Prophecy and The Need for Liberation:
Biblical and Philosophic Prophecies have anticipated and unanticipated consequences of social-political actions. Public prophecies, beliefs, and expectations have become an integral part of the African situation, unlike western nations, affecting their development. Every New Year, self-styled prophets broadcast the year’s prophecies. While some of these predictions come true, some never become a reality.
The self-fulfilling prophecy works its way into every sphere of human experience, social or public and individual or private (Merton, 1996, 186). The self-defeating prophecy has contributed to the vibrancy of social and cultural change, as has been recognized with varying degrees of cogency by Hegel, Marx, Wundt, and other philosophers. The existing state of knowledge specifies the consequences (either anticipated or unanticipated) of social action. The categorizations of acts and situations never involve complete homogeneity to predict specific events. “A classification into completely homogenous categories would lead to functional associations and would permit successful prediction, but the aspects of social action which are of practical importance are too varied and numerous to permit such homogeneous classification.” (Merton, 1996.)
The first agitation in anyone’s mind is the link Philosophic prophesy has with socio-political Liberation. Philosophy is the solution to many crises in the world today, especially in nation-building and leadership. Plato once said, “unless philosophers are made kings or kings are made philosophers, there will be no end to the state and humanity’s problems” (Republic: 473d-e). Philosophy has the advantage of equipping people with critical intellectual skills useful in all spheres of life (Oduwole, 1999). It has been established that Philosophic Prophecy is rooted in the Philosophy of logic and reasoning. Leadership must be exposed to logic and critical thinking to equip them and help social-political Liberation.
Philosophic prophecy can help provide analytical powers applicable in all spheres of life. One of the frameworks of philosophic prophecy is conceptual decolonization, which could be positive or negative. Political leadership is bedeviled by a lack of focus, integrity, unrighteousness, and a problem with the truth. The problem of truth is a significant issue in both the Western and African epistemologies. The problem of ‘Truth’ leads to endemic corruption, lack of the rule of law, wanton disobedience to the Constitution, and lack of patriotism, among many vices. The correspondence theory of truth derives from the empiricist tradition that accentuates perception. The coherence theory of truth stems from the rationalist tradition. According to Bertrand Russell, “the mark of falsehood is failure to cohere in the body of beliefs, and that it is the essence of a truth to form part of the completely rounded system, which is the Truth” (Russell, 1985:70). ***Continuation tomorrow
