Yoruba Intellectual Tradition on the Individual and Social Order: A Critical Insight

Abstract

Discourse on social order considers fundamental roles that individuals versus social institutions play in engendering/endangering the existence and sustenance of social order. The fundamental roles of the individuals versus the social institutions in engendering/endangering the existence and sustenance of social order have led to dispute among social scientists/philosophers leading to different schools of thought categorized into two broad and distinct theories of individualism and holism. The former posits that social order is a function of outcomes of the actions of self- determining individuals, while the latter argues that society as a functioning whole determines the existence and sustenance of social order. Given the Yoruba intellectual tradition, this paper examines and demonstrates the fundamental roles of individuals versus social institutions in engendering/endangering the existence and sustenance of social order. Essentially, the paper argues the case that the roles of the individual(s), as compared to that of social institutions, are fundamentally indispensable in engendering/endangering the existence and sustenance of social order.

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