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Kwame Nkrumah is globally recognized as a foremost pan-Africanist
strategist and statesman. He is less widely acknowledged as a
philosopher, in spite of his considerable philosophical training,
seminal contribution to African political theory, and incisive
critique of the ethics of international relations. Consciencism has
the distinctive status of being the only published book that
Nkrumah consciously meant to be a work of his philosophy, yet it
has failed to attract the focused attention of philosophers. The
chapters in Disentangling Consciencism: Essays on Kwame Nkrumah's
Philosophy critically explore the metaphysical, ethical and
political thought expressed in Consciencism. In doing so, they
broaden our understanding of his philosophical ideas and their
relevance for effective African contribution to thought in a
contemporary world in which Africa increasingly totters on the
margins of international affairs. In much of current moral and
political thinking, there is a tendency to universalize liberal
values and neglect non-Western philosophical perspectives. At the
same time, global normative thinking is overwhelmingly applied in
non-Western contexts. Writing from across three continents, the
contributors to this volume establish greater intellectual
connection among African, Asian and Western academics, and their
chapters offer explicit perspectives on the value of Nkrumah's
philosophy, and on the conceptual basis of early post-colonial
public policy options in Africa. A valuable appendix provides the
text of speeches delivered at the 1964 launch of Consciencism. With
insights into numerous dimensions of Nkrumah's philosophy, this
volume will be of particular interest to students and scholars of
philosophy-especially of non-Western metaphysical, moral and
political thought-and to anyone working in the history of African
political theory.
"The Struggle for Meaning" is a landmark publication by one of
African philosophy's leading figures, Paulin J. Hountondji, best
known for his critique of ethnophilosophy in the late 1960s and
early 1970s. In this volume, he responds with autobiographical and
philosophical reflection to the dialogue and controversy he has
provoked. He discusses the ideas, rooted in the work of such
thinkers as Husserl and Hountondji's former teachers Derrida,
Althusser, and Ricoeur, that helped shape his critique.
Applying his philosophical ideas to the critical issues of
democracy, culture, and development in Africa today, he addresses
three crucial topics: the nexus between scientific extraversion and
economic dependence; the nature of endogenous traditions of thought
and their relationship with modern science; and the
implications--for political pluralism and democracy--of the
emergence of "philosophies of subject" in Africa.
While the book's immediate concern is with Africa, the densely
theoretical nature of its analyses, and its bearing on current
postmodern theories of the "other," will make this timely and
elegant translation of great interest to many disciplines,
especially ethnic, gender, and multicultural studies.
Kwame Nkrumah is globally recognized as a foremost pan-Africanist
strategist and statesman. He is less widely acknowledged as a
philosopher, in spite of his considerable philosophical training,
seminal contribution to African political theory, and incisive
critique of the ethics of international relations. Consciencism has
the distinctive status of being the only published book that
Nkrumah consciously meant to be a work of his philosophy, yet it
has failed to attract the focused attention of philosophers. The
chapters in Disentangling Consciencism: Essays on Kwame Nkrumah's
Philosophy critically explore the metaphysical, ethical and
political thought expressed in Consciencism. In doing so, they
broaden our understanding of his philosophical ideas and their
relevance for effective African contribution to thought in a
contemporary world in which Africa increasingly totters on the
margins of international affairs. In much of current moral and
political thinking, there is a tendency to universalize liberal
values and neglect non-Western philosophical perspectives. At the
same time, global normative thinking is overwhelmingly applied in
non-Western contexts. Writing from across three continents, the
contributors to this volume establish greater intellectual
connection among African, Asian and Western academics, and their
chapters offer explicit perspectives on the value of Nkrumah's
philosophy, and on the conceptual basis of early post-colonial
public policy options in Africa. A valuable appendix provides the
text of speeches delivered at the 1964 launch of Consciencism. With
insights into numerous dimensions of Nkrumah's philosophy, this
volume will be of particular interest to students and scholars of
philosophy-especially of non-Western metaphysical, moral and
political thought-and to anyone working in the history of African
political theory.
"Hountondji... writes not as an 'African' philosopher but as a
philosopher on Africa.... Hountondji's deep understanding of any
civilization as necessarily pluralistic, and often even
self-contradicting as it evolves, is simply magisterial.... This is
a precious gem of a book for anyone who wishes to reflect on
civilization and culture." Choice
In this incisive, original exploration of the nature and future
of African philosophy, Paulin J. Hountondji attacks a myth
popularized by ethnophilosophers such as Placide Tempels and Alexis
Kagame that there is an indigenous, collective African philosophy
separate and distinct from the Western philosophical tradition.
Hountondji contends that ideological manifestations of this view
that stress the uniqueness of the African experience are
protonationalist reactions against colonialism conducted,
paradoxically, in the terms of colonialist discourse. Hountondji
argues that a genuine African philosophy must assimilate and
transcend the theoretical heritage of Western philosophy and must
reflect a rigorous process of independent scientific inquiry. This
edition is updated with a new preface in which Hountondji responds
to his critics and clarifies misunderstandings about the book's
conceptual framework."
How are the 'old' and the 'new' expressed in the field of knowledge
and know-how? What did we know yesterday, and what do we know
today? What was, yesterday, and what is, today, the mythical part
in what we believe we know? And how do we define, in each case, the
core of concrete and universally valid knowledges? What rights and
duties do we acclaim as human beings, as women, as children, as
peoples or nations, and what understanding do we today have of
these rights and duties? What is the impact, of what we today call
globalisation, on the evolution of knowledge, know-how, and the
awareness of such rights and duties? To these questions, and to
other related ones, this book provides some answers. It is the
result of a conference held in Cotonou in October 2006, on the
theme "Traditional knowledges and modern science." It is dedicated
to the memory of Georg Elwert, a German Africanist who passed away
in 2005, and whose work on Benin, Africa and the Third World
remains a source of inspiration for many.
Many contemporary African writers remain trapped in the quest for a
worldview, philosophy, supposing a single "African" demesne to
explain the entire continent, referring to a mythical past. Paulin
Hountondji shows how these strange conceptual constructions have
played a positive role in the resistance led by intellectuals of
colonial rule: they responded to the negation of the oppression
that it comprised of, but it was an ambiguous answer, especially
because it was built on the principles derived from the works of
European ethnologists, particularly the Pere Tempels. Independence
opened a new historical period; these philosophical elaborations
changed direction: once an expression of anti-colonial resistance,
they are nowadays an ideology that justifies and reinforces the
dominance of the contemporary state; the intellectuals who create
them are today only the "griots" of the regimes in place. Analysing
without complacency the work of Nkrumah, of the Cameroonian Towa,
and of the Rwandan Kagame, amongst others, Hountondji exposes and
denounces this antagonism. To him, the critical project proposed in
this book seems a necessary step on the way to "the liberation of
theoretical creativity," the peoples of Africa and their full
participation in the universal intellectual debate
Uncovering the wealth of traditional African knowledge and
techniques has direct implications for the future development of
the continent. This book is written against the background of the
tragedy that most Africans are profoundly ignorant of the
achievements of the past, let alone the traditions that are still
upheld today. It is an exploration and analysis of Africa's
historical roots, and the editor is one of Africa's most
distinguished philosophers. Rich in detailed and original field
research, the volume covers a wide variety of topics, from the
probability theory of cowry shell diviners, to hydrology and
rainmaking, and the links between sorcery and psychosomatic
medicine. Chapters include the use of number systems, ingredients
used in pharmaceutical practice, and the mysterious phenomena of
foreign objects projected into human bodies.
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