Philosophy of Fear is indeed an emerging paradigm that is primarily concern with the holistic study of fear: Its positive and its negative natures. However, Michael Eneyo in his book titled: “Philosophy of Fear: A Move to Overcoming Negative Fear”, has justifiably turned his first book on fear into a compendium of facts about the real nature of fear: Its meaning, scope, and how it can be managed for the good of mankind. His elucidating approach to the study of fear and the stylistic coinage of words with ostensive applications of these words is appealing.
The author has brilliantly chaptered his book into nine with explicit topics and sub-topics; making the book an intro to the domain of fear, what he (as author) called ‘Fear Territory’. The chronological patterning of these chapters concomitantly with the flow of connecting ideas makes the book even more attractive and readable. Many wonderful concepts used by the author are broad enough to be branches in fear studies. Such words like: Fear territory, faculty of fear, fear conflict, history of fear, etc, are amongst the areas to be studied by all those who want to know more about fear.
The author addresses himself as ‘unificationist’ or a ‘complementarist’, terms analogous to a person who advocates for the unification and a complementary living among different beings. The author believes that with love and courage in the right directions, negative fear can be overcome. One of his interests in the book is to reconcile the different views of other fearologists regarding the nature of fear and its problem(s) by acknowledging every being and its opposite as having existential value.
As a priest who is vested in philosophy and theology, I have spotted the synergism of philosophy and theology in the author’s usage of the concept love, which he says is the ultimate motivator of human behaviours. I sincerely congratulate Michael Eneyo for this highly intellectual masterpiece and I urge all and sundry to grasp their copies.
Very Rev. Fr. Patrick Edem-Obong Eneyo
Parish priest, St. Peter’s parish Ediba Qua Town CRS
An author, novelist and inspirational preacher,
Chaplain CRS Government House,
Nigeria.
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