Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Eight Practical Issues in Contemporary African Philosophy

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Essays on Contemporary Issues in African Philosophy

  • 306 Accesses

Abstract

In this chapter, we revisit some of these central and unresolved practical problems facing contemporary African philosophy. We have identified racism, poverty, religion, gender, Afrophobia, sexuality, democracy and environment as some of the topical and contentious issues in post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa. Although these issues have been extensively dealt with in the literature in philosophy in general, they have largely been understood from different Western philosophical persuasions. Even though some African philosophers have considered these issues, there is still a lack of robust conversations on the possible directions that humanity, especially from the African perspective ought to take on each of these important issues prompting the need for further interrogation into these. We, therefore, seek to consider how these issues might be conceptualised in sub-Saharan Africa without necessarily reproducing Western philosophical paradigms. For each of these topics, we show how it constitutes a problem to contemporary Africa by drawing the reader’s attention to the reality of each of the problems in contemporary Africa such as colour prejudice, discrimination, poverty, religious extremism and violent conflicts, human rights violations, gender inequality and violence, intolerance, xenophobia and Afrophobia, bad governance, state capture and the ecological crisis. We then analyse how each of the problems has so far been articulated, understood and circumscribed within the African philosophical traditions. In the end, we seek to propose how to ground new philosophical perspectives by which to understand these issues beyond the existing contemporary philosophical perspectives.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Our emphasis.

  2. 2.

    Decolonial scholars conceive coloniality as a subtle, but intellectual continuation of colonial influence and control without direct administrative presence. This is believed to occur where the departed colonial power left structures and cronies in place which allow it to remotely influence or control the policies of a former colony. The term was popularised by Anibal Quijano (1991).

  3. 3.

    In the late twentieth century and the early twenty-first centrury, there have been efforts from different western scholars to critique what they call whiteness and colour categorisation (see Roediger 1991; Ignatiev 1995; Dyer 2002), but Tsri was the first to do so from the African perspective.

  4. 4.

    Some of the models proposed in recent scholarship are the “capabilities approach” by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum; the Multidimensional Poverty Index by Sabina Alkire and James Foster (2007); others include the ‘monetary’, the ‘social exclusion’ and the ‘participatory’ approaches (See Kwadzo 2015 for a detailed discussion).

  5. 5.

    Used ironically.

  6. 6.

    Our addition and emphasis.

References

  • African Development Bank Report. (2019). Unlocking the potential of the fourth industrial revolution in Africa. https://4irpotential.africa/wpcontent/uploads/2019/10/AFDB_4IRreport_Main.pdf. Accessed 24 Sept 2020.

  • Alkire, S., & Foster, J. (2007). Counting and multidimensional poverty measurement (OPHI working paper 7). University of Oxford. http://www.ophi.org.uk/pubs/OPHI_WP7.pdf. Accessed 12 June 2018.

  • Appiah, A. K. (1985). The uncompleted argument: Du Bois and the illusion of race. Critical Inquiry Race, Writing and Difference, 12(1), 21–37. https://doi.org/10.1086/448319.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Appiah A. K. (1996). Race, Culture, Identity: Misunderstood Connections. In A. K. Appiah, & A. Gutmann, (Eds). Color conscious: The political morality of race. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bacon, F. (1620/2008). The new organon (Cambridge texts in the history of philosophy) (L. Jardine & M. Silverthorn, Eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bádéjo, D. (1998). African feminism: Mythical and social power of women of African descent. Research in African literatures., 29(2), 94–111.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bernasconi, R. (2001). Who invented the concept of race? In R. Bernasconi (Ed.), Race (pp. 11–36). Malden: Blackwell Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Biko, S. (1987). I write what I like: A selection of his writings (A. Stubbs, Ed.). London: Heinemann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blumenbach, J. F. (1999). On the natural variety of mankind. In P. J. Kitson (Ed.), Slavery, abolition and emancipation: Writings in the British Romantic period. Volume 8: Theories of race. London: Pickering.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carmichael, S. (1966). Black power address. Delivered 29 October.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chemhuru, M. (Ed.). (2019). African environmental ethics: A critical reader. Cham: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chimakonam, J. O. (Ed.). (2018). African philosophy and environmental conservation. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chimakonam, O. J. (2019). Addressing the problem of mass poverty in the sub-Saharan Africa: Conversational thinking as a tool for inclusive development. Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions, 8(2019), 141–162. https://doi.org/10.4314/ft.v8i1.10.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chimakonam, O. J. (2020a). Where are we in the global poverty measurement? The human minimum model as a veritable option. Journal of Asian and African Studies online first, 1–3.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chimakonam, O. J. (2020b). Is the debate on poverty research a global one? A consideration of the exclusion of Odera Oruka’s ‘Human Minimum’ as a Case of Epistemic Injustice. In V. Beck et al. (Eds.), Dimensions of Poverty, Philosophy and Poverty 2 (pp. 97–114). Cham: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chimakonam O. J. (2020c). Othering, Re-othering, and De-othering: Interrogating the Skolombo’s Fight-Back Strategy. In E. Imafidon (Ed.), Handbook of African Philosophy of Difference, Handbooks in Philosophy, (pp. 433–448). Cham: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chimakonam O. J. (2021). The Politics of Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. In E. Etieyibo, O. Katsaura and M. Musemwa (Eds.), Africa’s Radicalisms and Conservatisms I: Politics, Poverty, Marginalization and Education. (pp. 201–216). Koninklijke Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chimakonam, O. J., & Agada, A. (2020). The sexual orientation question in Nigeria: Cultural relativism versus universal human rights concerns. Sexuality and Culture (pp. 1705–1719). Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chimakonam, J. O., & du Toit, L. (Eds.). (2018). African philosophy and the epistemic marginalisation of women. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chimakonam, J. O., & Egbai, U. O. (2016). The value of conversational thinking in building a decent world: The perspective of post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa. Dialogue and Universalism, XXVI(4), 105–117.

    Google Scholar 

  • Montesquieu, B. de. (1989). The spirit of the laws (A. M. Cohler, B. C. Miller, & H. S. Stone, Eds.). Cambridge texts in the history of political thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Descartes, R. (1637/1968). Discourse on method and the meditations (F. E. Sutcliffe, Trans). London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Du Bois, W. E. B. (1989/1903). The souls of black folk (D. Gibson, Ed.). New York: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Du Toit, L., & Coetzee, A. (2017). Gendering African philosophy, or: African feminism as decolonising force. In A. Afolayan & T. Falola (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of African philosophy (pp. 333–343). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dyer, R. (2002). White. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Epprecht, M. (2010). The making of ‘African sexuality’: Early sources, current debates. History Campus, 8(8), 768–779.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eze, C. E. (2018). The colour of reason: The idea of “race” in Kant’s anthropology. In J. O. Chimakonam & E. Etieyibo (Eds.), Ka Osi So Onye: African Philosophy and the Postmodern Era (pp. 85–124). Delaware: Vernon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fanon, F. (1952). Black skin, white masks. 1967 translation by Charles Lam Markmann. New York: Grove Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fanon, F. (1961). The wretched of the earth. 1963 translation by Constance Farrington. New York: Grove Weidenfeld.

    Google Scholar 

  • Galston, W. (2020). The enduring vulnerability of liberal democracy. Journal of Democracy, 31(3), 8–24.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garvey, M. (1986). In A. J. Garvey (Ed.), The philosophy and opinions of Marcus Garvey or Africa for the Africans. Dover: Majority Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gyekye, K. (2013). Philosophy, culture and vision: African perspectives. Accra: Sub-Saharan publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hegel, W. G. (1975). Lectures on the philosophy of world history (H. B. Nisbet, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hooks, B. (1992). Black looks: Race and representation. Boston: South End Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hume, D. (1987/1741-42). Essays Moral, Political and Literary. Eugene Miller (ed). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ignatiev, N. (1995). How the Irish became white. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kant, I. (1991/1784). An answer to the question: What is Enlightenment? In H. Reiss (Ed.), H. B. Nisbet, (Trans.), Kant’s political writings (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kant, I. (1998). Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals, translated by Mary J. Gregor, with an introduction by Christine Korsgaard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelbessa, W. (2009). Africa, Sub-Saharan. In J. Baird Callicott & R. Frodeman (Eds.), Encyclopedia of environmental ethics and philosophy (pp. 10–18). New York: Gale Cengage Learning.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelbessa, W. (2017). Africa and the philosophy of sexuality. In A. Afolayan & T. Falola (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of African philosophy (pp. 370–389). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kharas, H., Hamel, K., & Hofer, M. (2018). The start of a new poverty narrative, Brookings Institutions Blog, last modified, June 19, 2018. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2018/06/19/the-start-of-a-new-poverty-narrative/. Accessed 6 Aug. 2018.

  • Kwadzo, M. (2015). Choosing concepts and measurements of poverty: A comparison of three major poverty approaches. Journal of Poverty, 19, 409–423. https://doi.org/10.1080/10875549.2015.1015067.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lamola, J. M. (2018). The de-Africanisation of the African National Congress, afrophobia in South Africa and the Limpopo river fever. Filosophia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions, 7(3), 72–93.

    Google Scholar 

  • Locke, J. (1988). Two treatises of government (P. Laslett, Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maserumule, H. M (2019). Xenophobia puts South Africa’s moral authority at risk. The Conversation Africa. https://theconversation.com/xenophobia-puts-south-africas-moral-authority-in-africa-at-risk-123613. Accessed 16 Sept 2020.

  • Matolino, B. (2017). Being gay and African: A view from an African philosopher. Phronimon, 18(2017), 59–78.

    Google Scholar 

  • Matolino, B. (2018a). African philosophy’s injustice against women. In J. O. Chimakonam & L. du Toit (Eds.), African philosophy and the epistemic marginalisation of women (pp. 126–141). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Matolino, B. (2018b). Black solidarity impaled: The cause of Afrophobia. In R. R. Hewitt & C. J. Kaunda (Eds.), Who is African (pp. 46–60). Lanham: Lexington.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mazrui, A. A. (2009). African’s wisdom has two parents and one guardian: Africanism, Islam and the West. In M. F. Murove (Ed.), African ethics: An anthology of comparative and applied ethics (pp. 33–59). Scottville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Menkiti, A. I. (1984). Person and community in African thought. In R. A. Wright (Ed.), African philosophy: An introduction (pp. 171–180). Lanharm: University Press of America.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mill, S. J. (1859/2001). On liberty. Ontario: Batoche Books. https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/mill/liberty.pdf. Accessed 21 Sept 2020.

  • Mosima, M. P. (2018). Henry Odera Oruka and the female sage: Re-evaluating the nature of sagacity. In J. O. Chimakonam & L. du Toit (Eds.), African philosophy and the epistemic marginalisation of women (pp. 22–41). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Müller-Jung, F. (2018). World Bank report: Poverty rates remain high in Africa. Last modified, October 17, 2018. https://www.dw.com/en/world-bank-report-poverty-rates-remain-high-in-africa/a-45926382. Accessed 11 Oct 2019.

  • Nwabuzo, O. (2015). Afrophobia in Europe: ENAR shadow report (2014–2015). Brussels: European Network Against Racism. https://manoteises.lt/wpcontent/uploads/2016/05/Shadowreport_afrophobia_2014-2015.pdf. Accessed 29 Sept 2020.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nyabola, N. (2020). The failed promise of liberal democracy. New Internationalist, 3 January. https://newint.org/features/2020/01/03/failed-promise-liberal-democracy

  • Nyanzi, S. (2011). Unpacking the [govern] mentality of African sexualities. In S. Tamale (Ed.), African sexualities: A reader (pp. 477–500). Cape Town: Pamazika Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nyasulu, G. (2010). Revisiting the definition of poverty. Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa, 12, 147–158.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oruka, H. O. (1989/1997). The philosophy of foreign aid: A question of the right to a human minimum. In H. O. Oruka (Ed.), Practical philosophy: In search of an ethical minimum (pp. 81–93). Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oruka, H. O. (Ed.). (1997). Practical philosophy: In search of an ethical minimum (pp. 115–125). Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oyewumi, O. (1997). The invention of women: Making an African sense of western gender discourses. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oyewumi, O. (2004). Conceptualising gender: Eurocentric foundations of feminist concepts and the challenge of African epistemologies. In S. Arnfred et al. (Eds.), African gender scholarship: Concepts, methodologies and paradigms (pp. 1–8). Dakar: CODESRIA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Plato. (2008a). Republic. Translator: B. Jowett. August 27, 2008 [EBook #1497], Last Updated: June 22, 2016. The Project Gutenberg EBook.

    Google Scholar 

  • Plato. (2008b). Statesman. Translator: B. Jowett. November 7, 2008 [EBook #1738], Last Updated: January 15, 2013. The Project Gutenberg EBook.

    Google Scholar 

  • Popkin, H. R. (1977–1978). Hume’s racism. The Philosophical Forum, 9(2–3) (Winter-Spring).

    Google Scholar 

  • Quijano, A. (1991). Colonialidad y modernidad/racionalidad. Perú indígena, 29, 11–20.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roediger, D. R. (1991). The wages of whiteness. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sandel, J. M. (2009). Justice: What’s the right thing to do? New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

    Google Scholar 

  • Senghor, L. (1964). Negritude et Humanisme. Paris: Editions du Seuil.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tangwa, B. G. (2004). Some African reflections on biomedical and environmental ethics. In K. Wiredu (Ed.), A companion to African philosophy (pp. 387–395). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • The World Bank. (2018). Poverty and shared prosperity 2018: Piecing together the poverty puzzle (p. 2018). Washington, DC: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomas, G. (2007). The sexual demon of colonial power: Pan-African embodiment and erotic schemes of empire. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tshaka, R. (2016). Afrophobia versus xenophobia in South Africa. https://www.unisa.ac.za/sites/corporate/default/News-&-Media/Articles/Afrophobia-versusxenophobia-in-South-Africa. Accessed 19 Sept 2020.

  • Tsri, K. (2016a). Africans are not black: Why the use of the term “black” for Africans should be abandoned. African Identities, 14(2), 147–160. https://doi.org/10.1080/14725843.2015.1113120.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tsri, K. (2016b). Africans are not black: The case for conceptual liberation. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315566085.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ubi, E. N., & Ibonye, V. (2019). Is liberal democracy failing in Africa or is Africa failing under liberal democracy? Taiwan Journal of Democracy, 15(2), 137–164.

    Google Scholar 

  • UNESCO. (2003). UNESCO’s gender mainstreaming implementation framework. http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/BSP/GENDER/PDF/1.%20Baseline%20Definitions%20of%20key%20gender-related%20concepts.pdf. Accessed 23 Sept 2020.

  • Wadhwa, D. (2018). The number of extremely poor people continues to rise in Sub-Saharan Africa, September 19, 2018. https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/number-extremely-poor-people-continues-rise-sub-saharan-africa. Assessed 11 Oct 2019.

  • Zack, N. (2018). Philosophy of race: An introduction. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

Jonathan O Chimakonam would like to acknowledge the Research Development Programme (RDP 2020) funding he received from the University of Pretoria that enabled him to conduct this research. Munamato Chemhuru would also like to express his appreciation to the Alexander von Humboldt foundation for sponsoring him to do this research.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

    Jonathan O. Chimakonam

  2. The Conversational School of Philosophy, University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria

    Jonathan O. Chimakonam

  3. Center for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Studies (CIIS), Eberhard Karls University Tubingen, Tubingen, Germany

    Jonathan O. Chimakonam

  4. Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Eichstätt, Germany

    Munamato Chemhuru

  5. Great Zimbabwe University, Masvingo, Zimbabwe

    Munamato Chemhuru

  6. University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Munamato Chemhuru

Authors
  1. Jonathan O. Chimakonam
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Munamato Chemhuru
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jonathan O. Chimakonam .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

    Jonathan O. Chimakonam

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

    Edwin Etieyibo

  3. Department of Philosophy, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria

    Ike Odimegwu

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Chimakonam, J.O., Chemhuru, M. (2022). Eight Practical Issues in Contemporary African Philosophy. In: Chimakonam, J.O., Etieyibo, E., Odimegwu, I. (eds) Essays on Contemporary Issues in African Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70436-0_1

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation