Kwame Gyekye
1939-2019 · African Philosophy · Known
Gyekye was a Ghanaian philosopher who argued that the Akan of Ghana had a philosophy in the full sense, fit to be set beside any other. He laid out its terms: okra, an immaterial soul that is a spark of the all-good creator Onyame and carries your destiny, joined to honam, the body. Right and wrong he grounded in human welfare and in virtue a person acquires rather than in the commands of God.
Signature
The position Gyekye is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Society
- leans Collectivism
- Ethics Basis
- Relational / Virtue
Positions on the 9 axes the sources answer
- Society
- leans Collectivism (29 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Mind
- leans Beyond Brain (88 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- leans Describable (25 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Identity
- leans Unchanging (17 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (75 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- mildly between Vertical and Horizontal (42 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Ground of Being
- leans Transcendence (83 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Allegiance
- mildly leans Local (31 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
11 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Gyekye refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Non-Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Communal Order
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Virtue / Service
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Moral Realism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Knowledge
- Tradition / Pure Reason
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Relational / Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Compatibilism
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Creation ex Nihilo
What is the origin of reality? - Authority
- Collective Will / Consent of the Governed
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Law
- Customary Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Ancestral Presence / Multiple Souls
What happens at death? - Primary Bond
- Family
What is your primary bond and loyalty?