ABSTRACT

The human person is assailed on all fronts by factors which threaten the very foundation of his identity as a human person. The contemporary ideologies and practices that seek to justify abuse of the human person seem to be gaining ground. All these aim at dissolution and objectification of the human person both as an individual and a community being. In the face of all these, the human person is left with no justified course of action with which to counter the onslaught against his person. This dissertation undertakes a study of the identity of the human person.

Traditionally, scholars have focused on rationality, morality, language, selftranscendence, selfconsciousness and body as the essential elements by virtue of which the human person is the human person. The dissertation identifies and calls attention to these essential aspects which define the human person and holds that any act that undermines any of the essential aspects of the human person tugs at the very foundation of the human person. This point is central to Frantz Fanon whose philosophy exploited the concept of negation manifest in the act of violence as an essential aspect of the human persons identity. In going beyond the traditional elements that identifies the human person to posit negation, Fanon anticipated modern day realities where all of the listed qualities are being assigned to even animals in such a way that the boundary between the human person and some category of animals is being gradually blurred. Thus, even if it is accepted that the lower animals possess reason, morality, language, body, selftranscendence and selfconsciousness, Fanons emphasis on negation attempts to show that the human person is still different as it remains the only being that denies and refuses its own dissolution. Fanon is known for his recommendation of violence as a way of countering any form of persecution. Persecution, for him, is a dehumanizing exercise which makes demands on the persecuted to prove his humanity through negation manifest in the act of violence. The research adopts the method of hermeneutics. Through a systematic interpretation of Fanons work, the research discovers the fact that Fanons recommendation of violence is a consequence of his realization that violence is an instance of negation and that negation is the principle of personhood that makes dissolution or dehumanization of the human person impossible. The study shows that Fanon incorporated negation as one of the essential aspects of the human person and holds that it is a necessary condition for the protection and sustenance of other essential aspects of the human person.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of Study

Researches on the works of Frantz Fanon have yielded enormous literature. A good

portion of this literature focuses on the social, political and psychological

implication of Fanons work. The researches have also focused on interpreting

Fanons work from the purview of anticolonial and postcolonial discourses.1

What this means is that Fanons work has received little or no attention outside

colonial and postcolonial discourses. In recent times, researchers have examined

the relevance of Fanons work in the field of psychiatry. A close survey of works

in the field of psychiatry is also, for the most past, linked to colonialism.

The link which scholars have made between Fanon and colonialism is not out of

place. Fanon was influenced by the colonial circumstances of his time. The French

repressive activities in Martinique and Algeria were actually what energized his

works. However, Fanon cannot be said to be the only writer whose philosophy was

influenced by the realities of his time. Studies reveal that every philosopher is

indeed the product of his time, and his philosophical output is informed by the

circumstances of the time. Only the 5th century Greece could produce Plato and

only the Renaissance could produce Nicollo Machiavelli as the 19th century age of ...Get Complete Material.