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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007 African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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Erasure of African Philosophy
Panel |
79. African Humanitarianism
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Paper ID | 169 |
Author(s) |
Murungi, John
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Paper |
View paper (PDF)
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Abstract | In the second half of the twentieth century, some African thinkers were involved in theorizing about the existence of the non-existence of African Philosophy. Apparently, today, this activity has lost momentum. It is not evident why there is such a loss. What appears to be the case is that there is a growing literature on African Philosophy, and the number of philosophy programs are very gradually giving room for a course in this branch of philosophy. The loss of momentum, I believe is immature. It is immature partly because, the issue that was being addressed did not get the attention it deserves. It reminds me of the fanfare that attended African decolonization process -a process that is rarely discussed today. It seems that colonization was superficially understood, and hence the response was bound to be superficial. What this process lacked was an indepth scrutiny of the onto-existential effect of colonization on the African. And because this did not take place, decolonization turned out to be nothing more that a superficial reversal of the effect of colonialism on the African. An indepth scrutiny of this effect called for a philosophical scrutiny -a scrutiny that would put into work an authentic African philosophy. The issue of the existence of non-existence of African Philosophy bears directly on this undertaking. The paper suggests that the colonization of African amounted largely to the erasure of African philosophy. De-erasure of African philosophy is taken to be integral to the process of decolonization. It calls for a re-thinking of what hitherto has passed as European philosophy, especially in the view of a strongly held belief among some major Western philosophers that philosophy is essentially and exclusively a Greco-European project. This belief affects what Africans study as philosophy and what they teach as philosophy. The argument is that education in philosophy in Africa ought to be firmly rooted in African soil, but rooted in a way that does not disrgard either European philosophy or Asian philosophy. Discourse or conversation on the nature of philosophy remains open, and African philosophers are to be taken as integral participants in the discourse and the conversation -not as junior partners or as converts , but as constituting members in the determination of what is to count as philosophy. It is equally important that there be a place for the study of African philoophy in African studies, for the dispersal of these studies into various branches of science, omits attention to what lies at the core of the humanity of the African -what one could call African anthropology proper, an anthropology that is more than a social science. |
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