Sources of Igwebuike philosophy: towards a socio-cultural foundation

Abstract

Igwebuike is at the heart of African philosophy, and in fact, the inner or underlying principle of African philosophy. It is the manner of being in African ontology. Its nearest equivalents in English include complementarity, harmony, communality, etc., however, the preferred concept is complementarity. This paper responds to the question of the sources of Igwebuike philosophy, that is, the raw materials from which Igwebuike philosophy is gotten. Being an African philosophy, there would be no better place to look for its sources except from the African socio-cultural background. It discovered that the sources of Igwebuike philosophy include the works of professional African philosophers, African proverbs, African folktales, African myths, African symbols, African songs, African names. This piece, therefore, studied these sources to see how much they uniquely contribute towards the development of Igwebuike philosophy. In the course of this research, the phenomenological and hermeneutical methods of inquiry were employed. The paper submits that Igwebuike philosophy is based on the Igbo socio-cultural foundation.

Keywords: Igwebuike, Philosophy, African, Socio-Cultural, Foundation