| Abstract: | Africa is largely absent from the stage of world philosophy. People‘s level of
philosophical advancement is always appears to be a sine qua non in
measuring their intellectual development. Although, we can assert the
existence of African philosophy, when the question is asked whether this
tradition has justified its existence, our confidence diminishes and threatens
to evaporate altogether. The failure to achieve justification by far accounts
for the peculiar absence of Africa from the stage of world philosophy. The
books of ethnologists, historians and even philosophers that portrayed Africa
as savage unable to do anything, develop nothing, and can't make history,
has gave birth to the question of whether there is an African philosophy. The
bastardized image of Africa presented by continental philosophy raised the
question as to if the people so ascribed could own a philosophy of their own.
However, a cursory glance at the thought system of Africans reveals that they
can and do philosophy. This short essay discusses the foundations as to how
and why Africans are denied a second order thought and challenges these
foundation by making an in-depth analysis which ultimately brought to use
Messay's word, 'relativizing' the West. To this end, the paper employs a
discursive reason methods and analysis of various literatures in the area. |
