The Metaphysics of War and the Episteme of Integrative Humanism.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

Across the world today are crises, skirmishes and wars. Life has loosed value and death has become practically common. Those who have some form of respect for life shrink at the development of global disaffection to the hitherto exaltations in terms of life and its worth. Thinking this way might provoke some kind of smiles of askance at dedication and acceptance of currency with regard to interest, poise, pursuit, goal and meaning. The meaning, of course, is essentially of our nascent understanding, appreciation and value of life in relation to human kind. This raises a problem to ponder upon: what is the relationship between humanity and war? In trying to fix this puzzle, we will unfailingly stumble on further issues as the nature of human person, humanism, the goal of human life and its pursuits, human understanding and knowledge, war, its causes and assumed importance.         

OBJECTIVE OF STUDY

Paying attention to the current spate of occurrences, one must, without further hesitation, begin to ask questions reflecting the reality of war and the propriety of human engagement around the purview. Refreshing our thoughts on the idea of war, we will seem to agree that it predominantly has its end-in-view as peace. In the same vein, war which is engaged in, and which wastes or vanishes life is usually done for the safety of life. What an irony? To this, the objective of this research will be to ascertain and embolden the meaning, imports, causes, reality and nature of wars. Cruising through the mainstay of humanism which attempts to rediscover and reinvent the dignity of human person, the quest will be resting on contriving a collective self which will promise and effectuate the safety which wars are fought in pledge of. 

SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

The version of integrative humanism we intend to pursue in this research work is such that concentrates efforts on possible birth of a collective self or collective identity which diminishes the overarching powers and gusto of control commanded by personal constituent and relative identities. The significance of this study will derive from the debilitation of such conflicts that have gained strength of performance from the emphasis on the differences in variant identities. As integrative humanism is positioned to form and fashion the fulcrum of social understanding and the comprehension of human values, the reality of wars and the futility thereof will be brought to bear. This intent will therefore be of significance to the enrichment of corpus of philosophical literature. It will also pay great service to the realms of conflict prevention, management and resolution. However, the fundamental importance of this endeavour will be its performance as an effective aid to the reversal of the fast crashing value for human existence and life.     

LITERATURE REVIEW

The idea of war and its theories are found almost at all angles of intellectual turn and literature. While most extol the idea, giving guidelines and methods through which wars are organized and perfected, others are found on the contrary side discouraging the act of war. Certain particular considerations will not go without interacting with theories and practices of diplomacy. Within the frame of diplomacy, we have usually come across the concepts of the carrot and stick. The stick aspect of the practice often have a sound touch on war and how best to execute it.

An important philosophy of war worthy of consideration is that of guerrilla warfare. Here we remind of the tact of Mao Tsetung in his ideological recipe for fighting the western powers. Maoism marshaled a systematic procedure of war from the hinterlands and the rural surroundings that envelop the urban occupation of the western powers. Through this he found his idea on the circulation of the opponent to powerlessness and their subsequent crushing through formless attacks and subtle retreats. His idea in this form of warfare stipulates an infiltration of the local and domestic population, camouflage of identity, occupation of the surrounding rural spaces, laying siege on the urban centres, formlessness and baseless formation, and rain of intermittent insurgency.

On humanism, there is a plethora of intellectual work done so far. Reading from the ancient period of philosophy down to postmodernism, there has been extensive consideration of humanism where man has been put at the center of universal question. Prominent among which are the attempts of the sophists who put man at the prime position as the measure of all things, of things that are that they are, and things that are not that they are not. In this manner, the value of the human kind occupies a central stage.

However, Jean-Paul Sartre in his ‘Existentialism is a Humanism’ gave a somewhat extensive and resounding consideration of humanism from atheistic point of view. He tended to remove God from the point of human essential being. According to Jean-Paul Sartre’s position, there is all to the human free-will in the making of his or her essence. In this regard once again, man comes at the very center of reality by shaping himself and creating his/her essence. More can be extrapolated from this idea of humanism especially in the face of recent world developments. Man should return itself to that value by creating and recreating itself.

What about ‘Integrative Humanism’? The front-line proponent of ‘Integrative Humanism’ G.O. Ozumba has positioned the philosophy to extrapolate from theistic and atheistic shades of humanism. He also attempts to create a ground for a wider integration of various philosophical and scientific methods and approaches towards re-positioning humanity and regaining her integrity. Just like Empedocles of Acragas, Ozumba can be regarded as a synthesizer. But beyond this intellectual ancestry, his integrative humanism depicts more of a somewhat recasting of the dictum from Anaxagoras of Clazomenae which holds that “there remains in every single thing, a portion of everything else”. G.O. Ozumba therefore tries to acquire every single potential and applicable mechanism from each probable source to actualize his humanistic philosophy. From all schools of philosophy to all scientific methods, he sought for every applicable and significant instrument to re-position human person. It sincerely sounds to me here, at this conclusion, that in truth, ‘there is everything in everything’.

CONCLUSION (INCONCLUSIVELY).

Be that as it may, this logical investigation will be worth its salt in the universe of the intelligentsia, found precious within the ivory towers of the academia and unquantifiably valuable to humanity at large as it focuses its interest on the possibility of forming a collective identity from among seeming differing individual and shared consciousnesses. This will be done in the way of a version of integrative humanism with a view to peruse the nature of man in the crises over-crowding world and the meanings that are given to wars. To this end, integrative humanism will be employed to carve a way into the search of world peace through crisis prevention and management, peace and conflict resolution.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a mnemonic of a research in progress. Contributions are graciously encouraged and acceptable.