Introductory Remarks by Jonathan Egid, Justin Holder, and Lea Cantor
Introductory remarks for the In Search of Zera Yacob Conference, contextualising the aims and intentions of the conference, the texts of the Ḥatäta Zär’a Ya‛ǝqob and the Ḥatäta Walda Heywat themselves and their historical context. These texts have fascinated and puzzled alike on account of their philosophical depth, beauty and apparent historical singularity. They have been called the ‘jewel of Ethiopian literature’, and served to demonstrate, in the words of Claude Sumner, that “modern philosophy, in the sense of a personal rationalistic critical investigation, began in Ethiopia with Zera Yacob at the same time as in England and in France”. Contributors to the conference will explore the text's philosophical arguments and their significance, the historical context of intellectual exchanges in Ethiopia, issues of translation and the forging of philosophical vocabularies, notions of authorship and authenticity in philosophical writing, the legacy of colonialism for Ethiopian studies, and the methodology of a truly global history of philosophy.
Dr Ralph Lee (SOAS): "Reflections on Translating the Hatata into English"
In making a new translation into English of the Hatata I have developed some reflections on the work, its authorship, and its context. In particular I will focus on the writers use of the bible in the works, and what this tells us about the author(s).
Prof. Peter Adamson (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich/King's College London): "The Place of Ethiopian Philosophy in the History of Philosophy"
In this talk Peter Adamson will attempt to set a context for the other contributions in the volume, by discussing the whole phenomenon of philosophy in Ethiopia and, more specifically, how it fits into the broader landscape of philosophy in the late ancient, medieval, and early modern periods. In particular, he compares this tradition to philosophical developments in other Christian communities outside Latin Christendom, e.g. philosophy written in Arabic and Syriac. He will conclude by suggesting that contact with Islamic culture could explain certain features of Zera Yacob's own thought.
Binyam Mekonnen (Addis Ababa University): "Critique and Emancipation in the Religious Sphere: the Däqiqä Ǝsṭifanos as a Foundation of Ethiopian Critical Theory"
The Däqiqä Ǝsṭifanos is one of the medieval Ethiopian texts which predates the Hatatas of Zär’a Ya‛ǝqob and his disciple, containing profound ideas regarding the relationship between the public and private spheres, the critical role of religion as a redemptive form of discourse and a utopian imagination that radically interrogates existing human relations. The text shows the remarkable effort of individuals that revolted against the dogmatic emphasis in the religious thoughts and practices of fifteenth century Ethiopia, and thus, it can be read as a revolutionary document which problematized the way Orthodox Christianity has been perceived in Ethiopia. The paper argues that the study of Ethiopian philosophy needs to be grounded in these precursors of modernity and that there is a need to extend the foundations of Ethiopian philosophy beyond the Zär’a Ya‛ǝqob's Ḥatäta. Though the Däqiqä Ǝsṭifanos are historically associated with the medieval geist of valuing religion as an ideological weapon of defining life with metaphysical abstractions, there is a concerted social critique which is disclosed in a revolutionary and systematic manner. There is a secret philosophical attitude among Abba Ǝsṭifanos and his followers where we can find both historical and ahistorical potentials for refuting the irrationally imposed by authorities of the medieval and modern societies. This paper seeks to explore the historical significance of the Däqiqä Ǝsṭifanos’ movement, the philosophical relevance of the text in redefining both Ethiopian and African critical traditions and searching for its relation with the liberation discourses of religion in the contemporary world.
Mauricio Lapchik Minski (Ben Gurion University of the Negev): "The Mäqśäftä hassätat or Against the Libel of the Ethiopians – A 17th Century Catholic Response [and Request] to the Christological Position of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church"
The Jesuit missionaries’ encounter with Ethiopian Christians at the outset of the 17th century was an unparalleled period of cultural and religious interchange. During this period, European Jesuit missionaries attempted to ‘clean out’ the ‘flawed’ elements in order to proselytize the Catholic faith among the Ethiopian Orthodox believers. Their main goal was to convert those local religious expressions into a uniform faith that subscribes to European Catholicism. With this aim in mind, an extensive set of European Catholic literature was translated into Ge’ez during that period. While some of these works were originally written in the context of the Catholic Reformation, others were authored by Jesuits who lived and worked in Ethiopia. These writings had a common goal: to convince the Ethiopian Orthodox population to accept Catholicism and recognize it as the righteous faith.
However, and with the sole exception of the Antonio Fernandes’ Mäqśäftä hassätat, all these works were deliberately burned and destroyed after 1632. This lucky exception will be an essential source for the development of this paper. The survival of the Mäqśäftä hassätat provides us with a unique opportunity to look into a testimony of the language and nature of the theological dispute between the Latin Catholic and the Ethiopian Orthodox sides during the 17th century. The Mäqśäftä hassätat covers some of the theological and sacramental practices that were at the center of the Catholic Ethiopian debate during the 17th century.
Therefore, and with the aim of getting a better understanding of the interaction between these two Christian traditions and the textual milieu of the 17th century, the proposed paper will aim to describe the nature of this treatise and its main characteristics in an effort to shed light on this proselytizer’s attempts to debunk contemporaneous Ethiopian Christian rituals, sources, and beliefs. Moreover, a better knowledge of this fluctuating but thriving period in Ethiopian history shall help us to understand the environment in which the Ḥatäta Zär’a Ya‛ǝqob might have – or might have not – been written.
Eyasu Berento (Kotebe Metropolitan University): "Zera Yacob and Walda Heywat - 17th C Ethiopia Freethinkers: Exceptionality and Situated-ness of the ‘Hateta’ in the Ethiopian Intellectual Tradition"
This paper will assess the nature of the Ethiopian written intellectual tradition (mainly history of ideas), and its relation to the controversy on the authenticity of the texts, and their philosophical significance for Ethiopian and/or African philosophy studies in particular and history of ideas in human civilization in general. An examination of external sources related to religious, historical documents and the literature from scholarly research, and in-depth content analysis of the original Hatatas (the Ge’ez, Amharic and English versions) reveal both the exceptionality and situated-ness of the Hatatas in the Ethiopian intellectual tradition from which they originated. Informed by the careful analysis of scholars like Claude Sumner, I argue that the Hatatas are authentic and attributable to the Ethiopian Authors of the 17th century by examining new findings from the documents on Ethiopian history of the time, a rather untouched issue so far. While the social and historical context, the cultural bases and educational background of their authors bear the signature of Ethiopian philosophy, as outcomes of freethinker individual’s rational reflection, they entertain elements of exceptionality. Regardless of the exceptionality and some possibility of European elements in the texts, one cannot deprive them of the Ethiopian soil in which they are grounded. But by no means are the Hatatas the sole examples of philosophical treatises, nor do they showcase a peak in the history of ideas in Ethiopia; nevertheless they can be examples that give us a flashlight in search of philosophical wisdom. Apart from their contemporary contribution to ethics, epistemology, metaphysics and social-political philosophy they are pathways to the studies of the hidden voices of the non-Western world.
Prof. Neelam Srivastava (Newcastle University): "Italian Colonialism and Orientalism in Ethiopia"
This talk examines some aspects of Italy’s colonial relationship with Ethiopia in the 20th century, and how it can be brought to bear to the debate around the authorship of the Ḥatäta Zär’a Ya‛ǝqob, with especial reference to Carlo Conti Rossini, the Italian Ethiopianist who wrote an influential refutation of its attribution to the seventeenth-century Ethiopian thinker Zera Yacoub. The history of the text’s reception by Conti Rossini, a prominent 20th century Orientalist and Ethiopianist, can be traced back to the origins of the Italian colonial enterprise in the Horn of Africa and its discursive justifications for conquest that rested on the appropriation of knowledge about Ethiopia and surrounding region. Conti Rossini’s argument that the text was a forgery by Giusto D’Urbino, the 19th century Italian Capuchin monk who purportedly “discovered” the text, is underpinned by a European civilizational worldview which he projected onto his understanding of Ethiopian literature and philosophy. Conti Rossini can be defined as a “scholar-functionary”, having worked as a civil servant in the new Italian colony of Eritrea from 1899 to 1903. His understanding of Ethiopian society and culture become more ideologically racist after the advent of fascism and the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. His refutation of the authenticity of the Hatata is prior to this period, however, and drew on his immense knowledge of Ethiopia and its languages. But it is an orientalist interpretation of societal and cultural evolution that posits a “stagist” view of history onto the Ethiopian past. He thus considered it to be improbable for the Hatata to be a work of Ethiopian philosophy because it did not fit his teleological, Eurocentric view of intellectual progress. This position by itself does not disprove his argument about the text’s authorship, of course, but it does suggest that his interpretation is profoundly influenced by the intellectual paradigms he uncritically applies to his reading.
Dr Anaïs Wion (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique): "The Place of the Hatata in African Philosophy since the 1960s"
As initially planned in the series of articles I dedicated to the Hatata (HZY and HWH) in 2013, I would like to examine the roles that these texts have played in the birth of the philosophical discipline, as an academic milieu and an intellectual trend, in Africa and then in the diasporas and black communities worldwide. From the early enthusiasm largely supported by Claude Sumner, who co-founded the philosophy department at AAU, to the current debates, how had those texts been received by African and Western scholars? What does this tell us about the possible tensions between the need to legitimise an 'African thought' and the Western quasi-hegemony on philosophical legitimacy until the second half of the 20th c.? Are the dimensions of the hatata(s) in Ethiopia (and to whom in Ethiopia?) and elsewhere in Africa similar? Could a comparison with the situation of Asian philosophical traditions, rooted in a textual tradition, be useful for understanding the crystallisation that took place around the Hatata? Isn't this call for writing to legitimise African cultures (as was the case with the Charter of the Mandé) a response to a Western model from which it would then be necessary to break away in order to really move towards a decolonisation of minds, or at the very least, which should be recognised as such in order to better understand the effects of intellectual globalisation and the possible mechanisms of domination? All these questions give the directions towards which I would like to orient my analysis in anticipation of the May 2022 conference.
Dr Anke Graness (University of Hildesheim), "Of Forgeries and Misinterpretations"
This paper discusses the authenticity debate on the Ḥatäta of Zera Yacob and Walda Heywat from the perspective of a historian of philosophy. From this perspective, the case of the Ḥatäta and the discourses that developed around the manuscripts raise a number of interesting questions and problems. The most important point is undoubtedly that we are witnessing here a process of canonization. To a large extent, philosophical work relies on inherited philosophical-historical narratives, which are deepened and legitimized by each individual work within the framework of these narratives. The broad European discourse on ancient Greek philosophy is a striking illustration of such canon forming processes. Based on oral traditions and third-party sources (often written down centuries later), as well as a few fragmentary snippets, a comprehensive philosophical discourse has developed that would endure even if it could one day be demonstrated that neither Thales nor Socrates were historical persons.
The paper argues that the debates about the Ḥatäta provide a vivid example of a process of forming a narrative of the history of philosophy in Africa. On a meta-level and in a comparative manner – particularly with regard of origin, transmission, and the various translations of one of the founding texts of European history of philosophy, Diogenes Laërtius’ Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, the paper discusses the question of what it means when the authenticity of a foundational text is suddenly called into question. Moreover, the paper addresses the particular explosiveness of such debates in the context of reconstructing philosophical traditions in formerly colonized and still marginalized regions of the world. Furthermore, ethical questions of scientific practices are raised in view of the asymmetries in the academy today and the task of decolonizing the history of philosophy.
Prof. Justin E. H. Smith (University of Paris 7 - Denis Diderot): "Assessing the Evidence for Zera Yacob's Authenticity from the Point of View of the History of Philosophy"
There are several ways by which to approach the question of the authenticity of Zera Yacub's work. One is philological, by careful attention to the linguistic hints in the manuscripts that the work is not by a native writer of Ge'ez, or that otherwise suggest a later invention or conscious fabrication. Another is so to speak psychobiographical, by close attention to the character of Giusto d'Urbino, particularly as revealed in his correspondence from Ethiopia with the Parisian manuscript collector Antoine d'Abbadie. In a series of articles, Anaïs Wion has compellingly adopted both of these approaches. Less developed in her work is the approach informed by the history of philosophy, to wit: are there Latinate philosophical concepts in Zera Yacub's work, the circulation of which in 17th-century Ethiopia we might have reason to doubt? If there are, three possibilities present themselves. One is that, in spite of our surprise in finding them there, networks of circulation, likely headed up by Portuguese Jesuits, can be discovered that account for their presence. A second possibility is that the appearance of these terms is in part a consequence of lexical choices made by the first translators of the work and adopted in later scholarship. A comparative study of the two most significant translations of the Hatata, B. A. Turaev's Russian translation of 1904 and Enno Littmann's Latin translation of the same year, shows that both authors interpolate terminology that almost certainly comes from their own philosophical educations based on distinctly 19th-century curricula (e.g., Turaev's use of свет разума [“light of reason”] for a Ge'ez term that could be rendered otherwise with far less distinctly Cartesian resonance). A third possibility is that we can account for the presence of these concepts neither as signs of the inclusion of Ethiopia within the broader early modern connected history of Latinate philosophical ideas, nor as artifacts of the translational and scholarly traditions in which Zera Yacub was taken up, but rather as evidence that the work was in fact produced in the 19th century by a learned and deceptive Italian.
Prof. John Marenbon (University of Cambridge): "Does it Matter Who Wrote it? Zera Yacob, Forgery and Pseudonymity in the History of Philosophy"
Philosophers often talk as if it does not make much difference who wrote a piece of philosophy, when, and where, but only whether the arguments it contains are sound. Historians of philosophy should always treat that attitude with suspicion. Philosophical texts about which questions of pseudonymity arise (are they really by the person who claims to have written them?) help to show why, because how they are to be understood is bound up essentially with the question about their authorship and, if they are in fact pseudonymous, what is the purpose behind the apparent deception? The case of the texts attributed to Zera Yacob is a striking example of where the date and identity of the author matter centrally, whether the texts we have are in fact original, heavily adapted or forged. My talk will try to provide some context. I shall begin by looking at philosophical texts that have been, deliberately or otherwise, attributed to authors who did not write them, such as pseudo-Aristotelian texts, the pseudo-Dionysian corpus, Augustinus Hibernicus, Aethicus Ister, the Epistola Trajani (in John of Salisbury’s Policraticus), the Liber XXIV Philosophorum, and Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. I shall then focus on one particular comparative example: the famous correspondence of the twelfth-century philosopher, Peter Abelard, and his wife-turned-nun, Heloise (and another set of letters that, more recently, has been claimed as an earlier exchange between the two when they were lovers). Like the Ḥatatā, there has been and remains much debate about the authenticity of these texts, and the parallels and divergences between the two discussions throw light on both.
Dr Teshome Abera (Addis Ababa Science and Technology University): "Zara Yacob's Hatata: Its Historical and Social Reality"
The seventeenth century philosophical work of Zara Yacob, the Hatata, is the result of both internal and external issues that led to controversies. Zara Yacob as a philosopher exercised the use of logic over the immediate environment and developed an all rounded philosophy arising from his own life and the life of the society he was living in. The contribution of Sumner in introducing the works of Zara Yacob is immense. His huge publications are permanent evidence of his contribution to Ethiopian philosophy. It is he who for the first time translated the works of Zara Yacob into English. Zara Yacob’s Hatata reveals that there are certainly distinctive traditions of philosophical reflections in Ethiopia. There has been doubt about the existence of philosophy in Africa when there is vital evidence that Africa had its own philosophy even in ancient times - the works of Zara Yacob disproved the doubt. Ethiopia as a country is embosomed in Africa, and is a cradle of mankind - in a similar vein there is evidence that suggests that Africa is also the cradle of philosophy and human civilization. There was, and still is, a strong debate regarding the authorship of Hatata; the author of Hatata is no doubt Zara Yacob. His philosophy is original to Ethiopia, the ancient country in the African continent and the ancient country which is the cradle of human beings. The philosophy of Zara Yacob is rational in the sense that all his analysis regarding the existence of God, truth and his ethics which include vital principles such as the Golden rule, mercy, work, and some of the forbidden practices by man such as killing, stealing, lying, and adultery are all analysed by the philosopher in his work Hatata.
Dr Fasil Merawi (Addis Ababa University): "Examining the Hatetas as a Foundation of Ethiopian Philosophy"
In this talk Fasil Merawi argues that Ethiopian philosophy is grounded in an illusory foundation that takes the Hatatas as a foundation of philosophical criticism. It is an intellectual exercise that is born from a Eurocentric discourse that is involved in the search for an Other that can think like the European man. The picture of Ethiopian philosophy as being founded on the Hatatas is part of a larger effort to introduce an Ethiopian philosophical tradition that is made up of written philosophy, adapted philosophical wisdom, and societal wisdom and proverbs. Such an understanding of Ethiopian philosophy has not only failed to establish the authorship and philosophical worth of the Hatatas, but it also does not explain the epistemic context within which such an exercise originated in the first place. In this paper, it will be argued that Ethiopian philosophy is still in the making and that the idea of an Ethiopian philosophy that is founded on the Hatatas exhibits three basic limitations. First of all, it has emerged in a Eurocentric discourse and its real purpose is to identify a form of subjectivity that participates in the European form of individual rationality. Secondly, the proponents of the Hatatas did not prove the philosophical nature of the texts and instead equated philosophy in the broadest sense with a strict philosophical culture that is founded on metaphysical, epistemic, and axiological considerations. Thirdly, the defenders of the Hatatas have failed to prove that the texts are authored by Ethiopians and not by Giusto D’urbino. As a result of this, most commentators on the Hatatas have accepted the validity of the Hatatas without properly explaining the striking similarities that are found between the personalities of Zera Yacob and Giusto D’urbino. The paper thus argues that Ethiopian philosophy is still searching for its identity and that it is not grounded in the Hatatas.
Henry Straughan (University of Oxford) & Michael O'Connor (University of Oxford): "Grace and Reason in the Hatata Zera Yacob"
In this talk, Henry Straughan and Michael O'Connor seek to illuminate the philosophical method of the Ḥatäta Zär’a Ya‛ǝqob. In particular, they trace the interaction between reason and grace, and the role of discursive argumentation versus immediate intuition. They draw out Yacob’s method by explicating and examining his discussion of the epistemic significance of disagreement and his distrust of testimony; his argument for the existence of God; his theodical response to the problem of evil; and his practical ethics. In doing so, they suggest that Yacob’s central method of argument is abductive, resting on something like a principle of sufficient reason. They also suggest that for him reason cannot operate without grace–that reason is, in a sense, a movement of grace. They further outline how Yacob’s application of the principle of sufficient reason provides him with ethical guidance. They conclude by considering the connection of the Treatise’s form to its content, and suggest that the biographical material is not merely of historical interest but rather is of central importance. The text’s fragmentary, allusive compression means that we must be careful with our conclusions, but they track Yacob’s trains of thought and movements of style as best we can, re-tracing the jagged path between grace and reason in his footsteps.
Brooh Asmare (Mekelle University): "The Authenticity of the Hatata from the Perspective of the Cultural History of Ethiopia"
Since the publication of Conti Rossini’s notes on Tekle Haymanot, an Ethiopian Catholic priest and Rossini’s testimony that made the Hatatas are of Giusto d’Urbino, in 1916, the controversy of authorship over the Hatatas remained hot debate among the Ethiopian as well as the Western scholars. These scholars present their argument from different perspectives, such as Testimony (Rossini 1916, 1920), Calendar (Getachew Haile 2014), Philology (Alemayehu Moges 1969) and Colonial Thesis (Daniel Kibret 2018 and Fasil Merawi 2020). The findings of their research, however, went to diametrically opposite directions. While the perspectives of Testimony and Colonial Thesis favor Giusto d’Urbino as the authentic author of the Hatatas, the argument from Calendar and Philology went to favor Zara Yaqob. These perspectives, however, missed to consider the importance of the cultural history of Ethiopia in providing hints for the ongoing debate on the problem of authorship of the Hatatas. This approach has a crucial importance to understand whether the central issue of the Hatatas has a cultural foundation in Ethiopia or not. The paper finds out that the central issue upon which both Zara Yaqob and Wolde Heywot repeatedly and fiercely criticized and were obsessively concerned is Monasticism (Asceticism), the center of religious, social, cultural and developmental problems of the Ethiopian society, according to them. The paper will show how this central issue of the Hatatas is articulated as existential predicament from the cultural history of the country. Moreover, identifying this central issue of the Hatatas will help us trace the genealogy of the problem. The result of this cultural genealogy makes the Hatatas the product of the dialectical relationship between the inquisitive mind of Zara Yaqob and the established ascetic culture of the country, which, in turn, addresses the problem of authorship.
Introductory remarks for the In Search of Zera Yacob Conference, contextualising the aims and intentions of the conference, the texts of the Ḥatäta Zär’a Ya‛ǝqob and the Ḥatäta Walda Heywat themselves and their historical context. These texts have fascinated and puzzled alike on account of their philosophical depth, beauty and apparent historical singularity. They have been called the ‘jewel of Ethiopian literature’, and served to demonstrate, in the words of Claude Sumner, that “modern philosophy, in the sense of a personal rationalistic critical investigation, began in Ethiopia with Zera Yacob at the same time as in England and in France”. Contributors to the conference will explore the text's philosophical arguments and their significance, the historical context of intellectual exchanges in Ethiopia, issues of translation and the forging of philosophical vocabularies, notions of authorship and authenticity in philosophical writing, the legacy of colonialism for Ethiopian studies, and the methodology of a truly global history of philosophy.
Dr Ralph Lee (SOAS): "Reflections on Translating the Hatata into English"
In making a new translation into English of the Hatata I have developed some reflections on the work, its authorship, and its context. In particular I will focus on the writers use of the bible in the works, and what this tells us about the author(s).
Prof. Peter Adamson (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich/King's College London): "The Place of Ethiopian Philosophy in the History of Philosophy"
In this talk Peter Adamson will attempt to set a context for the other contributions in the volume, by discussing the whole phenomenon of philosophy in Ethiopia and, more specifically, how it fits into the broader landscape of philosophy in the late ancient, medieval, and early modern periods. In particular, he compares this tradition to philosophical developments in other Christian communities outside Latin Christendom, e.g. philosophy written in Arabic and Syriac. He will conclude by suggesting that contact with Islamic culture could explain certain features of Zera Yacob's own thought.
Binyam Mekonnen (Addis Ababa University): "Critique and Emancipation in the Religious Sphere: the Däqiqä Ǝsṭifanos as a Foundation of Ethiopian Critical Theory"
The Däqiqä Ǝsṭifanos is one of the medieval Ethiopian texts which predates the Hatatas of Zär’a Ya‛ǝqob and his disciple, containing profound ideas regarding the relationship between the public and private spheres, the critical role of religion as a redemptive form of discourse and a utopian imagination that radically interrogates existing human relations. The text shows the remarkable effort of individuals that revolted against the dogmatic emphasis in the religious thoughts and practices of fifteenth century Ethiopia, and thus, it can be read as a revolutionary document which problematized the way Orthodox Christianity has been perceived in Ethiopia. The paper argues that the study of Ethiopian philosophy needs to be grounded in these precursors of modernity and that there is a need to extend the foundations of Ethiopian philosophy beyond the Zär’a Ya‛ǝqob's Ḥatäta. Though the Däqiqä Ǝsṭifanos are historically associated with the medieval geist of valuing religion as an ideological weapon of defining life with metaphysical abstractions, there is a concerted social critique which is disclosed in a revolutionary and systematic manner. There is a secret philosophical attitude among Abba Ǝsṭifanos and his followers where we can find both historical and ahistorical potentials for refuting the irrationally imposed by authorities of the medieval and modern societies. This paper seeks to explore the historical significance of the Däqiqä Ǝsṭifanos’ movement, the philosophical relevance of the text in redefining both Ethiopian and African critical traditions and searching for its relation with the liberation discourses of religion in the contemporary world.
Mauricio Lapchik Minski (Ben Gurion University of the Negev): "The Mäqśäftä hassätat or Against the Libel of the Ethiopians – A 17th Century Catholic Response [and Request] to the Christological Position of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church"
The Jesuit missionaries’ encounter with Ethiopian Christians at the outset of the 17th century was an unparalleled period of cultural and religious interchange. During this period, European Jesuit missionaries attempted to ‘clean out’ the ‘flawed’ elements in order to proselytize the Catholic faith among the Ethiopian Orthodox believers. Their main goal was to convert those local religious expressions into a uniform faith that subscribes to European Catholicism. With this aim in mind, an extensive set of European Catholic literature was translated into Ge’ez during that period. While some of these works were originally written in the context of the Catholic Reformation, others were authored by Jesuits who lived and worked in Ethiopia. These writings had a common goal: to convince the Ethiopian Orthodox population to accept Catholicism and recognize it as the righteous faith.
However, and with the sole exception of the Antonio Fernandes’ Mäqśäftä hassätat, all these works were deliberately burned and destroyed after 1632. This lucky exception will be an essential source for the development of this paper. The survival of the Mäqśäftä hassätat provides us with a unique opportunity to look into a testimony of the language and nature of the theological dispute between the Latin Catholic and the Ethiopian Orthodox sides during the 17th century. The Mäqśäftä hassätat covers some of the theological and sacramental practices that were at the center of the Catholic Ethiopian debate during the 17th century.
Therefore, and with the aim of getting a better understanding of the interaction between these two Christian traditions and the textual milieu of the 17th century, the proposed paper will aim to describe the nature of this treatise and its main characteristics in an effort to shed light on this proselytizer’s attempts to debunk contemporaneous Ethiopian Christian rituals, sources, and beliefs. Moreover, a better knowledge of this fluctuating but thriving period in Ethiopian history shall help us to understand the environment in which the Ḥatäta Zär’a Ya‛ǝqob might have – or might have not – been written.
Eyasu Berento (Kotebe Metropolitan University): "Zera Yacob and Walda Heywat - 17th C Ethiopia Freethinkers: Exceptionality and Situated-ness of the ‘Hateta’ in the Ethiopian Intellectual Tradition"
This paper will assess the nature of the Ethiopian written intellectual tradition (mainly history of ideas), and its relation to the controversy on the authenticity of the texts, and their philosophical significance for Ethiopian and/or African philosophy studies in particular and history of ideas in human civilization in general. An examination of external sources related to religious, historical documents and the literature from scholarly research, and in-depth content analysis of the original Hatatas (the Ge’ez, Amharic and English versions) reveal both the exceptionality and situated-ness of the Hatatas in the Ethiopian intellectual tradition from which they originated. Informed by the careful analysis of scholars like Claude Sumner, I argue that the Hatatas are authentic and attributable to the Ethiopian Authors of the 17th century by examining new findings from the documents on Ethiopian history of the time, a rather untouched issue so far. While the social and historical context, the cultural bases and educational background of their authors bear the signature of Ethiopian philosophy, as outcomes of freethinker individual’s rational reflection, they entertain elements of exceptionality. Regardless of the exceptionality and some possibility of European elements in the texts, one cannot deprive them of the Ethiopian soil in which they are grounded. But by no means are the Hatatas the sole examples of philosophical treatises, nor do they showcase a peak in the history of ideas in Ethiopia; nevertheless they can be examples that give us a flashlight in search of philosophical wisdom. Apart from their contemporary contribution to ethics, epistemology, metaphysics and social-political philosophy they are pathways to the studies of the hidden voices of the non-Western world.
Prof. Neelam Srivastava (Newcastle University): "Italian Colonialism and Orientalism in Ethiopia"
This talk examines some aspects of Italy’s colonial relationship with Ethiopia in the 20th century, and how it can be brought to bear to the debate around the authorship of the Ḥatäta Zär’a Ya‛ǝqob, with especial reference to Carlo Conti Rossini, the Italian Ethiopianist who wrote an influential refutation of its attribution to the seventeenth-century Ethiopian thinker Zera Yacoub. The history of the text’s reception by Conti Rossini, a prominent 20th century Orientalist and Ethiopianist, can be traced back to the origins of the Italian colonial enterprise in the Horn of Africa and its discursive justifications for conquest that rested on the appropriation of knowledge about Ethiopia and surrounding region. Conti Rossini’s argument that the text was a forgery by Giusto D’Urbino, the 19th century Italian Capuchin monk who purportedly “discovered” the text, is underpinned by a European civilizational worldview which he projected onto his understanding of Ethiopian literature and philosophy. Conti Rossini can be defined as a “scholar-functionary”, having worked as a civil servant in the new Italian colony of Eritrea from 1899 to 1903. His understanding of Ethiopian society and culture become more ideologically racist after the advent of fascism and the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. His refutation of the authenticity of the Hatata is prior to this period, however, and drew on his immense knowledge of Ethiopia and its languages. But it is an orientalist interpretation of societal and cultural evolution that posits a “stagist” view of history onto the Ethiopian past. He thus considered it to be improbable for the Hatata to be a work of Ethiopian philosophy because it did not fit his teleological, Eurocentric view of intellectual progress. This position by itself does not disprove his argument about the text’s authorship, of course, but it does suggest that his interpretation is profoundly influenced by the intellectual paradigms he uncritically applies to his reading.
Dr Anaïs Wion (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique): "The Place of the Hatata in African Philosophy since the 1960s"
As initially planned in the series of articles I dedicated to the Hatata (HZY and HWH) in 2013, I would like to examine the roles that these texts have played in the birth of the philosophical discipline, as an academic milieu and an intellectual trend, in Africa and then in the diasporas and black communities worldwide. From the early enthusiasm largely supported by Claude Sumner, who co-founded the philosophy department at AAU, to the current debates, how had those texts been received by African and Western scholars? What does this tell us about the possible tensions between the need to legitimise an 'African thought' and the Western quasi-hegemony on philosophical legitimacy until the second half of the 20th c.? Are the dimensions of the hatata(s) in Ethiopia (and to whom in Ethiopia?) and elsewhere in Africa similar? Could a comparison with the situation of Asian philosophical traditions, rooted in a textual tradition, be useful for understanding the crystallisation that took place around the Hatata? Isn't this call for writing to legitimise African cultures (as was the case with the Charter of the Mandé) a response to a Western model from which it would then be necessary to break away in order to really move towards a decolonisation of minds, or at the very least, which should be recognised as such in order to better understand the effects of intellectual globalisation and the possible mechanisms of domination? All these questions give the directions towards which I would like to orient my analysis in anticipation of the May 2022 conference.
Dr Anke Graness (University of Hildesheim), "Of Forgeries and Misinterpretations"
This paper discusses the authenticity debate on the Ḥatäta of Zera Yacob and Walda Heywat from the perspective of a historian of philosophy. From this perspective, the case of the Ḥatäta and the discourses that developed around the manuscripts raise a number of interesting questions and problems. The most important point is undoubtedly that we are witnessing here a process of canonization. To a large extent, philosophical work relies on inherited philosophical-historical narratives, which are deepened and legitimized by each individual work within the framework of these narratives. The broad European discourse on ancient Greek philosophy is a striking illustration of such canon forming processes. Based on oral traditions and third-party sources (often written down centuries later), as well as a few fragmentary snippets, a comprehensive philosophical discourse has developed that would endure even if it could one day be demonstrated that neither Thales nor Socrates were historical persons.
The paper argues that the debates about the Ḥatäta provide a vivid example of a process of forming a narrative of the history of philosophy in Africa. On a meta-level and in a comparative manner – particularly with regard of origin, transmission, and the various translations of one of the founding texts of European history of philosophy, Diogenes Laërtius’ Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, the paper discusses the question of what it means when the authenticity of a foundational text is suddenly called into question. Moreover, the paper addresses the particular explosiveness of such debates in the context of reconstructing philosophical traditions in formerly colonized and still marginalized regions of the world. Furthermore, ethical questions of scientific practices are raised in view of the asymmetries in the academy today and the task of decolonizing the history of philosophy.
Prof. Justin E. H. Smith (University of Paris 7 - Denis Diderot): "Assessing the Evidence for Zera Yacob's Authenticity from the Point of View of the History of Philosophy"
There are several ways by which to approach the question of the authenticity of Zera Yacub's work. One is philological, by careful attention to the linguistic hints in the manuscripts that the work is not by a native writer of Ge'ez, or that otherwise suggest a later invention or conscious fabrication. Another is so to speak psychobiographical, by close attention to the character of Giusto d'Urbino, particularly as revealed in his correspondence from Ethiopia with the Parisian manuscript collector Antoine d'Abbadie. In a series of articles, Anaïs Wion has compellingly adopted both of these approaches. Less developed in her work is the approach informed by the history of philosophy, to wit: are there Latinate philosophical concepts in Zera Yacub's work, the circulation of which in 17th-century Ethiopia we might have reason to doubt? If there are, three possibilities present themselves. One is that, in spite of our surprise in finding them there, networks of circulation, likely headed up by Portuguese Jesuits, can be discovered that account for their presence. A second possibility is that the appearance of these terms is in part a consequence of lexical choices made by the first translators of the work and adopted in later scholarship. A comparative study of the two most significant translations of the Hatata, B. A. Turaev's Russian translation of 1904 and Enno Littmann's Latin translation of the same year, shows that both authors interpolate terminology that almost certainly comes from their own philosophical educations based on distinctly 19th-century curricula (e.g., Turaev's use of свет разума [“light of reason”] for a Ge'ez term that could be rendered otherwise with far less distinctly Cartesian resonance). A third possibility is that we can account for the presence of these concepts neither as signs of the inclusion of Ethiopia within the broader early modern connected history of Latinate philosophical ideas, nor as artifacts of the translational and scholarly traditions in which Zera Yacub was taken up, but rather as evidence that the work was in fact produced in the 19th century by a learned and deceptive Italian.
Prof. John Marenbon (University of Cambridge): "Does it Matter Who Wrote it? Zera Yacob, Forgery and Pseudonymity in the History of Philosophy"
Philosophers often talk as if it does not make much difference who wrote a piece of philosophy, when, and where, but only whether the arguments it contains are sound. Historians of philosophy should always treat that attitude with suspicion. Philosophical texts about which questions of pseudonymity arise (are they really by the person who claims to have written them?) help to show why, because how they are to be understood is bound up essentially with the question about their authorship and, if they are in fact pseudonymous, what is the purpose behind the apparent deception? The case of the texts attributed to Zera Yacob is a striking example of where the date and identity of the author matter centrally, whether the texts we have are in fact original, heavily adapted or forged. My talk will try to provide some context. I shall begin by looking at philosophical texts that have been, deliberately or otherwise, attributed to authors who did not write them, such as pseudo-Aristotelian texts, the pseudo-Dionysian corpus, Augustinus Hibernicus, Aethicus Ister, the Epistola Trajani (in John of Salisbury’s Policraticus), the Liber XXIV Philosophorum, and Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. I shall then focus on one particular comparative example: the famous correspondence of the twelfth-century philosopher, Peter Abelard, and his wife-turned-nun, Heloise (and another set of letters that, more recently, has been claimed as an earlier exchange between the two when they were lovers). Like the Ḥatatā, there has been and remains much debate about the authenticity of these texts, and the parallels and divergences between the two discussions throw light on both.
Dr Teshome Abera (Addis Ababa Science and Technology University): "Zara Yacob's Hatata: Its Historical and Social Reality"
The seventeenth century philosophical work of Zara Yacob, the Hatata, is the result of both internal and external issues that led to controversies. Zara Yacob as a philosopher exercised the use of logic over the immediate environment and developed an all rounded philosophy arising from his own life and the life of the society he was living in. The contribution of Sumner in introducing the works of Zara Yacob is immense. His huge publications are permanent evidence of his contribution to Ethiopian philosophy. It is he who for the first time translated the works of Zara Yacob into English. Zara Yacob’s Hatata reveals that there are certainly distinctive traditions of philosophical reflections in Ethiopia. There has been doubt about the existence of philosophy in Africa when there is vital evidence that Africa had its own philosophy even in ancient times - the works of Zara Yacob disproved the doubt. Ethiopia as a country is embosomed in Africa, and is a cradle of mankind - in a similar vein there is evidence that suggests that Africa is also the cradle of philosophy and human civilization. There was, and still is, a strong debate regarding the authorship of Hatata; the author of Hatata is no doubt Zara Yacob. His philosophy is original to Ethiopia, the ancient country in the African continent and the ancient country which is the cradle of human beings. The philosophy of Zara Yacob is rational in the sense that all his analysis regarding the existence of God, truth and his ethics which include vital principles such as the Golden rule, mercy, work, and some of the forbidden practices by man such as killing, stealing, lying, and adultery are all analysed by the philosopher in his work Hatata.
Dr Fasil Merawi (Addis Ababa University): "Examining the Hatetas as a Foundation of Ethiopian Philosophy"
In this talk Fasil Merawi argues that Ethiopian philosophy is grounded in an illusory foundation that takes the Hatatas as a foundation of philosophical criticism. It is an intellectual exercise that is born from a Eurocentric discourse that is involved in the search for an Other that can think like the European man. The picture of Ethiopian philosophy as being founded on the Hatatas is part of a larger effort to introduce an Ethiopian philosophical tradition that is made up of written philosophy, adapted philosophical wisdom, and societal wisdom and proverbs. Such an understanding of Ethiopian philosophy has not only failed to establish the authorship and philosophical worth of the Hatatas, but it also does not explain the epistemic context within which such an exercise originated in the first place. In this paper, it will be argued that Ethiopian philosophy is still in the making and that the idea of an Ethiopian philosophy that is founded on the Hatatas exhibits three basic limitations. First of all, it has emerged in a Eurocentric discourse and its real purpose is to identify a form of subjectivity that participates in the European form of individual rationality. Secondly, the proponents of the Hatatas did not prove the philosophical nature of the texts and instead equated philosophy in the broadest sense with a strict philosophical culture that is founded on metaphysical, epistemic, and axiological considerations. Thirdly, the defenders of the Hatatas have failed to prove that the texts are authored by Ethiopians and not by Giusto D’urbino. As a result of this, most commentators on the Hatatas have accepted the validity of the Hatatas without properly explaining the striking similarities that are found between the personalities of Zera Yacob and Giusto D’urbino. The paper thus argues that Ethiopian philosophy is still searching for its identity and that it is not grounded in the Hatatas.
Henry Straughan (University of Oxford) & Michael O'Connor (University of Oxford): "Grace and Reason in the Hatata Zera Yacob"
In this talk, Henry Straughan and Michael O'Connor seek to illuminate the philosophical method of the Ḥatäta Zär’a Ya‛ǝqob. In particular, they trace the interaction between reason and grace, and the role of discursive argumentation versus immediate intuition. They draw out Yacob’s method by explicating and examining his discussion of the epistemic significance of disagreement and his distrust of testimony; his argument for the existence of God; his theodical response to the problem of evil; and his practical ethics. In doing so, they suggest that Yacob’s central method of argument is abductive, resting on something like a principle of sufficient reason. They also suggest that for him reason cannot operate without grace–that reason is, in a sense, a movement of grace. They further outline how Yacob’s application of the principle of sufficient reason provides him with ethical guidance. They conclude by considering the connection of the Treatise’s form to its content, and suggest that the biographical material is not merely of historical interest but rather is of central importance. The text’s fragmentary, allusive compression means that we must be careful with our conclusions, but they track Yacob’s trains of thought and movements of style as best we can, re-tracing the jagged path between grace and reason in his footsteps.
Brooh Asmare (Mekelle University): "The Authenticity of the Hatata from the Perspective of the Cultural History of Ethiopia"
Since the publication of Conti Rossini’s notes on Tekle Haymanot, an Ethiopian Catholic priest and Rossini’s testimony that made the Hatatas are of Giusto d’Urbino, in 1916, the controversy of authorship over the Hatatas remained hot debate among the Ethiopian as well as the Western scholars. These scholars present their argument from different perspectives, such as Testimony (Rossini 1916, 1920), Calendar (Getachew Haile 2014), Philology (Alemayehu Moges 1969) and Colonial Thesis (Daniel Kibret 2018 and Fasil Merawi 2020). The findings of their research, however, went to diametrically opposite directions. While the perspectives of Testimony and Colonial Thesis favor Giusto d’Urbino as the authentic author of the Hatatas, the argument from Calendar and Philology went to favor Zara Yaqob. These perspectives, however, missed to consider the importance of the cultural history of Ethiopia in providing hints for the ongoing debate on the problem of authorship of the Hatatas. This approach has a crucial importance to understand whether the central issue of the Hatatas has a cultural foundation in Ethiopia or not. The paper finds out that the central issue upon which both Zara Yaqob and Wolde Heywot repeatedly and fiercely criticized and were obsessively concerned is Monasticism (Asceticism), the center of religious, social, cultural and developmental problems of the Ethiopian society, according to them. The paper will show how this central issue of the Hatatas is articulated as existential predicament from the cultural history of the country. Moreover, identifying this central issue of the Hatatas will help us trace the genealogy of the problem. The result of this cultural genealogy makes the Hatatas the product of the dialectical relationship between the inquisitive mind of Zara Yaqob and the established ascetic culture of the country, which, in turn, addresses the problem of authorship.