African Philosophy

[MischievousMonkey]

AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY

Feel free to discuss any topic relating to African philosophy in this thread.

--x--

Once I'm done with the books I'm reading right now, I'm about to dive in this colossus->
A Companion to African Philosophy

Edited by Kwasi Wiredu

Advisory editors: William E. Abraham, Abiola Irele, and Ifeanyi A. Menkiti

It's sitting on my backlog right now, but looking through the Contents It seems to contain so many gems that I can't wait to read about. To the point I can think of particular members on this forum browsing through the topics that would find this chapter, or that chapter, very interesting.

If you want the sauce, don't hesitate to hit my Private Mansion.

This volume is intended to be a comprehensive anthology of essays on the history of African philosophy, ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary, and on all the main branches of the discipline, including logic, epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics, ethics, and politics. The chapters are nearly all new. They have been written in such a way as to be reflective, enlightening, and useful to both students and scholars. Methodological concerns as manifested in contemporary controversies among African philosophers on the proper relations between the traditional and the modern in their discipline have been addressed. But pride of place belongs to substantive issues of philosophy as these have occupied the African mind in communal conceptions and
individualized cogitations.
Accordingly, this text will not only serve as a companion to a main text in a course in African philosophy; it can also serve as the principal text at the graduate as well as the undergraduate level. The reader will therefore find ample bibliographies appended to most chapters. But this is not their only rationale. The discipline itself, of contemporary African philosophy, is in a phase of intense postcolonial reconstruction, which manifests itself in print in many different ways. The availability of relevant literature must therefore be a welcome aid to the curious. But even to the incurious outside of Africa, who are still often frankly taken by surprise by the mention of African philosophy, such notification of availability might well occasion the beginning of curiosity. Teachers newly embarked upon courses in African philosophy will also be empowered by the same circumstance. They will find that the Introduction to this volume was designed with their basic needs, though not only that, in mind.

Contents:

Preface xix

Introduction: African Philosophy in Our Time 1

Part I HISTORY 29

1 Egypt: Ancient History of African Philosophy 31
THE´ OPHILE OBENGA

2 African Philosophers in the Greco-Roman Era 50
D. A. MASOLO

3 Precolonial African Philosophy in Arabic 66
SOULEYMANE BACHIR DIAGNE

4 Some Nineteenth-Century African Political Thinkers 78
PIETER BOELE VAN HENSBROEK

5 Africana Philosophy: Origins and Prospects 90
LUCIUS T. OUTLAW, JR.

6 Contemporary Anglophone African Philosophy:
A Survey 99
BARRY HALLEN

7 Philosophy in South Africa Under and After Apartheid 149
MABOGO P. MORE

8 Philosophy in North Africa 161
MOURAD WAHBA

9 The Light and the Shadow:
Zera Yacob and Walda Heywat:
Two Ethiopian Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century 172
CLAUDE SUMNER
v

10 Zera Yacob and Traditional Ethiopian Philosophy 183
TEODROS KIROS

11 Anton Wilhelm Amo 191
WILLIAM E. ABRAHAM

12 Amo’s Critique of Descartes’ Philosophy of Mind 200
KWASI WIREDU

13 Albert Luthuli, Steve Biko, and Nelson Mandela:
The Philosophical Basis of their Thought and Practice 207
MABOGO P. MORE

14 Frantz Fanon (1925–1961) 216
TEODROS KIROS

15 Theory and the Actuality of Existence: Fanon and Cabral 225
TSENAY SEREQUEBERHAN

16 Alexis Kagame (1912–1981): Life and Thought 231
LIBOIRE KAGABO

17 Post-Independence African Political Philosophy 243
OLU´ FE´MI TA´ I´WO

PART II METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES 261

18 Some Methodological Controversies in African Philosophy 263
A. G. A. BELLO

19 Sage Philosophy: Its Methodology, Results, Significance, and Future 274
KIBUJJO M. KALUMBA
PART III LOGIC, EPISTEMOLOGY, AND METAPHYSICS 283

20 Logic in the Acholi Language 285
VICTOR OCAYA

21 Yoruba Moral Epistemology 296
BARRY HALLEN

22 Ifa´: An Account of a Divination System and Some
Concluding Epistemological Questions 304
OLU´ FE´MI TA´ I´WO`

23 Toward a Theory of Destiny 313
SEGUN GBADEGESIN

24 On the Normative Conception of a Person 324
IFEANYI A. MENKITI

25 African Conceptions of a Person: A Critical Survey 332
DIDIER NJIRAYAMANDA KAPHAGAWANI

26 Quasi-Materialism: A Contemporary African Philosophy of Mind 343
SAFRO KWAME
PART IV THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 353

27 Religion in African Culture: Some Conceptual Issues 355
OLUSEGUN OLADIPO

28 Okot p’Bitek’s Critique of Western Scholarship on African Religion 364
SAMUEL O. IMBO

29 Islam in Africa: Examining the Notion of an African
Identity within the Islamic World 374
SOULEYMANE BACHIR DIAGNE
PART V ETHICS AND AESTHETICS 385

30 Some African Reflections on Biomedical and Environmental Ethics 387
GODFREY B. TANGWA

31 Ethics and Morality in Yoruba Culture 396
JOHN AYOTUNDE ISOLA BEWAJI

32 Aesthetic Inquiry and the Music of Africa 404
KOFI AGAWU

33 Art and Community: A Social Conception of Beauty and Individuality 415
NKIRU NZEGWU

34 The Many-Layered Aesthetics of African Art 425
AJUME H. WINGO
PART VI POLITICS 433

35 Government by Consensus: An Analysis of a Traditional
Form of Democracy 435
EDWARD WAMALA

36 Democracy, Kingship, and Consensus: A South African Perspective 443
JOE TEFFO

37 Fellowship Associations as a Foundation for
Liberal Democracy in Africa 450
AJUME H. WINGO

38 Economic Globalism, Deliberative Democracy, and the State in Africa 460
GEORGE CAREW

39 Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Violence 472
ALI A. MAZRUI

40 Western and African Communitarianism: A Comparison 483
D. A. MASOLO

41 Human Rights in the African Context 499
FRANCIS M. DENG

42 The Politics of Memory and Forgetting After Apartheid 509
PIETER DUVENAGE

43 The Question of an African Jurisprudence:
Some Hermeneutic Reflections 519
JOHN MURUNGI
PART VII SPECIAL TOPICS 527

44 Knowledge as a Development Issue 529
PAULIN J. HOUNTONDJI

45 African Philosophy and African Literature 538
ANTHONY KWAME APPIAH

46 Philosophy and Literature in Francophone Africa 549
JEAN-GODEFROY BIDIMA

47 Feminism and Africa: Impact and Limits of the Metaphysics of Gender 560
NKIRU NZEGWU

 

[2Quik4UHoes]

That book looks tough as shyt!

I need to get a copy

 

[CopiousX]

I’m only in the introduction so far, but I find the Yoruba concept of reality/fact fascinating.



The idea that a completed, “known” action requires a human to visibly witness it and verify it’s completion to another observer is truly novel. This requirement jives perfectly with quantum theory, where atomic particles(or their energy state) can only be “known” when being viewed and recorded by an observer, but somehow these same particles disappear when the observer turns away. This change in the natural world, based only on human perception, seems to support the Yoruba concept of “known” reality/fact.




Despite being unaware of subatomic phenomena, it looks like preColombian Africans developed modes of thought still applicable for academia in 2020.








Any thoughts? Feel free to add to my post. The book seems like a nice survey African philosophy. I Just barely completed the intro. Got a long way to go until complete.

 

[Lord-Yosh]

I’m only in the introduction so far, but I find the Yoruba concept of reality/fact fascinating.



The idea that a completed, “known” action requires a human to visibly witness it and verify it’s completion to another observer is truly novel. This requirement jives perfectly with quantum theory, where atomic particles(or their energy state) can only be “known” when being viewed and recorded by an observer, but somehow these same particles disappear when the observer turns away. This change in the natural world, based only on human perception, seems to support the Yoruba concept of “known” reality/fact.




Despite being unaware of subatomic phenomena, it looks like preColombian Africans developed modes of thought still applicable for academia in 2020.








Any thoughts? Feel free to add to my post. The book seems like a nice survey African philosophy. I Just barely completed the intro. Got a long way to go until complete.

Seems like a dope read breh. I think imma order this soon.

 

[MischievousMonkey]

I’m only in the introduction so far, but I find the Yoruba concept of reality/fact fascinating.



The idea that a completed, “known” action requires a human to visibly witness it and verify it’s completion to another observer is truly novel. This requirement jives perfectly with quantum theory, where atomic particles(or their energy state) can only be “known” when being viewed and recorded by an observer, but somehow these same particles disappear when the observer turns away. This change in the natural world, based only on human perception, seems to support the Yoruba concept of “known” reality/fact.




Despite being unaware of subatomic phenomena, it looks like preColombian Africans developed modes of thought still applicable for academia in 2020.








Any thoughts? Feel free to add to my post. The book seems like a nice survey African philosophy. I Just barely completed the intro. Got a long way to go until complete.

Interesting parallel between Yoruba epistemological principles and quantum theory!

I read that chapter and it's a pretty good read. The natural questions it leads me too is how do Yorubas do science, media, education, etc etc... since the language itself seems much more thorough when it comes to establishing the truth of things.

Would it make them more or less prone to believe in conspiracy theory