Afrophone Philosophies: Possibilities and Practice. The Reflexion of Philosophical Influences in Euphrase Kezilahabi's … (original) (raw)

Makala haya yanapendekeza dhana ya "falsafa za lugha za Kiafrika" badala ya dhana kama "falsafa za kimapokeo" au "falsafa za kienyeji" ambazo zinatumiwa katika mjadala kuhusu "falsafa ya Kiafrika" siku hizi. Yanaieleza dhana hii kinadharia na kutoa maoni kwamba fasihi za lugha za Kiafrika ndivyo vyombo vya kuitekeleza kazi ya kifalsafa katika jamii za Kiafrika za kisasa. Katika muktadha huu, makala yanazingatia jinsi dhana za falsafa ya Magharibi zinavyoakisiwa katika maandishi ya Euphrase Kezilahabi, Nagona na Mzingile. 1 This paper was, in a reduced form, presented at the 17th Swahili Colloquium in Bayreuth, May 21-23, 2004. I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Elena Bertoncini-Zúbková, for her support and for providing me with otherwise inaccessible literature, Mr. Abdilatif Abdalla, for his selfless help and long-term guidance in the Swahili language, Professor Luboš Kropáček, for supervising my Ph.D. thesis and for his support, Dr. Kai Kresse, for making his excellent works accessible to me, Ms. Sonja Mezger and Mr. Lutz Diegner, for their stimulating thoughts and for sending me several important articles. My special thanks to Professor Euphrase Kezilahabi, for answering my questions and for providing me with additional references. brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by Qucosa-Publikationsserver der Universität Leipzig 2 This definition comes close to Hountondji's definition of African philosophy": "J'appelle philosophie africaine un ensemble de textes: l'ensemble, précisément, des textes écrits par des Africains et qualifiés par leur auteurs euxmêmes de «philosophiques»." ("I call African philosophy a group of textes: precisely, the group of texts written by Africans and qualified by their authors themselves as 'philosophical'.") (Hountondji 1977: 11, my translation). Nevertheless, the concept of discourse delimits the boundaries of "African philosophy" very differently: for one thing, it is not only Africans who participate in this discourse. I do not find the second part of Hountondji's definition, the description of the texts as philosophical by their authors, satisfactory either; however, a detailed argument against it goes beyond the limits of this paper. 3 In the last ten years, these works have appeared: introductions and history: