African "philosophy"

deconstructive and reconstructive challenges

Lucius Outlaw

pp. 9-44

in: African philosophy, Berlin, Springer, 1987

Abstract

A forceful debate has been raging in intellectual circles in Africa and Europe over the past forty years (and has now emerged in America) focused by questions ranging from "Is there [such a thing as] an African philosophy?', "Did [or do] traditional Africans have a philosophy?', "Can there be [such a thing as] an African philosophy?', to "What is African philosophy?' While these might appear to be benign queries which initiate and frame legitimate intellectual inquiry and discourse, for me they convey the putrid stench of a wretchedness that fertilizes the soil from which they grow. Why have such questions been asked? Why is the matter of "African philosophy' nothing more than a simple truism, or at most a heuristic for empirical identification followed by description and interpretation? More importantly, who initiated such questioning? And to what end? We can answer these last questions only by identifying the source of the stench of the former ones. That identification is what I shall offer in what follows.