UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY
SEMINAR
IN AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY
Kwasi
Wiredu
COURSE DESCRIPTION: A critical examination of some
methodological and substantive issues and the controversies generated by them
in contemporary African philosophy.
OBJECTIVE: To give a sense of the character and concerns
of African philosophy in our time.
BOOKS
Required:
Kwame Gyekye, Tradition and Modernity: philosophical
Reflections on the African Experience New York: Oxford University Press,
1997
Useful books:
1. Kwasi Wiredu, Cultural Universals and Particulars:
An African Perspective, Bloomington Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1996
2. Richard A. Wright, ed., African Philosophy: An
Introduction, New York: University Press of America, 1984.
3. Claude Sumner, Classical Ethiopian Philosophy,
Los Angeles: Adey Pub. Co., 1994.
4. H. Odera Oruka, Sage Philosophy and the Modern
Debate on African Philosophy, Leiden: Brill Publishers. 1990.
5. Barry Hallen and J. O. Sodipo, Knowledge, Belief
and Witchcraft: Analytic Experiments in African Philosophy, London:
Ethnographica, 1986.
6. Segun Gbadegesin, African Philosophy: Yoruba
Traditional Philosophy and Contemporary African Realities, New York: Peter
Lang, 1991.
7. D. A Masolo, African Philosophy in Search of
Identity, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994.
8. Kwasi Wiredu and Kwame Gyekye, Person and
Community: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies, I, Washington D.C.: Council for
Research in Values and Philosophy, 1992.
9. Samuel Oluoch Imbo, An Introduction to African
Philosophy, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1998.
10. Cheikh Anta Diop, Civilization
or Barbarism? Chicago: Lawrence
Hill Books, 1981 (1991), ch 17.
TOPICS
1. Contemporary approaches to traditional African
Philosophy: Methodological Issues
An intense controversy has gone on among African
philosophers over the last three decades on method. The question is sometimes
phrased as if the concern is as to whether there is anything that might be
called African philosophy. In fact, however, among Africans the question is
rather about the nature of African philosophy. But even this can be misleading,
for the important thing has been not just to describe what African philosophy
is, but rather to indicate the best way of doing it at this historical
juncture. (See Wiredu in Serequeberhan 1991, pp 105-6 ). Viewed in this light, the controversy has
many sides and touches issues that are of interest not to African philosophers
alone.
If one
is going to characterize African philosophy methodologically, one will
inevitably proceed on some conception of what philosophy itself is.
(Hountondji, for example operates with a conception of philosophy as a kind of
interpretation of science, and this is directly connected with his view of what
African philosophy is. (See his African Philosophy: Myth and Reality, p.
47, 83, 98, 99 esp. para 1. For some adverse comment on this, see Marcien Towa,
"Conditions for the Affirmation of Modern African Philosophical
Thought" in Serequeberhan, op. cit.
pp. 191-193. Owomoyela in “Africa and the Imperative of Philosophy” questions
the importance of science in his critique of Hountondji [and also Wiredu]) A
question subsidiary to the general question of the nature of philosophy (in the
African context) has been whether writing is essential to philosophy.
Hountondji's definition of African philosophy (ibid, p. 63, as `literature produced by African and dealing with
philosophical problems' clearly implies that writing is a necessary condition
for philosophy. This has evoked a lot of discussion, hostile (see, e.g., Gyekye
1987, 10-11) and not so hostile (e.g. Wiredu in Serequeberhan 1991, 93-95 and
97.) The question is quite worth pursuing.
There is
also the question of how the philosophy of a cultural group might, in general,
be identified. Here we meet extremely important questions about the relation
between philosophy and culture -- questions that are of a universal interest.
Gyekye 1987, chaps. 1-3 esp. pp. 12, 32-3 insists that African philosophy must
have a foundation in African culture. In discussing the same point, Gbadegesin
1991, esp. 23-26 quotes approvingly the contention of the American philosopher
Marcus Singer that American philosophy must have `some significant connection'
with `the American scene, culture or setting' (Quotation in Gbadegesin p. 23
from Marcus G. Singer, ed., American Philosophy, New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1985, p. 4) The issue is both important and in need of a lot
of clarification. For example, what sort of connection is envisaged? And with
what sort of condition of social consciousness in the given society is the
connection to be connected? In this connection also, it is important to
consider whether, a universalization of philosophy in the sense of the
transcending of cultural idiosyncracies is not possible and supportable. (See
Wiredu 1987, chap. 2: "On an African Orientation in Philosophy", esp.
p.33). Note also that the idea of possible universalization raises the whole question
of relativism. (See again, ibid, pp.
33-36. Those specially interested in the question of universality might like to
look at Kwasi Wiredu, "Are there Cultural Universals?". (See Cultural Universals and Particulars,
chap. 3.)
A
particularly tricky question is whether a philosophical doctrine has to be
peculiar to a given cultural group in order to be accounted part of their
philosophy. Still another is the relation between philosophy and language in
the sense of a mother tongue. (See Wiredu, ibid,
p. 34.) These issues will be involved
in any attempt to characterize, for example, American philosophy.
In the
African case, the particular type of colonialism to which Africa was subjected
has been a complicating factor. And connected with this has been the question
of how to approach Africa's heritage of traditional thought, which received
less than its due respect in colonial times, and also, at the same time, what
to make of the resources of knowledge and reflection developed by Africa's
erstwhile colonizers. Another concern has been with the question of relevance.
Of what relevance, it has been asked, is philosophy to the needs of African
society? This question can be raised about philosophy anywhere; in fact, it is
nowadays being raised quite stridently in the English-speaking world about
analytic philosophy. In the African context the question acquires a double
urgency in that the philosophy taught in the universities feature predominant
servings of Western philosophy, and it has not been obvious to many how the
lucubrations of Leibniz or Locke or Moore or Quine might be supposed to have
any relevance to the teeming populations of Africa. This is not just a question
of cultural relevance, which we have previously hinted at; it also raises the
issue of practical relevance. (Bodunrin touches on this question in his
"The Question of African Philosophy" included in both Wright 1984 and
Serequeberhan 1991) In the literature of the controversy not all these
questions have been explicitly raised, but they have exercised quite a
controlling influence. And one can detect still other issues. It would be
particularly useful to explore these questions in close association with
similar questions (where applicable) with regard to, say, American philosophy
or British philosophy or Continental philosophy etc.
Another
interesting issue is whether speaking of the philosophy of a people or culture
by using terms like “American philosophy”, “African philosophy” or “Indian
philosophy” implies denying that philosophy is universal. What, in any case, is
meant by saying that philosophy is universal or that it is not? Note Gyekye=s reflections on
these issues in chapter 1 of his Tradition
and Modernity.
READINGS
I. Richard A. Wright, ed., African
Philosophy: An Introduction, New York: University Press of America, 1984.
chapters 1-3.
2. Tsenay Serequeberhan, African Philosophy: The
Essential Readings, New York: Paragon House, 1991)
3. Paulin Hountondji, African Philosophy: Myth and
Reality, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983, chapters 1-3,
especially 3.
4. Kwame Gyekye, An Essay on African Philosophical
Thought, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987, chapters 1-3 and 12.
5. Kwasi Wiredu, Philosophy and African Culture,
chapters 1-4.
6. Kwame Anthony Appiah, In My Father's House: Africa
in the Philosophy of Culture, New York: Oxford University Press, 1992,
Chapter 5.
7. Segun Gbadegesin, African Philosophy: Yoruba
Traditional Philosophy and Contemporary African Realities, Chapter 1.
8.S. O. Imbo, An Introduction to African Philosophy,
chap. 1.
9. Barbara MacKinnon, ed., American Philosophy: A
Historical Anthology, New York: State University of New York Press, 1984,
Epilogue: "Is there an American Philosophy?"
10. Oyenka Owomoyela, “Africa and the Imperative of
Philosophy”: in Tsenay Serequeberhan, ed., African Philosophy, esp. pp.
173-176.
11. Kwasi Wiredu “On Defining African Philosophy” in
Serequeberhan, op. Cit.
12, Kwame Gyekye, Tradition and Modernity, chap.
2. The Study of Traditional African Philosophy: Tempels
The study of traditional African philosophy is one of the
main preoccupations of contemporary African philosophy. One reason is that the
possible insights of that tradition remain to be tapped owing to their relative
neglect during the colonial period, when it was usually only studied as a
curiosity or as a propaedeutic to evangelization or as a by-product of colonial
anthropology. The most famous study of the second type was that by a Belgian
missionary called Placide Tempels who wrote a book entitled Bantu Philosophy,
Paris: Presence Africaine, 1959. The book was written in Dutch in 1945 but
became generally available in English translation in 1959. Tempels argued that
Africans had a coherent and rational (though invalid) philosophy upon which
they based their life. Witness `No doubt, anyone can show the error of their
reasoning; but it must none the less be admitted that their notions are based
on reason, that their criteriology and their wisdom belong to rational
knowledge.'(p. 77.) In many ways the book was extremely patronizing of
Africans, but in those days it was somewhat revolutionary for a European
missionary to suggest that Africans had some philosophical conceptions, and the
book was, in fact, published by a publishing set-up promoted by group of
African intellectuals in Paris. One of Tempels' major findings was that for the
Bantu (and, consequently (!), for Africans generally) `Force is the nature of
being, force is being and being is force'. (p. 51.) This he contrasted with
what he understood to be the Western concept of being in which force is a mode
of being rather than its essence. Throughout the book Tempels similarly tried
to call attention to conceptual contrasts between African and Western ways of
thinking. This was, perhaps the most useful aspect of the work, although a
certain amount of superimposition of his own categories of thought upon the
Bantu conceptual materials occurred. For example. as we shall see, it is
extremely doubtful whether the concept of being as Tempels uses it, corresponds
to any meaningful thought within the Bantu language with which he was
concerned. But, in fact, other authors, including some Christianized Africans,
have been less industrious in bringing out conceptual contrasts than Tempels
was. They have, a fortiori, not been
given to trying to make a cross-cultural evaluations of such contrasts.
Consequently,
the applicability of certain categories of thought in Western philosophy to
African thought has been often taken for granted. Categorial dichotomies such
as the distinctions between the material and the spiritual, the natural and the
supernatural, the secular and the religious, being and nothingness etc. have
been freely employed in the exposition of African thought. But do they fit the
African thought-structures? And, beyond this, are they coherent when viewed on
independent grounds?
3. Okot p’Bitek’s Critique of the Treatment of African
Religions in Western Scholarship
One notable exception to the untroubled use of Western
categories in the exposition of African thought by students of Africa, both
foreign and African, was Okot p'Bitek, poet, anthropologist and quite a
philosophic thinker, who in his book African Religions in Western
Scholarship (East African Literature Bureau, 1970) called attention, among
other things, to what he considered the superimposition of the Western notion a
creator-God upon the world view of the Luo of Eastern Africa, the ethnic group
to which he belonged. Such a notion, he argued, does not make sense in the Luo
conceptual framework.
Chapters
8 to 12 of p'Bitek's book will be of special interest to us.
4. Further Conceptual Comparisons
I have pursued comparisons similar to p'Bitek's in regard
to metaphysical and religious concepts in a number of papers. Two of them that
might form the basis for a class session are
(a) "Universalism and Particularism in Religion from
an African Perspective",. (Cultural
Universals and Particulars, chap. 5.)
(b) "Formulating Modern Thought in African
Languages: Some Theoretical Considerations" ibid. Chap. 7).
In these two papers I suggest that such categorial
contrasts as those between the material and the spiritual, the natural and the
supernatural, the non-mystical and the mystical, the religious and the secular,
have no coherent or unproblematic counterparts in the Akan language (which is
my native language). I also adduce doubts as to whether they are ultimately
coherent even in English. This raises a point of special importance in
cross-cultural comparisons. Merely to show that a certain concept employed in
one language corresponds to nothing intelligible in another language, proves
nothing about its intellectual viability. It may be that the second language is
poor in this particular respect and is in need of enrichment. Or, it may be
that the concept is objectively incoherent. But such a claim can only
conceivably be made on independent grounds, namely, grounds that are not
dependent on the peculiarities of the second language or any language
concerned. If such independent considerations were not possible, no serious
dialogue among cultures would be possible. Notice that this presupposes the
invalidity of conceptual relativism. Notice also, that it implies the
possibility of the `universalization' of philosophy, both of which are quite
contentious issues.
Okot
p’Bitek’s discussions and mine could be taken up in an examination of the
conceptual complications in cross-cultural interaction.
5. Mbiti on “The” African Concept of Time
Almost as well-known as
Father Tempels’ book on Bantu philosophy is Mbiti's African Religions and
Philosophy, London: Heinemann, 1991 (1969), which for a long time was the
most frequently used text in African Philosophy. The book contains, in fact,
little philosophy, being filled with accounts of religious and even
non-religious ideas and customs of various African peoples. Nor was Mbiti
addicted to conceptual clarification. But there was one chapter of a special
philosophical interest. In that chapter he tried to explain what he took to be
the African conception of time and to contrast it with what he took to be the
Western conception of time. The latter is, he observed, a three dimensional
continuum with an indefinitely long past, a present and an infinite future. By
contrast, the African concept of time had an indefinitely long past, a present
and only a restricted future, amounting to no further than about two years
forward. Hence, he called it a two dimensional concept of time. Mbiti claimed
that this conception of time was the key to the understanding of African
thought, though he does not explain why in detail. He does indeed suggest that
the popularity of charismatic churches in Africa is due to this short sense of
the future, which makes the African expect the salvation promised by religion
to come pretty soon. He also says that for the same reason, African religions
don't have any strong eschatological components. Nor, he claims, for the same
reason, is there any belief in progress among Africans. Further
linkages are obscure. But
the theory is provocative enough and has occasioned a lot of both sympathetic
and unsympathetic evaluations.
One aspect of Mbiti's account that has not attracted much
comment is that it implies that Africans hold a relational rather than an
`absolute' conception of time. According to him, for Africans `time is simply a
composition of events which have occurred, those which are taking place now and
those which are immediately to occur.'(ibid,
p.17.) This puts Africans in the same camp as Leibniz and the relationists in
their opposition to Newton and other `absolutists' on the question of the
nature of time. (Gyekye, op.cit, pp. 171, bottom, to 172, top, comes
nearest to disputing this on behalf of an African people, namely, the Akans. He
says `In Akan thought, it is not events that compose time; it is not events
that generate the awareness of time. If that were the case, all talk about the
future in Akan language and thought would be nonsense'. It is, however, not
absolutely clear whether Gyekye is ascribing an `absolutist' conception of time
to the Akans, so that they might be taken to suppose that there can be time in
the total absence of events.) It is interesting to note that the historically
famous African church father St. Augustine, who was responsible for the most
memorable prologue to the investigation of time, also held a relational view of
time. (That oft-quoted prologue to the study of the question `What is Time?'
was `If no one asks me, I know. If I wish to explain it to one that asketh, I
know not.'
All aspects of Mbiti's account warrant scrutiny.
READINGS
1. John S. Mbiti, African
Religions and Philosophy
2. Kwame Gyekye, An
Essay on African Philosophical Thought, chapter 11, section 2. (Criticism
of Mbiti's account.)
3. John Parratt, "Time
in Traditional African Thought", Religion: Journal of Religion and
Religions, 7, 1977. (Qualified support for Mbiti.)
4. D. A Masolo, African
Philosophy in Search of Identity, Bloomington: Indiana: University Press,
1994, chapter 5. (Critical of Mbiti.)
5. John A.A. Ayoade,
"Time in Yoruba Thought" in Wright 1984. (Not in accord with Mbiti)
6. Samuel Audu Alfa, The
African Philosophical Concept of Time and its Metaphysical and Epistemological
Ramifications, Chap. 3. (Spasmodically critical of Mbiti.)
7. Kwasi Wiredu, “Time and
African Thought” in Time and temporality in Intercultural Perspective,
Atlanta, G. A.: Rodopi, 1996
8. Kwasi Wiredu, “Time” in
the typescript at the reserve library with the title “Topics in African
philosophy”.
9. J. N. Kudadjie, AAspects of Ga and
Dangme Thought about Time as contained in their Proverbs@, ibid.
6. Individual Philosophic thinkers in African Traditional
Soceity
In the study of African traditional philosophy most
attention has been given to the communal thought. But such a pool of thought is
the result of the thinking of individual persons. It is only recently that
academic attention has begun to be given to the thought of the indigenous
philosophic thinkers in traditional African Society. Henry Oruka has recorded
the views of various (named and photographed) thinkers belonging to this class
in his native country Kenya in a book called Sage Philosophy. The
Nigerian philosopher J. O. Sodipo and his American colleague Barry Hallen have
done something somewhat similar with individual thinkers in Nigeria. In their
case, however, they do not name the individuals in deference of their desire to
remain anonymous. Moreover, they take the remarks of the indigenous traditional
thinkers as raw materials for analyses in which they compare and contrast the
Yoruba conceptual frameworks with Western ones. An earlier work, remotely
similar to those of Oruka and Sodipo and Hallen was Griaule's Conversations
with Ogotemmeli, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965. In that case,
however, the motive was more ethnographic than philosophical. (See also
Hountondji op. cit pp. 77-84 and Oruka Sage philosophy, pp. 34,
49-50.)
The works alluded to in the preceding paragraph
precipitate both methodological and doctrinal issues, some of which are taken
up in exchanges between Oruka and his critics. These should be explored. In the
case of Sodipo and Hallen it would be interesting to study and evaluate the
conceptual contrasts they suggest regarding the concept of knowledge between
the Yoruba and the English languages.
READINGS
1. H. Odera Oruka, Sage
Philosophy: Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate on African Philosophy,
Part II: The Sages; Part III: Criticisms of Oruka's methodology. Note
especially Bodunrin, "The Question of African Philosophy" and Keita,
"The Search for Method in Contemporary African Philosophy". Oruka
responds to these criticisms in Part I.
2. Barry Hallen and J. O.
Sodipo, Knowledge, Belief and Witchcraft: Analytic Experiments in African
Philosophy, esp, chapter 2: "An African Epistemology: The
Knowledge-Belief Distinction and Yoruba Thought"
Kwasi Wiredu, Cultural Universals and Particulars, Section
II, pp. 114-118.
7. The Tradition of Written Philosophy in Africa: Ancient Egypt and Ethiopia
Although traditional
philosophy in Africa is mainly an oral tradition there is also a written
tradition in some parts of Africa, notably, ancient Egypt and Ethiopia. In
parts of North and West Africa, there is a long tradition of written Islamic
philosophy in both Arab and non-Arab areas. The literature, which was
originally in Arabic, is only now in the process of being translated.
Regarding the case of ancient Egypt there is some
controversy regarding the case of Egypt. It is sometimes denied that Egyptian
civilization was racially African. On the other side, it is sometimes claimed
that ancient Greek philosophy had its head and spring in ancient Egyptian
philosophy. Whatever the truth in these matters, the fact remains that written
philosophy was indigenous to one part of Africa long before it was known in
what is now the West.
Some of the most interesting philosophical writings in
Ethiopia, however, are contemporaneous with (but independent of) the beginnings
of rationalist (as opposed to empiricist) philosophy in continental Europe.
Thanks to Prof. Sumner, Ethiopian philosophical texts are now easily available.
Of special interest is the work of Zara Yacob and Walda Heywat. One question,
among others, that we might ponder here is `What, if anything, can we learn
from the written philosophies of Egypt and Ethiopia?' You would, of course,
need to give an exposition of the philosophies in question.
READINGS
1. Lacinay Keita, "The
African Philosophical Tradition" in Wright 1984.
2. Henry Olela, "The
African Foundations of Greek Philosophy", in Wright 1984.
3. Anthony Appiah, In My
Father's House, pp. 100-102.
4. Claude Sumner, Classical
Ethiopian Philosophy, esp. Chapter IV.
The African scholar who
worked hardest to try to establish the Africanness of the ancient Egyptians and
their intellectual importance for the West was Cheikh Aanta Diop. See, for
example, his The African Origin of Civilization, Westport: Lawrence Hill
and Co., 1974. Note also his Civilization
or Barbarism? Part Four.More recently, the work of Martin Bernal, arguing
the importance of ancient Egyptian civilization (Black Athena, New
Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1987, 2 Vols. to date), has
challenged serious scholarly attention.
8. Africa’s Philosopher Kings
In the last two sections we have spoken of individual
philosophic thinkers in Africa, named and unnamed. Those of Ethiopia put their
thought to paper and produced what might, perhaps, be called the classical
philosophy of Africa. Others, such as those studied by Oruka, were not a
writing group, and have needed the services of scholars such as Oruka to make
their thought known internationally. One group of African thinkers who have not
needed such assistance was the first wave of Africa's post-independence
political leaders. These were the leaders who led the various African countries
to independence from (mainly) Britain and France. They were faced with severe
challenges of national reconstruction and in facing these they found that they
needed to do some quite fundamental thinking, unless they were content just to
imitate their erstwhile colonizers in the matter of social and political
thought, which they were not. The result was a certain corpus of social and
political philosophy. These leaders, then, became philosopher-kings by the
imperatives of the post-independence situation rather than by any analogue of
Platonic selection.
The most technically philosophical of these thinkers were
Nkrumah and Senghor. While not wanting to copy Western thought unthinkingly,
these two did not ignore possible sources of social and political insight from
the West. Because they were of the opinion that they were heirs to an
indigenous heritage of socialistic politics, both paid special attention to
Marxism. In Senghor this did not go very much beyond a scholarly engagement.
Nkrumah, on the other hand, was a convinced Marxist. Even so, he maintained
that his social ideology was rooted in his African heritage and that his
concern was to champion `the African personality.' Senghor too, amidst his
scholarly flirting with Marxism insisted that his philosophical identification
was with the specifically African way of thinking and knowing, which he
celebrated under the title of Negritude.
In both Senghor and Nkrumah there is a certain aligning of metaphysics and
epistemology with politics which calls for scrutiny.
Other African leaders, such as Nyerere and Kaunda, were
less attracted to Marxism and tried to think out socialistic systems directly
based on their African experience. Nyerere called his system `Ujamaa'
socialism, that is, a socialism based on African ideas of human family-hood,
and Kaunda called his ideology Zambian humanism. There were others too, but
actually one can get a good idea of what was going on in social and political
thought in the immediate post-independence period in Africa from a study of
Senghor, Nkrumah and Nyerere. The systems of socialism proposed by these
thinkers were often called African socialism. In evaluating these it is
interesting to determine in what respects these socialisms were different from
the socialisms of the West, particularly, Marxist socialism. It is also
interesting to consider whether, given the present low ebb in socialistic
politics in the world, there might not be something still be of worth in the
idea of an African socialism.
READINGS
1. Leopold Senghor, On
African Socialism, New York: Frederick Praeger, 1964, esp, chapter on
"The African Road to Socialism."
2. Kwame Nkrumah, Consciencism:
Philosophy and Ideology for De-Colonization, London: Panaf Books, 1970
(1964) esp, chap 4.
3. Julius K. Nyerere, Nyerere
on Socialism, Oxford University Press, 1969. (Or Ujamaa: Essays on
Socialism, New York: Oxford University Press, 1968) chaps.1, 3 & 5.
3. Diana E. Axelsen,
"Philosophical Justifications for Contemporary African Social Values and
Strategies" in Wright, African Philosophy: An Introduction.
4. Segun Gbadegesin, African
Philosophy: Traditional Yoruba Philosophy and Contemporary African Realities,
New York: Peter Lang, 1991, chapter 7.
5. Kwasi Wiredu, “African
Philosophy, Anglophone” in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
1998
6. Kwame Gyekye, Tradition and Modernity, Chap 5: “The
Socialist Interlude”
9. Democracy and Consensus
In addition to the question of African socialism two other
questions evoked considerable philosophical reflection. These were the
questions whether the one-party system, which almost all the first
post-independence leaders installed in their countries, was compatible with
democracy and whether violence is a legitimate method for achieving desired
change. The question of the one-party system has been eclipsed by the recent
establishment of multi-party constitutions (against the wishes of resident
dictators) in many parts of Africa with the help of international forces. The
demise of the one-party system in Africa must remain unlamented. But there is
an associated question that needs to be explored philosophically. The question
is whether there might not be a non-party form of democracy based on consensus
which is more in harmony with African indigenous traditions and more suited to
Africa's contemporary conditions. Indeed , it is a legitimate question of
interest to all humankind whether a non-party, consensual system of democracy
would not be a better form of democracy than the multi-party variety. But in
Africa at the present time it is a question that has a life-and-death urgency.
Note that a conceptual issue of considerable general interest arises here,
namely, whether democracy, by its very meaning, entails a multi-party polity.
Not much attention, however, has been given to this question, either in its
African particularity or its general presupposition. (I have tried to confront
the issue in two essays: "Democracy and Consensus in African Traditional
Politics: A Plea for a Non-Party Polity" and "Philosophy and the Political Problem of Human Rights".
(Cultural Universals and Particulars )
The question of democracy and the party system provides an
example of how conceptual issues in philosophy can have normative consequences.
For example, if it should turn out that democracy does not entail a party
system, the demand for parties as a necessary condition of democracy, which
some Western financial authorities have made a condition of help, may begin to
seem less than well considered.
READINGS
1. Kwasi Wiredu, Cultural Universals and Particulars, 12,
13 & 14.
2. Emmanuel Eze, “Democracy
or Consensus? A Response to Wiredu” in Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze, Postcolonial African Philosophy.
3. Kwame Gyekye, Tradition and Modernity, chap. 4
4. Ernest Wamba-dia-Wamba,
Beyond Elite Politics of democracy in Africa@, Quest: Philosophical Discussions; an International African Journal of
Philosophy, Vol X, No. 2, 1996.
5. Gail Presbey, “Criticism
of Multiparty democracy: Parallels between Wamba-dia-Wamba and Arendt” 6. Gail Presbey, “Akan Chiefs and Queen
Mothers in Contemporary Ghana: Examples of Democracy or accountable Authority”
(Typescipt)
The controversy tha went on in Africa from the sixties to
the early nineties as to whether the one-party system of statecraft is
compatible with democracy is also relevant to the issue of democracy and
consensus. That controversy in Gideon-Cyrus M. Mutiso and S. W. Rohio, Readings in African Political Thought in
Part IV chaps 1 (Busia), 2 (Sithole), 3 (Busia), 5 (Nyerere), 6 (Nyerere), 7
(Sekou Toure) and 11 (Ben Yahmed).
10. The Question of Communitarianism
Communitarianism has recently become a topic of lively
discussion in Western philosophy. Communitarianism is cognate to the notion of
communalism, which designates a kind of social formation widely characteristic
of many African societies. It would be instructive to compare African
communalism with western communitarianism.
READINGS:
Kwame Gyekye, Tradition
and Modernity, chap.2
Shlomo Avineri and Avner
de-Shalit, eds., Communitarianism and Individualism, Oxford 1992.
11. The Question of Violence
By comparison with the last topic, the question of
violence has received far greater attention. This question arose in two
connections. First, those cognizant of the Marxist doctrine of the class
struggle as a mode of struggle for socialism were moved to consider whether
that mode of struggle was necessary in the conditions of Africa. Mixed feelings
were apparent. Second, the question of the legitimacy of violence arose in
regard to the struggle for independence from colonialism and also for
liberation from white-settler minority rule in Africa. Here most African
thinkers affirmed the legitimacy of armed struggle, though with varying degrees
of anguish, ranging from zero in the case of Fanon to a vary high degree of agonized
soul-searching in the case of Kaunda. The liberation struggles are now all won,
but the philosophical problem of violence remains in Africa and everywhere
else. Armed conflicts are raging in various parts of the world. In Africa the
one has to reckon with spate of military coups in the last three decades or so,
not to talk of the variety of ethnic conflicts. There is therefore still some
point in examining and evaluating the question of violence in contemporary
African philosophy.
READINGS
1. Fanon, The Wretched
of the Earth, London: Penguin Books, 1978.
2. Kenneth D. Kaunda, The
Riddle of Violence, London: Collins, 1980.
3. Kwasi Wiredu, "The
Question of Violence in Contemporary African Thought", Praxis
International, Vol. 6, No. 3, 1986.
4. Oladipo Fashina,
"Franz Fanon and the Ethical Justification of Anti-Colonial
Violence", Social Theory and Practice, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Summer
1989).
5. Ali Mazrui,
"Mahatma Gandhi and Black Nationalism", in the author's Political
Values and the Educated Class in Africa, London: Heinemann, 1978.
6. Tsenay Serequeberhan, The
Hermeneutics of African Philosophy, New York: Routledge, 1994.
7. Diana Axelsen,
"Philosophical Justifications for Contemporary African Social and
Political Values and Strategies" in Wright, African Philosophy, pp.
237, 239-240.
Class Attendance Policy
Class attendance is mandatory. If you miss a class for whatever reason, it
is your responsibility to find out what went on in the class, especially
regarding any assignments that may have been given.
Course Requirements
There will be one major and one other written
assignment. The latter will be a composite take-home exam for which questions
will be given out in advance. The major assignment will be a research paper of
not less than 15 pages for undergraduates and 20 pages for graduate students.
In both cases the essay should be typed in double spacing in no larger than
12-point font. The highlights of the paper will be given as a presentation in
class. The take-home questions, which will be three in number, will require
short answers of five double-spaced pages each for undergraduates and seven
double-spaced pages each for graduate students.
Grading
The
major writing assignment will account for 50% of the final grade and the other
assignment the remaining 50%. In grading written work I will look for knowledge
of the literature, ability to argue, correctness and clarity of expression and
independence of mind.