Abstract

ABSTRACT. The author looks at two themes in the writings of four African scholars: E. Bolaji Idowu, John Mbiti, Okot p’Bitek and Kwame Appiah. She surveys their ideas about the existence of truth and of a High God. For each theme, she outlines the significance of each author’s work. In the conclusion the coherence between both themes is shown with the help of two varieties of philosophical positions and aesthetic styles, notably: modern-ism and postmodernism She shows why Idowu and Mbiti should be categorized as mod-ernist. She argues that Okot p’Bitek’s view of God-as-dead shows him to be a modernist and why his deconstruction of the work of previous scholars also makes him a postmod-ernist avant la lettre. Finally, she argues that Appiah’s postmodern vision on the non-existence of one single truth has been conducive to his vision on identity as a bricolage of traditional and modern elements of culture. KEY WORDS. African religion, Appiah (Kwame), discourse, High God, Idowu (Bolaji), Mbiti (John), modernism, Okot p’Bitek, postmodernism, truth