<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><!DOCTYPE article  PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD Journal Publishing DTD v3.0 20080202//EN" "http://dtd.nlm.nih.gov/publishing/3.0/journalpublishing3.dtd"><article xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" dtd-version="3.0" xml:lang="en" article-type="research article"><front><journal-meta><journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">OJPP</journal-id><journal-title-group><journal-title>Open Journal of Philosophy</journal-title></journal-title-group><issn pub-type="epub">2163-9434</issn><publisher><publisher-name>Scientific Research Publishing</publisher-name></publisher></journal-meta><article-meta><article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.4236/ojpp.2014.41012</article-id><article-id pub-id-type="publisher-id">OJPP-43324</article-id><article-categories><subj-group subj-group-type="heading"><subject>Articles</subject></subj-group><subj-group subj-group-type="Discipline-v2"><subject>Social Sciences&amp;Humanities</subject></subj-group></article-categories><title-group><article-title>
 
 
  Thanatology: The Igbo/African Metaphysics Sense and Value of Death
 
</article-title></title-group><contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>atthew</surname><given-names>C. Chukwuelobe</given-names></name><xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1"><sub>1</sub></xref><xref ref-type="corresp" rid="cor1"><sup>*</sup></xref></contrib></contrib-group><aff id="aff1"><label>1</label><addr-line>Department of Philosophy, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria</addr-line></aff><author-notes><corresp id="cor1">* E-mail:<email>mchukwuelobe27@yahoo.co.uk</email></corresp></author-notes><pub-date pub-type="epub"><day>26</day><month>01</month><year>2014</year></pub-date><volume>04</volume><issue>01</issue><fpage>85</fpage><lpage>89</lpage><history><date date-type="received"><day>September</day>	<month>18th,</month>	<year>2013</year></date><date date-type="rev-recd"><day>October</day>	<month>18th,</month>	<year>2013</year>	</date><date date-type="accepted"><day>October</day>	<month>26th,</month>	<year>2013</year></date></history><permissions><copyright-statement>&#169; Copyright  2014 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. </copyright-statement><copyright-year>2014</copyright-year><license><license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</license-p></license></permissions><abstract><p>
 
 
   This work aims at exploring the Igbo/African metaphysical sense of death and its traditional value and inter-communality. In this study, I intend to use the Igbo as a paradigm for an African experience of death. I begin by explaining that while thanatology is the systematic study of death, metaphysics is a study of reality as it concerns the phases of human existence from life to death. In doing so, I want to examine the African being in its wholeness. Interestingly, African philosophy conceives of being as dynamic and a force to be record with. The African world itself is best described as one of becoming: it is a world where there are constant interactions between the dead and the living, between the spirit-land and the human world. Thus, existence-in-relation aptly depicts the African view of life and reality. For the Igbo, however, life and death are intimately connected. To the extent that the latter paves the way to the ancestral dwelling, it is an urgent longing to join his forebears. Ultimately, the Igbo/African attaches a great value to ancestral abode which death makes possible. Through initiation the Igbo anticipates death. Only then does death become a phenomenon of life, entering the Igbo ontological being. Thus death for the Igbo does not constitute an end. Rather it intimates an authentic being (another beginning), which expressly embodies eschatology. I argue that eschatology aims at overcoming time. 
 
</p></abstract><kwd-group><kwd>Death; Thanatology; Igbo/African Metaphysics; Value; Life; Rebirth</kwd></kwd-group></article-meta></front><back><ref-list><title>References</title><ref id="scirp.43324-ref1"><label>1</label><mixed-citation publication-type="other" xlink:type="simple">Abanuka, B. (1994). A new essay on African philosophy. Onitsha: Spiritan Publications.</mixed-citation></ref><ref id="scirp.43324-ref2"><label>2</label><mixed-citation publication-type="other" xlink:type="simple">Achebe, C. (1978). Things fall apart. London: Heinemann.</mixed-citation></ref><ref id="scirp.43324-ref3"><label>3</label><mixed-citation publication-type="other" xlink:type="simple">Anyanwu, C. (1988). The meaning of ultimate reality in Igbo cultural experience, in Ultimate reality and meaning (pp. 84-101).</mixed-citation></ref><ref id="scirp.43324-ref4"><label>4</label><mixed-citation publication-type="other" xlink:type="simple">Chukwuelobe, M. (1995). Language and Igbo philosophy: Towards an Igbo Phenomenology of language in Philosophy Today (pp. 25-30).</mixed-citation></ref><ref id="scirp.43324-ref5"><label>5</label><mixed-citation publication-type="other" xlink:type="simple">Egbujie, I. (1976). The hermeneutics of African traditional culture. Ph.D. Dissertation, Boston: Boston College.</mixed-citation></ref><ref id="scirp.43324-ref6"><label>6</label><mixed-citation publication-type="other" xlink:type="simple">Eliade, M. (1959). The sacred and the profane Tr. Willard R. Trask. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.</mixed-citation></ref><ref id="scirp.43324-ref7"><label>7</label><mixed-citation publication-type="other" xlink:type="simple">Eliade, M. (1976). Occultism, witchcraft, and cultural fashions. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.</mixed-citation></ref><ref id="scirp.43324-ref8"><label>8</label><mixed-citation publication-type="other" xlink:type="simple">Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time. Tr. John Macquarrie &amp; Edward Robinson. New York: Harper &amp; Row, Publishers.</mixed-citation></ref><ref id="scirp.43324-ref9"><label>9</label><mixed-citation publication-type="other" xlink:type="simple">Leonard, A. (1968). The lower niger and its tribes. London: Frank Cass.</mixed-citation></ref><ref id="scirp.43324-ref10"><label>10</label><mixed-citation publication-type="other" xlink:type="simple">Mbiti, J. (1976). African religions and philosophy. London: Heinemann.</mixed-citation></ref><ref id="scirp.43324-ref11"><label>11</label><mixed-citation publication-type="other" xlink:type="simple">Nwoga, D. (1984). Nka na nzere: The focus of Igbo world. Ahiajoku Lecture, Owerri: Culture Division, Ministry of Information, Culture, Youth and Sports.</mixed-citation></ref><ref id="scirp.43324-ref12"><label>12</label><mixed-citation publication-type="other" xlink:type="simple">Ozumba, G. (2001). African traditional metaphysics in Quodlibet Journal (pp. 2-20).</mixed-citation></ref><ref id="scirp.43324-ref13"><label>13</label><mixed-citation publication-type="journal" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Shelton</surname><given-names> A. J. </given-names></name>,<etal>et al</etal>. (<year>1968</year>)<article-title>. Causality in African thought: Igbo and others</article-title><source> Practical Anthropology</source><volume> 15</volume>,<fpage> 157</fpage>-<lpage>169</lpage>.<pub-id pub-id-type="doi"></pub-id></mixed-citation></ref><ref id="scirp.43324-ref14"><label>14</label><mixed-citation publication-type="other" xlink:type="simple">Zahan, D. (1979). The religion, spirituality, and thought of traditional Africa. Tr. K. Ezra and L. Martin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.</mixed-citation></ref></ref-list></back></article>