The Oral Philosophy of Orunmila

Foregrounding the historical movements of decolonization in African intellectual traditions, this book argues that the Yorùbá knowledge system grounds philosophy, history, and religious studies inaiyé, the incomprehensible world. Saheed Adesumbo Bello explores Orúnmìlà—the ancient legendary Yorùbá priest-scholar and philosopher as well as interpreter of the spiritual tradition of Ifá—as the central repository of the Yoruba people’s knowledge system. Orúnmìlà is also a way to demonstrate using a non-Eurocentric source that philosophical activity is culturally specific. Using a multi-disciplinary philosophical approach, Bello illustrates how disciplinary boundaries have prevented us from embracing endogenous powers, tolerating epistemological pluralism and value pluralism in today’s world. Situated in African philosophy, world philosophies, and world knowledge traditions, this book: (i) sources philosophical ideas from Ifá as a way of departing not only from Eurocentric sources, methods and concepts but also from colonial and neocolonial misconceptions of the Yorùbá knowledge system; (ii) decolonizes specific philosophical, historical, and religious/spiritual concepts in oratures and rituals of Òrìsà (the Yorùbá deities) and shows their contributions to the reciprocity of endogenous powers, governmental rationalities and practices, philosophical deceits and doubts, knowledge and value systems in the world; and (iii) draws examples from Ifá to elucidate the relevance of orality and multi-disciplinarity to studies in African philosophy, world philosophies, world knowledge traditions and value systems. Against a vast literature of colonial and neocolonial analysis that condemned these indigenous Yorùbá sources, like other indigenous sources, to marginalization, this book shows the significance of Ifá to decolonizing the Yorùbá nation, the African continent, and the world.