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Essays on Contemporary Issues in African Philosophy

  • Jonathan O. Chimakonam   ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8913-1434 0 ,
  • Edwin Etieyibo 1 ,
  • Ike Odimegwu 2

Department of Philosophy, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

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Department of Philosophy, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Department of philosophy, nnamdi azikiwe university, awka, nigeria.

Covers multiple themes within African Philosophy unified by their contemporary relevance

Brings together a selection of vocal scholars composed of old and new African philosophers

Applies philosophical reasoning to such socio-political topics as failed state syndrome

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Table of contents (21 chapters)

Front matter, eight practical issues in contemporary african philosophy.

  • Jonathan O. Chimakonam, Munamato Chemhuru

How African is Philosophy in Africa?

  • Paulin J. Hountondji

Doing Philosophy in the African Place: A Perspective on the Language Challenge

  • Chukwueloka S. Uduagwu

The Fallacy of Exclusion and the Promise of Conversational Philosophy in Africa

  • Fainos Mangena

How Conversational Philosophy Profits from the Particularist and the Universalist Agenda

  • L. Uchenna Ogbonnaya

Examining the Method and Praxis of Conversationalism

  • Aribiah David Attoe

Why the Normative Conception of Personhood is Problematic: A Proposal for a Conversational Account

Jonathan O. Chimakonam

African Ethics and Agent-Centred Duties

  • Motsamai Molefe

On the One Concept and Many Accounts of African Ethics

Edwin Etieyibo

How to Report on War in the Light of an African Ethic

  • Thaddeus Metz

Taking African Virtue Ethics and Character Training Principles to the Schools

  • Jim Ijenwa Unah

Ubuntu as a Plausible Ground for a Normative Theory of Justice from the African Place

  • Victor C. A. Nweke

Remedial Approach to Cultural Globalization and Intercultural Competence

  • Isaiah A. Negedu, Solomon O. Ojomah

Decolonial Philosophical Praxis Exemplified Through Superiorist and Adseredative Understandings of Development

  • Björn Freter

Totality by Analogy; Or: The Limits of Law and Black Subjectivity

  • Leonhard Praeg

The African Philosopher and The Burden of Indigenous Knowledge System (IKS)

  • Olatunji Alabi Oyeshile

Changes, Adaptation and Complementary Noetic Transformation

  • Innocent I. Asouzu

Ageing, Ageism, Cultural Representations of the Elderly and the Duty to Care in African Traditions

  • Austin E. Iyare, Elvis Imafidon, Kenneth Uyi Abudu

The Struggle to Forgive: Some Philosophical and Theological Reflections

  • Mojalefa L. J. Koenane, Cyril-Mary P. Olatunji

This volume is a collection of chapters about contemporary issues within African philosophy. They are issues African philosophy must grapple with to demonstrate its readiness to make a stand against some of the challenges society faces in the coming decade such as xenophobia, Afro-phobia, extreme poverty, democratic failure and migration. The text covers new methodical directions and there is focus on the conversationalist, complementarist and consolationist movements within the field as well as the place of the Indigenous Knowledge System.The collection speaks to African philosophy’s place in intellectual history with coverage of African Ethics and African socio-political philosophy. 

Contributors come from a variety of different backgrounds, institutions and countries. Through their innovative ideas, they provide fresh insight and intellectual energy.  The book appeals to philosophy students and researchers.

  • Contemporary Issues in African philosophy
  • Conversational philosophy
  • Problems in African philosophy
  • Themes in African philosophy
  • New perspectives in African philosophy
  • Methods of African philosophy
  • Schools of thought in African philosophy

Ike Odimegwu

Jonathan O. Chimakonam  Ph.D, was a senior lecturer (2016-2018) at the University of Calabar, Nigeria and is now at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He is the convener of the professional African philosophy society, The Conversational School of Philosophy (CSP) and the founding editor of  Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions . He is winner of the Jens Jacobsen Research Award for Outstanding Research in Philosophy. He is the African philosophy Area Editor in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Jonathan propounded the theories of Ezumezu logic and Conversational thinking.

Edwin Etieyibo , Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of the Witwatersrand. He received his PhD from the Department of Philosophy, University of Alberta, writing a dissertation on David Gauthier’s Moral Contractarianism and the Problem of Secession, which presents a critical examination of Gauthier’s account of morality that links rationality with preferences explained by expected utility. He taught for a number of years at Athabasca University and the University of Alberta before moving to the University of the Witwatersrand. His teaching and research interest broadly covers ethics, social and political philosophy, social contract theories, history of philosophy, philosophy of education and children, and African socio-political economics and philosophy.

Ike Odimegwu,  PhD. is a Professor of Philosophy at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. He is widely published in learned journals and international presses. He is currently the Dean of Postgraduate School at his university.

Book Title : Essays on Contemporary Issues in African Philosophy

Editors : Jonathan O. Chimakonam, Edwin Etieyibo, Ike Odimegwu

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70436-0

Publisher : Springer Cham

eBook Packages : Religion and Philosophy , Philosophy and Religion (R0)

Copyright Information : The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022

Hardcover ISBN : 978-3-030-70435-3 Published: 07 November 2021

Softcover ISBN : 978-3-030-70438-4 Published: 07 November 2022

eBook ISBN : 978-3-030-70436-0 Published: 06 November 2021

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : XXII, 353

Topics : Philosophy, general , African History

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African Philosophy

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2007, Constantin Boundas, ed., The Edinburgh Companion to 20th Century Philosophies

Related Papers

Thabang Dladla

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.

african philosophy essay pdf

Sirkku Kristiina Hellsten

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Williams Aso

There is no gain saying that African philosophy is passing through many challenges for proper recognition and acceptance in academic world. One of the main reasons bothers on the fact that African philosophy has many inseparable parts and involves in myriad of issues that characterised African communal experience, the way of life that is strange to others that are non-Africans. There is a need for philosophers with African perspective to show case the nature of African philosophy, its contents, the scope, the uniqueness and its relevance so that the people of other cultures and orientations can have a better understanding of African philosophy. Unless there is a strong definition and elucidation of the basic features of African philosophy supported with evidence, the challenges may stifled the effort to make it stand side by side with the philosophies available in other continents.

Olatunji Alabi Oyeshile

The definition of philosophy has remained a perenn ial philosophical problem and there is little agreement as to what it is. Rather , what many seem to agree on is the descriptions of philosophy, that is, what it encompasses which wil l provide the basis for our definition. In the same vein, it has been difficult to define what African philosophy is, rather most philosophers have contented themselves in describin g what African philosophy is. According to Sogolo, “the controversy over what constitutes an African ph ilosophy tends to dominate sometimes so much that it forms almost the entire content of the course” [1]. In this paper , the attempt is to say what African philosophy is, inspite of the seeming unending polemics in th e sphere and practice of African philosophy. In doing this, we shall start by attempting to describe and possibly define what philosophy i s. Subsequently we shall be in a position to define African philosophy by looking at the origin of the debate on African philosophy which was as a result of the charge of irrationality leveled against the Africans. Let us recall that many European scholars mostly anthropologists and sociologists in the like of E. Durkheim, Auguste Comte , James Frazer, Sigmund Fre ud, Malinowski, Max Muller, Herbert Spencer, Edward Tylor and even Levy Bruhl, have attempted to give an answer to what the African traditional world views were through thei r theories on religions of the primitive people. For instance, Levy Bruhl rejected the rationality of the primitive people and claim ed that they were largely pre-logical and that what their practices point to is a kind of symbolism. We reject the postulations of these scholars, which were largely anthropological, psychological and sociologi cal as the philosophy of the primitive people or Africans. In the same vein any attempt by contemporary African philosophers t o present a purely descriptive, conjectural account of the African worldv iew as African philosophy will also be rejected. We conclude that African philosophy consists in speculative, conceptual and analytical as well as the critical examination of the African traditional thought in the light of con

OGIRISI: a New Journal of African Studies

martin asiegbu

Samuel T . Segun

Philosophy today is often regionalized unlike science and other disciplines. Thus we talk of Western, Eastern, American and African Philosophy. To speak or write philosophy within the ambit of the prefix " African " would elicit two major responses. First is the affirmative response which believes that indeed there exists some form of philosophy in Africa although distinct from Western philosophy in approach, procedure and methods but not in kind. The second is the denialist response which rejects vehemently the position of the former; in that they deny the existence of African philosophy independent of Western colouration. In other words, they do not believe that there exists any form of philosophy distinct from the Western idea of philosophy be it in approach or method. Within this frame certain problems arise such as the problem of interpretation or definition, the myth of unanimity and the problem of ethnophilosophy. The aim of this work thus is to understand the implications of the prefix " African " for philosophy in Africa. In this attempt, we uncover the subject of African Philosophy, its many possibilities, nature and interpretations. In understanding the implications of the prefix " African " for philosophy in Africa, the work avers that the affirmative response in modern times is an advocacy for what Chimakonam refers to as systematic African philosophy; and the denialist response to the subject is an outright rejection of the universal character of philosophy. For the laws of logic, the burden of axiology, the questions of metaphysics, the problems of socio-political philosophy and the concerns of epistemology all transcend geographical boundaries.

Horizons - A Journal of Philosophy

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These are personal reflections on African Philosophy. The philosophy presents itself as a quest for identity after many historical events such as Colonialism and Slave Trade that made many doubt their identity and even self-worth. The reflection identifies some ambiguities and some challenges to the efforts of many African scholars in the area of African Philosophy.

African Research Review

Dr Francis Owakah

This work set out to understand and explain the challenges that face the development of philosophy in Africa. In particular, the focus is on the crisis and dilemma on African identity which has impacted adversely to the development of a culture of philosophy in Africa. Our problem is that, attempts at creating a culture of philosophy in Africa is predicated on an understanding of who is African, and what is Africa. But it is at this definitional level that we find an ambiguity of usage and application of concepts that are fundamental to defining Africa and philosophy. Compounding the problem is an equally ambivalent perspective and meaning of African culture which is conceived and made reference to in unitary yet there is multiplicity of cultures warranting the term African cultures. The latter makes it even difficult and problematic to define a unitary philosophy based on this singular view of Africa, not because all Africans shared a common ecology, nor a common historical experie...

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The term “African Philosophy” is to some extent a disputed concept due to its various misconceptions or unintended content by many people. It can be stated that though African philosophers spend time doing work in many different areas: politics, moral, epistemology, etc., the nature of African philosophy seems not yet to be thoroughly explored and clarified. Research has revealed that a crucial disagreement concerning African philosophy is about the term “African” itself, that is, its qualities, values, and application; thus, when one talks about African philosophy, does he refer to the content of the philosophy or to the identity of the philosophers?

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  1. PDF Course Code: Phl 126 Course Title: Introduction to African Philosophy

    The Third Way in African Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Kwasi Wiredu. Ibadan: Hope Publication. Bewaji, J.A.I. (2004) ―Ethics and Morality in ... G.S. (1990). ―Options in African Philosophy‖ Philosophy, 65:251. Sogolo, G. (2004) Philosophy, Human Values and Social Order. A Keynote Address Presented t the 30th Anniversary Celebrations of ...

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