PATTERNS OF ONTOLOGICAL CARE, DASEIN’S AND THE TASK OF THINKING IN CHINUA ACHEBE’S COSMOLOGY: A HEIDEGGERIAN PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

This paper takes an existential outlook to investigate the ontological structures of care of human Dasein in Chinua Achebe’s philosophy. This is in understanding of Dasein’s mode of being, as ‘being-in-the-world’ (Being and Time, 23), in the existential modification of care, where care remains a paraphernalia for conflict resolution, rising spate of conflict and global peace in 21st Century. The paper demonstrates that within the realm of Dasein’s care structure lies an internal logic: the logic of Negation, and ‘Otherness’ (Being and Time, 150). The argument is that the three basic care structures of:  Thrownness, Existentiality and Fallenness foreground the possibility of authentic becoming of Dasein.  Thus, Martin Heidegger in raising the question rethinks being in the light of aletheia as the disclosure of truth.   However, Achebe’s philosophical thoughts, especially those found in Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God, experimenting with phenomenological ontology of care revokes Heidegger, to argue that Care is essential in plummeting the rising spate of conflict in our world and in pursuit of conflict resolution and global peace. Therefore, this paper adopts Heidegger’s phenomenological method to investigate indices of care in terms of: Thrownness, Existentiality and Fallenness. The findings of this paper reveal that care is manifest in Achebe’s philosophy and its knowableness is essential in lessening enormous splits, while fostering global peace in the 21^st century.