of one who seeks in other to see, and who, in seeing, sets out again seeking.
Without much ado, we can assert that this fits into the Greek root of the word. The word
“philosophy” is rooted in the Greek words philia and sophia. What the philosopher loves
and seeks is wisdom. Philosophy is the preoccupation of one who is in love with
wisdom, of one who manifests a pure and unrestricted to know. Of course, we cannot
ignore the fact that other intellectual accoutrements have since been added to this—
conceptual analysis, logical reasoning, deconstruction and construction, socio-political
re-engineering. But none of these would remove the fact that the philosopher is involved
in an intellectual quest, the quest for wisdom. The philosopher seeks wisdom. But it
takes wisdom to seek wisdom. There is wisdom in seeking wisdom. It then means that
the philosopher seeks wisdom, not like one who has not found it, but as one who, finding
what he seeks, seeks to understand it better. It takes one who has found wisdom to go in
search of wisdom. For it takes one who is wise to desire wisdom.
This love of wisdom is for the sake of life. Wisdom is sought so as to find the
best way to live. But what has just been said raises the question of life. What is life? it
is in fact the case that this is the question that preoccupies the philosopher. It is the
question of the meaning of life. An observation made by 20th century philosophical
theologian, Paul Tillich, comes to mind in the course of reflecting on this question. It is
to the effect that there is a surplus of meaning when it comes to “life”. Given the fact that
an ordinary dictionary provides so many of such meanings at a time, a philosopher, one
who wisely seeks wisdom, must be cautious. Simple definitions taken out of context can
become simplistic and misleading. In the history of philosophy’s cautious search for the
meaning of life, attempts have been made by Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle,
Christian philosophers like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, existentialists like
Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, pragmatists like James and Dewey, the process philosopher
Whitehead, African philosophers like Wiredu, to mention but these. But the philosopher
must not ignore the meaning given to life in the ordinary conversations of those who do
not bear the credentials of professional philosophers. The professional philosopher must
take serious cognizance of what is being said in the streets. For the shape of the world is
largely and often influenced by what goes on in the streets. What then does the
philosopher observe on the streets?
Dictatorship in an Era of Democracy
2
Plato, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Including the Letters, ed. Edith Hamilton and
Huntington Cairns (New York: Pantheon Books, 1961) 4, Questia, 5 June 2006
<http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=57149108>.
3
From Tiananmen Square in 1979 to Tahir Square in 2011, from China to Czech Republic,
Egypt to Estonia, Nigeria to Nicaragua, this is the era of democracy, an era in which
people risk their lives to confront and overthrow powerful dictatorial regimes in their
quest for a government of the people for the people and by the people. Ironically, in this
same era of democracy, we witness the crystallization of dictatorship. It is the
dictatorship of scientia over sapientia, of satisfaction over values, of technique over
meaning. The dominance of natural and social sciences, and the veto power accorded
them by the canon of empiricism have ensured that technology occupies the chair of the
alpha and omega, imposing, as it were, its magisterial determination” on every disputed
question in life, our common life. This dictatorship is at the back of my mind as I put
these thoughts into writing.
The ordinary man or woman in the city understands life in a purely physical and
biological sense simply as the conquest and negation of physical death. Life is
exclusively understood in the Greek sense of phusis and or bios. Understood exclusively
as phusis, the human being ends up as a machine. Understood exclusively as bios, the
human being is perceived as just any other living thing, any other biological specimen.
Let us first consider life perceived as bios before we consider life perceived as phusis.
Life as bios is what you see in the characteristics of living things enumerated and
studied in the biological sciences. When life is understood only as biological, it becomes
convenient to reduce the human being to a mobile bundle of sensations. Life then
becomes a biological process driven by an insatiable desire for pleasure, profit and
power. The simple provision and acquisition of biological needs would suffice to live the
good way of life. Life is seen as nothing but a process of repeated and related operations
in which the maximization of power is sought for the sake of the maximization of
pleasure and the maximization of profit, and the maximization of profit is sought for the
sake of the maximization of power and the maximization of pleasure. But the wise
seeker of wisdom sees that the maximization of power is no guarantee of life. Power
addiction manifests itself in inordinate ambition. History has seen many a maximum
ruler perpetually dissatisfied even in power, insecure and in search of opponents to
humiliate and eliminate. Hitler and Mussolini, Idi Amin and Abacha, they and their
kindred spirits have been brought down from their thrones, teaching those who care to
learn that, riding on the back of a tiger, the power addict runs the risk of ending in its
belly. People have sought and found fame only to be dissatisfied by fate. The pleasure
addict finds no lasting peace either. Access to good food and drink, access to good sex
and crack cocaine, none of these gives the assurance that the human being will find
happiness. So much for life perceived exclusively as bios. We must now look at life
perceived as phusis.
Biology is one of the physical sciences, the empirical sciences. Once it is found
convenient to reduce human life to a bundle of biological tissues, exclusively subjected to
the laws of physical sciences, it becomes very easy to see the human being as disposable.
Biological reductionism dwells in the habitat of physical reductionism. Their offspring is
a dualist and functionalist anthropology that reduces the human being to a machine.
These assertions call for explanation.
By way of explanation, I suggest, with a brief review of the history of western
philosophy, that what we are dealing with here can be traced to the dualism that came
from the Greek philosopher Plato, through the French philosopher René Descartes. Plato,
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it may be recalled, considered all that is in the material world as a copy or shadow of the
real world, which is the world of forms. The relationship between the two entities is, in
Plato’s philosophy, at best ambiguous, at worst insoluble. The dichotomy between the
material world and the real world is the dichotomy between the soul and the body. The
soul is a prisoner of the body. It is in need of liberation from the body. The perfect life is
one in which the soul is freed from the encumbrances of the body.
Whoever steps into this river of dualism almost inevitably washes in the
waters of reductionism. Hence, with the soul-body dualism as point of departure, the
temptation to reduce the human person to either of the two, that is, to either soul (mind)
or body becomes difficult to resist. It would seem Descartes succumbed to this temptation
when, in his First Meditations, he made the ability to think, which is the power of the
mind, that which explains the existence of man. The human being is because he or she
thinks. The human being is, by that fact, defined not in terms of his compositeness but in
terms of what he does, that is, in terms of one power of one of the Cartesian entities: he
thinks, therefore he is.
The dualism of Descartes surreptitiously introduced
functionalism to discussions on the human person. According to this functionalist
anthropology, the value of the human person is predicated, not on what he or she is, but
on what he or she does. It is not even predicated on all he does but on one of the things
he does, that is, on his intellective capacity. This psychological reductionism, which
Thomas Aquinas deftly avoids in his discourse on the soul, is joyfully embraced by
modern philosophy.3 Anything whatsoever, whose worth is predicated on its functions,
ceases to be considered as valuable if it can no longer perform the function for which it
has been defined. In a nutshell, the human being is a machine to be invented and
reinvented by the human being. The human being is not different from any of his or her
own technological accomplishment, a gadget that makes other gadgets.
The reduction of the person to a function is a reification of the person, that is, the
ultimate reduction of the person to a thing to be used and dumped. By extension, society
(our common life in any of its expressions) is an aggregate of these gadgets that human
beings are. It can be re-engineered at will. Marital life, family life, ecclesial life, priestly
life or consecrated life, these can be reinvented and re-engineered subject to the
dictatorship of the social and physical sciences and the wishes, whims and caprices of the
human being. We thus end up in interminable discourses and insoluble issues in matters
of religion and morality. The human being, and by extension the society, has become a
machine to be remodeled the way the automobile industry or makers of computers
remodel their products, introducing new versions into the market.
What is at stake here is the dignity of the human person. Reduced to a specimen
by biologism, or to a machine by physicalism, it becomes convenient to look for the best
way to live in mere conformity with the demands of biological and natural sciences. It is
no longer the value of the person as person that matters. The value of the human being is
then seen in terms of his or her ability to provide or possess pleasure, profit and power.
In what then can the good life be found? This is the question of the meaning of
life. Seeking an answer to this question is the task of philosophy.
3
See Summa theol., I, 77.1; 54.3; Sent., Bk. I, dist. 3, 4.2; De anima, art. 12; Quodl., X, 3.1; De
spir. creat., art. 11. It is also to be mentioned in passing that while, for Descartes, the human person is
reduced to a thinking being, for Hobbes in his Leviathan, the human person is reduced to his or her
feelings.
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The Intention of the Lover of Wisdom
The lover of wisdom must avoid a technocratic anthropology. For life is not merely
physical. It is ultimately existential. And even as useful as techniques may be, life is
lived in the realm of meaning and not just techniques. The achievements of science and
technology have made life more livable, and the planet more habitable, even if we were
to take into account the problem of ecological degradation. But the ecological
degradation we witness is itself an offshoot of technocratic anthropology that prioritizes
relentless dominance of nature by the human being who is forever seeking to know more
about the powers that regulate nature. In other words, the unbridled pleasure-seeking,
power-seeking and profit-seeking human being puts the eco-system at risk by his selfannihilating anthropology. The corrective to technocratic anthropology is sapiential
anthropology. To paraphrase Thomas Aquinas, who was himself inspired by Aristotle,
the intention of the lover of wisdom to find the ultimate meaning of life so as to order life
rightly and govern it well (Summa Contra Gentiles, Bk 1, 1.1). The right ordering of
things is contingent on their being ordered to their end. Presupposing that the end of a
thing is its good, Aquinas argues that things are best disposed when they are rightly
ordered to their end.
The rule of government and order for all things directed to an end must be taken
from the end. For, since the end of each thing is its good, a thing is then best
disposed when it is fittingly ordered to its end. And so we see among the arts that
one functions as the governor and the ruler of another because it controls its end.
Thus, the art of medicine rules and orders the art of the chemist because health,
with which medicine is concerned, is the end of all the medications prepared by
the chemist. A similar situation obtains in the art of ship navigation in relation to
shipbuilding, and in the military art with respect to the equestrian art and the
equipment of war. The arts that rule other arts are called architectonic, as being
the ruling arts. That is why the artisans devoted to these arts, who are called
master artisans, appropriate to themselves the name of wise men. But, since these
artisans are concerned, in each case, with the ends of certain particular things,
they do not reach to the universal end of all things. They are therefore said to be
wise with respect to this or that thing….The name of the absolutely wise man,
however, is reserved for him whose consideration is directed to the end of the
universe, which is also the origin of the universe. That is why, according to the
Philosopher, it belongs to the wise man to consider the highest causes.
It pertains to the love of wisdom to seek out the universal cause which is also the
universal end of things, the good to which all things are to be ordered if they are to attain
their perfection. What then is the good to which human life is to be ordered? It is
necessary to understand what it is to be human if we are to answer this. For, as the
saying goes, agere sequitur esse. Our idea of the good life is a reflection of our idea of
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what it means to be human. Aquinas begins by eliminating those things in which it
cannot be said that their possession is the attainment of the perfect good.
Having observed that every human action is ordered to the good, he goes on to
assert that that which is desired is desired under the aspect of good, that is, it is desired
either because it is the perfect good, or because it leads to the perfect good. (Summa
theol., I-II, 1.6). The perfect good is the last end, and it can be spoken of in two ways,
that is, either by considering only the aspect of the last end, or by considering the thing in
which the aspect of last end is realized. There is unanimity around the fact that all desire
the perfect good, insofar as all desire the fulfillment of their perfection. But there is
divergence of opinion regarding that in which the perfect good is to be attained (Summa
theol., I-II, 1.7). In this lack of unanimity, some desire economic riches as their ultimate
good, some others desire honor, some fame or glory, some others power, some pleasure
or any created good.
But the perfect good of human life cannot be wealth (cf. Summa theol., I-II, 2.1).
For the ultimate good is not sought for the sake of any other thing, since it is that in
which the human soul rests upon its attainment. Instead, the ultimate good is that for the
sake of which every other good is sought. Wealth, however, is sought for the sake of
something else, that is, for the sake of the necessaries of life like food, clothing, housing
etc. The perfect good cannot be wealth because who ever finds it still goes in search off
something else. Economic prosperity is not an end in itself. It is a means for attaining
other things. Therefore, the ultimate good of human life is not found in wealth.
Neither is the ultimate good of human life found in honors (cf. Summa theol., I-II,
2.2). Honor is granted in attestation to the excellence that is in the person honored.
Excellence is itself proportional to happiness. Consequently, it is the case that while
honor may result in happiness, happiness cannot principally consist in honor. In other
words, the one who is honored may not be happy, in so far as he or she lacks virtue or
excellence; whereas the one who is happy may not be honored in so far as his or her
virtues or excellence go unrecognized or unappreciated. One who is honored with a
chieftaincy title is not happy if he is not virtuous. Another who has no chieftaincy title
may be happy because he is virtuous. Therefore, to be honored and to be happy are not
necessarily the same thing, and to be honored is not the same as to have attained the
ultimate good.
Neither is the ultimate good found in fame or glory (cf. Summa theol., I-II, 2.3).
Glory consists in being well known and praised by others. But human knowledge cannot
cause the thing known. Instead, it is caused by the thing known. In this regard, human
knowledge is unlike God’s knowledge which is cause of the thing known. For this
reason, human knowledge cannot be the cause of ultimate good. Moreover, if fame or
glory is in being well known, and if human knowledge can be erroneous, in its error, it
may confer glory on an undeserving person. But there is no good in undeserved glory
conferred by erroneous human knowledge or by the whims and caprices of flatterers.
Therefore, the ultimate good of human life cannot be said to consist in fame or glory.
Neither is the ultimate good found in power (cf. Summa theol., I-II, 2.4). For
while it is true that some happiness is found in the virtuous use of power, the very fact of
the acquisition of power, while other goods like wisdom and bodily health are lacking,
means the ultimate good is yet to be attained. Therefore, the ultimate good does not
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consist in the attainment of power even though the good use of power can lead to the
attainment of ultimate good.
Neither is the ultimate good of human life found in any bodily good (cf. Summa
theol., I-II, 2.5). For the good of the human creature is the good of the human creature as
composite of body and soul, not the good of the body alone, nor the good of the soul
alone. The human quest for good is not just a quest of the body or just the quest of the
soul of the human creature. It is the human creature as composite that is striving for the
good. It is the quest of the human composite. This is to avoid the dualism that breeds
reductionism, the reductionism that breeds functionalism, and the functionalism that
breeds the belief and practice which sees human beings as disposable objects. Therefore,
the good of the body alone does not suffice for its ultimate good.
Neither is the ultimate good found in pleasure (Summa theol., I-II, 2.6). Pleasure
is a good of the body which is apprehended by sense. As a good pertaining to the body, it
cannot be a perfect good since the capacity of the rational soul exceeds the capacity of
corporeal matter, and that part of the soul which is independent of corporeal organ, like
the intellect, has a certain infinity in regard to the body and those parts of the soul tied
down to the body. Pleasure as a good of the body is limited to the extent that the body is
limited. And while the power of the senses, which is a power of the body, apprehends the
singular, which is determined by matter, the power of the intellect, which is a power
independent of matter, apprehends the universal, which is abstracted from matter, and
contains an infinite number of singulars. Therefore, such a good causing bodily delight
through its apprehension by sense is not a perfect good.
Neither is the ultimate good of human life found in some good of the soul (cf.
Summa theol., I-II, 2.7). For the soul exists in potentiality whereas that which is last end
does not exist in potentiality. Neither can anything belonging to the soul be the last end
because any good which pertains to the soul is a participated and, consequently, a
portioned good.4 This is to be explained by going beyond what the physical sciences
present to us as characteristics of living beings to see what makes us human beings
different.
Our humanity is to be recognized in four characteristics that belong to the human
nature, traits that distinguish the human person from lower creatures. Each of these
characteristics represents a fundamental orientation in the human person, that is, what the
human person naturally desires and what the human person has the potential to attain.
Taking my inspiration from the Canadian philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan’s
reading of Aquinas, I shall identify these traits as the yearning for truth, the yearning for
good, the yearning for God, and the yearning for love.
First, to be human being is to be endowed with an intellect with which one
searches for and one able to attain the truth. To be human, therefore, is to naturally desire
the truth and to be able to know the truth. A sign that the human being naturally desires
the truth in the fact that even the one who tells lies does not like to be deceived by others.
Secondly, to be human is be endowed with a will, and the good in general is the
object of the will. Therefore, to be human is to naturally yearn for and be able to attain
the good. The Creator has given every human being a will whose natural movement is to
According to Aquinas: “Happiness itself, since it is a perfection of the soul, is an inherent good of
the soul; but that which constitutes happiness, viz., which makes man happy is something outside his soul”
(Summa theol., I-II, 2.7, ad 3).
4
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whatever is perceived to be good. In its inclination to the good, the will moves all the
other powers, including the intellect, to their acts. Thus, the human being wills not only
the object of the will, but also other things which pertain to the other powers as their
objects. In this regard, the will moves the intellect to apprehend the truth. In the human
being, the intellect and the will are the proper and active principle in the movement
towards the good. According to Aquinas, the two powers include each other in their acts
such that “the intellect understands that the will wills, and the will wills the intellect to
understand. In the same way good is contained in truth, inasmuch as it is an understood
truth, and truth in good, inasmuch as it is a desired good” (Summa theol. I, 82.4 ad 1).
The human will is inclined to the good apprehended by the intellect, and the intellect
apprehends the good that that the human will wills it to apprehend.
Thirdly, theologians readily admit it, some philosophers readily deny it, to be
human is to yearn for God. The truth and the good which human beings naturally desire
and which human beings are able to attain are beyond what is found in transient and finite
realities. The restless human spirit has an infinite desire for the infinite. No sooner is
one desire satisfied than the human being desires more. The finite seeks fulfillment in the
infinite, oftentimes without acknowledging it. There is in the human person a natural
desire for God in the desire for and openness to the infinite. At the root of the human
quest for the true and the good is this more profound yearning that the yearning for God
is.
Fourthly, and this flows from the yearning for God, to be human is to yearn to
love and be loved. God, whom Martin Buber refers to as the Divine Thou, is encountered
in the human Thou. A true encounter with the human Thou is the medium for a real
encounter with the divine Thou.5 In the natural desire for friendship, in the natural desire
to love and be loved, there is an infinite desire for infinite love. The yearning for God is
a yearning for love, and the yearning for love is the yearning for God. Disappointed by
finite and imperfect love, the human being longs for infinite and perfect love. In the very
heart of this disappointment is that thirst for love which is a thirst for God.
Therefore, upon reflection on what it is to be human, it becomes obvious that
there are, to the human person, intellectual, moral, technical and spiritual dimensions.
The fullness of life is the perfect good which the human being seeks in the actualization
of his potentials and in the fulfillment of his aspirations in each of these dimensions. The
problem with the technocratic anthropology of our time is that it looks at human life only
in its technical dimensions where the human being is reduced to the servant, if not slave,
of economic production, pleasurable recreation, and political ambition.
5
“Every particular Thou is a glimpse through to the eternal Thou; by means of every particular
Thou the primary word addresses the eternal Thou. Through the mediation of the Thou of all beings
fulfillment, and non-fulfillment, of relations comes to them: the inborn Thou is realized in each relation and
consummated in none. It is consummated only in the direct relation with the Thou that by its nature cannot
become It [Martin Buber, I and Thou (New York: Collier/Macmillan, 1958) 75].
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God is the Universal Good
From all that has been said so far, we can conclude with the Christian philosophy of
Thomas Aquinas that the perfection of human life is not found in any created good (cf.
Summa theol., I-II, 2.8). For if it pertains to the human will to tend to the universal good
as its object, in the same way that it pertains to the human intellect to tend to the
universal true as its object, then it would follow that nothing will put the will to rest
except that which is the universal good. This universal good cannot be found in any
creature because the goodness of a created good is a goodness by participation. The
universal good is in God who alone can satisfy the human will. Therefore, the ultimate
good of human life is to be found in God. God alone constitutes human happiness. God
is the universal cause of all things sought by the lover of wisdom.
St. Thomas Aquinas proposes two reasons why the ultimate good of human life is
to be found, not in the contemplation of the essence of any creature, but in the
contemplation of divine essence itself (cf. Summa theol., I-II, 3.8). First, no one is
perfectly happy for whom something remains to desire and seek. Secondly, the
perfection of any power is contingent on the nature of its object. The intellective power
attains its perfection when it apprehends the essence or what-ness of a thing. As was said
in the previous section of the essay, the apprehension of a created effect by the intellect
provokes in it wonder and the desire to know its First Cause. However, the human
intellect does not reach its perfection by simply knowing the First Cause from knowing
its created effect. Knowing that there is a First Cause provokes the desire to know what
the First Cause is. And as long as this or any desire remains, the human intellect cannot
be said to have found its perfection or ultimate felicity. Therefore, for it to attain perfect
happiness, the human intellect must know three things: the essence of a created effect, the
existence of its First Cause, and the essence of the First Cause.
The ultimate happiness of the human intellect, which is the perfection of human
life, is attained in its union with God in the contemplation of the divine essence. The
ultimate good of human life is attained when the natural desire to see God is fulfilled in
the vision of the divine essence. It is this attainment of perfect happiness that the book of
the Apocalypse of John describes in the liturgy of Compline on Sundays, saying, “They
will see his face, and his name will be written on their foreheads. And there shall not be
night anymore, and they shall have no need of light from lamps or the sun, for the Lord
God will shine on them, and they will reign as kings forever and ever” (Rev. 22:4-5). It is
in loving wisdom that the human being is able to live life to the fullest. It is by so doing
that he is able to find the truth, the good and true love.
The physical and social sciences have improved our ability to gather data and
provide technical solutions. The love of wisdom, which philosophy is, enables us to find
the meaning of our human existence. It may and must be interested in the gathering of
data. But in the final analysis, data needs to be interpreted to decipher their meaning.
Philosophy not only seeks the wisdom in gathering the data, it also seeks the wisdom
contained in the data. Philosophy challenges us to take the natural world seriously, to
look intently at physics so that we can see metaphysics. It teaches us to take a closer look
at nature so that we can see beyond it and apprehend its vocation and longing for the
supernatural. It takes the recovery of metaphysics for the human being to recover from
the effects of technocratic anthropology in the dictatorship of the physical sciences. It is
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this dictatorship that is at the root of the irony of dictatorship in an era of democracy.
The human being has become a victim of his own achievements in science and
technology because he has not taken a proper look at physics. He cannot do metaphysics
because he has no physics. He thus sees sense experience as the paradigm and criterion
of truth.
One runs the risk of being accused of placing logic over experience. It is not a
vice to be logical, neither is it wise to ignore experience. The lover of wisdom must be
on the same page as those who emphasize the importance of experience. But when
experience is absolutes and universalized, the lover of wisdom is obliged to differ.
Experience is the first step, a constant and indispensable point of reference in the process
of knowing. Yet, to maximize the utility of experience it calls for interpretation. That is
the office of the love of wisdom. It takes such interpretation to save the human being
from being reduced either to a mobile bundle of sensations or a machine that functions or
both.
If and when the human person is reduced to a mobile bundle of sensations, then
only the good of the body is sought. And since that which does not function is ipso facto
perceived as worthless and disposable, human life itself, especially when it is most
vulnerable at conception, in the womb, in terminal illness or in old age, it is treated as
disposable. We would have then moved from the soul-body dualism, to the reduction of
the human person to either soul or body, in this case to body; from the reduction of the
human person to body, to the reduction of the human person to just one of his or her
functions, in this case the function of feeling; and finally, from the reduction of the
human person to functions or a function, to disposableness because of inability to
function. This is the problem of disposabilism, which is no longer just a problem of the
Churches and societies in Europe and North America. It is also taking place in the young
Churches and in societies in of Africa today.
Whether or not we are conscious of this, Africans are increasingly becoming
disciples of a creeping functionalism and paralyzing disposablism in which they are used
by foreign and indigenous agents as tools of politics, the economy and pleasure. The
Boko Haram phenomenon, which has been giving Nigerians sleepless nights, the many
wars on the African continent, the refugee situation, these call for a renewed flourishing
of the love of wisdom so that the African can live life to the fullest in a common life
intelligently regulated for the sake of the common good, a common life ordered to God,
the First Cause and the Final End of life.