THE METAPHYSICAL COMPONENTS OF AFRICAN TRADITIONAL MEDICINE - Dr. Felix A. Airoboman

 THE METAPHYSICAL COMPONENTS OF AFRICAN TRADITIONAL MEDICINE - Dr. Felix A. Airoboman

 JOURNAL:

ARCHIVE FOR PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AND COUNSELING - PSYCHOTHERAPHY, VOLUME 4, NUMBER 1, June, 2022

ARTICLE TITLE: 

THE METAPHYSICAL COMPONENTS OF AFRICAN TRADITIONAL MEDICINE 

AUTHOR: 

Dr. Felix A. Airoboman 

Department of Philosophy University of Benin Benin City, 

Nigeria 

fe_bom2002@yahoo.com +2348073169897

ABSTRACT 

The practice of traditional medicine in Africa is concentrated with metaphysics. This inquiry focuses on how metaphysics pervades African traditional medicine. It begins with an insight into African cosmology. Thereafter, it expounds the metaphysical concept of causality as a universal phenomenon which permeates the African thought system and as central to African traditional medicine. It then exposits the ontological dimension of African trado-medical practice. The study holds that African traditional medicine caters for the totality of the socio-cultural, supernatural, and physiological framework of beliefs and expectations. It argues that treatment is magico-rational because the whole treatment cannot be subjected to laboratory analysis and also because in both supernatural, mystical, and even in natural causations, the treatment involves rituals. It argues further that in African traditional medicine the efficacy of therapy depends on the combination of the powers of herbs and the healer. It contends that where therapy fails it is either the actual cause has not been ascertained or malicious agent(s) with higher supernatural power impede(s) the efficacy of the treatment's procedures. The study also attempts to expound the metaphysical duty of the African Traditional Doctor. It contends that the core traditional healer treats without charge, and that charges diminish the capacity of the traditional healer to achieve results in healing. The work concludes by drawing some affinities between African traditional medicine and traditional practice of medicine in some other cultures of the world.

KEYWORDS: African Traditional Medicine, African Cosmology, Causality, Ontology, Magico-Rational, African Traditional Doctor

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