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The Pitfalls of Being Different

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Paulin J. Hountondji
Paulin J. Hountondji*
Affiliation:
Université nationale du Bénin
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It is with these virile words of the Martinique poet Aimé Сésaire, an expression of assurance regained, testimony to a self-confidence once stolen but then reconquered, that I would like to open my remarks.*

Africa was present at the last great international philosophical meeting two years ago in Montreal. I would like here to illustrate the meaning behind this presence and to explain the reasons why we wanted to be present, in order to avoid facile misunderstandings which could have weighty consequences.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 33 , Issue 131 , May 1985 , pp. 46 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1 Aimé Césaire, Cahier d'un retour au pays natal, new ed., Présence africaine, Paris, 1971, pp. 139-41.

2 Frantz Fanon, Les Damnés de la terre, Maspero, Paris, 1961, p. 241.

3 R.P. Placide Tempels, O.F.M., La Philosophie bantoue, translated from the Dutch by Antoine Rubbens, preface by E. Possoz, Lovania, Elisabethville, 1945.

4 These were four articles published in Dutch in Kongo-Overzee, a review published in Antwerp, in 1935, 1936 and 1938. These articles were translated by A.J. Smet in Placide Tempels, Plaidoyer pour la philosophie banioue et quelques autres textes. Cours et documents 6, Catholic theology faculty of Kinshasa, 1982, mimeograph, 100 pp.

5 These articles are: "La philosophie de la rébellion" (8/31/44), "Justice sociale" (2/15/45), "L'administration des indigènes" (8/17/45), "A propos des mariages indigènes" (9/1/45), "Pour la protection légale du mariage de nos indigènes" (11/3/45). They were reprinted in whole or in part in Antoine Rubbens, ed. Dettes de guerre, Elisabethville, 1945.

6 See details in A.J. Smet, "Le père Placide Tempels et son œuvre publiée", in Revue africaine de théologie, t. 1, 1977, n. 1, pp. 77-128.

7 Bantoe-filosofie (Oorspronkelije tekst), Kongo-Overzee Bibliotheek, 4, De Sik kel, Antwerp, 1946.

8 On all these points see Paulin J. Hountondji, Sur la "philosophie africaine", Maspero, Paris, 1977, reprinted by Clé, Yaoundé. See by the same author "Que peut la philosophie?", in Présence africaine, no. 119, 3e trimestre, 1981, pp. 47-71; "Occidentalisme, élitisme: réponse à deux critiques", in Recherche, pédagogie et culture, no. 56, Jan.-March 1982, pp. 58-67; "Langues africaines et philosophie: l'hypothèse relativiste", in Les études philosophiques, No 4/1982; and various articles in Diogenes, Présence africaine, Travail et société, Unesco-Informations, etc.

9 Alexis Kagame, La philosophie bantu-rwandaise de l'être, Académie royale des sciences coloniales, Bruxelles, 1956.

10 Idem, Laphilosophie bantu comparée, Editions Présence africaine, Paris, 1976.

11 Kwame Nkrumah, Consciencism, Heinemann, London, 1964.

12 Léopold S. Senghor, "Ce que l'homme noir apporte" (1939), reprinted in Liberté 1: négritude et humanisme, Seuil, Paris, 1964.