Rethinking the Role of the Hatata of Zera Yaecob and the Hatata of Welda Heywat in Ethiopian Philosophy

A Critique of the Cartesian, Indigenous and Modernising Conceptions

Abstract

The attempt to situate the Hatata as a foundation of Ethiopian philosophy is part and parcel of a politicised debate that is more informed by nationalism and decolonial efforts rather than a quest to find the existence of a philosophical form of criticism in the Ethiopian soil. A critical examination of the different attempts that were made so far to position the treatises as a foundation of Ethiopian philosophy shows that there are three interrelated schools that see the Hatata of Zera Yaecob and the Hatata of Welda Heywat as the cornerstone of Ethiopian philosophy. These schools are represented by those who see the texts as hosting a Cartesian form of subjectivity, the ones who situate the texts as a foundation of an indigenous Ethiopian philosophy, and others who see the authors of the texts as laying the foundations for an Ethiopian modernization. Through a critical engagement with these three defences of the treatises, the paper argues that such three articulations of the texts failed to properly examine the colonial world of knowledge production and religious reformation that animated the texts in the first place. With such recognition, a new foundation of Ethiopian philosophy that is founded on the nation’s complex historical and cultural heritage needs to be pursued.