Friday, March 30 2018, 3:30pm Peabody Hall, Room 115 Alloy S. Ihuah Benue State University, Nigeria *This lecture is not part of the Kleiner series. One of the main problems facing humanity today is the crisis of relationship resulting from Aristotle's Substance/Accident bifurcation of Being. This bivalent metaphysics has been treated as orthodoxy in the history of thought that draws a line between what is of essence and what is not, (Aristotle, Metaphysics A. 2, 6, 8). This paper argues that, this thesis has wider implication not only in metaphysics but also in all the sciences of human relations because the same line runs through race, faith, gender and ethnicity; and also between the "self" and the "other"; the most dangerous problems of humanity today. Through the mechanism of Ibuanyidanda Ontology, an emerging theme in African Philosophy, the paper deconstructs this substance/accident dualism and unveils an authentic understanding of the relationship between the "self" and the "other" thereby correcting the Aristotelian “error of thought” which has divided humanity into warring factions of an inferiority/superiority tussle between the “self’ and the “other.” The paper arguesthat philosophical inquiry could take many approaches, from bivalent to multivalent logical systems, but a multivalent system where the idea of straightjacket thinking, discrimination and lopsidedness will be whittled down is preferable. Reality is not dichotomized, bifurcated, or polarized. Every reality serves as a missing link in a complementary relationship of all there is and, it is here argued, as a viable alternative for reconstructing being from the perspective of its interconnectedness and interrelatedness of beings.
