Divided into eight sections, each with introductory essays, the selections offer rich and detailed insights into a diverse multinational philosophical landscape. Revealed in this pathbreaking work is the way in which traditional philosophical issues related to ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology, for instance, take on specific forms in Africa's postcolonial struggles. Much of its moral, political, and social philosophy is concerned with the turbulent processes of embracing modern identities while protecting ancient cultures.

This paper seeks to address the problem of strangeness within the context of migration in Africa. I draw on historical realities that inform existing international and African discourses on migration. I hope to show that most African countries have unconsciously bought into international arguments that drive the legitimacy of building walls, visible and invisible, and the promotion of stringent migration policies that minimise the influx of African immigrants. I draw on political and philosophical positions of African thinkers like Kwame Nkrumah, (...) among others, in my theorisation of strangeness and the need to dispel the potential negative conception of strangeness within Africa’s migration policies. I juxtapose these positions with Western political theories with the hope of emphasizing African humanism as a key conception worth considering when decolonising borders. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In an attempt to formulate an African phenomenological method, this article engages with existing African philosophical schools, namely particularism, universalism and eclecticism. I will explore how the positions advanced in these schools, valid in their own rights, are at the same time potentially absolutist and thus in need of reformulation. I will also test my theoretical findings by addressing the ontological implications of ontological absolutism in politics, with special reference to the situation in Cameroon and how they translate to (...) an identity crisis. I argue that an absolutist understanding of human existence has become an integral justification for the use of violence. I then proceed to propose ways of addressing the situation by arguing that this absolutist foundation is foreign to Africa in general and Cameroon in particular, and it will only further the chaos that is already ravishing the social reality in Cameroon. While addressing the problem, the aim here is to attempt a formulation of an African phenomenological approach and to bring attention to the often-neglected phenomenological and ontological dimensions in African politics. (shrink)

There has been the recurrent suspicion that community, harmony, cohesion, and similar relational goods as understood in the African ethical tradition threaten to occlude difference. Often, it has been Western defenders of liberty who have raised the concern that these characteristically sub-Saharan values fail to account adequately for individuality, although some contemporary African thinkers have expressed the same concern. In this chapter, I provide a certain understanding of the sub-Saharan value of communal relationship and demonstrate that it entails a substantial (...) allowance for difference. I aim to show that African thinkers need not appeal to, say, characteristically Euro-American values of authenticity or autonomy to make sense of why individuals should not be pressured to conform to a group’s norms regarding sex and gender. A key illustration involves homosexuality. (shrink)

According to Kwame Nkrumah, the conscience of the African society is plagued with three strands of influences which have competing and conflicting ideologies: “African society has one segment which comprises our traditional way of life; it has a second segment which is filled by the presence of the Islamic tradition in Africa; it has a final segment which represents the infiltration of the Christian tradition and culture of Western Europe into Africa, using colonialism and neocolonialism as its primary vehicles.” When (...) these three segments with their conflicting ideologies are allowed to co-exist, the African society “will be racked by the most malignant schizophrenia.” Nkrumah’s solution, philosophical consciencism, presents an ideology aimed at achieving a harmony among the three segments in such a way that is “in tune with the original humanist principles underlying African society.” I do two main things in this paper: first, I present an analysis and critique of Nkrumah’s understanding of how the harmony is to be achieved in African societies; and second, I show how the theoretical ideas of philosophical consciencism – materialism, dialectical change, categorial conversion, socialism – are given actual form and content on the social-political scene through an analysis of Nkrumah's set theoretic terms. (shrink)

The article argues that the currently dominating, Western-originated individualistic and materialistic concept of development as ‘progress’ has created an evident confusion between ‘values and facts,’ ‘ideologies/ideals and practices,’ ‘ends and means’ in the current development thinking and practice. Instead of realizing such humanistic ideas as human flourishing and holistic well-being, current development agenda focuses on economic growth and producing ‘better business environments.’ Since this model for development has gradually been globalized, any alternative patters of conceptualizing development and setting alternative ideals (...) for it have efficiently been disparaged. However, if we take the unsustainability of this model seriously and care for the survival of human kind, we need to look for new and alternative directions for development. In this we can learn from the developmental values of other cultures. This article introduces some exploratory thoughts on what African philosophy could offer to the debate on global development. (shrink)