African philosophy

The existence and nature of African philosophy has been discussed for decades. The constant demand for African scholars to reveal African philosophical contribution to human learning and human civilization has three fundamental reasons according to a seminar on African philosophy held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1974:


1. Prejudice

2. With the advent and later the intensification of colonialism, the major European ethnographers and social anthropologists portrayed Africans as possessing a pre-logical or non-logical mentality. And since the essence of philosophy is logic or rationality, Africans were therefore regarded as incapable of philosophy, properly so-called.

3. There was also a western European conception of the universe, a conception which has been given a rational formulation and expression in western scientific thought. This conception provides the foundation for a western mode of existence. In the face of Africa´s current unmistakable subjection to Europe; the agonising question was raised by some African intellectuals whether indeed there was a distinctively African conception of the universe and a mode of existence founded on this conception.

Philosophy can be defined in a broad or narrow sense as much as the concept “African”. The existence of European philosophy or eastern philosophy has never been questioned. When it comes to the cradle of humanity as I call the African continent, there seems to be unfounded assumptions and presumptions on the non-existence of critical thinking and complex thoughts which actually is absurd as wisdom, mythology and philosophy are the trademarks of the whole continent.

African philosophy is characterized by unity and complete encounter of all things and beings, which by reason of the dynamic character of African ontology, has surfaced on the communal structure of a society based on the division of labour and rights, in which man attains growth and recognition by how well he fulfils a function for the over – all – all well-being of the community (African philosophy 1974).

Philosophy refers methodologically, to a reflective, systematic, deep and through way of thinking and, historically, to a vast and rich display of subjects which have engaged the attention of different thinkers, at different times, in different climes: knowledge itself, its language, its methods, being and non-being, good and evil, unity and multiplicity, motion, the world, life and inanimate beings, man and the infinite being. Philosophy attempts to grasp the entire universe in a small number of principles (Ethiopian philosophy 1974:100).

African philosophy is part and parcel of this universal strife to make sense of our mere existence on the universe. Humanity has its origins in the African continent and so does philosophy!