Archie Mafeje and the question of African philosophy: A liberatory discourse

Philosophy and the social sciences, at least in modern times, are largely a by-product of the West – Europe and the Americas. This is to say that the West has a monopoly over these disciplines. This may be largely attributed to the colonial conquest of many territories by European powers and the resultant subjugation of the peoples concerned. Africans, by and large, are victims of such atrocities on the part of the West. Hence the question of an “African philosophy” arises, or gains momentum, in the (post) colonial era, or at independence. This is because the impulse to philosophise is inextricably linked to the impulse to gain freedom among the bonded. This paper attempts to show how the present subject, Archie Mafeje, dealt with the question of whether or not there exists an “African philosophy”. In responding to the question, it will also be shown what philosophy really is (indeed, must have to be) and occasion will be had to remark as to its distinctive practices within the African context. This is to be understood as a broader philosophy of liberation which liberates philosophy from the received Euro-American contours and consequently liberates the colonised and oppressed, the African in particular, with its engagement with the (post) colonial, neo-colonial condition and remedies for the (dis)order thereof.     

Teaching ancient African philosophy

In this article, I critically examine the pedagogical problems in the teaching of ancient history of African philosophy in continental and diaspora Africa. I argue that the teaching of ancient history of African philosophy poses ab initio some peculiar problems arising from a number of factors: scepticism about the existence of such a classical philosophy; the problem of language and the controversy in the historiography of African philosophy. An examination of these issues as well as a discussion of their possible resolutions constitutes serious challenges both at the pedagogical and philosophical levels. I establish the particularistic, mythological, comparative, historical, and philosophical dimensions of ancient African philosophy which are instructive in the teaching of the course in tertiary institutions in continental and diaspora Africa. I provide advice on some common issues that are sensible to acquaint learners with in the teaching of the course in the homeland and diasporas, regardless of the variations in topics, emphasis, contents and texts. Consequently, I suggest a course scheme in ancient history of African philosophy that may be minimally adopted at the tertiary level.     

早期现代哲学中的语言问题

The view of language is greatly changed from early modern philosophy to later modern philosophy and to postmodern philosophy. The linguistic question in early modern philosophy, which is characterized by rationalism and empiricism, is discussed in this paper. Linguistic phenomena are not at the center of philosophical reflections in early modern philosophy. The subject of consciousness is at the center of the philosophy, which makes language serve purely as an instrument for representing thoughts. Locke, Leibniz and Descartes consider language from a representationalist point of view. To them, language itself is idealized and represents thought as if it were thought representing itself. Like the structural linguist Saussure, the founders of phenomenology and analytical philosophy give much attention to the logical or static structure of language, and stick up for the representationalism of early modern philosophy. However, their successors refuse to accept this attitude, meaning the final collapse of representationalism. Translated by Cui Zengbao and Yang Dachun from Zhexue Yanjiu 哲学研究 (Philosophical Research), 2007, (8): 62–67     

The relevance of connecting sustainable agricultural development with African philosophy

Our global food system is complex and philosophers can – or should – pose critical questions about it. One question that deserves particular attention is Western interference in agricultural development in Africa. To today, the Western scientific paradigm forms the basis for mainstream agricultural research and development – with a firm belief in technological solutions and economic progress. It is concerning that African philosophy is a largely unknown field among agricultural scientists and practitioners. The aim of this philosophical essay is therefore to explore the relevance of connecting sustainable agricultural development with African philosophy. The article explores Eurocentric thinking in agricultural research and development and why such thinking can be problematic. In a search for ways to respond to Eurocentrism, I follow Kimmerle, who engaged in intercultural dialogues between African and Western philosophies. Mutually respectful and transformative dialogues can lead to mutual understanding and a more equal relation between Africa and the West, in the sense that this relation becomes more open to African philosophies and less Eurocentric.     

African philosophy and global epistemic injustice

In this paper, I consider how the discourse on global epistemic justice might be approached differently if some contributions from the African philosophical place are taken seriously. To be specific, I argue that the debate on global justice broadly has not been global. I cite as an example, the exclusion or marginalisation of African philosophy, what it has contributed and what it may yet contribute to the global epistemic edifice. I point out that this exclusion is a case of epistemic injustice. I observe that the absence of a philosophical technique that prevails on philosophers to engage with others from other traditions might be responsible for this epistemic lopsidedness and marginalisation. I go beyond the re-statement of this problem of marginalisation of African philosophy to point out relevant doctrines from the African place. I show how they are united under the methodological and ideological disposition of conversationalism. I argue that this ideology might be a better model for realising the goal of global epistemic justice which is the overcoming of all forms of exclusions and lopsidedness in global epistemic discourses through fair allocation of intellectual spaces.     

Integrating African heritage studies as a new terrain of African philosophy

One of the innovative features of post-apartheid scholarship in Africa is the emergence of African heritage studies, an inter-disciplinary field concerned with the study of the collection, conservation and interpretation of historical, archaeological and anthropological artefacts of African cultural heritage. However, despite the preoccupation with questions about the value of African heritage in African philosophy, the imperative and benefits of integrating African heritage studies and contemporary African philosophy have largely been ignored by both fields. In this article, I argue for the integration of African heritage studies and African philosophy by showing their inherent symbiosis and the potential mutual benefits of their integration. By highlighting the mistaken assumption that critics of ethnophilosophy reject the centrality of the study of African heritage in African philosophy, I show how criticisms of ethnophilosophy, in fact, provide not only the rationale for African heritage studies, but also the most promising theoretical direction for how African philosophy could draw on African heritage studies, for its object of analysis and how African heritage studies can, in turn, benefit conceptually and methodologically from integrating itself with African philosophy.     

Doing African political philosophy from a universalist perspective

There has been a strong impetus to set the definitional parameters of study in African political philosophy and theory. Many scholars advance the idea of a discipline intended to provide lessons that stem from “original” African moral, ideological, and political traditions. Often, these traditions and their ideas are presented as holding categorical moral substance in so far as they are seen to be specific to a culturally essentialist understanding of “Africa.” In turn, an influential part of the literature estimates the normative value of the intellectual ideas and arguments afforded by a varied historical, socio-cultural and economic African geography by the degree to which, in being tethered to a seemingly homogenous, “culturally African” influence, these ideas can be opposed to a “Western” equivalent. In this article, I argue that the effects on the discipline of attending to, and being defined by, this cultural essentialism are at best unclear, at worst detrimental. I aim to contribute to the side of those who advocate a universalist perspective to the study of African political philosophy and thought, and who argue for jettisoning an unhelpful dichotomy between “West” and “African,” in favour of a methodological, conceptual and historical specificity that allows the discipline to be truly useful to itself and to others.     

The evolution of happiness

An evolutionary perspective offers novel insights into some major obstacles to achieving happiness. Impediments include large discrepancies between modern and ancestral environments, the existence of evolved mechanisms "designed" to produce subjective distress, and the fact that evolution by selection has produced competitive mechanisms that function to benefit one person at the expense of others. On the positive side, people also possess evolved mechanisms that produce deep sources of happiness: those for mating bonds, deep friendship, close kinship, and cooperative coalitions. Understanding these psychological mechanisms--the selective processes that designed them, their evolved functions, and the contexts governing their activation--offers the best hope for holding some evolved mechanisms in check and selectively activating others to produce an overall increment in human happiness.     

Gleaning the social contract theory from African communitarian philosophy

The social contract is one of the most influential political theories in Western philosophy. Although the social contract theory is mainly associated with a number of thinkers in the broad history of social and political philosophy, I am particularly focused on the social contract theory proffered by two British philosophers, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. While the social contract theory has mainly been influenced by these British philosophers, little has been done in terms of appraising its key normative ideas from non-Western philosophical traditions. In this article, I examine how the social contract theory might be understood differently from a non-Western perspective, if values salient in African communitarian philosophy are properly understood. As I attempt to establish how the African social contract theory can be gleaned from African communitarian philosophy, I make comparisons and contrasts between the social contract theory in the African tradition and the traditional social contract theory in Western philosophy. I intend to make a novel interpretation of the ideals of the former that are implicit in the African communitarian structure. I seek to provide reasons why the African communitarian structure could be taken as the normative basis for a plausible social contract theory in the African social and political context.     

On historicity,context and the existence of African philosophy

Abstract

The author reviews the second edition of Philosophy from Africa by comparing it with the first edition and with other anthologies in African philosophy. Questions regarding the existence and identity of African philosophy receive special attention. It is argued that a negation of the existence of African philosophy results from monolithic, ahistorical and decontextualized thinking about Africa and about philosophy. The roots and development of African philosophy are inseparably bound up with the continent’s historical, political, cultural and economic complexities. The challenge facing African philosophers is twofold: deconstructing the notion of philosophy as constructed and conceived by the West; and reconstructing the history of African philosophy.     

The notion of happiness in early Wittgenstein: towards a non-contentful account of happiness

This paper examines the notion of ‘happiness’ in the writings of the early Wittgenstein as a notion that does not involve any particular content or states of mind. The main question that the paper addresses is how we can retain a non-contentful account of happiness without turning happiness into an abstract notion, isolated from our concrete lives in language. The paper examines two pivotal components of the Wittgensteinian account of happiness: the ‘good exercise of the will’ and the ‘artistic way of seeing’. In both cases, I try to stress their non-contentful dimension, while simultaneously trying to understand them through language. The central concept for such a non-contentful aspect of language is the notion of ‘meaningfulness’. Thus the paper examines the pivotal components of the Wittgensteinian account of happiness in relation to the notion of ‘meaningfulness’: happiness is then explained as seeing a world against the background of possibilities of meaning.     

The academic rewards of socially-oriented happiness: Interdependent happiness promotes academic engagement

Interdependent happiness has been found to be positively associated with optimal psychological outcomes in collectivist cultures. However, the association between interdependent happiness and key academic outcomes has remained unexplored. The current study examined the association of interdependent happiness with key academic outcomes such as autonomous motivation, engagement, and achievement using both cross-sectional (Study 1) and longitudinal (Study 2) approaches. Study 1 revealed that interdependent happiness positively predicted academic engagement (partly) via autonomous motivation. Study 2 showed that prior interdependent happiness positively predicted subsequent academic engagement even after controlling for autoregressor effects. In addition, reciprocal associations among the key variables were found. Taken together, results of the two studies suggest that interdependent happiness plays an adaptive role in the academic context especially in a collectivist cultural setting. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

The relationship between adult happiness and self-appraised childhood happiness and events

The primary purpose of the present research was to relate questionnaire-assessed self-reported childhood happiness and events to adulthood happiness in 387 non-clinical participants. Although childhood happiness and adult happiness were found to be significantly correlated (r = .28, p < .001), there was little relationship between reported adult happiness and reported specific childhood events and circumstances. Childhood events and circumstances, however, were much more highly correlated with childhood happiness (R = .64). Thirty-four percent of the persons who said they were unhappy or very unhappy as a child, but only 9% who said they were happy or very happy as a child, reported that they were unhappy or very unhappy as adults.     

African and Islamic philosophy: Expanding the horizons of philosophical counselling

Philosophical counselling has traditionally utilized a limited number of philosophical traditions: Existentialism, Stoicism, and the employment of Socratic dialogues being the most common ones. Focusing on a limited number of philosophical views does not exploit the potential therapeutic value of many other philosophical traditions, and may enhance dogmatism. In this paper we illustrate the need for a wider philosophical toolkit by showing the potential value of two rarely-employed philosophical traditions: African and Islamic philosophy. From the plethora of issues in these philosophical traditions, we highlight the relevance of African philosophy to conflicts between social duties and individual desires, and the relevance of Islamic philosophy to conflicts between faith and reason. We then emphasize the relevance of these philosophies in the current social and political situation in the Western world in general, and in Europe in particular.     

The history of philosophy in contemporary philosophy: The view from Germany

Conclusion I have frequently mentioned objective problems and topics in the preceding sections. But what exactly is the force of objective here? As my remarks should have made clear I have been using objective to contrast with purely historical. A purely historical approach never gets beyond reproduction, commentary, and interpretation. I call an approach objective when it involves a philosopher who advances his own theses and claims.This minimal understanding of objectivity (in the context of my remarks in this paper) by no means implies that there are problems and topics, systems of concepts, methods, and similar factors that are eternal, completely independent of the contingencies of history (of philosophy, of the sciences), that are not relative to a language, to a logic, to a model, etc. Indeed whether there are problems, etc., in just this absolute, atemporal sense is itself a question for systematic philosophy. It seems clear that the formulation of a problem can only take place against a cognitive background of some sort and within some conceptual scheme.³⁴ Such an assumption is made by most if not all analytic philosophers. But the fact that a philosophical tradition recognizes conceptual schemes does not make it a purely historical, non-objective philosophy, in the sense already introduced and described. A philosopher who explicitly accepts a certain conceptual scheme proceeds in an entirely objective and systematic (and not purely historical) manner when, within this framework, he formulates his own theses.This paper is the text of a talk. the title is due to Barry Smith.