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Essay - The politics behind the question, Is there such a thing as African philosophy
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A Critical discussion on the politics behind the question, Is there such a thing as African philosophy?
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What are the politics behind the question, Is there such a thing as Africanphilosophy?
ANSWER:
Introductions
The politics involved in defining African philosophy really begins with the question “Does
African philosophy exist”? This essay explores the politics behind the question and gives
its view on where African philosophy exists or not.
Can there be an African philosophy looking through the politics
The politics involved in defining African philosophy really begins with the question “Does
African philosophy exist”?
The reason for this is that Eurocentrism limits the definition of philosophy to western or
European standards, giving rise to the ontological question of the existence of African
philosophy. The reason for this suppression ranges from guardianship of the status quo to
racism. The long, dark days of colonialism link Africa to the West and have disrupted
society and imposed European values, making African identity problematic.
By the very nature, Westerners writing and presentation of “African” histories and cultures,
such as who qualifies for the status of “rational animal”, and those who are “savage”, who
could do nothing, develop nothing or create nothing, even historical, has not only denied
Africa self-identity, but has disfigured and distortion the image and identity of the
indigenous people and Africa. In other words, the question of whether there is an African
philosophy or not was largely born out of the popular Western portrayal of Africa.
The West vigorously and systematically ignored, denied, and suppressed the “evidence"
offered by the Afro centrists for claiming that Greek civilization was derived from ancient
Egypt, while the Afro centrists poise in different degrees, that Africa is the mother of
Western civilization, the birthplace of science, mathematics, democracy, philosophy, and
art.
European rationality came to claim universality. The consequence of that injustice has
been the definition of Western rationality as the true discovery by the human mind of the
essence of reality. Ramose notes that this is based on the fact that the asker views African
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