Abstract

This chapter is a critical analysis of knowledge and testimony in African communitarian epistemology (ACE). The aim is to explicate the meaning and nature of knowledge and argue that the testimony of elders is a genuine source of knowledge and justification in ACE. The African knowledge system is grounded on African ontology. ACE is the study of the indigenous ways of knowing representative of the sub-Sahara African. It studies the specific ways and means by which Africans arrive at, and justify their understanding of reality. Essentially, it is a social and communitarian epistemological system in which the community is the primary bearer and justifier of knowledge. To this end, it emphasizes the socio-cultural factors in knowledge practice, which makes it different from the traditional western individualistic epistemological system. In its context as a communitarian epistemic system, testimony as indicative say-so is considered a basic source of knowledge and justification. This chapter begins by establishing the legitimacy of African epistemology as a genuine indigenous field of epistemic inquiry. Thereafter, it addresses pertinent issues like, what constitutes knowledge for the African and how the African distinguishes between knowledge and belief. Also, it discusses emerging themes, like the nature of knowledge, the sources and transmission of knowledge.