Abstract
This chapter investigates issues of meaning and rationality departing from a study on riddles. It argues that riddles reveal some basic concepts of the Chewa people’s logic. The structure of riddles and their use show that the Chichewa language speakers engage in critical thinking. The analysis of riddles further shows that through their use, individuals engage in problem solving.
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For example responding to the question what is the origin of death, Chichewa language suggests the following answer: in the beginning God wanted to find out from human beings whether they want to live forever or died at some point. A Chameleon took the message that humans have said that they want to live. On the contrary, lizard was not pleased with this decision, and decided to run to God with a different message. He reported that human beings want to die. Starting from that time, human beings die.
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Corresponding page number (9) http://www.uqac.ca/jmt-sociologue/pdf
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Corresponding page number (14) http://www.uqac.ca/jmt-sociologue/pdf
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The author is referring to the notion of logical equivalence as contained reflecting the idea of equivalence.
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Interest on proverbs conditioned by the definition of philosophy, where it is defined as philos (‘love’) and sophia (wisdom).
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For example Hume questioned the possibility of speculation among the Negroes. The only black person that was excellent was as good as a parrot.
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See also (Levi-Strauss 1966).
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Analogy recognizes that in riddle metaphor, “Myumba yanga ndi ya mzati umodzi (My house has one holding pole)”, there are two different domains with similarities and differences (riddle domain and response above as shown above).
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An area that can explain further issues of rationality in African traditional context are puzzles. See appendix
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This logic builds on metonyms. A metonym is considered as a word, concept, expression, etc., which is substituted by another. For example, in an expression ‘Capital Hill say that it will investigate the case’, the term ‘Capital Hill’ is used to represent the government of Malawi. It has substituted ‘The Government of Malawi’.
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Kayange, G.M. (2018). Riddles, Meaning and Rationality/Logic. In: Meaning and Truth in African Philosophy. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 135. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01962-4_5
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