Zera Yacob: African Philosophy... in a Westernized Production Bahga S.
CONTENTS
Who is Zera Yacob
A timeline...
1. 1599 - Born into a farming town and heavily-agriculture heavy family near Aksum (northern Ethiopia), he was thus born into a poor family with his father still supporting his desire for traditional schooling–expensive at the time (Sunmer, 2019)
2.He soon became acquainted with those teaching Ethiopian Orthodox Christian faith literatures and readings (1607 to 1632) (Sunmer, 2019, p. 231)
4. 1634: He found a cave at the foot of this river upon his journey, living in it as a hermit (religious recluse, shunning external human companionship), seeming to be the most impactful area to develop his religious point of views and philosophies
“I HAVE LEARNED MORE WHILE LIVING ALONE IN A CAVE THAN WHEN I WAS LIVING WITH SCHOLARS ”
(Fanikiso, 2018)
END: 1682
This work was heavily compared to Descartes’ Discours de la methode with idea centered on reason to be the primary source of authority and legitimacy in one ’ s day to day life (Fanikiso, 2018)
START: 1599
3. 1634: Upon rebelling, and thus refusing to adopt Catholic faith of the emperor of the time, he fled with valuables like Gold at the time, towards a River
5. 1635: After living in the save for 2 years, we fast forward to his sense of reality, coming back to that of one involving human interaction and sharing his newly gained knowledges (Fanikiso, 2018)
6. 1667: He took time to start producing his most famous, and only, work, Hatata, written in Ge’ez where it is very hard to find copies in English to this day (Fanikiso, 2018)
In Conclusion, Zera Yacob had many discoveries that are now seen to be similar to that of the European philosophers that are much more recognizable He actually beat many usual philosophers we hear of now in their ideologies, but with his minority status and difference in language when noting down his findings, in comparison to his European counterparts, he was limited to how much influence his teachings could have truly had
The era of Descartes was that of the 17th century as well, yet with his European and white background, there comes a pedestal that he is intentionally put on globally. Especially for the times, yet one can easily recognize the effects of this status today!
yzERA ACOB
This brings up Yacob’s findings in terms of metaphysics.
Fun
Eritrea seceded from Ethiopia through their war of independence (1961-1991), so Yacob could have been from modern day Eritrea!
Yacob’s Metaphysical IDEOLOGIES!
1God .
Specifically mentioned in his biggest work. Hatata (also known as “The Inquiry” in English), he centers his writing on how the first cause of producing truths is through God and God's existence. He further expresses ideas on the senses and how they all rely on God’s doing. He found that God was no Jesus, just a higher being in and of itself that dictated the means of reality and what we can use our senses to understand (Meany, 2024).
CHAPTER 2
Within Chapter 5 of his book Hatata, “What is sensed by our eyes and ears is often not the true reality” (Yacob, 1667, p. 3). implying that the senses, like sight, are superficial grasps of our day to day understanding of the world. Going back to his idea of God being the dictator and what taught him upon his escape from reality, he contrasts the senses with Godgiven reason. The contrast to he says, is reason; the base of what gives humans differing truths and ideas on morals. All of these things are due to God giving us senses to ponder truth, while he finds no need to follow a certain group when worshiping God, hence his dismissal of Jesus or Ethiopian Orthodox Christian faith (Meany, 2024). God is what creates and thus, conserves all.
Author’s Remarks and Own Connections:
Thus, with that idea of conservation, we see what Yacob’s fixation of God being the creator gets followed up by individualistic senses coming from God creations, and how the difference in how people perceive things gets brought up. The means of the senses ' superficial showcase of reality is why there are subjective ideas on reality. Nonetheless, there is consistency to his basis of God throughout this.
OUR SENSES...
This is the base of all other metaphysical ideas he has.... as seen in the next examples
2/3.BeingaDualist+TheSoul:
These are two separate components he speaks about, to which I will be combining them as they overlap!
It seems as though Yacob was a dualist at his core, which then added to his ideologies, extremely similar to that of Descartes, where he accepts the means of faith to mean that humans do not perish with the body. This statement already gives context to the fact that he thinks the soul is a present thing within our being, as well as the fact that we have two distinct aspects to us: the mind and body (Herbjørnsrud, 2016). Besides the evidence of his dualistic ideologies through God and morality, there is also evidence in his ideas of the human soul.
Through the direct quote from his work Hatata, “The body is dust, it is destroyed at death, but the soul lives forever” (Yacob, 1667), there is an obvious distinct line drawn between the mind, and thus soul, and body. As he confirms the soul as a vessel for reason and morality, he mentions the superiority of it as it constitutes a being. Specifically implying that the soul is “above” the body in its ways of leading one to God and truth (Herbjørnsrud, 2016). Therefore, the conclusions between how the soul and mind overpowers the body in what make up one ’ s being goes to show the separation and dualistic nature of Yacob’s philosophies.
4.FreeWillVS.
Yacob argues that the body will always remain a perishable entity and shell with its ties to the material world, while the soul is eternal and connected to that of the divine, hence the subjectivity in our realities (Sumner, 1985).
He is a great supporter of free will, especially after his time away from society and social norms upon living in a cave.
...FreeWillVS. Determinism
He acknowledges and affirms that humans should have the capacity to decision-make and give reason to situations. Once again, the capacity of rational choice, and thus reason, is a divine gift from a higher power. Yet, he further emphasizes that the ability to determine right and wrong is all due to free will, hence its significance (Asfaw, 2004, p. 7). Humans are not subjects of fate and the unknown aspects to our reality, our being is rather complex and subjective due to our ability to possess the self-government to guide our actions and to reason. shaped by society.
NOW, THE FUN FACTS CORNER GET’S IT’S OWN SEGMENT!
WITH AN INTERESTING FACT ABOUT Yacob’s WORKS + LIFE... CONCERING... DECSARTES!
As a minority, Yacob was not able to have his works be as mainstream as his European counterparts. This also meant his works were in a language that was not mainstream, allowing for his ideologies to not be of focus, as no one could translate or understand them across the globe.
Yet, now with technological advancements and desires to prioritize more minority works, we find overlap in Yacob’s work upon its; English translation. Yacob’s work, Hatata, and Rene Descates work: Meditation of First Philosophy overlap immensely (Herbjørnsrud, 2016)! The base to their works seem to be almost identical, while Hatata was published prior to any of Descartes’ philosophies, while Decsartes gains much more recognition and value in the societal viewpoints of philosophy from my understanding. The main IDENTICAL MEANS TO BOTH OF THEIR IDEAS was through HOW THE COMMITMENT OF WANTING TO FIND REASON = THE PATH OF TRUTH.
YACOB DESCARTES
In Hatata, the main base to how the humane desire to find reason is through the path of truth comes by as how reason is the divine gift that allows humans to find and explore our moral truths and navigation of conflicts. This is something he thought was accessible to all people, with no dependence on certain social groupings (Sumner 1981, p. 14-5).
In the same way, Descartes takes the same base of our humane commitments to wanting to find reason comes from the path of truth, while in a slightly more structured way. Specifically how reason is the primary tool to achieving individualistic knowledge, with the famous conclusion of “I think, therefore I am. ” The structure of this quote shows the end result to be equivalent to that of Yacob’s–where reason is the path to truth, while he seems to consistently incorporate the mind and body ideologies, everything else is the same (Watson, 2024).
3
THEAUTHOR’S THOUGHTS
bASED ON ONE OF YACOB’S INFAMOUS QUOTES
“The light of reason is placed by the Creator in the heart of every man, and it tells us what we should do and what we should not do.”
- (Yacob, 1667, Chapter 5)
It seems as though, with my newly gained knowledge, his isolation allowed him to write about things that he experienced, and thus came to apply to the outside world with constituted to his emphasis on men – this also seems to be in reference to his belief in a higher power and previous backing of Orthodox beliefs, where men are seen to be the base of many ideologies (i.e,, Jesus was a man) – so I can tie that in here Additionally, there comes the combination of the beginning and end of the quote where knowledge is something extremely subjective and guides us to truths, this got followed up by how it helps guide every individual to a path where they establish their own rights and wrongs
EXTERNAL EXAMPLE: the Marshmallow Experiment discussed in class where potentially kids of lower income families or third world countries, now in first world, would take the opportunity to try the Marshmallow regardless of repercussions or rules as they do not know when their next chance to try one will be
IN THE SAME WAY, comes where rights and wrongs get developed. Our reason, as he says the “light” of this reasoning making it seem like a GUIDE, helps us gain and establish our moral codes. Finally, from the forefront of this quote, he emphasized God to be the one above all, and the dictator of our lives.
WORKS CITED.
References
Asfaw, T., Yacob, Z., Hiwot, W., & Philosophy, E. (2004). The Contribution of Native Ethiopian Philosophers, Zara Yacob and Wolde Hiwot, to Ethiopian Philosophy The Contribution of Native Ethiopian Philosophers. https://www.meskot.com/Ethio_Philosophers2.pdf
Descartes, R. (1641). Mediations on First Philosophy. https://yale.learningu.org/download/041e9642-df02-4eed-a89570e472df2ca4/H2665 Descartes%27%20Meditations.pdf
Fanikiso, K. (2018, February 26). Zera Yacob. Medium. https://medium.com/@makushline/zera-yacob-cfed2d535a97 Hatäta or “Treatise” of Zera Yacob. (n.d.). Retrieved October 18, 2024, from https://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/1011404/28063809/154817683
1647/Zera_Yacob.pdf
Sumner, C. (1999). The Significance of Zera Yacob’s Philosophy. Ultimate Reality and Meaning, 22(3), 172–188.
https://doi.org/10.3138/uram.22.3.172
Sumner, C. (2017). Classical Ethiopian philosophy. Philpapers.org. https://philpapers.org/rec/SUMCEP
Watson, R. (2019). René Descartes - Meditations | Britannica. In Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/ReneDescartes/Meditations
Yacob and Amo: Africa’s precursors to Locke, Hume and Kant | Aeon Essays. (n.d.). Aeon. https://aeon.co/essays/yacob-and-amoafricas-precursors-to-locke-hume-and-kant (2024). Libertarianism.org.
https://www.libertarianism.org/articles/zera-yacob-enemy-alldogmas