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African Philosophy? Questioning the Unquestioned
Author(s) -
Thabang Dladla
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
phronimon
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2413-3086
pISSN - 1561-4018
DOI - 10.25159/2413-3086/6795
Subject(s) - african philosophy , ignorance , epistemology , western philosophy , interrogation , western thought , contemporary philosophy , dominance (genetics) , philosophy , power (physics) , sociology , philosophy education , analytic philosophy , law , political science , biochemistry , chemistry , physics , quantum mechanics , gene
African philosophy, at least the modern modality of its practice, is said to have been initiated by the overwhelming question concerning its existence: Is there an African philosophy? No doubt such radical questioning concerning “knowledges” from Africa is determined by an overarching, indeed imperial, definition of what is understood to be “philosophy”; in other words, this question sought to determine whether those knowledges from Africa fit the category of what is known to be “philosophy” in the Western world. In this paper, I deal with the historical question pertaining to the existence of an African philosophy and the present reiterations of this question. I begin in the first section with an interrogation of such questioning concerning doubt about African philosophy’s existence: 1) to subvert the question and thereby undermine the basis of its questioning; 2) to examine the underlying structures of coloniality in Western philosophy and its colonising effects—showing how such a question is rooted in doubt, ignorance and power as functionaries of the European epistemological paradigm facilitating epistemological dominance; and 3) to use such questioning as a basis from which to develop an account of what African philosophy is.

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