Convergence and Divergence of Substances in Anton Wilheim Amo’s Philosophy

It may not be an easy task to comment or summarise the philosophical ideas, in a few pages, of Anton Wilhelm Amo, a highly cerebral and distinguished African philosopher, who unfortunately is scantily discussed both in Europe and Africa. Amo is hardly mentioned in European and Western texts, where he spent his entire professional career engaged in quality teaching, research and municipal services. In Africa, his native homeland, Amo scholarship is embarrassingly missing from the curricular of various universities in Africa. Truly Amo from ethnic Nzema extraction may not have been born, as it were, with a silver spoon, he nonetheless had a robust royal upbringing, having been brought up in the Royal Courts and Palaces of the Kings in Germany, who was earlier rooted out from his ancestral home of Axim in Ghana and transported to Europe as a juvenile. Amo’s rich educational background and a network of influences and exposure are noticeable in his works and treatise on metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, logic, language, etc. In this paper, an attempt is made to explicate Amo’s views on mind and body and that the priority of the mind to the body, including the sanctity of their distinctness is not accidental, but bound up with the Enlightenment ideal, which is the promotion of reason (rationality) with the human mind as its nursery bed. What is implicated here is the avalanche of philosophical juggling over the question of rationality in African traditional thought, which has become a burning issue, amongst contemporary African philosophers.

Introduction

Let me begin with an excerpt of the encomiums and complimentary remarks which had the imprimatur of the Rector and Council of the University of Wittenberg on the successful defence (viva voce) of his Dissertation entitled De Humanae Mentis Apathia’ (The Apathia of the Human Mind in 1734).

We rightly praise Africa, and Guinea, its region furthest from us, which the Europeans have long called the Gold Coast in view of its most plentiful yield of gold–this country, which you first saw the light… by us the mother not only of many goods and treasures of nature, but also of most fertile natural aptitudes. Among which [aptitudes] yours, most noble and eminent man, shines forth most brightly, you who have previously proved its fertility and excellence, and the solidity and elegance of your erudition and learning, in our University to all good men with many specimens to much applause, and who have outstandingly proved it again with the present dissertation (Stephen & Smith Justin, 2020, p. 197).

The above remark speaks volume about Anton Wilhelm Amo’s outstanding and distinguished career in German Universities in the 18^th century. Notwithstanding Amo’s humble background in Africa, he, through act of providence grew from a “rustic” African juvenile to stardom, to become a distinguished Professor and Philosopher. It should be noted that commenting on Amo’s biography however sketchily is not an easy task due principally to the fact that literature on him are diverse with some spawning various hypothesis, speculation, and conjectures concerning his background, birth and death dates, foster parenthood (in loco parentis), intellectual formation, influences and links and theorizing etc. The avalanche of perspectives tended to portray Amo as an enigmatic icon and a colossus as well as a man of many parts excelling in liberal arts, science, law, social science etc.

According to a foremost researcher on Amo, Abraham (1962), Amo was presumed to be born around 1700 in a small city Axim in the then Gold Coast (now Ghana). Amo was born during the time slave trade and merchandise in mineral resources were in their crescendo, because available evidence showed that the European slave dealers had their vessels, fortresses and companies like the Dutch West Indies Company dotted around the Coastal regions of West Coast of Africa. But what is puzzling is how Amo was able to find himself first in Holland thousands of nautical miles away from his homeland as a little boy whose age was roughly put at three years, at a time when his playmates and peers were probably taken breast milk because then in most traditional Africa, exclusive breast feeding and child spacing were strictly observed unlike now.

We stated above that Amo throughout his stay in the noble/Royal household was given the best possible care, nurture and support reserved only for the Aristocrats. His foster parent, Duke Anton Ulrich exhibited an uncommon love for education with cosmopolitan attitude of mind wanted the best for Amo. On his part, Amo did not squander this act of benevolence accorded him by the Royal Family. Thus his journey into academic stardom might have begun in the Royal Courts, probably with private tutors and until it became clear that Amo was both physically, emotionally and mentally equipped, he then proceeded to the High College of Helmstedt where he demonstrated incredible competence in academics and character too. So, his robust academic background at Helmstedt College prepared him for further degree programmes at the University of Halle in 1727, through Wittenberg and Jena where he again distinguished himself as a thorough-bred scholar and quintessential philosopher specializing in interdisciplinary subjects like philosophy, physiology, medicine, jurisprudence, history, logic, metaphysics, astronomy, theology, politics etc.

The initial atmosphere at the University of Halle was congenial for serious academic research ostensibly due to its tolerant and liberal posture and as such became a Mecca of sort and attracted leading scholars like Christian Wolff, an ardent follower/fan of Gottfried Leibniz, Christian Thomasius, a distinguished law Professor and Hermann Francke. The latter was credited with the founding of the Pietistic School. Also Amo had the reputation of speaking a multiplicity of languages such as “English, French, Dutch, Latin, Greek, and German.” As stated above, Amo’s intellectual formation blossomed at the Universities of Halle, Wittenberg and Jena where he directly or indirectly met some leading scholars and philosophers and also identified with popular movements like scholasticism, Enlightenment, Rationalism, Empiricism, Mechanism, Vitalism etc. Among the notable works and dissertations, which were a product of hard work and resilience by Amo while in the Universities of Halle, Wittenberg and Jena as a student and later as a Professor included, De Jure Maurorum in Europe (The Rights of Africans in Europe) in 1729, adjudged as his inaugural dissertation, but unfortunately lost and dead born from the presses; De Humanae Mentis Apathia (The Apathia of the Human Mind) in 1734; Distinct Idea of Those Things that pertain Either to the Mind or to our Living and Organic Body in 1734; Treatise on The Art of Philosophising Soberly and Accurately in 1739.

Exposure to the Enlightenment Ideal

Amo’s huge intellectual profile was benchmarked and flowered against the periods of the bourgeoning crisis between the more radical free thinkers associated with the Enlightenment (Aufklarung) endorsed by Christian Thomasius and Christian Wolff and the conservative, backward looking dogmatic pietism, stoutly defended by Georg Ernst Stahl. The key assumption of pietism thought is “the Lutheran understanding of religion as involving individual spiritual rebirth, and also included is the importance of humility in seeking to persuade others to convert” (Emmanuel, 2014).

As a corollary to the above, Mabe submitted that:

German pietism under Philipp Jacob Spener (1646–1705) and later also under Hemann Francke (1663–1727) was a protest movement within the Lutheran Church which saw a danger for religious thinking and life in the increasing secularism. Pietism stood for a renaissance of religiosity and for more subjectivity, individuality and interiority of faith (Emmanuel, 2014, p. 216).

Now turning attention to the Enlightenment, its central idea as summarized by Sephocle quoting Paul Raabe thus;

The emergence of man from his self-imposed minority. His minority is his capacity to make use of his own understanding without the guidance of another. This minority is self-imposed, its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolution and courage to make use of what is his without the guidance of another… Have the courage to make use of your own understanding is therefore the slogan of the Enlightenment (Merilyn, 1992, p. 184).

Obviously the key words in the Enlightenment are reason, rationality, humanity, etc. If this is granted, then there is little space for any condescension to faith, divine revelation as sure way to salvage man from the morass of enervating economic condition as preached by the pietistic Lutheran theologians (Wilson Edward, 2006. pp. 21–22).

The first phase of the Enlightenment (Aufklarung) in Germany is perhaps best represented by Christian Thomasius (1655–1728)… The philosophy of [Christian] Wolff and his followers was in one sense a high point of the German Aufklarung [Enlightenment] It constituted a programme, as it were, for bringing all provinces of human mental activity before the bar of reason. This was, of course, the reason why the pietistic Lutheran theologians opposed Wolff, for they thought that his rationalism was the enemy of faith (Frederick, 2003. p. 121).

The essence of this quote is to place in context the challenges which both Christian Thomasius and Christian Wolff faced in their chair of professorship in their Universities. Now, if Amo received a preponderous of influence from both Thomasius and Wolff as well as the Enlightenment, it is clear the dramatic twist of fate suffered by Amo primarily because of his radical views which were considered antithetical to the doctrines of the church which held sway in most universities then. This point is expressed by Sephocles thus:

Amo had, however, been exposed to Wolff’s spirit of thoroughness, his beliefs that anything is knowable and that knowledge is the goal of all science. Wolff’s departure only further exacerbated the already explosive situation, and the African scholar found himself in the middle of debates between the pillars of the early Enlightenment and the supporters of pietism; between the philosophers and the theologians; between those emphasizing reason and those advocating religion; and between the supporters of science and its staunch opponents, who favored ascetic morals. Like most students, Amo took part in the debates and was naturally faithful to the Enlightenment. If the Enlightenment promotes independent thinking, then Amo can be labeled as the true Enlightenment scholar (Merilyn, 1992, p. 109).

We alluded elsewhere in this essay that Christian Wolff was an unapologetic disciple of Leibniz and the latter’s influence on him is noticeable in Wolff’s “treatment of substances.” Even though Wolff may not have used the term “monads,” yet he posited the existence of substances that are apart from being imperceptible lacked extension or figure.”

Theorising

Having done the initial spade work, the time is now apposite to treat Amo’s analysis of mind-body relation, which is the central theme of his texts The Apatheia of the human Mind and Distinct Ideas of Those Things that Pertain Either to the Mind or to our living and organic Body. One may not be mistaken to say that Amo had an encyclopedic mind judging by his treatment of a wide spectrum of topics. He sees philosophy as: …the habitus of the intellect and the will whereby we continuously deal with things themselves which have to be known in their certainty determinately and adequately as far as may be possible in order that by the application of this kind of cognition the perfection of men might take on all possible increase. (Sephocle, p. 109)

From the definition of philosophy above, we can glean the essential hallmarks of philosophy according to Amo as culled from Uzodinma Nwala to include;

Philosophy does not concern itself with the intellect alone, but also with the will and its actions:

i. It is erroneous to exclude the pragmatic dimension from any definition of philosophy.

ii. Philosophy is linked to wisdom and wisdom is virtue and virtue by extension is the perpetual exercise of known truth.

iii. Philosophy is susceptible to theoretical and practical aspects.

iv. Philosopher always concerns himself with the things-in-themselves to be known, (Uzodinma, 1990, p. 47) that is noumena in Kant’s opinion later. In a similar vein, Christopher S. Nwodo submits that “there is the intellectual (theoretical) aspect as well as the practical aspect”

There is no such thing as purely intellectual and abstract philosophy. All cognition without application to an end is useless… for the usefulness of anything whatsoever is judged by its end. (Nwodo Christopher, 1985, p. 30)

Based on Amo’s conception of philosophy, he launched a full-scale evaluation of some philosophical themes which had become somewhat a jig-saw puzzle even till the present day, such as mind-body, appearance and reality, universals and particulars, freewill and determinism, among others. But let us concentrate effort on the mind-body problem because of space constraints. Needless to say that the Mind-body problem has an ancient ancestry in Greek/Western philosophy when Pythagoras (c.a. 490 B.C.E) of Samos, a leading ancient philosopher/ mathematician argued that man is a composite of human and divine elements and “that the divine element in man, which is the soul, is regarded as the essential aspect of man”. Also, he was associated with metempsychosis, which is the doctrine that the soul is immortal and is capable of undergoing a series of rebirths until it is liberated’ (McDougall, 1928, p. 20). The discourse of the soul and its encasement in the body had agitated the minds of philosophers since then from Plato (ca. 428–348) through, Aristotle (384–322) and the scholastics (St. Augustine, B.C.E), 354–430), St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) down to the modern and contemporary periods. It should be acknowledged that the soul and body did not constitute a hard nut to crack, as it were, as it has become in the modern period of philosophy where it became known as the mind-body problem and given an explicit theoretical formulation by philosophers like Rene Descartes (with his disciples Arnold and Malebranche) and in our context Anton Wilhelm Amo. On this McDougall remarks that;

Plato purified the conception of the soul of the last remnants of the dualistic materialism of primitive Animism, which still lingered in the Orphic doctrine, and insisting upon the fundamental difference of nature between soul and body, clearly formulated for the first time the theory of psycho-physical dualism with reciprocal action between soul and body (Shaffer Jerome, 1968, pp. 4, 5).

Modern Re-Statement

Before venturing into the modern version of the mind-body problem it is important to note that at times the terms ‘soul’ and mind are used interchangeably without much loss of meaning. Both are taken as substances, non-physical, incorporeal and unextended, since they are not locatable in space and time. A tripartite classification of the mind includes;

• Cognition (knowing): Memory, introspection, intuition, inference etc.

• Affection (feeling): Sensation, emotions, moods, personality traits etc.

• Volition (willing): Motives, desires, deliberations, decisions and choices, strivings, and trying, actions etc. (McDougall, 1928, p. 14). It should be noted that this classification is not iron cast since there are some dispositions or mental phenomena that cannot be easily classified to any group.

Rene Descartes (1596–1650), unarguably the father of modern western philosophy was the architect of the mind-body problem in its sophisticated form. Apparently answering the question of what precisely is the rapport between the mind and body, Descartes in his book Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) had held that “what distinguished man from the other animals was that the human one consisted of two quite unlike substances. The (mind) was a substance with major, if not sole, attribute of thought. The other was a substance with among other attributes those of length, breadth and width, it was an extended substance. The problem was how two such unlike substances could possibly influence one another? (Elizabeth & Ross, 1983, p. 359). In other words, the mind (res cogitans) is responsible for all cognitive functions and all these cognitive functions are distinct yet are correlated with states of the body, (Kraus Pamela, 1986, p. 1). The justification for this is that the mind, which is unextended, that is non-spatial has such defining characteristics as thinking, imagination, understanding, consciousness, emotions, memories, feelings, desires, perceptions, doubting, etc, while the body, which has length and breadth is a space-occupier with defining features as size, extension, width, solidity, weight etc. Curiously, after holding that the mind and body are separate and distinct entities, Descartes went on to say that they interface, that is interact. Of course various physiological and anatomical examples can be amassed to explain this.

EG.1 Exposure of the body to hard drugs, cocaine and cannabis and there is mental imbalance (derangement)

EG. 2 Thought of detonating an improvised explosive device (IED) and the touch of the button causes colossal damage to the building.

Contra Descartes

From antiquity to the contemporary time, the mind-body problem has been in part, a search for the presence or absence of aperture (opening) in substances that may enable apparently distinct elements, such as the mind and the body, to communicate with each other. Extant explanatory models of mind-body relation have been anything but satisfactory. This attempt tries to fill that gap. In this enterprise, historical and environmental factors play significant roles in shaping the views of scholars and Amo as a participant in this inquiry, was not immune to these effects, nevertheless, he was able to carve out an authentic philosophic outlook for himself, as evident in his dissertation, De Humanae Mentis Apatheia (1734). (Aristotle BK2). It is when we know the context within which Amo wrote, that we would be in a position to understand more clearly his philosophic thoughts. So, in what context was Amo’s philosophy of mind berthed? Amo was among other things, an academic philosopher. As an academic philosopher, he read the classical works of other philosophers, which may have influenced his thoughts on certain subjects of interest. In this league are the contributions of thinkers like Aristotle (1956), (Lawrence, 1961, p. 80) (384–322 BC.); Thomas Aquinas, (Mulligan, 1952, pp. 1–9) (c.1225–1274); Rene Descartes, (Lawrence, 1961, p. 80) (1596–1650), John Locke (1632–1704); and Wilhelm Gottfried Leibniz, (Schrecker & Schrecker, 1965, p. 10) (1646–1716), to mention a few. These philosophers discussed, among other things, the nature of mind-body relation, which great minds like Amo, also tinkered with.

In the Apatheia and the inaugural dissertation Impassivity, Amo was uncomfortable with the presentation of the relation between the mind and body by Descartes especially his designation of cognitive functions on the one hand and the correlation of the properties of res cogitans with the activities of the body on the other. The method of analysis which Amo adopted is what Pauline Hountondji calls “methodical Irony” which tries to “use the assumptions of his opponents to argue against them, thereby showing up the theoretical inconsistency of their system’, (Hountondji Paulin, 1983, p. 124). Also, Amo uses other complementary methods like polemics, aphorism, proofs, thesis, explanation, disputation, all of which were noticeable in Socrates and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Amo, as quoted in Menn and Smith, started by raising some research questions viz:

i. What is sensation?

ii. What is the faculty of sensing?

iii. What is impassivity of the human mind? Amo then went on to categories the answers into:

ο Negative thesis 1: The human mind does not sense material things, with requisite proofs.

ο Second Negative Thesis 2: Nor does the faculty of sensing belong to the mind.

ο Third Affirmative Thesis: But rather [sensation belongs] to our organic and living body with proofs (Stephen & Smith Justin, 2020, p. 157).

Kwame Nkrumah, erstwhile President of Ghana and a statesman, lauded the intellectual acumen and erudition of his fellow compatriot, Amo and remarked that he (Amo) was acutely suspicious of idealism because of its internal contradictions, (Kwame, 1978, pp. 18–19). On this Men and Smith said that;

…Anthony Wilhelm Amo … pointed out… that idealism was enmeshed in contradictions. The mind, he says, was conceived by idealism as a pure, active, unextended substance. Ideas, the alleged constituents of physical objects, were held to be in the mind, and to be incapable of existence outside it. Amo’s question here was how the ideas, largely those of physical objects, many of which were ideas of extension, could subsist in the mind… And if all ideas must be in the mind, it became hard to resist the conclusion that the mind itself was extended, in order to be a spatial receptacle for its extended ideas (Stephen & Smith Justin, 2020, p. 159).

No doubt, Amo and Descartes agreed on certain key areas on the dualism of mind and body, but parted ways in other areas. Amo’s greatest grouse with Descartes was his (Descartes) acceptance of a symmetrical (two-way-traffic) relation of mind and body. For Amo, the proper thing is that the relation between the mind (res cogitans) and the body is an asymmetrical one. In other words, the mind influences the body, but the body does not influence the mind, since for Amo sensation resides in the organic body, the mind is shielded from it. Here, the scholastic and rationalist orientation of Amo is visibly clear. As much as it is possible the mind (soul) should be protected and preserved because if we accept the antecedent premise that the body affects the mind, then the mind (soul) is supposed to perish with it as a logical consequence. Perhaps, Amo might have, as it were, “passed over in silence” of Descartes’ position, according to Kwasi Wiredu, in his book sixth meditation, thus:

I am not merely present in my body as a sailor is present in a ship, but… I am very closely joined and as it were intermingled with it, so that I and the body form a unit. If this were not so. I, who am nothing, but a thinking thing would not feel pain when the body was hurt, but would perceive the damage purely by the intellect, just as a sailor perceives by sight if anything in his ship is broken (Kwasi, 2006, pp. 201–202).

Accordingly, Descartes seemed to have it both ways, he accepted the fact that the I, ego cogita, self is immaterial with the characteristic features of willing, understanding, yet Descartes took it to possess the faculty of sensory experience. For Amo, Descartes was not justified to make this move as he contradicted himself. The same sentiment is expressed by Pamola A. Kraus thus:

… the mind is at times treated as the domain of conscious life or awareness as in Descartes’ famous assertion that mind is res cogitans. At other times, for example in the analysis of wax in meditation 2, Descartes understands the mind in a second way, as exercising several cognitive functions – intellection, imagination and sensation. Failure to distinguish these component doctrines has complicated attempts to understand the doctrine of mind in the Meditations (Kraus Pamela, 1986, p. 1).

Undoubtedly, Amo’s critique of Descartes is ingenious and remarkable. But is Amo right in what he claims? There is still an unresolved controversy surrounding the mind and body relation right from the medieval/scholastics and the mechanists through the modern period to the contemporary times. Baruch Spinoza has attempted to resolve it with his monistic substance approach; David Hume’s ‘Bundle theory of perception; Franz Brentano’s thesis of intentionality; Edmund Hursserl’s ‘phenomenology; P.F. Strawson’s ‘The Person Theory’’ Behaviorism with little success. The most contemporary attempt to dissolve the mind-body conundrum is that provided by Gilbert Ryle in his popular book The Concept of Mind (1949). It should be noted that Ryle set out to achieve two interrelated tasks, first to obliterate the ‘Cartesian dualism’ and second to substitute the philosophical behaviorism for dualism, (Gilbert, 2009, pp.ix-xiv). Thus, he came up with what he calls the “official doctrine,” “the myth of the ghost in the machine,” “category mistake,” which have become a household name amongst students of philosophy. According to Ryle, [it] is shown by the fact that there was from the beginning felt to be a major theoretical difficulty in explaining how minds can influence and be influenced by bodies. How can a mental process, such as willing cause spatial movements like the movements of the tongue? How can a physical change in the optic nerve have among its effects on minds perception of a flash of light? (Gilbert, 2009, p. 14)

It seems that Ryle makes a concession when he says in “defence of the official doctrine that ‘mental’ does denote a status that a special footing must be provided for sensation, feelings and images”. He elaborated further: … it is patent that the occurrence of a sensation, for instance is a fact about the person who feels the pain or suffers the dazzle, the sensation must be in that person… so the sensation must be in the person’s mind. (Gilbert, 2009, pp. 179–180)

Now, one might ask is the disagreement between Amo and Descartes one of degree or of a kind? I believe that it is more of a degree since both accept the reality of substance dualism. Here then lies the convergence. From Amo’s Impassivity

Note 2: “Internal sensations are the passions or affections of the soul” (Stephen & Smith Justin, 2020, p. 173). Descartes also alluded to that in his book, Passions of the Soul (1949).

Inspite of his “critique, Amo praises Descartes’ clear separation of spiritual world and that of the body.”

Legacies of Amo to Cotemporary Scholarship

Let me begin this section with an extract from Stephen and Smith already cited: What makes Amo an early modern German Philosopher is the fact that he takes up the philosophical questions and problems of that particular context and sees it as his task to work through these in an original way. The questions are picked from his milieu, the answers he gives are his own (Stephen & Smith Justin, 2020, p. 60).

Amo’s intellectual depth is unparallel and serves as a prolegomenon to contemporary researches in a multiplicity of fields. Scholars, depending on their area of interests, can excavate enduring resources for human growth and development. These fields include, interculturalism, multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, questions of identity, self-determination, human rights, alienation, race studies etc. The urgent task in post-colonial Africa is that of development, leadership and governance etc.

The exercise of intercultural orientation is the opening of one’s own eyes and borders of philosophic thought to those of others. In other words, the avoidance of and bracketing of certain prejudices, in a Hursserlian way, to an attitude, what Kwasi Wiredu calls “parochialistic universalism.” What is insinuated here is the use and mastery of languages other than one’s own in dialogue, conversation and translation. A practical example is the teaching of comparative philosophy, a situation where an African teaches such topics in Western universities and vice verse. Just as Schopenhauer had the credit of opening Western philosophy to certain concepts of the thought of another culture, like Buddhism and oriental culture (Heinz, 2002, pp. 353–354). Amo was reputed to have a mastery of many languages other than his native or mother tongue, Akan, Ewe.

Also the insights of multiculturalism are embedded in Amo’s views and the general attitude of his patrons (host). Multiculturalism can roughly be stated as “the view that society is enriched by encouraging cultural diversity. According to W.L. Van der Merwe, multiculturalism “may refer to the advocating of an appreciation for cultural differences and the positive affirmation of diversity as a necessary condition of human existence as such” (Van der Merwe, 2002, p. 287). The Universal Declaration on Culture by UNESCO in 2001 at a General Conference that …

cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as Biodiversity is for nature is a clear affirmation”. Amo’s upbringing in the Royal Courts and long sojourn in Europe was indicative of multiculturalism.

Similarly, from Amo’s robust philosophical foray, one can extract a cosmopolitan outlook, which was foregrounded in the Stoic philosophy around the 4^th and 3^rd century, to the “belief that all people are entitled to equal respect and consideration, no matter their citizenship status or other affiliations…” This stoic insight might have been articulated by Amo in his Dissertation De Jure Maurorum on Europe (On the Rights of Africans in Europe) (Lost Manuscript) where he defended the equality of races and opposition to racial segregation. On this Nwodo says that:

… about the rights of Africans, the main argument of the dissertation would seem to revolve around the legal claim of Africans to freedom and human dignity (Nwodo Christopher, 1985, p. 32).

Conclusion

By way of a recap, it is not a hyperbolic statement that Amo’s philosophical shoes are huge and that anyone who wants to step into the shoes must be patient and open-eyed in order to appreciate the kind of statement that Amo was making which no scholar of his peers had made during the 18^th century German philosophical firmament.