Leibniz' Principle of sufficient reason and the Chewa concept of Determinism: An interpretative essay D. Njirayamanda Kaphagawani I. Introduction The main impetus for the present interest in the exposition of the Chewa concept of determinism is the result of (a) the reaction against the tendency to attribute hastIly to Africans in general philosophical doctrines which are found to hold in one partJcular African community, and (b) some aspects of the philosophy of Gottfried Wtlhelm Leibniz, particularly his doctrine of sufficient reason which has been subject to numerous interpretatIOns. Bold generalisations in philosophy in Africa is on the wane these days. This is not out of its own making; it is, rather, an antithesis of a methodology in fashion about a decade or two ago. Placide Tempels and John Mbiti are classical examples of such a tradition. From observations made on the Balubas among whom he ministered, PlaClde TempeJs credited the views held by these people to all Africans in Central and Southern Africa in general.! Such a move was initially rightly criticised and discouraged by John Mbiti: "The book is primarily Tempels' personal interpretation of the Baluba, and it is ambitious to call it 'Bantu Philosophy' since it only deals with one people among whom he had worked as a missionary"Z This is just a critiCIsm In that it points out that Tempels commits the fallacy of hasty generalisation by attribu- ting to all Central and Southern Africans a view held by one community, namely, the Baluba. Such criticisms raise the expectations that scholars sharing or holding the view of Mbiti cannot in any way, if consistency is adhered to, proceed to excel in the very methodology they set out to criticise. Ironically Mbiti did just that' From some linguistic properties of Kikamba, Mbiti inferred the curious conclUSIOn that Africans have no concept of an infinite future) This has, however, not goneuncrI ticised, 4 and as a result, philosophers in Africa these days tend to confine theIr conclusions to the particular communities in which research was undertaken or, In the case of African scholars, to the communities they belong) To point out shortcomings in both Tempels' and Mbiti's literature is not to underscore what can be learnt from them; to do so would be tantamount to going against one of the fundamental p;inciples of Leibniz which In our opinion is right: 'Never condemn anything too easIly. ThIS IS best VOICed by Lelbniz in a letter to Gabriel Wagner: As for me, I lay little importance in refutation, but much in expOSItIOn. When a new book reaches me, I search for what I can learn not for what I can criticise in it.6 ' This paper takes a comparative view in exposing and interpreting the notion of suffiCIent reason as advocated by Leibniz and as understood and put into practice by the Chewa: It IS argued that there exists a 'rudimentary' notion of sufficient reason whIch mamfests Itself as a concept of determinism in so far as it moulds a people's way of life. 56 In all its various forms, this principle clearly directs one into a deterministic mode of thought in which every thing or state of affairs must have a reason sufficiently guaranteeing its eXistence or occurrence. As such, this principle does not give room for chance-events which occur without any apparent reason at all; but Leibniz was convinced that this was the greatest and most fruitful of all principles in human knowledge; for upon it is built a great part of metaphysics, physics and the moral sciences .... Whatever is not of mathematical necessity .... must be sought here entirely)O That this principle forms the basis of the philosophy of determinism is further testi- fied by Leibmz' remarks on the relationship between theory and practice: The art of practice consists in bringing accidents themselves under the yoke of science. The more we do this, the more does theory conform to practice) I Accidents or chance-events can, in Leibniz' opinion, be scientifically taken care of only when explanations are provided for as to why the events could not have occured differently from the way they actually did. The principle of sufficient reason, in this case, implies the principle of determinism. Given certain conditions an event or state of affairs can be predicted or, alternatively, faced with an enigma an explication, in a form of sufficient reasons, can be provided for. The attitude thiS principle encourages, namely, the continuous search for reasons or explanatlOns, has Its advantages as well as disadvantages. One of the disadvantages is that it, In many ways, hampers creativIty and imagination in the sense that the sufficient reason of any event or state of affairs is logically prior to the event itself; the creation of a sufficient reason is unwelcome; for there is already a reason according to Leibniz' prinCiple. What one is required to do is to put a lot of effort in discovering this sufficient reason because its existence is already guaranteed by the doctrine. As to how imagination and creativity fit into such a framework is difficult to see. However, one of the advantages of such determinism is that it guarantees the eXistence of a reason whether known or not. If it is not as yet known then thIS prinCiple highlights the logical point that the fact that no sufficient reason has been Identified is In no way indicative of the virtual absence of such a reason; for that IS commItting an ad ignorantiam fallacy. So, patience and an unfailing hope are being demanded by Lelbniz' principle: Ordinarily people destroy the fruits of their thinking through undue haste ... ... thus achieving nothing despite great effort)2 Briefly, thiS is the principle of suffiCient reason, and what it implies is the principle of determinism which we claim is present in the Chewa thought system as well. 3. The Chewa Concept of Dete ...minism Determinism as a concept is not foreign to the Chewa thought system. Though not explICit, it is mamfest In their way of life and forms a great part of the baSiS of theIr culture and philosophy. 'The philosophy of a people IS always a tradmon, and a tradltlOn pre-supposes a certain minimum of organic relatlOnshlp amon,g (som~ of) ItS elements,.13 The concept of determinism comes under the rubriC of reason among the Chewa although, as earlIer noted, no distinction IS made between necessary and SUfficient conditions of reasons. It has been a long traditIOn of the Chewa to, for 57 Unlike the doctrine of sufficient reason which serves both functIOns of explanation and prediction it is argued that the Chewa concept of determinism serves more of the explanatory function than, if at all, the predictive one. It IS to the expositiOn and interpretation of the doctrine of sufficient reason we now turn. 2. The Principle of Sufficient Reason One of the interesting features of Leibniz' philosophy is the way in which the various principles form one unified system ingeniously worked out piecemeal to detail. However, it is a fact that Leibniz never actually wrote a systematic treatise of his philosophy; his views were spelt out in articles, letters and notes. But in aU these the main doctrines continually re-surface from various persepctives. Leibniz IS said to have on one occasion remarked: "Qui me non nisi editis novis, non novit. (One who knows me only by the published work does not know me at all)". This remark, as suggested by N. Rescher, indicates that the little literature Leibniz left behind should be considered merely as a guide to the diverse and coherent philosphy of Leibniz) To do justice to Leibniz' philosphy demands a thorough exposition of the various doctrines, an analysis of the way in which they interrelate and illuminate one another. But this cannot be fulfilled in such limited space and time. For this reason some limitation should be acknowledged here in that the paper focuses only on one of the principles, namely, the doctrine of sufficient reason. The principle of sufficient reason has, by many Leibnizians, not only been classified as a collorary of Leibniz' most fundamental logical principle, but also as possessing its own colloraries. The principle to which it is a collorary is the well-known 'Preadicatum inest subjecto'. On it Leibniz has this to say: That is my great principle .... and of which one of the colloraries is the common axiom that nothing happens without it being possible to give a reason why things should have gone thus than otherwise.8 This remark also spells out the principle of sufficient reason in its most general form, namely, that to everything which is or to every event which occurs there is a reason why it should be or occur than otherwise. A less general formulation of this pnnClple IS expressed as "... that in virtue of which we hold that no fact can be found real or existing, no statement true, unless there be a suffICient reason why it should be so not otherwise although these reasons cannot be known by us".9 Leibniz is obviously a product of a philosophical tradition which recognised two kinds of reasons, necessary and sufficient reasons or conditions. That is why his principle demands the search for sufficient reasons, not necessary ones. This distinction seems absent m the Chewa thought system. Indeed there is a word for 'reason' in Chichewa, that is 'chikufwa', but this class of chikufwa does not have any further diVisions as in Western languages. Metaphysically interpreted this principle is simply a claim to the effect that there must be a reason for all the things that are for being what they are than otherWise. And an epistemological interpretation isthat there must be reasons why some propositIOns are true, necessarily or contingently others false. For example there must " be a"sJU t"f" t" I lca lon.or f b"elng what I am at present , and not otherwise. Even for thmgs which are short-lived there must be, according to Leibniz' principle, a reason why they come Into being and cease to be in such a short time. This principle also holds for eternal things examples of which are hard to come by. 58 example, identify somebody, though wrongly, as responsible, as the cause or reason, of some person's death; for every event or thing must have a cause or a reason for being what It IS. This determlnJstlc mode of thought is amply expressed by the following proverb: 'Umanena chatsltsa dzaye kuti njobvu ithyoke mnyanga', translated literally as 'You must identify what caused the 'hard fruit' -dzaye to drop to break the elephant's tusk'. The etymology of this proverb is obviously irrelevant to the purpose It IS meant to serve; that is, that whatever takes place has a cause or a reason; there is a reason, chifukwa, for the way events or things happen the way they do. Similarly, the following proverbs have this same message: 'Utsi siufuka popanda moto', and 'Kaitana kabvula ukachedwa upeza katabvala,' translated respectively as 'Where there is smoke there is fire' and 'What beckons is undressed if you delay you might find It dressed'. All these proverbs promote the view that any state of affairs has a reason whether known or not, and demonstrate the absence of such notIOns as chance and other such anti-determmistic notions one cares to mention. Although 'prediction' and 'explanation' are logically one and the same operation, they are dIfferent methodologically. In prediction the conclusion IS not yet known, time is to tell, but the premises are; in explanation the 'conclusion' is known and the premIses, the explicans, are later provided for. With the sort of determinism the principle of suffiClent reason implies it is possible for this pnnClple to serve both functions of explanation and the prediction as the case may be. But the determmism among the Chewa mainly serves an explanatory function; for they tend to walt for the event to occur before a reason is given; and this ~ explanation. What IS of philosophICal importance is not what is actually identIfied as the reason or cause, but the idea which motivates the people to try to fmd the cause or reason. For example if we look at what was for a long time thought to be the reason of, say, death, we continually see the Chewa committing the false cause fallacy by wrongly identifymg an owl, which happened to have perched on Mr. X's house one evening, as the cause of Mr. X's sudden death. This is the 'indigenous' form of the Chewa concept of determmism; for anybody or anything was, for unknown reasons, Identified as the cause of tragic things as droughts and plagues. In the case of persons, such identification used to be executed through Mwabvi rituals, ceremonies communally administered by drinking a poisonous solution called Mwabvi (poison ordeall In the behef that the cause, believed to be a person, would suffer instant death. WIth the mfluence from other cultures this concept has undergone several changes. InitIally, with the advent of Christianity, God was believed to be the cause of some of the natural disasters whIch had no apparent cause. As a result man ceased to be one of the possible causes responsible for some states of affairs; God was held responsible. But this does not signal the decrease in influence of the concept of determlnJsm among the Chewa. On the contrary, it indicates the breedmg tIme of such a concept; for at the moment it IS re-surfacing m various forms. For example, mstead of holdmg God responsible for some inexphcable phenomena people tend .to r~gard tIme as responsible. This IS testified by such songs as 'Zonse ndl nthawl baSI translated as 'Everything comes to be when ItS time is ripe,.14 In conclusion, the Chewa thought system IS, to the present, still based on determinism . t. one 'Chance' as a concept as more of an explanatory concept than a pre d IC Ive • seems to be faIrly new in the Chewa thought system; for the thought system has developed partly on the axiom that every state of affairs has a reason for bemg what it is than otherwise) 5 59 Footnotes 1. Tempels, P. Bantu Philosophy, Presence AfricaIne, Paris, 1959, p.53 ff. 2. Mbiti, J.S., African Religions and Philosophy, Heinemann, London, 1969, p.IO. 3. Ibid. p.16 ff. Ii. For example, F. Gillies, 'The Bantu Concept of Time' In Religiof"l' Vol.IO, 1980, pp. 16-30. 5. For example, Wiredu K., 'The Akan Concept of Mind', unpublished, 1982 and Danquah J.B., The Akan Doctrine of God, Frank Cass and Col., 19lili. 6. Loemker, L.E., (ed.) Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Philosophical Papers and Letters, D. Reidel-Dordetch, Holland, (2nd edition), 1969, p.li70. 7. Rescher, N., The Philosophy of Leibniz, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1967, pol. 8. Latta R., (ed.) & trans.) Leibnez: The Monadology and other Philosophical Writings, OUP, London, 1898, p. 61n. 9. Ibid., p.62 10. Leomker, L.E. op.cit p.227. II. Ibid., p.li69 12. Ibid., p.233 13. Wiredu Kwasl, 'On Defining African Philosophy' In Into the 80s: Proceedings of the II th Annual Conference of the Canadian Association, J. Ray, P. Shinnie and D. Williams (eds.), Tantalus Research Ltd., Vancouver, 1982. Iii. This is a popular song composed and sun by Namakhwa Brothers Bankd, Blantyre, 1982 and in a nutshell the message IS that Time IS responsible for, or regulates, the way thIngs happen the way they do~Another vehicle through which 'determimsm' is expressed is folktales In which, on the one hand, the hare is always portrayed as the winner and, on the other hand, the hyena, a perpetual loser. 15. I am very grateful to the following people for their comments and Criticisms of the. earlIer version of this paper: Drs. John Kandawlre and John Tyson of the SocIOlogy Department, Dr. Jack Mapanje of the English Department and Mr Hermes Chldammodzl of the Philosophy Department. 60