This is an open call for Chapters. Please email the relevant section editor for inquiries or Asouzu's books (see emails below).
Tentative Title: The Complementary Turn in Philosophy
Engaging with the Contributions of Innocent Asouzu
Editors: Jonathan O Chimakonam, Ada Agada, Aribiah D Attoe and Amara E Chimakonam
Project Background
This project focuses on Innocent Asouzu's contributions to the development of complementary philosophy, the methodological offshoot called complementary reflection and the significance of the latter for intercultural, comparative and applied philosophies. One of the nagging problems of philosophy in our time is how to bridge the chasm among philosophical traditions. In other words, how do we get philosophers from various cultures to talk to one another? With the heightening of the process of globalisation, the rise of the Global South as a major political and epistemic force, and the necessity of inclusivity, cross-cultural philosophical dialogue has become integral to the project of global philosophy. Innocent Asouzu, who is probably one of the most outstanding African thinkers of this era, has made a mammoth contribution to the above areas, which now calls for critical and creative engagements.
Complementary philosophy and its methodological thrust, complementary reflection, are grounded on the principle of relationality and seek to project the idea of mutual dependence among variables in the world. As a metaphysic, the view rejects the undue bifurcation of reality at the most fundamental level and the idea that there is some hierarchy of being by suggesting that everything in the world is necessarily interrelated, such that the legitimisation of the existence of one thing is dependent on a continued relationship with other things. As an ethic, it points to right actions as those actions (self-interested or not) that also positively appeal to the interests of other individuals/things in the world, both now and in the future. As a vehicle for cross-cultural or intercultural philosophy, Asouzu's complementarity emphasises the necessity of inclusivity and non-hierarchical conversations since this form of interaction is what allows each viewpoint/tradition to flourish. The reach of the system of complementarity also extends to epistemology, political philosophy, logic, methodology and applied philosophy, etc.
Asouzu's ideas became the rallying point for the philosophical approach adopted by the Calabar School and the eventual emergence of the Conversational School of Philosophy. Asouzu's theories crystallise in his metaphysical principles of integration as well as what he calls the truth and authenticity criterion. While the former stipulates that "anything that exists serves a missing link of reality", the latter cautions us to "never elevate any world-immanent missing link to an absolute instance". Both principles, along with several others, challenge the orthodoxy that bivalence cannot be bridged and that contradiction cannot be negotiated in relational encounters.
This project is put together to honour Asouzu's contribution to philosophy and to initiate directed engagements among various philosophical traditions. More importantly, the project is conceived to engage and advance the complementary approach in philosophy and as a strategy to bring philosophers from diverse traditions into a conversation.
Sections and Editors
This project is divided into various sections that deal with important aspects of Complementary Philosophy
Metaphysics [Editor: Ada Agada, Federal University Otuoke, Nigeria, adaagada@gmail.com]
Themes and topics include, but are not limited to:
Asouzu on being and becoming
Ibuanyidanda ontology and the elusiveness of being
Asouzu and the critique of Aristotle's substance-accident dichotomy
The complementary turn in African metaphysical thought
Complementary relationality and Hegelian dialectics
The concept of missing links
Jide ka iji (the joy of being) and meaning in life
Asouzu on Tempels and the concept of vital force
Ethics [Editor: Aribiah Attoe, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, aribiahdavidattoe@gmail.com]
Some select areas in this section include, but are not limited to:
The idea of the common good in Complementary ethics
The idea of the ambivalence of human nature
Complementary ethics and the digital world
Suicide from a complementary lens
Transcendent complementary consciousness
Partiality and impartiality from the perspective of complementary ethics
Comparison of some ideas in Western/Asian ethics and complementary ethics
Logic and Methodology [Editor: JO Chimakonam, University of Pretoria, South Africa, jonathansphilosophy@gmail.com]
A dissection of the method of complementary reflection
Complementary reflection and Intercultural philosophy
Complementary reflection and Comparative philosophy
Analysis of complementary logic
Comparison of Complementary logic and Aristotle's logic
Comparison of Complementary logic and Chinese or Indian logic
Epistemology [Editor: JO Chimakonam, University of Pretoria, South Africa, jonathansphilosophy@gmail.com]
Comparison of notions in Western epistemology and complementary philosophy
Comparison of notions in Asian epistemology and complementary philosophy
A critique of complementary epistemology
Knowledge and development
The significance of Endogenous knowledge
Cognitive in/justice and world philosophy
Social and Political Philosophy [Editor: AE Chimakonam, University of Fort Hare, South Africa, amaraesther35@gmail.com]
Critique and examination of Asouzu's leadership philosophy
Comparison of his social philosophy with similar themes in Asian philosophy
Teasing out the decolonial dimensions of Asouzu's philosophy.
Applied Philosophy [Editor: AE Chimakonam, University of Fort Hare, South Africa, amaraesther35@gmail.com]
Applications of Asouzu's ethics, epistemology and metaphysics on sundry topics
Project Timeline
Abstract submission to section editors: May 28, 2025
Submission of full manuscript for internal review: December 10, 2025
Return of comments for revision: March 30, 2026
Submission of Corrected manuscript: July 25, 2026
Project submission to publisher: October 27, 2026
Prospective publishers: Springer, Routledge or Brill
*Scholars who indicate interest in being part of this project will receive the pdf of relevant works by Innocent Asouzu.
Prospective authors should submit their abstracts (200 words max) and full manuscripts (6000 words max) ONLY to the relevant section editor. Please see the editors' names and their gmails below.
*For enquiries, please write to a section editor.
For the biography of Innocent Asouzu, please visit: https://www.frasouzu.com/
Editors' Bios
Prof Jonathan O. Chimakonam PhD, teaches at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He taught at the University of Calabar, Nigeria, for several years. He was a Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg. He has been a research fellow at various institutions in Europe and Africa, including Tübingen University, Stellenbosch University and the University of South Africa. His teaching and research interests include African Philosophy, Logic, Ethics, Philosophy of Mind, Race Studies and Decolonial thinking. He is the author, co-author, editor and co-editor of more than one hundred and forty books, articles and chapters. Chimakonam has delivered several invited lectures and keynote talks at universities around the world. He has been interviewed by many academic blogs and media outlets. His theories and concepts have been themes of international conferences and panels. His works have inspired several rejoinders, reviews and theses. His ideas are part of various universities' curriculum and philosophy modules. He developed the theory of Ezumezu logic and the method of conversational thinking, and he is a major proponent of conversational philosophy. Chimakonam has past and ongoing research collaborations with colleagues in other universities. He has received funding from national and international organizations such as the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, The National Research Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation and many others. He is a multiple award-winning philosopher, logician, public intellectual and social thinker.
Dr Ada Agada received his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in 2017 and carried out important postdoctoral work at the University of Tübingen, Germany, from 2019 to 2021 as a Humboldt Fellow. He has taught and researched African and Western philosophy in an intercultural context in institutions in Nigeria, Germany, Ghana, and South Africa since 2008. His main areas of expertise include metaphysics and philosophy of religion. He is the recipient of fellowships and grants from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH), the Global Philosophy of Religion Project hosted by the University of Birmingham, the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS), University of Johannesburg, and the Institute for Advanced Study, Central European University, Budapest. He is a past recipient of the African Humanities Programme (AHP) doctoral fellowship. His recent monograph Consolationism and Comparative African Philosophy: Beyond Universalism and Particularism (Routledge, 2022) has been well received as a landmark contribution to African ideas. Dr Agada is currently a senior lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, Federal University Otuoke, Nigeria. He is a major voice of the Conversational School of Philosophy, Calabar. He is also a researcher with the Centre for Leadership Ethics in Africa, University of Fort Hare, South Africa.
Dr Aribiah David Attoe is a Y1 NRF-Rated Researcher and Lecturer at the University of Witwatersrand, and was a co-recipient of the Global Philosophy of Religion Project grant from the John Templeton Foundation, in collaboration with the University of Birmingham, and hosted by the Centre for Leadership Ethics in Africa. He was formerly a postdoc at the Centre for Leadership Ethics in Africa, University of Fort Hare, and earned his PhD in African Philosophy, at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. He has (co)authored several books, some of which include; The Question of Life's Meaning: An African Perspective (Palgrave, 2023); Groundwork for a New Kind of African Metaphysics: The Idea of Predeterministic Historicity (Palgrave, 2022); New Conversations on the Problems of Identity, Consciousness and Mind (Springer, 2019), etc. He is also a member of the prestigious Conversational School of Philosophy. His major research areas of interest span: African metaphysics, ethics and African Conceptions of Meaning, and he has given various talks on topics related to his researchat different international forums and conferences.
Dr Amara Esther Chimakonam is a research fellow at the Centre for Phenomenology in South Africa, University of Fort Hare, South Africa. She obtained her PhD from the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Her research primarily focuses on African philosophy, African phenomenology, ethics, Applied ethics (specifically bioethics, transhumanism and moral enhancement), socio-political philosophy and Artificial Intelligence (AI) ethics. As a member of the Conversational School of Philosophy (CSP), she applies conversational and interrogatory methods in examining these fields from an African perspective. Her thesis was on the idea of transhumanism through an Afro-communitarian lens. She has published and presented several research papers at conferences, webinars, colloquia, and workshops. She recently propounded a personhood-based theory of right action as an African contribution to the field of ethics. AE Chimakonam has organised and co-organised several international conferences and has ongoing research collaborations with sholars in various universities. She has received awards and funding from various organisations, such as the Commonwealth Scholarship and the John Templeton Foundation. She is the editor of the journal Ezumezu: African Perspectives on Logic, Transhumanism and AI Ethics.
Jonathan O Chimakonam
Department of Philosophy
University of Pretoria
My latest books:
1. African Ethics: A Guide to Key Ideas (2022) https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/african-ethics-9781350191785/
2. Essays on Contemporary Issues in African Philosophy (2022)
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-70436-0
3. African Metaphysics, Epistemology and a New Logic: A Decolonial Approach to Philosophy (2021)
Available at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-72445-0
or on Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/African-Metaphysics-Epistemology-New-Logic/dp/3030724441
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