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Contemporary African Philosophy: the Search for a Method

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Lansana Keita
Lansana Keita*
Affiliation:
University of Ibadan, Nigeria; Howard University, Washington D.C.
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The purpose of this paper is to present a commentary on the current state of contemporary African philosophy and to offer some criticisms and recommendations. The question concerning African philosophy has been debated for some years now and one has witnessed a number of interesting works on this topic.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 33 , Issue 130 , April 1985 , pp. 105 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1 H. Odera Oruka, "Sagacity in African Philosophy," International Philosophical Quarterly, Winter 1983, pp. 383-393.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

4 Paulin Hountondji, African Philosophy, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1983.

5 Leopold Senghor, "Preface," in Alassane Ndaw, La Pensée Africaine, Dakar, Nouvelles Editions Africaines, 1983, p. 27.

6 Leopold Senghor, Liberté 3, Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1977, p. 148.

7 Ibid, p. 68.

8 Aime Césaire, Cahier d'un retour au pays natal, Paris, Présence Africaine, 1956, pp. 71-72.

9 Frantz Fanon, Wretched of the Earth, New York, Grove Press Inc., 1963, pp. 311-316.

10 C.A. Diop, Nations nègres et cultures, Paris, Présence Africaine, 1954.

11 Houtondji op. cit., pp. 160-164.

12 Dominique Zahan, The Religion, Spirituality and Thought of Tradi tional Africa, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1970, p. 3.

13 L. Apostel, African Philosophy, Myth or Reality, Belgium, Ed. Story-Scientia, 1981.

14 Oruka, op. cit., p. 386.

15 ibid, p. 392.

16 Ibid.

17 Hountondji, op. cit., p. 168.

18 P.O. Bodunrin, "The Question of African Philosophy," Philosophy, 56, 1981, p. 173.

19 Hountondji, op. cit., p. 178.

20 Oruka, op. cit., p. 384.

21 The belief systems of the majority of pre-colonial African societies were formulated for societies that were predominantly agricultural, i.e. societies that were essentially two steps away from industrial society. Thus their initial formulations must have raised questions about previous belief systems.

22 Oruka, op. cit., p. 384.

23 Ibid., p. 391.

24 The case discussed here is analogous to the progress made in the field of medicine as practiced in contemporary Africa: modem techniques are used, but traditional methods are also examined for their effectiveness or non-effectiveness from the standpoint of modem science.

25 Bodunrin, op. cit., p. 165.

26 Maurice Crosland, The Emergence of Science in Western Europe, New York, Science History Publications, 1976, p. 9. Consider the following observations: "The concept of a ‘French genius' distinct from an ‘English genius' was presented by the distinguished French historian of science Pierre Duhem, who argued the case for national styles in physics. Duhem observed British physicists continually having recourse to mechanical models and wondered whether these had been inspired by the mills and factories of Victorian Britain. Duhem writes ‘We thought we were entering the tranquil and neatly-ordered abode of reason but we found ourselves in a factory.' If the model was not normally a crude one of cogwheels and pulleys, it might be marbles or billiard balls to represent atoms or pieces of elastic to represent lines of force. However, the French or German physicist (and Duhem put them together) would see a field of force in terms of a mathematical equation. The basic difference of approach was most strikingly illustrated in physics."

27 Hountondji, op. cit., p. 53.

28 Available references for the philosophical thought of the ancient Egyptians are as follows: Walter Scott, Hermetica, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1924; G.R.S. Mead, Thrice Greatest Hermes, London, John Watkins, 1949; A.J. Festugière and A.D. Nock, eds., Corpus Hermeticum, 4 vols., Paris, 1945-54. Students of literate medi eval African thought could consider the following: Sadi, Tarikh es Soudan; Kati, el Fettach; Ahmed Baba, Tekmilet ed dibadje.

29 Kwasi Wiredu, Philosophy and an African Culture, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1980, p. 46.

30 Hountondji, op. cit., p. 170 et seq.

31 Recall that the Greeks had no notion of Greece being a part of Europe. Furthermore, a sober anthropological analysis of the Greek physical type and Greek culture both ancient and modem would favor describing Greek civilization as not really European. An African visitor to Greece would immediately recognize that Greek cuisine, music, racial type and general culture are not what one would expect of Europeans. If Greek culture (ancient and modem) is not truly European then what is it? Middle Eastern? Asiatic? Afro-Asiatic? If any of these, then what should one make of the received doctrine that Western thought began with the Greeks?

32 The idea expressed here has been vigorously defended by Marcien Towa in Essai sur la problématique philosophique dans l'Afrique actuelle, Yaoundé, Editions Clé, 1971. Towa argues that it is only by assimilating and acquiring the scientific techniques of the European world that African society could make material progress, a necessity for the gaining of true independence.

33 The mode of implementation of this new program is subject to discussion. But the idea is a useful one. One might consider as a working model the practice in Western medical schools of requiring that further research of two years beyond training in medical school be engaged in before competence in psychiatry be achieved. Consider, too, the practice in some European countries of offering more than one type of most advanced degree. French universities, for example, offer three kinds of doctorates each requiring different amounts of research.

34 It would seem to me that any language that contains terms for conjunctions, negation and disjunction, equality and inequality, and prepositions denoting spatial positions already contains the essentials for consistent logical thought. Soussou is one of the urban languages of West Africa and a cursory examination of its basic structure reveals a language equipped to formulate consistent propositions and to pose questions and answers, a necessary requirement for scientific inquiry. For example, the term "mufera" suggests an explanatory "why," while "nba" introduces an explanation. Furthermore, "xa … nba" corresponds to "if… then," or "either…or," constructions that are crucial for scientific and logical explanation. The answer to the Levy-Bruhls is not to demonstrate that traditional African thought contains cosmological concepts but to show that the spoken language in question is founded on a set of syntactical rules that can support complex empirical analysis. The appropriate methodology should proceed along the lines of the above.

35 Oruka, op. cit., p. 391.