ST.

AUGUSTINE UNIVERSITY OF TANZANIA

FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND

COMMUNICATION

DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY AND ETHICS

COURSE NAME : AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY

COURSE CODE : PH 311
INSTRUCTOR : MR KATTO
GROUP NAME : CRITICAL THINKERS
SUBMISSION DATE : 29 /04/2022
TYPE OF TASK : GROUP ASSIGNMENT
GROUP MEMBERS
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2 MWAMBAMBE YUSUPH EPHRAIM B PHILED 73071
3 MANONGA EMANUELY K B PHILED 77310
4 IDRISS YASIR ABBAS B PHILED 72278
5 WAMBURA JUSTIN JOHN B PHILED 73824
6 MWAKIBINGA KELVIN R B PHILED 76168
7 NDITIJE FELISTER NDILIYE B PHILED 74990
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9 CHACHA GODWIN BARAKA B PHILED 75755
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11 KASUMO FADHILI YOLAM B PHILED 74497
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13 RUKOBE ONESIMO MILASANO B PHILED 78164
14 MICHAEL C NYAMHANGA B PHILED 77252
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16 AUGUSTINO PETER YOSIA BPHILED 63584

QUESTION;

Amo’s critique of René Descartes’ philosophy of mind

AMO’S CRITIQUE OF RENE DESCARTES PHILOSOPHY OF MIND

Authors: Kwasi Wiredu

Definition of Key terms.

Philosophy of Mind

Is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind and its relationship with the
body.1
The central issue of the philosophy of mind is the mind-body problem, and the challenge is to
explain how the supposedly non-material mind can influence the material body and the
material body can influence the non-material body. The popular school of thought that
attempt to resolve this problem are dualism and monism

Introduction

Antony Wilhelm Amo was a German philosopher, originally from Ghana. He was born on
1703 and died in 1759. Amo was a professor at the University of Halle and Jane in Germany.
He was brought to Germany by the Dutch West India company in 1707 as a child slave and
given as a gift to the Dukes August Wilhelm and Ludwig Rudolf Von Wolfenbuttel. He was
treated as a member of the family by their father Anthony Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick-
Wolfanbuttel.2

Among received his doctorate in philosophy in October 1730 then he studied physiology,
medicine, and psychology at the University of Wittenberg. In 1734, he published his doctoral
dissertation "on the absence of sensation in the human mind, a critique on Descartes’s
dualism", the opposition between mind and body which he found problematic. 3 Amo did not
reject the assumption that the mind is a substance but suggests that there was inconsistency
and confusion in Descartes’s terms on how the two are fundamentally different.4

Rene Descartes's Philosophy of Mind

In a theory of mind and body, Descartes portrays that the mind is an immaterial, non-
extended substance that engages in various activities or undergoes various states such as
1
Kim Jaegwan, Emergent Properties, (oxford: oxford university press 1995), 240
2
Kwasi Wiredu, A Companion to African Philosophy, (Oxford: Blackwell publishing Ltd, 2004), 200.
3
Wiredu, A Companion, 200.
4
Kelley Ross, Beginning of Modern Science and Modern Philosophy, retrieved from https://www.fresian.com,
accessed on 22nd April 2022.

1
rational thoughts, imaging, sensation, and willing. In its original and most radical
formulation, the philosophical view is that the mind and body are fundamentally distinct
kinds of substances or natures. For him, mind and body not only differ in meaning but refer
to different kinds of entities. Thus mind-body dualists would oppose any theory that identifies
the mind with the brain, conceived as a physical mechanism.

Amo Criticizes the Philosophy of Mind of René Descartes Through the Following
Arguments:

The Human Mind does not Sense Material Things

According to Amo, the human mind is spirit, by which he means whatever substance is
purely active, immaterial, and always gains understanding through itself and acts from self-
motion and with the intention regarding an end and goal of which it is conscious to itself. 5
The sensation only takes place in material substances but it is never sensed in immaterial
substances from that point of view, the human mind cannot sense material think because it is
an immaterial substance, which inheres in the body as a subject and uses it as an instrument
and as a medium. In respect of immateriality, all spirits are the same. But the human mind is
an incarnate spirit and different in this regard from un-incarnate spirits. The spirits do not
know ideas, for an idea of our mind, by which it represents to itself things perceived before
through the senses and the sensory.6 This is different from Rene Descartes who argued that
the human mind is material and can sense material things.

The Faculty of Sense does not Belong to the Mind

Amo realizes that everything that lives necessarily senses and everything that senses
necessarily live. This means that assuming to live and to sense as inseparable predicates thus
everything that lives exists but not everything that exists lives hence living is no predicate for
existence. Amo tries to explain this content by using the example of spirit and stone
explaining that neither lives but both exist.7 The stone while existing is less likely said to gain
knowledge through sense impingements meaning it does not have the faculty of sense The
mind, being a spirit thing is always in itself understanding and operating spontaneously and
intentionally toward the determinate end and an end it has determined for itself of which it is

5
Sebastian Bemile, Anton Wilhelm Amo, from a Ghanaian Slave-Child to a German Professor and Philosopher, (
Legon: University of Ghana, 2002), 60.
6
Bemile, Anton, 62.
7
Wiredu, A Companion, 205.

2
conscious. The mind does not gain knowledge through sense impingements but through the
understanding consequently. Amo's concluded that sensing cannot be a part of the mind
because it is not divisible but based on the body’s divisibility, the reception of sensation is a
necessary condition of the living and organic body.8

Sensing and the Faculty of Sensation Belong to the Organic Human Body and Living

Amo believes that only the human body which is living and organic receives sensation and
have the faculty of sense. Amo accepts that the mind acts together with the body through
mediation of a mutual union, but he denies that the mind suffers together with the body. As
he provides a view that a living person is necessary both a thinking and a sensing being, the
thinking belongs to the mind but sense belongs to the body and that body does not
substantially interact with the mind as Descartes said, the mind does not just perceive pain
but feels pain because of its union with the body.9 Therefore, Amo denies the Union of mind
and body as Descartes argued instead Amo argues that sensing and faculty of sensation
belong to the organic human body and living.

Conclusion

Amo shows a greater understanding of the mind and body relationship as he provides logical
arguments that disapprove of the views and understanding of René Descartes’ mind and body
relationship. Amo argues that if the human mind is immaterial then it cannot sense the
material objects, hence it is a mistake to say that the faculty of sense belongs to the mind and
this is true. In this sense, Amo shows that Africans have a greater capability of reasoning and
philosophy exists in Africa.

GROUP VIEW

Mind and body are two separate things but they work dependently. Because the mind is in the
kind of form while the body is material and for someone to generate the idea of something
mind and body must work together.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
8
Wiredu, A Companion, 206.
9
Wiredu, A Companion, 205.

3
Bemile Sebastian, Anton Wilhelm Amo, from a Ghanaian Slave-Child to a German Professor
and Philosopher, Legon: University of Ghana, 2002.

Ross Kelley, Beginning of Modern Science and Modern Philosophy, retrieved from
https://www.fresian.com, accessed on 22nd April 2022.
Wiredu Kwasi, A Companion to African Philosophy, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
2004.