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Imbo, Samuel Oluoch, 1961–
An introduction to African philosophy / Samuel Oluoch Imbo.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Philosophy, African. I. Title.
B5305.I43 1998
199’.6—dc21
97-48810
CIP
9781461636502
Printed in the United States of America
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Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI
Z39.48-1984.
To Yu-jung
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART ONE - Definitions of African Philosophy
Chapter One - How Is African Philosophy to Be Defined?
PART TWO - Ethnophilosophy and Its Critics
Chapter Two - Is Ethnophilosophy Really Philosophy?
Chapter Three - Is African Philosophy Unique?
PART THREE - African Philosophy Making Connections
Chapter Four - What Should the Language(s) of African Philosophy Be?
Chapter Five - Are There Connections Among African, African American, and Feminist
Philosophies?
Conclusion
References
Index
About the Author
Acknowledgments
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to many people who have contributed to this book over the
years. First, my teachers, especially the late Henry Odera Oruka, who together with Dismas
Masolo introduced me to comparative philosophy. Next, my students at Purdue University
Calumet and at Hamline University, who unfailingly asked the crucial questions that challenged
me to clarify my positions on the topics discussed here.
I am very grateful to Jeffrey Crawford, whose extensive comments on the manuscript at
various stages were extremely useful. His suggestions, even those I did not agree with, made
the book clearer than it might otherwise have been. Emmanuel Eze and Bill Lawson provided
additional constructive guidance that made me revisit some previously unclear arguments.
My institution, Hamline University, provided a most supportive environment in which to
finish writing this book. I particularly want to acknowledge the debt to my colleagues in the
philosophy department, Duane Cady, Nancy Holland, and Stephen Kellert, for listening and
providing opportunities for ongoing dialogue on these topics. Support from the College of
Liberal Arts came in the form of the Hanna Grant, which freed me from material concerns
during the summer of 1997.
Finally, my wife, Yu-jung Hu, to whom this book is dedicated. She was the first reader of
every chapter and also typed and computer edited the manuscript through all its stages. Without
her love, inspiration, and encouragement, this book would not have been completed.
Introduction
Much contemporary writing on African philosophy is a direct challenge to the bases and
content of Western scholarship. Other writing that celebrates indigenous traditions is an
indirect challenge to the view that in the absence of “great” written texts, traditional Africa
could not claim to have had intellectual cultures. Indeed, the theme of whether philosophy can
exist and thrive in the absence of written texts runs through many contemporary discussions in
African philosophy.
A number of books, mostly anthologies, bring together articles from a wide range of
academic journals where these debates on the nature and definition of African philosophy have
been raging. Large parts of these anthologies are taken up with discussions of whether an
African philosophy exists, how it is to be defined, what distinguishes it from Western
philosophy, whether it is oral or written, and whether it can be accessible to non-Africans or is
so unique that only Africans can understand it. Participants in the debates bring different
definitions and underlying assumptions about what philosophy is, and it is therefore not
surprising that African philosophy gets defined and classified in such different ways. Two
general trends are discernible in the introductory texts. On the one hand, there is an
ethnophilosophy that takes a culture-specific view of philosophy and finds African philosophy
in the proverbs, myths, folk tales, sculptures, and traditional cultures. Opposed to
ethnophilosophy is the universalist approach, which rejects culture-specific philosophy.
Universalists for the most part are skeptical about the existence of a philosophy that is not
written down and—if such a philosophy did come into existence—its ability to develop a
tradition of debate and sustained inquiry. Within the universalist approach there is a minority,
represented by Kenyan philosopher Henry Odera Oruka, that defends an oral philosophical
tradition. Odera Oruka develops a thesis he calls Sagacity, according to which there were in
traditional Africa sages who were philosophic in the strictest sense despite their illiteracy. He
offers Socrates as a parallel example of a sage, who never wrote down his thoughts and yet is
generally considered a great philosopher. The larger argument between the ethnophilosophers
and universalists is really whether the notion of text should be restricted to its usual domain—
the written word.
Despite the useful function of synthesizing arguments from diverse sources, the current
literature almost invariably lacks variety in the number of topics represented and so serves as
an introduction to African philosophy in only a limited sense. One such introductory text is
Tsenay Serequeberhan’s African Philosophy: The Essential Readings.1 Even though he brings
together some of the main voices of contemporary African philosophy, Serequeberhan limits
the contributions in that collection to the writings of Africans. While it is important, in his
words, to “hearken to what Africans have to say for themselves,” the issue of whether non-
Africans can contribute to African philosophy should itself be part of the ongoing discussion.
Limiting the contributions to only those of Africans effectively sidesteps this larger debate. The
anthology is also limited in another sense. Most of the articles confine themselves to the single
issue of whether there exists such a thing as African philosophy. The book is thus imbalanced
in the sense that most of the chapters dwell on questions of definition and justification. Such an
introduction does not give an adequate indication of the landscape of African debates on
metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics.
Another example of an anthology that has served as a vehicle for these debates on the nature
and definition of African philosophy is Richard Wright’s African Philosophy: An
Introduction,2 which first came out twenty years ago. The most often cited third edition was
published in 1984. This anthology, like Serequeberhan’s, suffers from an imbalance. In this
case, the problem comes from leaning too heavily in the ethnophilosophical direction. As
Kwame Anthony Appiah, a towering figure in contemporary African scholarship, has noted:
“The only paper in Wright’s collection that exemplifies the critical analysis that characterizes
the best philosophy—the only paper that seems to me to offer a standard for African
philosophy to aim at—is Kwasi Wiredu’s ‘How Not to Compare African Thought with
Western Thought.’ ”3 I take a slightly more charitable view than Appiah’s in holding that with
the possible exception of one or two, the rest of the essays, Wright’s collection, by uncritically
falling back on traditional cultures as acceptable materials for philosophical study, does not
rise above the level of ethnophilosophy.
A book like M. Akin Makinde’s African Philosophy, Culture, and Traditional Medicine4 is
not intended as an introduction to African philosophy, and it would be unfair to treat it as such.
Yet insofar as it bears the title “African Philosophy,” I highlight it because it illustrates a
problem of a different kind. It purports to sidestep the whole debate about whether an African
philosophy exists. Although the device of finding African philosophy “by means of some
African traditional thinking which addresses itself to much the same philosophical issues as
Western philosophy” 5 may lull Makinde into thinking that the question of the existence of
African philosophy has successfully been ducked, this stratagem is in fact the uncritical
embrace of one view of philosophy without regard to the implications of that view and without
an examination of the alternatives. The product may indeed be insightful about traditional
African medicine and its practice, but its status as philosophy must remain doubtful.
Recently Safro Kwame has anthologized Akan philosophy in Readings in African
Philosophy: An Akan Collection.6 Safro Kwame’s work is similar in spirit to the work of
another Akan philosopher, Kwame Gyekye,7 whose focus is also on the Akan ethnic group.
Although impressive in terms of breadth of topics covered (there are selections on traditional
and current trends, metaphysics, epistemology, business ethics, and feminism), the anthology
has a focus on only one ethnic group—the Akan group, composed of speakers of languages
such as Twi, Fanti, Asante, and Akwapim in modern Ghana. The title “African Philosophy” is
therefore overly ambitious—unless one holds a unanimist view of Africans whereby what is
true of one ethnic group is also true of others.
