Download or read book African Philosophical Illuminations written by John Murungi and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-03-21 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The illumination of African philosophy offered in this volume leads to the illumination of philosophy in general. Illuminating arises as an essential task of philosophy, whether African or not. What is illuminated is not already there, but is constituted at the moment of illumination. This book invites the reader to participate in the illuminating work of philosophy and necessarily, thereby, to contribute to his or her own self-constituting self-illumination. Although the focus is on African philosophy, the book also bridges the gap between African philosophy and other branches. Today more than ever, a bridging philosophy is called for, and this book helps to meet that need. This book poses philosophical questions such as who is an African and what Africa is, and seeks philosophical answers. In doing so, it contributes to the ongoing discourse on African philosophy. It addresses such issues as the African grounding of philosophy, the difference between African and Black philosophy, the African body, African art as expressed in and by Chiwara, the plight of African trees as the plight of Africans, and the symbolic meaning of Robben Island.
Download or read book Trends and Issues in African Philosophy written by F. Ochieng'-Odhiambo and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2010 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an excellent orientation to, and a logical development of, the major trends and issues that have dominated discussions in African philosophy since the publication of Placide Tempels' Bantu Philosophy in 1945. Views of some of the best-known African philosophers, such as Kwasi Wiredu, Paulin Hountondji, H. Odera Oruka, Peter Bodunrin, and D. A. Masolo are discussed in detail. The text takes into account, in the form of quotations or referencing, the views of several other philosophers who have had something to say about African philosophy. This book facilitates an excellent orientation on African philosophy at the undergraduate level. Those pursuing African philosophy at the graduate level will find the text refreshingly novel.
Download or read book African Philosophy and Thought Systems written by Mawere, Munyaradzi and published by Langaa RPCIG. This book was released on 2016-01-21 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The once acrimonious debate on the existence of African philosophy has come of age, yet the need to cultivate a culture of belonging is more demanding now than ever before in many African societies. The gargantuan indelible energised chicanery waves of neo-colonialism and globalisation and their sweeping effect on Africa demand more concerted action and solutions than cul-de-sac discourses and magical realism. It is in view of this realisation that this book was born. This is a vital text for understanding contextual historical trends in the development of African philosophic ideas on the continent and how Africans could possibly navigate the turbulent catadromous waters, tangled webs and chasms of destruction, and chagrin of struggles that have engrossed Africa since the dawn of slavery and colonial projects on the continent. The book aims to generate more insights and influence national, continental, and global debates in the field of philosophy. It is accessible and handy to a wider range of readers, ranging from educators and students of African philosophy, anthropology, African studies, cultural studies, and all those concerned with the further development of African philosophy and thought systems on the African continent.
Download or read book Postethnophilosophy written by Sanya Osha and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 2011-04 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book makes a bold announcement for the beginning of a postethnophilosophical phase in modern African thought. It re-considers the question: “What is African philosophy,” and introduces a strategy for setting a broad and productive agenda for contemporary African philosophical thought.
Download or read book Polyrhythmicity written by K. K. Dompere and published by Adonis & Abbey Publishers. This book was released on 2006 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The modern works on African philosophy have not been integrated and fully connected to Africa's antiquity in order to provide a foundational unity for further intellectual refinement. The philosophical dimensions of humanism, Nkrumah's concept of categorial conversion, African concepts of duality, polarity, unity, continual creation and democratic ideals must be shown their African-centered origins. In considering African philosophy, there arise conceptual and logical gaps that require the development of fundamental cognitive unity from the available data with judicious interpretation and restructuring in order to define the parameters of African philosophical unity that will allow these gaps to be closed for intellectual continuity. This monograph is devoted to the establishment of the foundations for the development of Africa's intellectual continuity and cognitive unity from antiquity to the present. Its main premise is that there is African philosophy with its own method of reasoning, analysis and synthesis. The monograph initiates self-contained philosophical foundations for African intellectual unity that is required to support African cultural unity, African personality, African essence and humanism needed for the creation of Greater Africa that is implied by African Union. These philosophical foundations, it is argued, formed the thinking system for Africa's social construct, law, economics, politics and governance of empires, kingdoms and social units that have come to pass. These philosophical foundations constitute the thinking system that must guide current and future Africa's socioeconomic dynamics. The monograph discusses also Africa's contributions to the global intellectual heritage by showing the relationships among foundations of African philosophical tradition and other philosophical systems that lead to rediviva Africana. It presents the principles of cognitive unity and continuity on the held position that without clearly developed Africa's philosophical foundations from its antiquity providing intellectual unity and cognitive continuity complete emancipation of Africa will be a mere mimicking of intellectual faults of other nations and philosophical systems. The research by African scholars and others on specific philosophical thoughts from different areas of Africa is useful materials that must be integrated into cognitive unity by accepting those that fit and rejecting those that do not fit by a defined logical process. Mindful of this, a case is thus made in this monograph for African cognitive unity and supporting reasoning methods. The system of ideas and perceptive interpretations of relevant data is, here, referred to as Africentricity, and its philosophical foundations that project thought as polyrhythmicity while the study of logic of reasoning about methodological and epistemic problems of polyrhythmicity and Africentricity is referred to as polyrhythmics. On practical level these philosophical foundations are shown to support the conceptual basis of Nguzo Saba (the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa). The monograph would be of interest to philosophers in general, professionals, researchers and students engaged in African philosophy, African studies, Black studies, socio-political philosophy and those interested in knowing the thinking system on the basis of which African essence arises and African social formations were constructed and governed from antiquity. _______________________ Kofi Kissi Dompere is a professor of economics at Howard University, USA. He has authored a number of scientific and scholarly works in economics, philosophy and decision theory. He is the producer and host of a radio program "African Rhythms and Extensions" on WPFW 89.3fm in Washington D.C., USA.
Download or read book An Essay on African Philosophical Thought written by Kwame Gyekye and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this sustained and nuanced attempt to define a genuinely African philosophy, Kwame Gyekye rejects the idea that an African philosophy consists simply of the work of Africans writing on philosophy. It must, Gyekye argues, arise from African thought itself, relate to the culture out of which it grows, and provide the possibility of a continuation of a philosophy linked to culture. Offering a philosophical clarification and theology, and ethics of the Akan of Ghana, Gyekye argues that critical analyses of specific traditional African modes of thought are necessary to develop a distinctively African philosophy as well as cultural values in the modern world. --
Download or read book African Philosophical Currents written by John Murungi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of the human world has reached a stage where no philosophical community can any longer philosophize in isolation from other philosophical communities. The African philosophical community is not an exception and neither is any other philosophical community. There is a widespread notion in the West that philosophy originated in Greece and found its way throughout Europe, from where it migrated to Africa. This book argues that Philosophy did not migrate to African from anywhere but that it is radically native to all communities. The chapters cover the erasure of African philosophy, African philosophical departures, the threat that Christianity has posed to African philosophy, African legal philosophy, African musical aesthetics and connections with classical philosophy. Arguing that the landscape of philosophy has a place not only for Africans but also for all human beings and that African philosophers are among the architects of this landscape, this book is an important read for scholars and students of African philosophy.
Download or read book African Philosophical Adventures written by John Murungi and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "African Philosophical Adventures calls for a recognition and affirmation of African philosophy as an adventure. This understanding fosters and cultivates inquisitive open-mindedness and is animated by wonder"--
Download or read book Consolationism and Comparative African Philosophy written by Ada Agada and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-11-18 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a major challenge to African philosophy, this book demonstrates the importance of the universalisation question for every committed African philosopher. Rooted in Africa’s colonial legacy, the universalisation question challenges the African thinker to show how authentically African philosophical concepts and phenomena can be universally applicable in a globalising world. In this highly original book, the author inserts the philosophy of consolationism into African philosophical discourse, constructing a unique philosophical system that is at once African and universally relevant. The book engages major African and Western philosophers of diverse ideological leanings in a compelling dialogue that announces the future of world philosophy as one of interculturality, in which a common philosophical horizon is forged out of the cultural diversities of the world for the edification of humanity in a continually changing world. This book will be an important read for researchers in the fields of African Studies, intercultural philosophy, philosophy of mind, and existentialism.
Download or read book Polyrhythmicity written by Kofi Kissi Dompere and published by Adonis & Abbey Publishers Ltd. This book was released on 2006-03-31 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The modern works on African philosophy have not been integrated and fully connected to Africa's antiquity in order to provide a foundational unity for further intellectual refinement. The philosophical dimensions of humanism, Nkrumah's concept of categorial conversion, African concepts of duality, polarity, unity, continual creation and democratic ideals must be shown their African-centered origins. In considering African philosophy, there arise conceptual and logical gaps that require the development of fundamental cognitive unity from the available data with judicious interpretation and restructuring in order to define the parameters of African philosophical unity that will allow these gaps to be closed for intellectual continuity. This monograph is devoted to the establishment of the foundations for the development of Africa's intellectual continuity and cognitive unity from antiquity to the present. Its main premise is that there is African philosophy with its own method of reasoning, analysis and synthesis. The monograph initiates self-contained philosophical foundations for African intellectual unity that is required to support African cultural unity, African personality, African essence and humanism needed for the creation of Greater Africa that is implied by African Union. These philosophical foundations, it is argued, formed the thinking system for Africa's social construct, law, economics, politics and governance of empires, kingdoms and social units that have come to pass. These philosophical foundations constitute the thinking system that must guide current and future Africa's socioeconomic dynamics. The monograph discusses also Africa's contributions to the global intellectual heritage by showing the relationships among foundations of African philosophical tradition and other philosophical systems that lead to rediviva Africana. It presents the principles of cognitive unity and continuity on the held position that without clearly developed Africa's philosophical foundations from its antiquity providing intellectual unity and cognitive continuity complete emancipation of Africa will be a mere mimicking of intellectual faults of other nations and philosophical systems. The research by African scholars and others on specific philosophical thoughts from different areas of Africa is useful materials that must be integrated into cognitive unity by accepting those that fit and rejecting those that do not fit by a defined logical process. Mindful of this, a case is thus made in this monograph for African cognitive unity and supporting reasoning methods. The system of ideas and perceptive interpretations of relevant data is, here, referred to as Africentricity, and its philosophical foundations that project thought as polyrhythmicity while the study of logic of reasoning about methodological and epistemic problems of polyrhythmicity and Africentricity is referred to as polyrhythmics. On practical level these philosophical foundations are shown to support the conceptual basis of Nguzo Saba (the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa). The monograph would be of interest to philosophers in general, professionals, researchers and students engaged in African philosophy, African studies, Black studies, socio-political philosophy and those interested in knowing the thinking system on the basis of which African essence arises and African social formations were constructed and governed from antiquity.
Download or read book Ka Osi S Onye African Philosophy in the Postmodern Era written by Jonathan O. Chimakonam and published by Vernon Press. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection is about composing thought at the level of modernism and decomposing it at the postmodern level where many cocks might crow with African philosophy as a focal point. It has two parts: part one is titled ‘The Journey of Reason in African Philosophy’, and part two is titled ‘African Philosophy and Postmodern Thinking’. There are seven chapters in both parts. Five of the essays are reprinted here as important selections while nine are completely new essays commissioned for this book. As their titles suggest, in part one, African philosophy is unfolded in the manifestation of reason as embedded in modern thought while in part two, it draws the effect of reason as implicated in the postmodern orientation. While part one strikes at what V. Y. Mudimbe calls the “colonising structure” or the Greco-European logo-phallo-euro-centricism in thought, part two bashes the excesses of modernism and partly valorises postmodernism. In some chapters, modernism is presented as an intellectual version of communalism characterised by the cliché: ‘our people say’. Our thinking is that the voice of reason is not the voice of the people but the voice of an individual. The idea of this book is to open new vistas for the discipline of African philosophy. African philosophy is thus presented as a disagreement discourse. Without rivalry of thoughts, Africa will settle for far less. This gives postmodernism an important place, perhaps deservedly more important than history of philosophy allocates to it. It is that philosophical moment that says ‘philosophers must cease speaking like gods in their hegemonic cultural shrines and begin to converse across borders with one another’. In this conversation, the goal for African philosophers must not be to find final answers but to sustain the conversation which alone can extend human reason to its furthermost reaches.
Download or read book Philosophy for Africa written by Augustine Shutte and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An annotated bibliography of works by and about Radcliffe in several languages, with sections on editions and translations of her work; early reviews and notices; 19th- and 20th-century criticism; full- length works; dissertations; and bibliographies. A biography draws on new material from the one substantial extant Radcliffe manuscript, her commonplace book in the Boston Public Library. Appendices offer information on adaptations and abridgments, parodies and imitations, and spurious attributions. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book The African Philosophy Reader written by P.H. Coetzee and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-03 with total page 813 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Divided into eight sections, each with introductory essays, the selections offer rich and detailed insights into a diverse multinational philosophical landscape. Revealed in this pathbreaking work is the way in which traditional philosophical issues related to ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology, for instance, take on specific forms in Africa's postcolonial struggles. Much of its moral, political, and social philosophy is concerned with the turbulent processes of embracing modern identities while protecting ancient cultures.
Download or read book A Short History of African Philosophy Second Edition written by Barry Hallen and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2009-09-03 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Short History of African Philosophy discusses major ideas, figures, and schools of thought in philosophy in the African context. While drawing out critical issues in the formation of African philosophy, Barry Hallen focuses on recent scholarship and relevant debates that have made African philosophy critical to understanding the rich and complex cultural heritage of the continent. This revised edition expands the historical perspective, takes account of recent discoveries and new canonical figures, highlights new discussions about gender as a cultural and philosophical phenomenon, clarifies issues regarding indigenous cultures and human rights, and builds on the notion that African philosophy shares methods and concerns of philosophy worldwide. This short reference is an essential resource for students, scholars, and general readers.
Download or read book The Substance of African Philosophy written by Campbell Shittu Momoh and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Tradition and Modernity written by Kwame Gyekye and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1997-08-28 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this important and pioneering book, Kwame Gyekye examines postcolonial African experience from a viewpoint receptive to aspects of both traditional African cultures and Western political and moral theory. African people, in their attempt to evolve ways of life compatible with an increasingly globalized world cultural, intellectual, and political scene, face a number of unique societal challenges, some stemming, Gyekye argues, from traditional African values and practices, others representing the legacy of European colonialism. Enlisting Western political and philosophic concepts to clear, comparative advantage, Gyekye addresses a wide range of concrete problems afflicting postcolonial African states, such as ethnicity and nation- building, the relationship of tradition to modernity, the relationship of the nation-state to community, the nature of political authority and political legitimation, political corruption, and the threat to traditional moral and social values, practices, and institutions in the wake of rapid social change. With striking flexibility and rare insight, Gyekye assesses the value of both traditional and non-African cultural components for the future of African societies and proposes alternative social and political models capable of forging a modernity appropriate for Africa. The resulting book, Tradition and Modernity: Philosophical Reflections on the African Experience, is a brilliant new contribution to postcolonial theory and will be of deep interest to scholars of political and moral philosophy, cultural studies, and African philosophy and politics, and to anyone else concerned with the efforts of non-Western societies to properly modernize.
Download or read book African Philosophy written by Paulin J. Hountondji and published by Bloomington : Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1983 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this seminal exploration of the nature and future of African philosophy, Paulin J. Hountondji attacks a myth popularized by ethnophilosophers such as Placide Temples 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.
