http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/50 Sat, 04 Apr 2026 08:46:00 GMT 2026-04-04T08:46:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/1732 TRANSGENDERISM, AGENCY AND PERSONAL IDENTITY EKEOCHA, Isoken Erhowo Transgenderism, a condition in which a person’s gender identity is different from the person’s biological sex at birth, has become a source of philosophical discourse. Previous studies on transgenderism have approached it mainly from the physiological perspective by applying curative measures aimed at realigning a person to their choice of gender. Little attention has however been paid to ontology of being and the place of agency-regarding gender codes and categories. This study was, therefore, designed to interrogate the ontological and agency regarding issues in transgenderism discourse. This is with a view to determining how these curative measures relate with the individual’s personal essence or identity. John Locke’s notion of personal identity, which insists that identity lies in the sameness of continual life located in conscious memory, served as the framework. The interpretive design was used. Texts examined in Ethics included Carol Rovane’s The Bounds of Agency (TBA), James Doyle and Michele Paludi’s Sex and Gender: The Human Experience, (SGTHE), Lynn Conways Vaginoplasty: Male to Female Sex Reassignment Surgery (VMFSRS), Richard von Krafft-Ebings Psychopathiasexualis and Talia Bettcher’s Understanding Transphobia: Authenticity and Sexual Abuse (UTASA). In Metaphysics, John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (ECHU), John Perry’s The First Night (FN), Nicholas Fearn’s Philosophy: The Latest Answers to the Oldest Questions (PLAOQ), Diana Kendall’s Sociology, and Sharon Brehm and Saul Kassins Social Psychology (SP) were interrogated. These texts deal extensively with transgenderism, personal identity and human agency. The philosophical tools of conceptual clarification, criticism and reconstruction were employed. The SGTHE and VMFSRS reveal that hormonal abnormalities, gender dysphoria and genderphobia translate to the experience of living in a ‘trapped body’. Psychopathiasexualis and UTASA proffer physiological and surgical attempts to realign a person’s body to their choice of gender. The TBA show that people have agency-regarding relations, which interferes in the formation of their self-image and identity. The crisis of agency exposes the individual to different self-enhancing and self-handicapping theories of individuality. This demonstrates that society influence a person’s self-image by compelling people to align to gender codes and categories (SCG, LIP). The PLAOQ critically underscores the fundamental issue of personal identity in the determination of how a person endures through time. Whereas the human body plays a significant role in the specification of individuals, identity demands more than bodily attributes (ECHU, FN). Critical intervention revealed that personal identity is innate and that sex change surgeries and other curative measures aimed at realigning the anatomy not only fail in changing a person’s identity but often lead to transgender regret, depression and suicide. Transgenderism implicates ontological and agency-regarding issues of personal identity more than the physiological and curative processes that fail to understand the compelling nature of gender codes and categories. Mon, 01 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/1732 2021-11-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/1476 ONTOLOGICAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES IN THE PRACTICE OF ABÁNIBÍMO IN YORÙBÁ SOCIETY ALOFUN, Grace Olufolake Olufunmike Abánibímọ, the Yoruba practice of surrogacy, is an alternative procreative method informed by family exigencies in Yoruba culture. Previous studies, which are largely Western, have focused mainly on the legality of surrogacy to the neglect of the African (Yoruba) perspective, which emphasises the significance of the child and the surrogate mother. The study was, therefore, designed to examine abánibímọ, with a view to establishing the moral and ontological status of the surrogate motherand the child, which transcends the legality of surrogacy. Borden Bowne’s notion of intrinsic worth, which advocates the supreme value of the person as key to the discernment of human wellbeing, was adopted. The interpretive design was used. Texts examined in Ethics included Borden Bowne’s Personalism, Christine Sistare’s Reproductive Freedom and Women’s Freedom (RFWF), Elly Teman’s My Bun, Her Oven (MBHO), Leon Kass’ Making Babies Re-visited (MBR), Andrea Dworkin’s Right-wing Women (RW). In African Philosophy, Joseph Awolalu and Ade Dopamu’s West African Traditional Religion (WATR), Adegboyega Akintola’s Yoruba Ethics and Metaphysics (YEM), Segun Gbadegesin’s Eniyan: the Yoruba Concept of Person (EYCP), and Bolatito Lanre-Abass’ Surrogate Motherhood and the Predicament of the African Woman (SMPAW) were interrogated. These texts dealt with critical issues relating to surrogacy, Yoruba ontology, and familyhood. The philosophical tools of conceptual clarification and critical analysis were used. The RFWF and MBHO reveal that surrogacy gains support because of the autonomy it grants infertile women in reproduction, enabling them to fulfil a fundamental human longing. The MBR and RW hold that there is a need to rethink the rationality of Western surrogacy because it is preponderantly mediated by legality. Since the surrogate mother has no legal right to be a parent to the child she gestates, she psychologically and emotionally detaches herself in ways that disenable bonding with the child (RW, MBHO). The YEM, WART and Personalism show that every human person possesses an intrinsic worth which is not determined by the manner, place or arrangement of birth. The surrogate mother and the child are believed to possess moral, social and spiritual significance. Consequently, while the child is taken over by the contracting mother after the abánibímọ arrangement is over, the surrogate mother is not thereby discarded as a consequence of the end of the contract (SMPAW, EYCP). Critical intervention demonstrated that in Yoruba ontology, the essence of a person is received from Olódùmare and that the significance and value of the surrogate mother and the child lie in their being, and not in the legality or otherwise of the abánibímọ arrangement through which a child came into the world. The Yoruba cultural practice of abánibímọ transcends the legality of the western surrogacy practice to emphasise the moral and ontological status of the surrogate mother and the child. Wed, 01 Sep 2021 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/1476 2021-09-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/1341 INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND EPISTEMIC JUSTIFICATION LAWAL, ADEMOLA LUKMAN Indigenous knowledge system, a strand of social epistemology, emphasises a socio-cultural dimension to the acquisition and justification of human knowledge. Previous studies have focused on traditional epistemology which searches for a universal condition for all human knowledge. However, inadequate attention has been paid to socio-cultural factors involved in the justification of human knowledge. Social epistemology, which accommodates social factors in human knowledge, also marginalised indigenous knowledge system because most of its projects revolve around the issue of social foundation or justification of scientific knowledge. This study was, therefore, designed to examine the nature of indigenous knowledge, with a view to bridging the gap created by various social epistemological approaches, and provide a more comprehensive account of human knowledge. Richard Rorty’s Contextualist Theory, a brand of social epistemology which admits socio-cultural and contextual justification of human knowledge, was adopted. Ten texts in social epistemology, including Rorty’s Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (PMN),Goldman’s Epistemology and Cognition (EC), Schmitt’s Socialising Epistemology: Social Dimensions of Knowledge (SESDK), Longino’s Science as Social Knowledge (SSK), Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolution (SSR), Bloor’s Knowledge and Social Imagery (KSI), and six texts in indigenous knowledge, including Hountondji’s Endogenous Knowledge (EK), Masolo’s Self and Community in a Changing World (SCCW), Joseph’s Interrogating Culture: Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Social Theory (ICCPCST), and Sogolo’s Foundations of African Philosophy (FAP), were examined. These texts interrogate the issue of human knowledge and its justification. Data were subjected to qualitative analysis using the philosophical tools of criticism, conceptual analysis and reconstruction. The PMN, SSK and KSI revealed that knowledge is a social phenomenon, and that the acquisition and justification of human knowledge is socio-culturally determined. An understanding of the social dimension of human knowledge, which is missing in traditional epistemology and other recent epistemological orientations such as naturalised epistemology and evolutionary epistemology, is indispensable towards the realisation of an adequate account of human knowledge (SSR, EC, SESDK). The SCCW and ICCPCST established that reducing the project of social epistemology to the task of social justification of scientific knowledge is too limiting and that employing scientific principles as paradigmatic method of validating all knowledge claims is also inadequate. Many aspects of indigenous knowledge system are essentially metaphysical with far-reaching social and psychological implications. Hence, their epistemological justification ought to be within the contexts of metaphysical, social and psychological conditions (EK, FAP). Critical intervention shows that indigenous knowledge, which admits of epistemological pluralism by accommodating two or more justification conditions, bridges the gap created by other social epistemological approaches to human knowledge. Indigenous knowledge admits of the metaphysical, social and psychological conditions of knowledge, thereby bridging the gap created by previous epistemological approaches to the acquisition and justification of human knowledge. Therefore, it provides a more comprehensive account of human knowledge than other theories of knowledge. Fri, 01 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/1341 2019-11-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/1159 LEIBNIZ’S MONADOLOGISM AND THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIAL ORDER FASHOLA, JOSEPH OMOKAFE Monadologism, a philosophical idea depicting a non-communicative, self-actuating system of windowless, individualistic and deterministic beings, has implications for understanding the challenge of social order. Philosophical discourses on social order have focused mainly on the Cartesian mind-body interactionism and its implications for human society, to the neglect of insights from other perspectives like Leibniz‘s monads, which could improve the understanding of the challenge of social order. The study was, therefore, designed to examine Leibniz‘s idea of monadology, with a view to establishing the relationship between the metaphysical and the physical in the structure of the human society. Thomas Aquinas‘ Principle of Participation, which advocates communication and inter subjectivity, was adopted. Interpretive design was used. Texts examined in Metaphysics included Leibniz‘s Monadology and Discourse on Metaphysics (DM), Carr‘s The Reform of the Leibnizian Monadology (TRLM), and Russell‘s Some Problems in the Philosophy of Leibniz (SPPL). In Social Philosophy, Bhikhu‘s Unity and Diversity in Multicultural Societies (UDMS), Offor‘s The Modern Leviathan and the Challenge of World Order (TMLCWO), Oyeshile‘s Reconciling the Self with the Order (RSO), and Held‘s Democracy and the Global Order (DGO) were interrogated. These texts deal with critical issues relating to social order. The philosophical tools of conceptual elucidation, critical analysis and reconstruction were used. Monadology, DM, and TRLM revealed that monadologism, which is a closed system that puts forward a platonic argument for the forms against the substantiality of bodies, excludes the notion of interactionism exhibited by gregarious beings, which inheres in Cartesianism. Beings, being monads, are metaphysically constituted, non-interactive and owe their harmony to a force external to them (Monadology, TRLM). This attempt to exclude monads from interactionism and to explain their harmony in relation to an external force further complicates the knowledge of humans as social beings possessing freewill (Monadology, SPPL, TRLM). The RSO and UDMS show the need for interaction, since there cannot be social order without the ‗Other‘. Social order requires a set of linked social structures and values which maintain patterns of relation, communication and participation between the physical self and the metaphysical other. Communication and participation encourage inclusiveness and inter-subjectivity in the system, where all the parts work in harmony towards achieving common objectives (DGO, TMLCWO). Critical intervention showed that establishing a proper relationship between the metaphysical and the physical, though a necessary condition for interaction and participation, is not sufficient for solidarity which is a sine qua non for social order. Monadologism and Cartesianism, by appealing to principles like interactionism, participation and communication, could not adequately account for social order. A better account of a society derives from a framework of shared relations between the self and its others Mon, 01 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/1159 2021-03-01T00:00:00Z