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INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY
PLS1502
NAME(S) :
13TH OCT/NOV EXAM 2021
MEMORANDUM
STUDENT NUMBER :
, 2
SECTION A
1. African philosophy
African Philosophy can be formally defined as a critical thinking by Africans on their
experiences of reality. African philosophy is "that which concerns itself with the way in
which African people of the past and present make sense of their destiny and of the world
in which they live." African philosophy is the work of philosophers of African descent
and others whose work deals with the subject matter of the African diaspora. African
philosophy has a lot much to do with communal issues as opposed to individualisation of
the ideas. African is largely known as unwritten philosophy but the philosophy that lives
in the commonly accepted practices.
An example of African philosophy can be the Ubuntu philosophy. Research on Ubuntu
presents an alternative collective discourse on African philosophy ("collective" in the
sense that it does not focus on any individual in particular) that takes differences,
historical developments, and social contexts seriously.
1. Ethnophilosophy
Ethno-philosophy is a matter of great controversy and is largely associated with the
criticism which was levelled by Paulin Hountondji against the intellectual practice of his
contemporaries. The gist of Hountondji’s critique was that what his colleagues were
doing was ethnology pretending to be philosophy. What he accused them of doing was
simply collecting the collective beliefs and viewpoints of different ethnic groups on
particular questions like the existence of god, the objections to murder, the nature of souls
for example. He argued that simply expressing these collective views under titles like
“the Xhosa view on interpersonal ethics” or “ The Zulu understanding of the mind body
problem” while interesting were not really exercises in philosophy but ethnology.
He argued among other things that philosophy was out of necessity critical, it should
include not simply a catalogue of views but a self-critique of them. He insisted also that
philosophy was in fact an individual rather than collective endeavour and could not as
such be ascribed to any collective but to individual philosophers more correctly. In
addition he insisted that a written tradition was necessary for any discussion of
philosophy since this was the medium for critical and inter-temporal dialogue forming
anything which could be called a tradition.
Because the term ‘ethnophilosophy” was used pejoratively , not all those accused of
doing it accepted the judgment, so we will call them ethnophilosophers in inverted
commas. Their defence included pointing out that every individual philosopher inherits
his tradition, problems, language from a community and so philosophy is never simply
the exercise of individuals. The also raised objections against his insistence on writing as
a possibility condition for critical discourse by raising how Socrates for example , a
widely accepted figure in the history of philosophy never wrote. They argued that it was
indeed possible to engage critically via oral discourse and to sustain a critical tradition
INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY
PLS1502
NAME(S) :
13TH OCT/NOV EXAM 2021
MEMORANDUM
STUDENT NUMBER :
, 2
SECTION A
1. African philosophy
African Philosophy can be formally defined as a critical thinking by Africans on their
experiences of reality. African philosophy is "that which concerns itself with the way in
which African people of the past and present make sense of their destiny and of the world
in which they live." African philosophy is the work of philosophers of African descent
and others whose work deals with the subject matter of the African diaspora. African
philosophy has a lot much to do with communal issues as opposed to individualisation of
the ideas. African is largely known as unwritten philosophy but the philosophy that lives
in the commonly accepted practices.
An example of African philosophy can be the Ubuntu philosophy. Research on Ubuntu
presents an alternative collective discourse on African philosophy ("collective" in the
sense that it does not focus on any individual in particular) that takes differences,
historical developments, and social contexts seriously.
1. Ethnophilosophy
Ethno-philosophy is a matter of great controversy and is largely associated with the
criticism which was levelled by Paulin Hountondji against the intellectual practice of his
contemporaries. The gist of Hountondji’s critique was that what his colleagues were
doing was ethnology pretending to be philosophy. What he accused them of doing was
simply collecting the collective beliefs and viewpoints of different ethnic groups on
particular questions like the existence of god, the objections to murder, the nature of souls
for example. He argued that simply expressing these collective views under titles like
“the Xhosa view on interpersonal ethics” or “ The Zulu understanding of the mind body
problem” while interesting were not really exercises in philosophy but ethnology.
He argued among other things that philosophy was out of necessity critical, it should
include not simply a catalogue of views but a self-critique of them. He insisted also that
philosophy was in fact an individual rather than collective endeavour and could not as
such be ascribed to any collective but to individual philosophers more correctly. In
addition he insisted that a written tradition was necessary for any discussion of
philosophy since this was the medium for critical and inter-temporal dialogue forming
anything which could be called a tradition.
Because the term ‘ethnophilosophy” was used pejoratively , not all those accused of
doing it accepted the judgment, so we will call them ethnophilosophers in inverted
commas. Their defence included pointing out that every individual philosopher inherits
his tradition, problems, language from a community and so philosophy is never simply
the exercise of individuals. The also raised objections against his insistence on writing as
a possibility condition for critical discourse by raising how Socrates for example , a
widely accepted figure in the history of philosophy never wrote. They argued that it was
indeed possible to engage critically via oral discourse and to sustain a critical tradition
