Detailed History Of African Philosophy

One of the challenges that have persisted in African philosophy through the centuries is the question, if there is an African philosophy at all. Thus, when one uses the term African, one is asked to contextualize the term: Does it (the term African) refer to the content of the philosophy or does it qualify the identity of the philosophers themselves? Whether resting with the former, or the latter, or making a synthesis of both perspectives, our Western counterparts in the field of philosophy, history, and anthropology have had it as a preoccupation to prove at all costs, that we are devoid of the concept of rationality. At least, that we posses no rational abilities at all, or at most, that every rational process we engage in is passive and unreflective.

Basically, the need to portray Africans in the right light gave birth to an African concept of rationality-to show that African philosophy is not in any way inferior to Western or Eastern philosophy became a task for African scholars. This paper relates the meaning, problems, and perspectives in African philosophy. Such exposition is appropriate in understanding the process of African rationality as it engages us in its history-the myths; the facts, and how it has been able to cope with the numerous challenges it has always been faced with.

Introduction

African philosophy as a systematic study has a very short history. This history is also a very dense one, since actors sought to do in a few decades what would have been better done in many centuries. As a result, they also did in later years what ought to have been done earlier and vice versa, thus making the early and the middle epochs overlap considerably. The reason for this overtime endeavor is not far-fetched. Soon after colonialism, actors realized that Africa had been sucked into the global matrix unprepared. During colonial times, the identity of the African was European, his thought system, standard and even his perception of reality were structured by the colonial shadow which stood towering behind him. It was easy for the African to position himself within these Western cultural appurtenances even though they had no real-time connection with his being.

The vanity of this presupposition and the emptiness of colonial assurances manifested soon after the towering colonial shadow vanished. Now, in the global matrix, it became shameful for the African to continue to identify himself within the European colonialist milieu. For one, he had just rejected colonialism and for another, the deposed European colonialist made it clear that the identity of the African was no longer covered and insured by the European medium. So, actors realized suddenly that they had been disillusioned and had suffered severe self-deceit under colonial temper. The question which trailed every African was, "Who are you?" Of course, the answers from European perspective were savage, primitive, less than human, etc. It was the urgent, sudden need to contradict these European positions that led some post-colonial Africans in search of African identity. So, to discover or rediscover African identity in order to initiate a non-colonial or original history for Africa in the global matrix and start a course of viable economic, political and social progress that is entirely African became one of the focal points of African philosophy.

Placid Tempels, the European missionary, elected to help and in his controversial book, Bantu Philosophy, sought to create Africa"s own philosophy as proof that Africa has its own peculiar identity and thought system. However, it was George James, another concerned European who attempted a much more ambitious project in his work, Stolen Legacy. In this work, there were strong suggestions not only that Africa has philosophy but that the so-called Western philosophy, the very bastion of European identity, was stolen from Africa. This claim was intended to make the proud European colonialists feel indebted to the humiliated Africans, but it was unsuccessful. That Greek philosophy had roots in Egypt does not imply, as some Europeans claim, that Egyptians were dark nor that dark complexioned Africans had philosophy. The use of the term "Africans" in this work is in keeping with George James" demarcation which precludes the light complexioned people of North Africa and refers to the dark complexioned people of southern Sahara.

After these two Europeans, Africans began to attain maturation. Aime Cesaire, John Mbiti, Odera Oruka, Julius Nyerere, Leopold Senghor, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Kwame Nkrumah, Obafemi Awolowo, Alexis Kegame, Uzodinma Nwala, Emmanuel Edeh, Innocent Onyewuenyi, and Henry Olela, to name just a few, opened the doors of ideas. A few of the works produced sought to prove and establish the philosophical basis of African, unique identity in the history of humankind, while others sought to chart a course of Africa"s true identity through unique political and economic ideologies. It can be stated that much of these endeavors fall under the early period.

For its concerns, the middle period of African philosophy is characterized by the great debate. Those who seek to clarify and justify the position held in the early epoch and those who seek to criticize and deny the viability of such position entangled themselves in a great debate. Some of the actors on this front include, C. S. Momoh, Robin Horton, Henri Maurier, Lacinay Keita, Peter Bodunrin, Kwasi Wiredu, Kwame Gyekye, Richard Wright, Barry Halen, Joseph Omoregbe, C. B. Okolo, Theophilus Okere, Paulin Hountondji, Gordon Hunnings, Odera Oruka and Sophie Oluwole to name a few.

The preceding epoch eventually gave way to the later period which has as its focus the construction of an African episteme. Two camps rivaled each other namely; the Critical Reconstructionists who are the evolved Universalists/Deconstructionists and the Eclectics who are the evolved Traditionalists/Excavators. The former seek to build an African episteme untainted by ethnophilosophy; whereas, the latter seek to do the same by a delicate fusion of relevant ideals of the two camps. In the end, Critical Reconstructionism ran into a brick wall when it became clear that whatever it produced cannot truly be called African philosophy if it is all Western without African marks. The mere claim that it would be African philosophy simply because it was produced by Africans (Hountondji 1996 and Oruka 1975) would collapse like a house of cards under any argument. For this great failure, the influence of Critical Reconstructionism in the later period whittled down and it was latter absorbed by its rival-Eclecticism.

The works of the Eclectics heralded the emergence of the New Era in African philosophy. The focus becomes the Conversational philosophizing, in which the production of philosophically rigorous and original African episteme better than what the Eclectics produced occupied the center stage.

The sum of what historians of African philosophy have done can be presented in the following two broad categorizations to wit; Pre-systematic Era and the Systematic era. The former refers to Africa"s philosophical culture, thoughts of the anonymous African thinkers and may include the problems of Egyptian legacy. The latter refers to the periods marking the return of Africa"s first eleven, Western-tutored philosophers from the 1920"s to date. This latter category could further be delineated into four periods:

Early period 1920s - 1960s

Middle period 1960s - 1980s

Later period 1980s - 1990s

New (Contemporary) Era since 1990s

Note, of course, that this does not commit us to saying that, before the early period, people in Africa never philosophized-they did. But one fact that must not be denied is that they did not document their thoughts and, as such, scholars cannot attest to their systematicity or sources. In other words, what this periodization shows is that African philosophy as a system first began in the late 1920s.

Because there are credible objections among African philosophers with regards to the inclusion of it in the historical chart of African philosophy, the Egyptian question will be ignored for now. The main objection is that even if the philosophers of stolen legacy were able to prove a connection between Greece and Egypt, they could not prove in concrete terms that Egyptians were dark complexioned Africans or that dark complexioned Africans were Egyptians. It is understandable the frustration and desperation that motivated such ambitious effort in the ugly colonial era which was captured above, but any reasonable person, judging by the responses of time and events in the last few decades knows it was high time Africans abandoned that unproven legacy and let go of that, now helpless propaganda. If however, some would want to retain it as part of African philosophy, it would carefully fall within the pre-literate or the pre-systematic era.

In this essay, discussion will focus on the history of systematic or literate African philosophy touching prominently on the criteria, schools, movements and periods in African philosophy. As much as the philosophers of a given era may disagree, they are inevitably united by the problem of their epoch. That is to say, it is orthodoxy that each epoch is defined by a common focus or problem. Therefore, the approach of the study of the history of philosophy can be done either through personality periscope or through the periods, but whichever approach one chooses, he unavoidably runs into the person who had chosen the other. This is a sign of unity of focus. Thus philosophers are those who seek to solve the problem of their time. In this presentation, the study of the history of African philosophy will be approached principally through the periods, schools, movements and the personalities will be discussed within these purviews.

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