African Philosophy Cannot Be a Thing
We must be careful in our attempt to define African philosophy conceptually. Because to define it is to limit it—and to limit it is to conserve it.
Philosophy, Plato writes in Theaetetus (155d), one of his Socratic dialogues, begins with wonder. Aristotle agrees in his Metaphysics (982b). Philosophers tend not to agree on a lot of things. But I think this is one of the few things philosophers are willing to concede, since to do philosophy is to try to answer questions, and to ask questions is to show that you wonder. Even though philosophy (and philosophers alike) aims to tackle root perceptual issues, the point of wonder is always situated. That is, philosophical investigations often interrogate the philosopher’s situated awareness. By situated awareness, I mean that the conditions that birth a person’s inquiry or wonder have to do with the social architecture that informs the person’s way of thinking—in fact how they think and what they think about.
Consider, for instance, a person who lives in a society where the people are yet to understand the basic elements of the universe—how the universe was formed and what the universe was formed from. I am inclined to say that the basic wonder of this person would be to investigate this. And this is the condition that we find the early Western philosophers such as Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. Consider another instance: In this society, resources are scarce, and since there are no laid down moral rules, people don’t know how to conduct themselves and this affects how the resources are being used and shared. Simply put, this society is in a state of war of all against all since everyone is trying to survive and the only way to survive is to fight and keep the resources for yourself (and, maybe, your offspring, too). I suspect that the point of wonder, for a rational mind in that society, would be how to bring the people of that society together to converge on some basic moral and political principle that could lead to a welfare state and flourishing lives for its people...
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