Unraveling the Metaphysical, Epistemological, and Ethical Elements of Oromo Proverbs

Abstract

Long ago the external world (most prominent among which is the west) had excommunicated African mind from the realm/ treasure of reasoned knowledge. According to Hegel, Hume, Kant, and others, for any thought (about human life, about knowledge and truth, good and bad, right and wrong, mind and matter; about human nature and the universe we inhabit) to count as reasoned knowledge it must be subject to writing. African philosophers like Hountondji, Appiah, Bondurin, etc. have also expounded that individualist element, the main or only yardstick of reasoned knowledge, as they have put it, is missing in the traditional genre of thought. Apiece of these characterizations are unfair as they have indisputably tried to discredit the thoughtful knowledge built on oral tradition. The central point in this article, therefore, is unraveling the practical reasoned knowledge exhibited in the traditional genre of thought. The aspiration is partly alluded to the task of being informative about the place of Oromo society and, by extension, traditional African thought in the realm of global knowledge. This is done by closely examining the metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical elements embedded in some proverbs of the Oromo.