Week 3 African Philosophy Flashcards
According to Beninese philosopher Paulin Hountodji what is African philosophy? (1 point)
African philosophy is simply the totality of philosophical texts written by philosophers who happen to be African
What did philosopher Catherine Malabou express about her position as woman in philosophy and how can it be applied to African philosophers? (2 points)
1) How can one appropriate just like that the protocols, techniques, and symbols of a discourse and of a culture for which one has been, for centuries, the zero point?
2) African philosophers were also the zero point (were excluded/marginalized) and while it is important for them to be involved in such discourse, it is not simple for them to place themselves inside the same/identical common history, “just like that”.
What did Roger-Pol Droit explain in regards to how historically philosophers acted? (2 points)
1) Philosophers are tasked with guarding the great divisions (true vs false, being vs nothingness, just vs unjust, same vs other)
2) The same philosophers created an initial great division between the “self” and the “rest” between a humanity of the logos and barbarians.
What does the reading ask to be mindful of when regarding the image of a history of Western philosophy? (3 points)
1) Western philosophy has not always built itself by excluding other “humanities” from philosophical reflection
2) E.g. Descartes announcing that algebra comes from Arab-speaking foreigners
3) The closure of European philosophy happened in the 18th - 19th centuries
Did the “civilizing missions” allow those “civilized” to take part in the philosophy? Why were these civilizing missions carried out? (2 points)
1) Europeans viewed non-European peoples as fundamentally different and inferior, and thus in need of “civilizing.” European colonial powers believed they were bringing civilization, and particularly philosophy, to the colonized, who were seen as lacking these qualities.
2) The colonized were considered passive recipients of European culture, unable to contribute to or participate in the philosophical tradition that Europe claimed to exclusively embody.
What is considered African? List ways Africa and Africanity has thought to be categorized? (3 points)
1) Geographically - e.g. Hegel
2) Linguistically
3) Territorially/Borders
How do these ways of dividing/categorizing Africa fail? (3 points)
1) Geographically - Africa is one continent BUT there is also the existence of the African diaspora (through slavery) which has created a Africa that is not in Africa.
2) Linguistically - Divisions according to linguistics can be faulty, as languages/dialects can be endogenous (have the same origin) e.g. Berber and traditional African languages.
3) Borders/dividing Africa - Constructs borders/barriers when contrary there has always been various flows of humans, commercial, intellectual e.g. Islamization of parts of Sub-Saharan Africa initially through commercial routes led to the sharing of knowledge and important knowledge centers like Timbuktu.
Are all African cultures oral cultures? (1 point)
No. In philosophical disciplines things were also written and taught in Africa, for example in the field of logic in the Aristotelian tradition.
What is proposed in regards to African philosophy? (4)
Lay out a field of questions/sphere of debate on issues revolving around:
- philosophical anthropology
- philosophy of liberation
- meta-critical evaluation of reason
What are the 4 major questions proposed?
1) The question of a philosophy of life force and of aesthetic discourse.
2) The question of time and of prospective in relation to African languages.
3) The question of orality and of writing in relation to philosophical thought.
4) The question of political thought, and in particular the way in which African socialisms have been presented.
Explain what, the question of a philosophy of life force and of aesthetic discourse, means. (1 point)
This involves examining the idea that the African religions called traditional are based on a particular ontology of vital forces that is also expressed in the different artistic traditions found on the continent.
Explain what, the question of time and of prospective in relation to African languages means. (1 point)
This involves analyzing the controversy which divided philosophers into those who believed they could infer an African conception of time concrete and without a true future dimension from the ways calendars and tenses are expressed in certain African languages, from other philosophers who say exactly the opposite on the basis of considerations from other African languages.
Explain what, the question of political thought, and in particular the way in which African socialisms have been presented as doctrines, means? (2 point)
1) African socialisms have been presented as doctrines that are at once rooted in a certain African philosophy of community and are carriers of a modernity in which the continent can find the path towards its development.
2) This question leads naturally to that of human rights and of democracy in Africa.
