The 117th ASC Seminar will feature a talk by Dr. Husein Inusah（The Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN)） on "Can AI Be a Person? An Akan Ontological Scheme". The seminar will be held in a hybrid format, allowing participation via Zoom as well.
Please be sure to register in advance. Students and graduate students interested in African philosophy are warmly invited to join us.
We look forward to welcoming you.
Title: "Can AI Be a Person? An Akan Ontological Scheme"
Abstract:
The question of whether artificial intelligence (AI) can be a person remains a subject of vigorous debate among scholars. Many have argued that AI can be a person if it acts, communicates, and solves problems just as a human does; to treat it differently, some contend, is mere biological bias. Furthermore, it has been claimed that AI's capacity to pass complex cognitive tests suggests that internal cognitive tests can no longer serve as a yardstick for measuring who counts as a person.
Others argue that AI exhibits autonomy and action that mirror a kind of self-directed agency once thought to be exhibited by humans alone. Connected to this last claim is the further contention that AI, though non-sentient, may nonetheless possess some degree of moral capacity. In this presentation, I argue that these arguments fail to capture what makes something essentially a person. Functional, cognitive, and agential considerations do not constitute person; there are other core ontological conditions that must be satisfied.
Accordingly, this presentation examines these ontological elements from the standpoint of the Akan conceptual scheme.
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence (AI); Personhood; Ontology; Akan Philosophy; Agency
◆Speaker: Dr. Husein Inusah (Professor and Head of Classics and Philosophy Department, University Cape Coast, Ghana)
Profile: Dr Husein Inusah is a Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Classics and Philosophy at the University Cape Coast (UCC), Cape Coast, Ghana, where he also serves as Head of Department. He earned his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Ghana in 2014, following an MPhil (2011) and a BA in Philosophy and English (2007) from the University of Cape Coast. In 2015/2016, he received the University of Ghana Vice-Chancellor's Award for the Most Outstanding PhD Dissertation in the Humanities category. He was also a Doctoral Completion Fellow at the University of Rochester, New York, where he studied under the renowned American epistemologist, Prof Richard Feldman.
◆Date：Tuesday, October 13th, 2026 / 5:40p.m.～7:10p.m.（JST） 8:40a.m.～10:10a.m.（GMT)
◆Venue：Hybrid
・Onsite Room102（1F Research and lecture bldg.,TUFS Fuchu Campus）＆ Online（ZoomMeeting）
・Access：https://www.tufs.ac.jp/abouttufs/contactus/access.html
◆Language：English
◆Addmission fee：FREE
Please pre-register in advence from here. Or Use QR Code.
The Zoom link will be sent after you pre-registerd.
Registration deadline: Noon October13th, 2026 (Tue)
◆Jointly organized by African Studies Center - TUFS and Kanto Branch of Japan Association for African Studies