Although African philosophy has become a part of the world philosophic heritage that can no longer be neglected, no comprehensive history of it is available yet. This lacuna is due to the numerous problems that affect any attempt to outline such a history. Among these problems are those inherent in the historiography of philosophy in general and many others specific to African philosophy. They include the absence of scholarly unanimity over the exact nature of philosophy and, by extension, African philosophy; (...) the dispute over the beginning of philosophy in Ancient Egypt, as well as the Afrocentrist assertion of the origin of Greek philosophy in Egypt; the problem of periodization; the status of ethnophilosophy, etc. These difficulties do not make a comprehensive history of African philosophy an impossible or irrelevant task. On the contrary, such a history is a necessity that promises to exert an enormous positive influence on the future development of African philosophy. (shrink)

While highlighting the inherent tension between the quest for universalization and the unavoidable particularity in philosophical hermeneutics, this essay argues against what it regards as the uncritical characterization of Leopold Sedar Senghor’s concept of “negritude” in terms of ethnophilosophy, a derogatoryterm employed in contemporary African philosophy to describe philosophy that is communal, and which can be sieved out from such genres as proverbs, wise sayings, and myths. It reviews the background and the contents of negritude, including its metaphysics and its (...) epistemology of emotion. It calls attention to Senghor’s ideas about communalism and his universalism seen in his theory of the civilization of the universal, and concludes that Senghor’s negritude is the outcome of a particular and personal interpretation of his experience of the African condition, and is therefore eminently hermeneutical. (shrink)

Departing from Charles Taylors’s statement that philosophy is inescapably historical, the paper tries to examine several attempts to write the history of African philosophy. It notes that contrary to the experience of many other regional philosophies there is yet no comprehensive history of African philosophy which takes full account of its the different spectrums and periods. A good number of authors who have tried to recount the history of African philosophy have dwelt only on aspects or periods of that philosophy (...) thus precluding the advantage of presenting African philosophy as a coherent whole. An examination of the weakness and the strong points of some of these works leads to the assertion of the necessity of comprehensive history of African philosophy, as well as a weighing of the possible reasons why no serious attempt have been made in that direction. Writing such a work will be the last complement of the History of Africa. (shrink)

Departing from Charles Taylors’s statement that philosophy is inescapably historical, the paper tries to examine several attempts to write the history of African philosophy. It notes that contrary to the experience of many other regional philosophies there is yet no comprehensive history of African philosophy which takes full account of its the different spectrums and periods. A good number of authors who have tried to recount the history of African philosophy have dwelt only on aspects or periods of that philosophy (...) thus precluding the advantage of presenting African philosophy as a coherent whole. An examination of the weakness and the strong points of some of these works leads to the assertion of the necessity of comprehensive history of African philosophy, as well as a weighing of the possible reasons why no serious attempt have been made in that direction. Writing such a work will be the last complement of the History of Africa. (shrink)

While highlighting the inherent tension between the quest for universalization and the unavoidable particularity in philosophical hermeneutics, this essay argues against what it regards as the uncritical characterization of Leopold Sedar Senghor’s concept of “negritude” in terms of ethnophilosophy, a derogatoryterm employed in contemporary African philosophy to describe philosophy that is communal, and which can be sieved out from such genres as proverbs, wise sayings, and myths. It reviews the background and the contents of negritude, including its metaphysics and its (...) epistemology of emotion. It calls attention to Senghor’s ideas about communalism and his universalism seen in his theory of the civilization of the universal, and concludes that Senghor’s negritude is the outcome of a particular and personal interpretation of his experience of the African condition, and is therefore eminently hermeneutical. (shrink)

The Series: Studies in African Philosophy is a forum for the publication and wider dissemination of researches and reflections of value on all aspects of ...