Unity and value in African thought

Alassane Ndaw

pp. 171-175

in: Facts and values, Berlin, Springer, 1986

Abstract

Does the question regarding the status of values relative to being arise in traditional African societies? And, if so, how? This is what I want to look at below. But at the outset it may be well to point out that the question is posed in our contemporary societies which are, during two or three centuries by now, in contact with the West. In fact, the question looms large in the reflection of the Africans today who, starting out from such contact and yet retaining links with their own traditions, are discovering the solutions recommended by the western philosophia perennis even while it confers on them an aporetic character. For most of the western tradition the real or factual world is overlaid with values. This duality is difficult to conceive in Africa, where a solid and fundamental philosophy of unity seems to predominate.