An avowed communitarian, Gyekye follows the lead of such African communitarians as Menkiti who believe that the community is ontologically prior to the individual. However, unlike Menkiti and other...

Como disciplina acadêmica, a filosofia africana nasceu há cerca de seis décadas como um conjunto de reações à atitude depreciativa em relação aos africanos (e outros “nativos” não-europeus) dos principais antropólogos europeus nas primeiras quatro décadas do século XX. Considero que o conjunto de reações a essa visão depreciativa compreende três tipos: etnofilosofia, sistematizações baseadas no interlocutor e filosofia dos sábios. Vou discuti-los nesta ordem porque a filosofia dos sábios surgiu como uma tentativa de remediar o que seus defensores viam (...) como deficiências dos dois primeiros tipos de reações. (shrink)

I address four major objections that have been advanced against the system of multiparty majority democracy that I proposed as an alternative to Wiredu’s non-party consensual democracy. First, that the system is not durable since it is structured around ill-defined ethnic groups; second, that since it envisions each ethnic group as a semi-autonomous entity, the system undermines the integrative process of nation-building; third, that, as a type of federalism, the system has no precedents on African soil, and consequently, that it (...) is likely to face the problem of imperfect fit; and fourth, that some African ethnic groups are too small to stand as semi-autonomous entities. I then underscore four advantages of my system over Wiredu’s: It honours the right of freedom of association; addresses the problem of the marginalisation of minority ethnic groups; reaps the benefits of both non-party and multiparty democracy; and entrenches the ingredients of consensual democracy. (shrink)