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African Philosophy in History, Context, and Contemporary Times

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Method, Substance, and the Future of African Philosophy

Abstract

The history of African philosophy is a rich and long one and the debate that began in the 1970s about its nature and existence is one that puts into perspective the different ways of thinking about this history. In thinking about the history of African philosophy there are a number of questions that need reflecting on and attending to. These questions, I believe, have not been given sufficient attention to by scholars working in African philosophy. This includes the question as to who counts as an African philosopher and the question as to whether one has an obligation to work in African philosophy just because one is an African. I discuss these questions in this chapter as part of my aim of contextualizing African philosophy in terms of its history and as it applies to contemporary times.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    By saying that African philosophy does have a long history that stretches beyond its modern incarnations into antiquity I’m here suggesting that there is what we might call ancient African philosophy, the philosophy that is contemporaneous with traditional African societies.

  2. 2.

    The African that is the subject of rationality that I discuss here are blacks for whom the term “negroes” usually serves as referent, namely, natives of Africa to the south of the Sahara who are dark-skinned.

  3. 3.

    Certainly, there are practical and utilitarian implications and advantages to the claim that Africans are not characteristically human. As Momoh has observed, the denial of African philosophy is the mother of all intellectual denials, which has both theoretical and pragmatic dimensions (Momoh 2000: 2). For the most part, the denial legitimatizes forms of oppression and injustices from slavery to eugenics, colonialism to apartheid, and so on.

  4. 4.

    See Momoh (2000: 12–14).

  5. 5.

    For some of the literature on race, racialized groups, and racism discourse see Hume (1758), Hegel (1956, 1970, 1991), Kant (1831, 1900–66, 1970, 1977, 1978, 2006), Count (1950), Cohen (2006), Kolenda (1972), Eze (1997), White (2013), Bracken (1973, 1978), Popkin (1973, 1980a), Popkin (1977–78, 1980b, 1992), Judy (1991), Immerwahr (1992), Farr (1986), Neugebauer (1990), Garrett (2000, 2004), Bernasconi (1998, 2001, 2002, 2003a, b, 2006), Bernasconi and Lott (2000), Allais (2016), Hill and Boxhill (2001), Doron (2012), Kleingeld (2007), Thompson (2008), Blum (2010, 2015), Uzgalis (1998, 2002), Ward and Lott (2002), Stocking (1987), Rodney (1973), McCarney (2000, 2003), Popper (1950), D’Souza (1995), Bonetto (2006), Levy-Bruhl (1923, 1979), Moellendorf (1992), Goldberg (1990).

  6. 6.

    In this sense the discussions surrounding Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella, Heart of Darkness (Conrad 1999) and whether it is racist or not or how racist it is, constitute one such intellectual discourse. The nub of the novella is the pitching of the idea of a “barbarian” society (Africa ) with a civilized society (Europe). Such description led African literary scholars like Chinua Achebe to denounce it as not a great work of art and as being offensive and totally deplorable and Conrad as a racist and dogmatist who blinkered with xenophobia (Achebe 1978). For further discussions about the racist overtone or lack thereof of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness see Mwikisa (2000), Moore (2004), Murfin (1989), Sherry (1980), Watts (1977, 1983).

  7. 7.

    See Stocking (1987) and Rodney (1973: 95–146).

  8. 8.

    Stocking (1987: 237).

  9. 9.

    There are other elaborators of racism and racist attitudes such as the French Lucien Levy-Bruhl who not only engaged in some colonial caricature of Africa but present Africa and Africans as culturally naïve, developmentally backward, intellectually passive, and rationally maladroit. See Levy-Bruhl (1923, 1979).

  10. 10.

    For more discussion of Hume’s racism and this footnote see the literature in reference to Hume in endnote 5.

  11. 11.

    Hegel (1970: 393a).

  12. 12.

    Ibid.

  13. 13.

    Ibid.

  14. 14.

    Kant (1831: 353).

  15. 15.

    Ibid.

  16. 16.

    Kant (1831: 352–353).

  17. 17.

    Kant (1900–66) quoted in Neugebauer (1990: 264).

  18. 18.

    Ibid.

  19. 19.

    Kant (1977).

  20. 20.

    Let us think of the nth degree as a range of between 0 and ∞ (where ∞ is infinity). Although I’m distinguishing here two senses or meanings of delineating an African philosopher, I should say that a more nuanced discussion will provide more meanings, as I have recently done elsewhere in a yet to be published essay (“Doing African Philosophy: Africans and non-Africans as African Philosophers”), where I distinguished three senses of an African philosopher: the moderate, radical and extreme views.

  21. 21.

    Going forward I will be employing the feminine pronoun her or she to refer to X or the African or the philosopher.

  22. 22.

    I use the symbol ¬ to stand for the logical sign of negation (i.e., not).

  23. 23.

    That the law does not exhaust morality or that it often does not coincide with it is obvious from history, which is replete with discriminatory and immoral laws, apartheid laws, laws that advanced slavery and the slave trade, laws that promoted eugenics and other kinds of atrocities in Nazi Germany.

  24. 24.

    Kagame (1989: 35–40).

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Edwin E. Etieyibo

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    Edwin E. Etieyibo

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Etieyibo, E.E. (2018). African Philosophy in History, Context, and Contemporary Times. 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_2

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