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Racism and the Marginality of African Philosophy in South Africa
The following article begins with a brief discussion on the continuity of white supremacy in South Africa, despite wide attempts by the institutions of opinion (public discourse, journalism and academe) to represent the present time as non-racial or post-racial. After a discussion of the contemporary context the focus turns specifically to the relevance of race and racism to philosophy and the implications this has for African philosophy in particular. The article then briefly examines the history of Western education and the practice of philosophy in South Africa from the point of view of African philosophy and its marginality in South Africa.
Yesterday and Today, 2022
A Kenyan philosopher, Henry Odera Oruka (1944-1995), conceptualised and articulated the six trends in African philosophy. ese are ethno-philosophy, nationalistic-ideological philosophy, artistic (or literary philosophy), professional philosophy, philosophic sagacity and hermeneutic philosophy. In this article, we maintain that the last three of these trends, namely professional philosophy, philosophic sagacity, and hermeneutic philosophy, are useful in our a empt to contribute to Africanising the school history curriculum (SHC) in the Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) in post-apartheid South Africa. Against this background, we make use of Maton's (2014) Epistemic-Pedagogic Device (EPD), building on from Bernstein's (1975) Pedagogic Device as a theoretical framework to view African philosophy and its implications for the Africanisation of the SHC in CAPS in post-apartheid South Africa. rough the lens of Maton's EPD, we show how the CAPS' philosophy of education is questionable; untenable since it promotes 'di erences of content';
African Philosophy and the Search for an African Philosopher: The Demise of a Conflictual Discourse
Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions, 2015
There are contending reasons why the rationale, qualification and justification for becoming an African philosopher are still facing the problem of ontology. One reason, as Didier Kaphagawani posits, is premised on the challenges by anthropology and colonialism (1986, 86). Given Oruka, Makinde, Oladipo, Oke, and Hallen's perception of these challenges, they concede that these challenges gave birth to the postcolonial search for a distinct African identity. On the one hand, D. A. Masolo's submission that because "Africa cannot be re-subjectivised; hence, an identity which is peculiarly African is impossible" (1997, 283-285) downplays the concession of Kaphagawani, Oruka, et al. Moreover, there tend s to be agreement among certain philosophers who have devoted their time promoting Africana philosophy and culture-oriented discourse in Africa like Outlaw, Cabral, Fanon, Makinde, Oladipo, Oke, Hallen, Horton, etc., that "the Western discourse on Africa and the response to such discourse" (MASOLO 1994, 1) led many African philosophers like Nazombe, Okpewho, Tempels, Nkrumah, Nyerere, Senghor, Cesaire, Awolowo, Mandela, etc., to react using socio-political and academic means to establish a distinct African philosophical paradigm which craves for the re-subjectivisation of Africa. By implication, the response to the Western discourse on Africa, as Outlaw, et al, opine, lend credence to (a) the rationale for the qualification and justification to be an African philosopher; (b) the existence of African philosophy, and (c) the modality of doing philosophy in Africa. Nevertheless, the problem with Outlaw, et al, o n one hand, and D. A. Masolo, on the other, is the failure to recognize that any philosopher need not be of African descent or blood before he can make a meaningful contribution to address the problems facing the development of Africa in all spheres of lif e. This is possible in as much as there is an adequate understanding of the subject under discussion or what it means to do African philosophy. It is this failure or weakness that we shall explore in this essay.
Philosophy in the Present Context of Africa
Theoria
The focus of the article is to explore the possibilities of philosophic discourse in the present postcolonial African situation. As indicated in the title, it will begin by exploring and laying out grosso modo, the character of philosophy as a discipline. It will then engage in examining, again broadly, Africa’s present: the situation that has prevailed since the end of formal colonialism. Consequent on the two expositive presentations, the article will then indicate the role that philosophy can and should play in this situation. The aim is to explore the possible beyond the demise of colonialism in the hope of catching sight of a truly postcolonial future. The article is thus a concise articulation of the hermeneutical stance in contemporary African philosophy.
A POSTMODERN NARRATIVE FOR AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY
In this essay I argue for a distinctively postmodern African knowledge culture which recognizes that knowledge is not only local, but also inter-subjective. Such an African knowledge culture not only includes the idea of what I refer to as plural conversations in an inter-African context, but also includes a cross-cultural knowledge that facilitates cross-cultural dialogue and understanding. In the light of this, I propose an orientation to African knowledge culture that has cultural relevance insofar as it is mounted on concepts peculiar to an inter-African context, as well as in the larger context of a continuing cross-cultural dialogue. Such an African knowledge culture acknowledges the necessity to develop the ability to grasp the fundamentals of indigenous African cultures and other cultures by way of adopting and living out what I call a postmodern disposition. Such a postmodern disposition would perceive an African knowledge culture not only as an inter-cultural African philosophy of personal intent, but also as the practice of cross-cultural dialogue, where culture takes on the form of a consensual or social epistemology, that is, an epistemology deliberately situated in a particular cultural context and sensitive to the need for cross-cultural dialogue. In this instance, the individual recognizes and exercises knowledge(s) appropriate to his/her culture, and at the same time has a critical awareness of the knowledge(s) and cultural traditions of both his/her culture and that of other cultures. In so doing, the individual constructs a sound epistemic identity for his/her culture, as well as one that meets the particular demands of his/her unique cultural context. Such an epistemic identity perceives of philosophy as a product of, and a reflection on, reality, as a guide to life; while the experience out of which philosophy emerges is determined by how people have lived in their particular historic and cultural contexts.
South African Journal of Philosophy 31 (2012): 504-516
ABSTRACT: Thinking of an academic discipline in terms of a ‘social practice’ (MacIntyre) helps in formulating what the ideal captured in the slogan ‘African scholarship’ can contribute to the discipline. For every practice is threatened by the attractiveness of goods external to the practice – in particular, competitiveness for its own sake – and to counter this virtues of character are needed. African traditional culture prioritizes a normative picture of the human person which could very well contribute here to upholding the values internal to scholarship. I argue, contrary to Matolino, that for these purposes Tempels’ notion of the transactional process of becoming more of what you are by virtue of the human insertion in nature, is a useful starting point. But the dominant way philosophy is framed today, the human person outside of ‘nature’, omitting the key notion of presence-to-self, disallows this dialogue between the dominant tradition and African thought culture. I show, by interrogating what I take to be an impoverished understanding of objectivity in the dominant philosophical approach, how the idea of personal, subjective, growth is crucial to introductory philosophy if the project of African scholarship is to find purchase. As an example I look at rival ways of understanding the value of justice, procedurally or, alternatively, substantively and hence foregrounding participation.
African-American/Africana philosophy has made a name for itself as a critical perspective on the inadequacies of European philosophical thought. While this polemical mode has certainly contributed to the questioning of and debates over the universalism of white philosophy, it has nonetheless left Africana philosophy dependent on these criticisms to justify its existence as "philosophical." This practice has the effect of not only distracting Black philosophers from understanding the thought of their ancestors, but formulates the practice of Africana philosophy as "racial therapy" for whites. By making the goal of Africana philosophy the transformation of the white racist to the white non-racist, Africana philosophy takes up a decidedly political (integrationist) agenda. Making this agenda the guiding ethos of Africana philosophical praxis censors both the Africana thinkers available to study and the interpretation of the figures deemed "fit" for study. Thus I conclude a culturalogic approach is the best way to delineate between the political and methodological in Africana philosophy.
Old wives' tales and philosophical delusions: on 'the problem of women and African philosophy'
This article represents a response to 'the problem of women and African phi-losophy', which refers mainly to the absence of strong women's and feminist voices within the discipline of African philosophy. I investigate the possibility that African women are not so much excluded from the institutionalized discipline of philosophy, as preferring fiction as a genre for intellectual expression. This hypothesis can be supported by some feminists who read the absolute prioritisation of abstraction and generalization over the concrete and the particular as a masculine and western oppressive strategy. Attention to the concrete and the unique which is made possible by literature more readily than by philosophy, could thus operate as a form of political resistance in certain contexts. If fiction is currently the preferred form of intellectual expression of African women, it is crucial that the community of professional philosophers in a context like South Africa should come to terms with the relevance of such a preference for philosophy's self-conception, and it should work to make these intellectual contributions philosophically fruitful. In the process, we may entertain the hope that philosophy itself will move closer to its root or source as 'love of wisdom'.
Hermeneutics, history, and d'où parlez vous? Paul Ricoeur and Tsenay Serequeberhan on how to engage African philosophy from a Western context, 2019
This article presents a possible method to engage African thought from a Western context. It does so by first showing the need for such an engagement by arguing that philosophical research is dominated by Western normativity: in phenomenology, for example, questions and answers gathered in this method more often than not ignore other cultures and perspectives, thus yielding results that only reflect a Western historico-cultural context. In order to open this normativity to other encounters, this article presents a dialogue between Ricoeur's hermeneutic phenomenological method and Serequeberhan's African hermeneutics. The upshot of this dialogue is that it presents a way for thinkers in a Western context to engage African thought without dominating or otherwise "recolonising" said thought.
Wrestling with the whiteness of South African philosophy: Ndumiso Dladla's Here is a Table
This paper seeks to engage with the reality of South Africa, from the position of being black in South Africa. It is impossible to have any meaningful engagement about South Africa without an understanding of the history that brings it about. This is a history of conquest and colonisation, which we shall argue has not been undone albeit the post 1994 settlement. Philosophy in South Africa is tied to such a history like a child is tied to mother through an umbilical cord. This is to say Philosophy in South Africa is a form of colonialism which finds expression through the negation of the black/colonized experience in the construction of its enterprise. Philosophy is a product of experience, and in South Africa it is the white experience of the world that is constitutive of philosophy as such. This paper seeks to articulate the black experience of the world through a perspective that is opposed to the violent existence of South Africa to date, and this shall be done through a critical exposition of Ndumiso Dladla's Here is a Table: A Philosophical Essay on the History of Race in South Africa (Bantu Logic Publishing, 2018), a timely intervention which makes such a reflection possible. This is the Azanian critical philosophy that is opposed to the conquest and colonisation of the indigenous people in the unjust wars of colonization that Dladla (2018) elucidates. If by integration you understand a breakthrough into white society by blacks, an assimilation and acceptance into an already established set of norms and code of behavior set up and maintained by whites, then YES I am against it. I am against the superior-inferior white-black stratification that makes the white a perpetual teacher and the black a perpetual pupil (and a poor one at that).I am against the intellectual arrogance of white people that makes them believe that white leadership is a sine qua non in this country and that whites are divinely appointed pace-setters in progress. I am against the fact that a settler minority should impose a system of values on an indigenous people.-Steve Bantubonke Biko (2004:26) Introduction The colonial character of South African philosophical practice, which we aim to discuss in this paper, is a by-product and expression of the European colonial enterprise which found its articulation with the arrival of the first Dutch settlers of 1652 and the British 1820 settlers. Both settler populations were unified against the indigenous conquered population after the resulting