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Some Observations about Philosophy, Postmodernism and Art in Contemporary African Studies*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Barry Hallen
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Extract

Within African studies, one of the few generalizations that may be hazarded—without qualification—is that no area has been more deliberately, consistently, indeed agonizingly self-critical than African philosophy. “Western” academic philosophy is supposedly well-known for identifying, evaluating and defending the presuppositions upon which it grounds itself. With respect to African philosophy, however, a clear consensus has yet to be reached—after more than twenty years of intensive discussion—about what its presuppositions should be, much less whether they are plausible. The wrangling has been incessant and, at some points, counter-productive.

What is meant by “presuppositions”? Let us take, as one example, the cultural data-base in Africa from which such philosophy might be expected to arise, or with reference to which it might orient itself. There is still serious controversy within the ranks of African philosophers over the intellectual status, and therefore philosophical potential, of that amorphous corpus of oral literature: divination verses, lyrics, myths, maxims, tales, proverbs—indeed virtually everything in traditional African culture that can be classified as verbalized knowledge or belief—that came to be characterized as African Traditional Thought.

From the epistemological standpoint of philosophy in Africa, if ever there has been an unknown known, its perimeters are defined by this corpus. Initially most Anglophone African philosophers were predisposed (by their own overseas university training) to treat things that had already been labelled proverbs and myths—literature generally-as un-reasoned, non-critical raw data better fit for the maws of religious studies or cultural anthropology than philosophy. A supposedly “scientific” ideology of modernization dictated that knowledge that was in any sense non-critical and therefore unreasoned had to be rigorously expunged from academia before anything that would receive credibility as African philosophy could emerge (Bodunrin 1981).

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , April 1995 , pp. 69 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1995

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Footnotes

*

This paper is a formalized version of final comments made at a symposium entitled “Secrecy, Knowledge, and Art: Approaches to Epistemology in Africa,” at The Museum for African Art, New York, February 13-14, 1993. The author gratefully acknowledges: the encouragement and interest of Polly Nooter (Senior Curator), Susan Vogel (Executive Director) and Carol Thompson (Curator); the resolution of Keith Nicklin, Keeper of Ethnography, Horniman Museum, London; the comments and patience of the referees and editor of this journal.

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