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Accepted Paper:
Afa/Ifa Divination and the Question of Epistemological Certainty
Chiedozie Okoro
(University of Lagos)
There are epistemological issues involved in Afa/Ifa divination, which necessitate that Afa/Ifa divination should be subjected into critical investigation using the tools of hermeneutic phenomenology and K .R. Popper’s falsifiability theory.
Paper long abstract:
There are epistemological issues involved in Afa/Ifa divination. One of such issues is the problem of epistemological certainty which further border on the question whether Afa/Ifa divination is fallible or infallible. Afa/Ifa divination is a hermeneutic phenomenological inquiry of how the life-forces of entities is harmonized with the universal life-force in the lifeworld. Lifeworld in this instance, refers to human existence in relation to the cosmic environment. From the purview of Afa/Ifa hermeneutic phenomenology or the phenomenology of life-force, the lifeworld is said to be controlled by plenum of forces. If the world of the multiplicity of forces is said to be constantly in mutation, the problem that ensues concerns how epistemological certitude can be attained in such a world? In response to the foregoing question, Karl Raimund Popper’s falsifiability theory would be used to peruse Afa/Ifa divination within Igbo/Yoruba cultural hermeneutics to decipher if such hermeneutic inquiry involves the processes of subjectivity, inter-subjectivity, intentionality, eidetic reduction and a transition from the lebenswelt to a transcendental state of phenomenological standpoint. This apart, does such system of hermeneutic inquiry entail a presuppositionless appraisal of issues meant to support scientific investigation or is it meant to reveal existential conditions of entities with a view to reintegrating them into the cosmic order? Lastly, can Afa/Ifa divination be made to be scientific? These pertinent questions shall be answered in this essay.