Abstract
This chapter proposes a version of epistemic contextualism, called inferentialist contextualism, as a promising research program within African epistemology. My suggestion should be seen against the background of the earlier debate between the seemingly incompatible positions of universalism and particularism. Whilst universalism has been charged with not allowing for diversity, of forcing African culture into the Procrustean bed of Western thought, particularism seems to block cross-cultural dialogue. A compromise is therefore called for. I argue that inferentialist contextualism can fill this need. One promising feature is that whilst traditional epistemology always places the burden of justification on the subject of knowledge, inferentialist contextualism distinguishes between three different contexts: except for the traditional one, a second where the burden of proof is shared by both the subject and any fellow who might challenge the belief and a third context where the burden lies solely on the inquiring fellow. The notion of default entitlement depicts beliefs falling within this third context and will be elaborated in some detail here. I argue that inferential contextualism permits greater contextual variety than traditional epistemology without collapsing into relativism.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Indeed it is characteristic of those who pose as antiuniversalists to use the term universalism as if it meant pseudouniversalism, and the fact is that their complaint is not with universalism at all. What they truly object to–and who would not?–is Eurocentric hegemony posing as universalism. (Appiah 1992, 58, italics in original)
- 3.
Bello (2004, 264). See also Wiredu (1996, 26–7). In another good passage Wiredu writes
[I]ronically, anti-relativism is liable, through a certain adulteration of logic with psychology, to be transformed into some form of authoritarian absolutism, which turns off many intellectuals who have their hearts in the right place. (ibid., 69)
Note that I do not mean to suggest that the impossibility of intercultural exchange was an intended consequence of particularist traditionalism.
- 4.
Decolonalization is one important aspect of Wiredu’s program within African philosophy. The other aspect consists in “domestication”. This program is thus another example of steering such a middle course between the poles of universalism and particularism (Wiredu 1996). See also Bello (2004, 267) and Falola (2003, 12): “When Africans reject their categorization of inferiority, a cultural project of self-affirmation is implied”. Note here Wiredu’s dictum “language can only incline, not necessitate” Wirdeu (1980, 35) and Wiredu (1996, 101 and 118); also quoted by Bello (2004, 267).
It is also a striking feature of the traditionalist view how it appears to agree with the characterization of African cognitive constitution by the colonizing Western powers as “precritical, prereflective, protorational, prescientific, emotive, expressive, poetic and so forth” Hallen (2009, 27–8), but then attempts to replace the negative evaluation of these characteristics with a positive one. As Hallen remarks “it more or less confirmed and reinforced the reason/emotion dichotomy between the West and Africa” (Hallen 2004, 296).
- 5.
- 6.
Despite being a former student of Richard Rorty, Williams’ version of contextualism crucially differs from Rorty’s version in several aspects to Williams’ credit. Incidentally, the previous attempts to apply contextualism within African epistemology, which I know of, spring from Rorty. Whilst Udefi (2009) is in favor, Hallen (2006) is highly critical of Rorty’s view as applied to the African context.
- 7.
- 8.
See Janvid (2017). The dialectic pertaining to the three different kinds of contexts presented below in the main text spells out what the defeasible character of justification more precisely amounts to in those different contexts.
- 9.
See also, for instance, (Williams 2001) especially Ch. 13 and 14. The qualifier “inferential” is often added to distinguish his version from more common “attributor” versions of contextualism. See, for instance, Pritchard (2016). Although both versions were launched to solve the two problems mentioned in section “Introduction”, their contextualist solutions differ. In fact, Pritchard (2016) criticizes inferentialist contextualism for being too relativist.
- 10.
- 11.
Williams (2001, 160), as part of what Williams calls the methodological necessities that constrain justification and epistemic dialectic.
- 12.
Hallen and Sodipo (1997).
- 13.
In fact, I give a negative verdict on the contextualist response to skepticism in Janvid (2006).
- 14.
Hallen gives a Yoruba example of such “clear-cut situations” and the lack of examination and further discourse in Hallen (2000, 25).
- 15.
This claim is subject to several provisos, one of them being that the stakes are not high in the particular everyday context. Contextualists typically take rising stakes (an example of what Williams calls economic factors in Williams 2001, 161) to bring about a shift to higher epistemic standards. Simply put, the more that is at stake in a particular context the higher the standards are for knowledge: the more important it is for me that the nearest bank office is open, the stronger justification I need to secure knowledge of its opening hours. According to contextualism such practical factors have an epistemic impact. See also note no. 17 below.
- 16.
- 17.
To allow for shifts in standards unite inferential and attributor contextualism. One reason why it would be very interesting to know more in detail what questions were asked to the participating onisègùn (Yoruba masters of medicine, see Hallen and Sodipo 1997, 10–11; Hallen 2000, 176) during their fieldwork is whether it was the questions that gave rise to the shift to higher standards. This feature is crucial for assessing the applicability of contextualism to Yoruba epistemic practices. I hope to address this issue in future work. When their fieldwork was conducted it was classified as ordinary language philosophy, but today it would be labeled experimental philosophy.
- 18.
Interestingly, Wiredu argues that his own language Akan is fallibilist in Wiredu (1996, 139–40).
It should be noted that one praiseworthy aim driving Hallen and Sodipo in their book is to defy the image of African communities in general, and Yoruba in particular, as an uncritical and prereflective traditional culture. My own remarks are of course not meant to restore that demeaning image of the epistemic practice of African communities like the Yoruba.
- 19.
Locke is a famous example in Locke (1975).
- 20.
Note that sufficiency holds with certain provisos, more precisely to overriding challenges. As a response to an undermining challenge, precisely questioning your ability to form reliable firsthand experience, providing such justification would of course not be sufficient. Such a response would instead be obviously question-begging. See Janvid (2013, 2017).
- 21.
See Òkè (1995, 214). It should also be noted that inferentialist contextualism is a pronounced internalist position, i.e. the subject must have an internal access to her justification in order to be so. See, for instance, Williams (2001). Ogungbure calls for this neglected aspect in African epistemology Ogungbure (2013). Intrapersonal access often goes hand in hand with interpersonal access.
- 22.
I am grateful to Adebayo Ogungbure, participants at The Toyin@65 conference “African Knowledges and Alternative Futures” at Ibadan in January 2018 and an anonymous referee for helpful comments on earlier versions of this chapter.
References
Appiah, K.A. 1992. In My Father’s House. Africa in the Philosophy of Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bello, A.G.A. 2004. Some Methodological Controversies in African Philosophy. In A Companion to African Philosophy, ed. K. Wiredu, 263–272. Malden: Blackwell.
Falola, Toyin. 2003. The Power of African Cultures. Rochester: University of Rochester Press.
Hallen, Barry. 2000. The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful. Discourse About Vales in Yoruba Culture. Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
———. 2004. Yoruba Moral Epistemology. In A Companion to African Philosophy, ed. K. Wiredu, 296–303. Malden: Blackwell.
———. 2006. African Philosophy. The Analytic Approach. Trenton: Africa World Press, Inc.
———. 2009. A Short History of African Philosophy. 2nd ed. Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Hallen, Barry, and Olubi Sodipo. 1997. Knowledge, Belief and Witchcraft. Analytic Experiments in African Philosophy. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Janvid, Mikael. 2006. Contextualism and the Structure of Skeptical Arguments. Dialectica 60: 63–77.
———. 2013. The Challenges of Traveling Without Itinerary. The Overriding Case. Grazer Philosophische Studien 87: 59–73.
———. 2017. Defeater Goes External. Philosophia 45: 701–715.
Kornblith, H. 2012. On Reflection. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Locke, John. 1975. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. P.H. Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Ogungbure, Adebayo. 2012. The Problem of Justification in African Epistemology: A Critical Study. Saarbrücken: Lap Lambert Academic Publishing.
———. 2013. Two Notions of Justification in African Epistemology. Journal on African Philosophy 8: 31–51.
Òkè, Moses. 1995. Towards an African (Yoruba) Perspective on Empirical Knowledge: A Critique of Hallen and Sodipo. International Philosophical Quarterly XXXV: 205–216.
Pritchard, D. 2016. Epistemic Angst. Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Udefi, Amaechi. 2009. Rorty’s Neopragmatism and the Imperative of the Discourse of African Epistemology. Human Affairs 79: 78–86.
Williams, M. 2001. Problems of Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2004. Is Knowledge a Natural Phenomenon? In The Externalist Challenge, ed. R. Schantz, 193–210. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter.
———. 2007. Why (Wittgensteinian) Contextualism Is Not Relativism. Episteme 4: 93–114.
Wiredu, Kwasi. 1980. Philosophy and an African Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 1996. Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective. Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Janvid, M. (2021). Between Particularism and Universalism: The Promise of Epistemic Contextualism in African Epistemology. In: Afolayan, A., Yacob-Haliso, O., Oloruntoba, S.O. (eds) Pathways to Alternative Epistemologies in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60652-7_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60652-7_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-60651-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-60652-7
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)