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The Journey of African Philosophy

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Method, Substance, and the Future of African Philosophy

Abstract

As an academic discipline, African philosophy has had to overcome obstacles that were not of its own making. Indigenous African cultures had been said to provide insignificant evidence of abstract thought arising from systematic critical thinking. Generations of African philosophers were therefore compelled to challenge this generalization as racially biased and empirically false. The Ghanaian philosopher, Kwasi Wiredu, was in the forefront of this movement. He has since produced a body of work that demonstrates that the analytic approach to philosophy is perfectly compatible with African cultural and linguistic content. Within academic philosophy as an international enterprise there are still issues to be resolved between Western and non-Western traditions of thought.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Rorty (1991: 203).

  2. 2.

    “We shall use the singular, ‘philosophy,’ to refer to the philosophical understanding of African peoples concerning different issues of life ” (Mbiti 1970: 2). A bit circular, perhaps?

  3. 3.

    Radin (1927) and Winch (1964).

  4. 4.

    Abraham (1962: 11).

  5. 5.

    Mudimbe (1988: 38–42); passages conflated. Mudimbe expresses similar criticisms much earlier in Mudimbe (1977, 1978), but these sources are difficult to access.

  6. 6.

    Hountondji (2002: 86).

  7. 7.

    “I believe that there is a type of African culture, and that this type is essentialist in inspiration. . . . African society is in type rationalistic” (Abraham 1962: 42); “The birth of the debate on African philosophy. . . . At the center of this debate is the concept of reason” (Masolo 1994: 1); “For Mudimbe , then, the most important questions in the debate on African philosophy are those about the epistemological groundings which define African rationality” (Masolo 1994: 182).

  8. 8.

    Hal len (2009: 30).

  9. 9.

    Abr aham (1962).

  10. 10.

    Bodu nrin (1981).

  11. 11.

    Anta Diop (1974).

  12. 12.

    Hount ondji (1976/1983).

  13. 13.

    Kaga me (1956).

  14. 14.

    M biti (1970).

  15. 15.

    Mudi mbe (1977, 1978, 1988).

  16. 16.

    Oru ka (1972).

  17. 17.

    Senghor (1971).

  18. 18.

    Hal len and Sodipo (1986/1997).

  19. 19.

    Kwa si Wiredu 1972.

  20. 20.

    Hount ondji (1976/1983: 34).

  21. 21.

    Wilson (1970) and Hollis and Lukes (1982).

  22. 22.

    Ikuenobe (1988).

  23. 23.

    W iredu (1980b: 31).

  24. 24.

    W iredu (1980a).

  25. 25.

    Wire du (1983a).

  26. 26.

    W iredu (1983b).

  27. 27.

    W iredu (1996b).

  28. 28.

    W iredu (1995a).

  29. 29.

    Wire du (1995b).

  30. 30.

    Wir edu (1996a).

  31. 31.

    Wir edu (1980b: 26–36).

  32. 32.

    Ibid.: 35.

  33. 33.

    Ibid.: 32–33; Emphasis added.

  34. 34.

    Wiredu points out that we are still left with the issue of what it means for something to be “so” (Wiredu 1996a, b: 110–111).

  35. 35.

    Wiredu points out that an added complication to going from English to Akan is that the Akan language does not have a phrase “corresponding” to equivalence. Akan can express something like it in a more roundabout way by saying that two equivalent statements have the same destination or, more literally, “they both reach the same place” (Ibid.: 109).

  36. 36.

    Ibid.: 108.

  37. 37.

    Ibid.: 110; Emphasis added.

  38. 38.

    Wiredu identifies himself as a rationalistic humanist (personal conversation). Also see Abraham (1962: 15–16).

  39. 39.

    Hallen and Sodipo (1986/1997).

  40. 40.

    Wiredu (1996b: 110).

  41. 41.

    Ibid.

  42. 42.

    Ibid.

  43. 43.

    Mas olo (1994, 2010).

  44. 44.

    Ram ose (2003).

  45. 45.

    Ma solo (2010).

  46. 46.

    Taiwo (2009).

  47. 47.

    Osha (2000).

  48. 48.

    Garfield and Edelglass (2011).

  49. 49.

    Chim akonam (2015).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy & Religion, Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Barry Hallen

  2. Southern Crossroads Academic, Sarasota, FL, USA

    Barry Hallen

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  1. Barry Hallen
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  1. University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Edwin E. Etieyibo

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Hallen, B. (2018). The Journey of African Philosophy. In: Etieyibo, E. (eds) Method, Substance, and the Future of African Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70226-1_3

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