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African Philosophy… Does it Exist?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2024
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Three main issues are of cardinal interest in this paper. The first issue relates to the canons of discourse—the parameters that inform and guide any discussion—in African philosophy. These canons are accepted in one form or the other by the philosophers who have actually formulated some of them and those who have devoted their academical careers to the promotion of the positive study of African philosophy. Consequently this paper should be viewed in the same light as C.E.M. Joad's A Critique of Logical Positivism in which the “Great Tradition” in philosophy is classically expounded and defended against the onslaught of the philosophical exuberance and extraordinary claims of the logical positivists in the sense that it is a rejoinder to the attack on African philosophy by those who actually may want to be known as African logical neo-positivists.
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- Copyright © 1985 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)
References
1 Some of the academicians I have in mind here are: Professor William Abraham; Professor Percy Johnston, editor, Afro-American Journal of Philosophy: Professor J.O. Sodipo, editor, Second Order: An African Journal of Philosophy and Vice-Chancellor of Ogun State University; Professor I. Onyewuenyi, editor, Uche; Profes sor Kwasi Wiredu-editor, Universitas; Dr. Barry Hallen; Dr. K.C. Anyanwu and Dr. Oluwole who are both editorial members of the Nigerian Journal of Philosophy.
2 Frontline members of African logical neo-positivism are Peter O. Bodunrin, Henry O. Oruka, Paulin Hountondji and Robin Horton. The group would like to claim that Kwasi Wiredu is one of them but this is very doubtful and I do not now so count him. See P.O. Bodunrin, "The Question of African Philosophy" Philo sophy, 56(1981), p. 163. I should also point out that Robin Horton has long denied that he is a logical positivist although he clearly was one when he first entered philosophy as a scientist.
3 C.S. Momoh, "The Rationality of An African Religion", Afro-American Jour nal of Philosophy Vol. II, 1-2 (1983-84). Forthcoming.
4 Paul Radin, Primitive Man as Philosopher, New York, Dover Publications, Inc. 1957, p. 17.
5 Credit for the idea leading to the formation of the Nigerian Philosophical Association goes to Dr. Barry Hallen, an American Philosopher who was then with the Department of Philosophy, University of Lagos.
6 Gordon Hunnings, "Logic Language and Culture," Second Order; An African Journal of Philosophy, Vol. IV, no 1 (1975), p. 12.
7 Ibid., pp.12-13.
8 Kwasi Wiredu, Philosophy and an African Culture, London, Cambridge Univer sity Press 1980, p. XI.
9 C.S. Momoh "The ‘Logic' Question in an African Philosophy" Kiabara: Journal of the Humanities, Vol. 5, n. 2, (1983). Forthcoming.
10 Robin Horton, "African Traditional Thought and the Emerging African Philosophy Department: A Comment on the Current Debate" Second Order: An African Journal of Philosophy, Vol. VII, n. 1, (1977), p. 64.
11 Bodunrin, p. 179.
12 W.E. Abraham, The Mind of Africa, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1962, p. 104.
13 Marcel Criaule, Conversations with Ogotommeli; An Introduction to Dogon Religious Ideas, London, Oxford University Press, 1965, p. XV.
14 C.S. Momoh, An African Conception of Being and the Traditional Problem of Freedom and Determinism, Bloomington, Indiana, Ph.D. Dissertation, 1974, pp. 64-74.
15 C.S. Momoh, "Modem Theories in an African Philosophy" The Nigerian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 1, n. 2, 1981, pp.8-10.
16 Bodunrin, p. 163.
17 Ibid. p. 161.
18 Ibid. I will make copious references to this work first because Professor Bodunrin regards himself as the chief spokesman of the African logical neo-positivists and, secondly, because his article, published in Philosophy, is the most widely read and circulated on account of that fact.
19 "Do we have an African Philosophy" in Richard A. Wright, ed., African Philosophy: An Introduction, Washington, D.C., University Press of America, p. 24.
20 Bodunrin, p. 177.
21 D.E. Idoniboye, "The Concept of ‘Spirit' in African Metaphysics", Second Order, vol. II, no 1, 1973, pp. 83-89.
22 E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Theories of Primitive Religion, London, Oxford Claren don Press, 1972, p. 97.
23 The familiar philosophy, of course, always has a written language and known individuals who are the authors of its philosophical literature.
24 H. Odera Oruka, "The Fundamental Principles in the Question of ‘African Philosophy' ", Second Order, IV (no 1, 1975), p. 44.
25 Abraham, p. 104.
26 This is an unpublished paper which Professor Bodunrin read to his students on the occasion of the "1967 Philosophy Students' Week," University of ibadan. There is some evidence that Professor Bodunrin may have shifted his position in this regard.
27 A variant of the objection that African philosophy is not unique is that "African proverbs would be of philosophical interest only if they could be used to produce a philosophical system different from that of the West." Kwame Gyokye, "Philosophical Relevance of Akan Proverbs," Second Order IV (no 2, 1975), p. 51.
28 Momoh, Kiabara.
29 I hawe in mind critics like Henri Maurier whose article has already been cited and J.E. (now Kwasi) Wiredu, "How Not to Compare African Thought with Western Thought" in Wright p. 149.
30 The term "practising metaphysician" was first coined by D.E. Idoniboye as a non-pejorative substitute for "Juju man."
31 Momoh, An African Conception of Being, pp. 162-5.
32 Ibid.
33 Yosef ben-Jochannan, Black Man of the Nile and His Family, New York, Alkebu-Lan Books Associates, 1978, pp. 318-319.
34 "… There is this plain difference between low and high races of man" insists Edward Tylor, "that the dull-minded barbarian has not power of thought enough to come up to the civilized man's best moral standard." Anthropology, New York, Appleton-Century-Crafts, 1897, p. 407.
35 S.O. Biobaku "An Historical Sketch of Egba Traditional Authorities", Africa: Journal of the International Institute of African Languages and Culture, XXII, 1952, p. 35.
36 Wright, pp. 41-61.
37 Frances A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, New York, Vintage Books, 1964, p. 398.
38 Ibid. p. 6.
39 Study in Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, Indiana University, 1984-85.
40 Bodunrin, p. 161.
41 Ibid., p. 163.
42 Ibid., p. 169.
43 Ibid., p. 173.
44 Ibid., pp. 171-72.
45 Ibid., p. 162.
46 W.H. Dray, "Holism and Individualism in History and Social Science" in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. IV, Paul Edwards, ed., p. 57.
47 Bodunrin, p. 165.
48 C.S. Momoh, "Socialism is not the Answer to Society's Problems", Sunday Times, Sept 7, 1980, p.14.
49 Ibid.
50 Bodunrin, p. 169.
51 Ibid. pp. 177-178.
52 R.F. Atkinson, "British Philosophy" in The Twentieth-Century Mind: History, Ideas and Literature in Britain, II, 1918-1945, C.B. Cox and A.E. Dyson, ed., London, Oxford University Press, 1972, p. 107.
53 David Bell, "Philosophy" in The Twentieth Century Mind, I, 1900-18, p. 183.
54 Ibid. p. 184.
55 The errors are too numerous to exhaust but some deserve a passing mention— that there are European, British, American or Russian physics and mathematics; that there is no African literature or history hence the need arose to "create" them; and that mathematics is an eminently rational, logical and consistent system, although Bodunrin did not say whether mathematics is all of this on the logistic or intuitionist or formalist approach to the foundations of mathematics.
56 Bodunrin, p. 178.
57 Abraham, p. 104.
58 Paulin J. Hountondji, African Philosophy : Myth and Reality, Translated by Henri Evans with the collaboration of Jonathan Ree, Introduction by Abiola Irele, London, Hintchinson University Library for Africa, 1983, pp. 97-98.
59 Ibid.,
60 Ibid., p. 54.
61 Bell, p. 206.
62 I am immeasurably grateful to Professor William Abraham, Professor J.O. Sodipo and Dr. Oluwole for improvements in the final draft of this paper. The contributions of some of my graduate students—Jim Unah, Taiwe Ogunleye, Rabiu Adeniyi, Funmi Magbadelo and A. Akinado—in a graduate course on Critical African Philosophy have also been very challenging and stimulating.
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