AN IGWEBUIKE AND TRANSMODERN PERSPECTIVE OF MODERNITY

Abstract

The historical period that is termed modern and its intellectual and cultural products have engaged the attention of scholars from both theoretical and practical points of view. Particularly, with the rise of theoretical and scholarly discussions on development, the idea of modernity/modernization has become pungent. The position in this regard has been that to develop is to modernize. Modernization as presented in this developmental framework refers to the way the West (specifically Europe and America) have moved from being rural agrarian communities to urban industrial cities. Consequently, development entails modernization and to modernize requires following the steps of the West. Within this framework and even from a general historical context, the modern is exclusively defined from the Euro-American point of view. Numerous reactions have trailed this understanding of modernity and these reactions have demanded a modification or a redefinition of this understanding. This paper is aimed at exploring this redefinition from the standpoint of transmodernity and Igwebuike philosophy. Specifically, the paper argues that: (i) the current understanding of modernity is exclusively Euro-American; (ii) following transmodern trajectory, there are valid, genuine and significant nonEuropean contributions to the making of modernity; (iii) using the Igwebuike framework, modernity should be seen as complementary rather than exclusive as modern African is already exemplifying. The conclusion is that any understanding of modernity that ignores the observations in the foregoing risks not only being provincial, but exclusive. The philosophical method of analysis which entails exposition and critique is what the essay adopts.