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PLS1502 - Introduction To African Philosophy Examination Summary Notes
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- University Of South Africa (Unisa)
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African Philosophy Notes:Unit 1
The Controversy of the term Africa
• The term Africa have a lot of meanings such as:
➢ Ethnicity
➢ Language
➢ Patterns of Socio Economics
➢ Priviledge & Religion
• Some define the term by colour of one’s skin whereas many define it by the
values one has eg Ubuntu
• The very existence of the white South African minority group (to which I
belong) that continues to benefit from its problematic socio-political history is
an indication that there are different and often contradictory concepts of
Africa.
• The term Africa is also to be defined in terms of the religion Africans practice,
the beliefs and the hemisphere in which one lives.
• This geographic has many Africans of blood and Africans of colour.
• This is a geographic that accommodate everyone.
• Africa can also mean under development and under education, in the
historical sense Africa got to benamed Africa because of its less contribution
in the world affairs.
• It lacks philosophy but rich of communal Africanity.
Identify 3 sources of the name Africa
1. Cultural Interaction
2. Climate conditions of the Continent
3. The historical experiences of the Western European
,Africanity of African Philosophy 4 Factors Osuangwu
1. The Ethno-African:
• ID an African Author by origin or nature, by birth, ancestry, tribe,
physiology, colour and culture.
2. The geo temporal African:
• Qualifies the African space and time within African philosophy is
typically occurring.
• Is by immediate physical placement within the continent
• Or by remote spatial presence anywhere else where the African finds
himself.
3. The Lego African:
• Issues which become African by virtue of a civil, an ecclesiastical or
academic law which empowers him or her.
4. Techo African:
• ID an expatriate African who becomes an African Philosopher by
interest.
Osuangwu holds the philosophicality of African philosophy makes Africa
philosophy a strictly formal and scientific discipline. He argues as follows:
1. African Philosophy out to be formally understood and undertaken.
2. Systematic and critical enterprise of human reason in interpretative search
and discovery.
3. Must be undertaken by professional individuals or groups from whom
philosophy is a community agenda for a community purpose,
Serequeberhans’s concept of African Philosophy:
a) African Philosophy is a philosophy if its written.
b) AP Should not be Abstract. Should reflect on verities of history in an attempt
to resolve and explain problems experienced.
c) Authorship of AP is boarder. It is Open to non Africans.
, Paulin Hountondji’s Concept of African Philosophy:
❖ Set of texts, Specifically the set of text written by Africans and described as
philosophical by authors.
UNIT 2
Describe the categories of cross cultural cognition that Emevwo Biakolo
identifies in his essay “Categories of cross cultural cognition and the African
condition’
▪ Biakolo realised that a critical question was how the Western World thought
about the “other”.
▪ The “other”, was the non-Caucasian races.
▪ Since the fifteenth century, the Western World has come into contact with
these non-Caucasian races, and tried to make sense of the people that
seemed so foreign to them.
▪ Biakolo’s investigation thus serves two purposes.
▪ Firstly, he wanted to present and analyse the descriptions provided by the
Western world in order to make sense of the non-Caucasian races.
▪ Secondly, Biakolo wanted to determine whether the answers provided by the
Western world are useful to illuminate and understand the African condition.
▪ Western cross-cultural paradigms provide no key to understanding and
knowing the African past and present. Instead, they have served the
colonisation of Africa well and continue to ensure the exploitation of Africa.
▪ Five categories were identified that is savage vs civilised, pre-logical vs
logical, perceptual vs conceptual, oral vs written; religious vs scientific.
Cross Culture Cognition by Biakolo 5 Categories:
1. Savage vs Civilised
❖ African seen as savage and westerners seen as civilised
❖ Savage African was seen as unable to have individual genius, whereas
western was capable of possessing individual genius.
2. Pre-logic vs logic
❖ Africans were regarded as the nation that is represented by the notion of pre-
logical as opposed to logical.
❖ This is because Africa practices that which includes cultural activities and has
a lot of unwritten beliefs.
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