Ibanga Ikpe

University of Botswana
  •  1
    Towards a Thinking Military: Philosophical Practice and Botswana Military Training
    Philosophical Practice: Journal of the American Philosophical Practitioners Association 6 (1): 722-733. 2011.
    Obedience is traditionally the supreme virtue of the military and, for many people, a soldier is an unthinking automaton that has been conditioned to respond to commands and operate in strictly hierar- chical environments. But as soldiers progress in rank, they are required to distinguish between legiti- mate and illegitimate commands as well as to reason concerning their commands and other military and non-military engagements. This paper is an overview of the practical steps adopted to foster …Read more
  •  1
    E-learning Platforms and Humanities Education: An African case study
    International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing 5 (1): 83-101. 2011.
    The advent of e-learning has been a welcomed development in African universities, especially in countries where the demand for university education far outstrips capacity. This form of instruction not only has helped in reducing the problem of managing and testing large classes, but it also has helped lecturers in providing valuable assistance to students who would otherwise not have such access. The limitations of the e-learning platform coupled with a distorted student-teacher ratio has raised…Read more
  • Reason and the Military Decision Making Process
    Journal of Cognition and Neuroethics 2 (1): 143-160. 2014.
    The archetypal view of the military is that of a hierarchical organization whose members are conditioned to respond to command without question. Its election of obedience as “the supreme military virtue” portrays it as subscribing to the highest degree of group conformity possible within any human organization. This view is not helped by the fact that the military adopts a decision making calculus referred to as the Military Decision Making Process (also referred to as The Estim…Read more
  •  5
    Prolegomena to a Critical Thinking Therapy
    Journal of Humanities Therapy 5 (1): 71-106. 2014.
    Thinking may be a universal feature of human beings but correct, strategic and directed thinking is something that eludes alarge section of humanity. Yet it is this kind of directed thinking that is needed in organizations with strategic goals and objectives. It is also the same kind of thinking that is required by individuals who suffer the emotional and physical stress that arises from living in our contemporary world. Corporate organisations and individuals sometimes acknowledge the importanc…Read more
  •  137
    Philosophical Dialogue and Military Decision Making
    HASER: Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada 6 (1): 29-51. 2015.
    Abstract: The military establishment plays an important role in society, not only because it is pivotal in securing the state from external and internal threats but also because the conduct of soldiers affect the fortunes of the state both fiscally and morally. Early in their career, soldiers are trained to be irreproachable in their loyalty, unquestioning in their obedience and unthinking in their pursuit of military objective. This, however changes as they move up into command positions and ar…Read more
  •  6
    Traditional Symbols in Ibibio Social Relations
    Anthropos: International Review of Anthropology and Linguistics 110 (2): 533-542. 2015.
  •  6
    Can Philosophy perform a useful function in contemporary society? This question is usually answered in the affirmative by philosophy teachers who point to the development of the mind as its most important tool, claiming thereby that this prepares students for entry into any profession. Over the years this answer has become less persuasive as students and academic administrators become more and more interested in courses which either train students for entry into a profession or add value to such…Read more
  •  9
    Morality and Martyrdom
    Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya 5 (1): 69-89. 2013.
    Religious martyrdom has grabbed centre stage in recent times. This has been due mainly to the activities of Muslim jihadists and other disaffected religious zealots who choose ‘martyrdom’ as a form of protest and a means of inflicting injury on their perceived enemies. Much work has been done on the Islamic fundamentalists, who epitomize contemporary martyrdom. Indeed, for the untutored, religious martyrdom appears to be limited to this group. In contrast to such an outlook, this paper seeks to …Read more
  •  9
    This article is an overview of Rene Girard's mimetic theory and its application to and implications for conflict in Africa. It accepts Girard's basic idea that imitation is a feature of all individuals but disagrees with his view that the Christian gospel can adequately eliminate mimetic rivalry and thereby lead to a non-sacrificial culture. Drawing from the concept of culture and the African experience of Christianity, it argues that the Christian influence in Africa has only produced a hybrid …Read more
  •  19
    Mediating Conflicts, Promoting Peace and Preserving Relationships
    Journal for Peace and Justice Studies 26 (2): 42-64. 2016.
    Why do Conflicts occur? Why do they recur? Why do conflicts escalate and why do they become protracted? These questions have been variously posed by scholars of conflict and there is a rich body of theory that answers them. Although these questions arise for those who intervene in African conflicts and the different conflict theories have been brought to bear trying to contain them, conflicts still occur, escalate, recur and sometimes become protracted. This paper is an attempt to understand why…Read more
  •  11
    Science, morality and method in environmental discourse
    Human Affairs 28 (1): 71-87. 2018.
    The environmental crisis that faces the world today is sometimes seen to be the result of making wrong turns on the path to human development. This is especially so in terms of the technologies humans adopt, the way such technologies are powered, and the morality that is at the foundation of societies that develop and utilize such technologies. Humanity has come to the realization that the technologies that were ushered in with a fanfare and that may still enjoy considerable patronage sometimes …Read more
  •  23
    The Artist in a Positivist Academy
    Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory 65 (154). 2018.
    One of the consequences of hyper-positivism on contemporary scholarship has been an increase in measuring academic excellence by instrumental rather than intrinsic value. Increasingly, university disciplines are required to demonstrate their relevance in the marketplace, resulting in a tendency by some arts and humanities scholars to deemphasise research and concentrate on creative practice. This paper attempts to bridge the gap between these two responses. It argues that concentrating on creati…Read more
  •  24
    The Decline of the Humanities and the Decline of Society
    Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory 62 (142). 2015.
  •  6
    Between the Just and the Expedient
    Journal for Peace and Justice Studies 25 (2): 56-81. 2015.
    This paper is about African conflicts and their tendency to persist despite attempts to resolve them. Such persistence has in the past been attributed to various causes but it is the contention of this paper that African conflicts fester due to poor governance and thereafter persist and recur because the issues that led to the conflict are not adequately addressed in the course of resolving the conflict. To justify this position, the paper attempts a classification and analysis of what it consid…Read more
  •  22
    Of Obedience and Disobedience
    Professional Ethics, a Multidisciplinary Journal 10 (2-3): 123-142. 2002.