John Mbiti
1931-2019 · African Philosophy · Little-known
Mbiti was a Kenyan philosopher and priest. His African Religions and Philosophy did more than any book before it to make the indigenous religion of a continent count as philosophy in its own right, a body of thought with its own account of the person and of time. He described a self that the community makes, 'I am because we are,' and a time built from the lived present, Sasa, and the deep past, Zamani.
Signature
The position Mbiti is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Society
- leans Collectivism
- Time
- Ancestral Time
Positions on the 8 axes the sources answer
- Society
- leans Collectivism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Identity
- mildly leans Changing (67 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (75 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- mildly leans Vertical (33 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Nature of Reality
- mildly leans Unity (33 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Polity
- mildly between Illiberalism and Liberalism (42 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Allegiance
- mildly leans Local (33 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
12 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Mbiti refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Non-Trinitarian Monotheism / Animism
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
- Harmony
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Moral Realism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Knowledge
- Tradition / Receptive Intellect
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Relational
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Divine Providence
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Time
- Ancestral Time
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Sacred Tradition
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Law
- Divine Law / Customary Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Ancestral Presence
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- Innate Good / Imago Dei
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Family / The Divine / Place
What is your primary bond and loyalty?