Browsing by Author "Sanni, John Sodiq"

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    Exploring Martin Heidegger’s conceptions of phenomenology and transcendence: addressing the problem of religious fundamentalist violence
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-12) Sanni, John Sodiq; Du Toit, Louise; Louw, Dirk; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Philosophy.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This research uses Martin Heidegger’s phenomenological understanding of Dasein (human existence or being) as a frame for developing an improved understanding of why religious fundamentalist violence (RFV) occurs and why it is so pervasive and enduring. In other words, drawing on Heidegger’s diagnosis of how Western philosophy ‘forgets’ what humans always already know about human being, the argument shows that RFV is one manifestation of the violence associated with this covering over or forgetfulness of the nature of human existence. At the same time, it shows that RFV is enduring, pervasive, or at least resonant with many people, since it responds to the same universal human question about the meaning of human existence to which Heidegger’s philosophy, and arguably all (other) religious thinking also respond. It shows how the absolutisation of certain religious frameworks which present a misinterpretation of the true nature of human reality, may act as a driving force for RFV. In framing this form of violent terror in this way, new approaches to dealing with the phenomenon are suggested. Amongst other things, it becomes clear that the way to combat RFV is not through further secularisation or attempts at extinguishing religious thought and life forms altogether, because they respond to a legitimate, authentic and enduring human need for asking about the ultimate meaning of human existence. To simply try to quash the question to which religion attempts to present an answer, is equally to repeat the forgetfulness of the meaning of being and Dasein as revealed by Heidegger. Instead then, drawing on Heidegger’s insights into the nature of Dasein (that being in which the world of being/s constitutes or shows itself), universal philosophical training is proposed as one way to combat destructive fundamentalist thinking and acting. If this is the way to go, it at the same time becomes clear that Heidegger might become reductive on his own terms. The work of later philosophers is then used to show how a plurality of metaphysical investigations should be opened up instead of taking Heidegger’s potentially ‘absolutist phenomenology’ as the only legitimate reading of the meaning of human being. However, this proliferation remains limited in principle, my thesis would argue, to engagements with the meaning of Dasein that renounce any final, ultimate or absolute positions. This is the case since first, final positions would go against the most enduring insight of Heidegger, which is the finitude and temporality of all meaningmaking and second, such absolute interpretations reduce the very multiplicity which is the direct result of the necessarily tentative and finite nature of every interpretation of the meaning of human being.
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    Religion : a new Struggle for African Identity
    (Unisa Press, 2016) Sanni, John Sodiq
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Looking at most African countries, one realises that the social imaginaries which make us who we are, continue to be an issue in every society. It is even more rampant when we think of the role religion plays in determining who we are, what we believe and how we should act and react. This article seeks to look at the nature of religion and how religion over the years played a significant role in African identity. This article proposes that African identity has been endangered by religion; that there is a need to rethink our conceptualisation of religion and to move away from the understanding of religion as the basis of identity. This is because our shared lives should and must be the basis of identity. In other words, imported religions have their own origin and this origin cannot be disassociated from the belief inherent in the religions. There is a need to free the mind of its conditionings that give priority to religion and may therefore serve to exclude other sources of identity derived from collective histories and collective experiences. The illusion which religion plunges us into is often the reason for the problems of identity which most African societies struggle with today. An awareness of this illusion and a new understanding of identity as derived from a shared African experience, will go a long way in resolving the problem of identity in Africa.