Orí as Potentiality: On the Second Category of Ìwà Metaphysics

This chapter unfolds the second category of Ìwà metaphysics. It is the fundamental or central concept that is given attention beyond its normal usage among scholars versed in the discourse on destiny in Yorùbá metaphysics. Whereas in the normal parlance, orí metaphysically signifies destiny, pre-ordained life-course, I agree with this usage but move beyond it to let it serve as potentiality. I owe the analysis of orí offered by Moses Makinde as the inspiration for extending the concept beyond the idea of destiny to accommodate the notion of potentiality. With this, I am able to account for the nature of agency that all shades of entities described in the previous chapter engage in. As an important category of Ìwà metaphysics, I take orí as an indicator of the latent potentiality that is primordial to all entities from the simplest to the complex and those entities that not open to human perception or cognition.