Ethnophilosophy

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Ethnophilosophy is a collective name for certain African philosophical schools of thought that deal mainly with myths , gods and rites . It deals with the entire cultural heritage of Africans (see also African philosophy ). It is not about individual thinking, but about a unified and general “African way of thinking”. The term ethnophilosophy was introduced around 1970 by Marcien Towa from Cameroon and Paulin J. Hountondji from Benin . The prefix ethno they chose because this scientific discipline primarily on ethnological related sources.

Representative of ethnophilosophy

Development process and history

Especially traditional ethnologists and Christian religious mixed up the term (African) mentality with the term (African) philosophy, as long as the attribute “primitive” remained attached to both. The Belgian missionary Placide Tempels (1906–1977) can be understood as the first advocate of this direction, even if Alexis Kagame, with his doctoral thesis written in 1955, gave this direction philosophical importance.

Placide Tempels dealt mainly with the beliefs of the Bantu and not with their thinking in his book: Bantu Philosophy . "When he speaks of 'Bantu philosophy' he means that the Bantu are spontaneous or unconscious philosophers." When compared with European philosophy, which has been a high level of abstraction since antiquity, he describes the Bantu philosophy as down-to-earth, simple and on Natural laws bound. Furthermore, he was clearly convinced that all Africans have the same thought structure and therefore reflect the same way. Tied to his profession, it can be stated that Temple's theses are not epistemological but rather religious.

African thinkers, too, succumbed to the myth that there is a worldview for all Africans, an unchangeable system of thought in perpetual contrast to Europe . The beginning of the African ethnophilosophy can be fixed with the year 1956, in which Alexis Kagame's book `` La philosophie Bantu-Rwandaise de l'Être '' appeared. “Instead of arguing 'I-like' (I say), Africans assigned to ethnophilosophy appear as the sole representatives of their respective cultures and think 'really', that is, in categories of we.” Particularly in the field of ontology, the views of Temple and Kagame agree. With his linguistic approach, Kagame tries to rediscover this ontological finding established by Tempels. Kagame's attempt to start a reconciliation between Christian faith and free knowledge only succeeds to a small extent. At the same time he tries to move away from the fundamental foundations of modern philosophy. Another field, which can also be understood as ethnophilosophy to a certain extent, are political-philosophical texts such as the consciencism of Kwame Nkrumah . In this book he does not state that African philosophy is a delimited area, but rather tries to establish a relationship with Pan-Africanism and thus emphasize the peculiarity of African culture. The aim behind such movements was probably to strengthen or re-create the African post-colonial culture. His conscience can, according to him, be applied all over the continent . This can be seen if one makes certain generalizations: "Consciencism is the spiritual guide for the use of our forces, which will enable African society to cope with the Western, Islamic and European-Christian elements in Africa and to develop them in such a way that that they fit the African nature. ”Nevertheless, the connection to ethnophilosophy is only very narrow.

Certain texts by Léopold Sédar Senghor from 1939 can also be interpreted as the beginning of African ethnophilosophy. Cultural nationalists of the “Third World” (for example Aimé Césaire , Leopold Senghor) were accomplices of the “progressive” western anthropologists (for example Bronisław Malinowski , Melville J. Herskovits ). The former plunged back into the imagined cultural origins of their thinking by internalizing the assumptions of Temple and other ethnophilosopher writing for a European audience in order to escape the psychological and practical rape of the colonizers; the latter temporarily escaped the boredom of industrialized European civilization.

Topicality of Ethnophilosophy

The debate about the field of ethnophilosophy is related to the problem of African philosophy itself. Providing a suitable definition and determination for this is a problem that has developed out of colonial arrogance, which denies all non-Europeans certain philosophical skills. Today's concern with ethnophilosophy is devoted, among other things, to the problem of universalism (wholeness) in relation to historical and geographical distinctions, thus questioning the universal validity of a particular language.

Two ideal streams of thought

The two schools mainly disagree on the question of what role traditional African philosophy should play (if it exists at all). What functions are ascribed to proverbs and other cultural manifestations of the oral tradition? It is important that these two "schools" are ideal types which the individual authors approach. Rarely an author is now only one or only at the other school. For example, both Kwasi Wiredu and Kwame Gyekye use proverbs from the Akan people.

The ethnophilosophical school

Representatives of the "ethnophilosophical school" such as John Samuel Mbiti , Kwame Gyekye or Kobina Oguah claim that traditional African philosophy in the form of world views, proverbs and traditions must be the starting point for current studies:

  • They take beliefs as the conclusions of an actual, “traditional” African philosophy.
  • They assume that philosophies in the West often played the role of defending and maintaining prevailing beliefs in society.

The contemporary-individualistic-literary school

Authors of this direction ( e.g. Kwasi Wiredu , Kwame Anthony Appiah , Peter Bodunrin and Paulin Hountondji ) primarily deal with philosophy as the literary works of the present:

  • You represent a professional, rationalistic, positivistic approach.
  • They take beliefs primarily as premises that are assumed today.
  • They often think that philosophical debates (also in Europe) show deviations from prevailing beliefs and world views.

Critique of Ethnophilosophy

The connection between philosophy and narrative tradition is mostly related to Christian thinkers and is also the greatest criticism of the discipline of ethnophilosophy. Furthermore, this current is about simple generalizations, which can easily lead to Eurocentric and racist ideas. Despite his position in the Catholic Church, Fabien Eboussi Boulaga criticized the tutelage and incapacitation of Africans by ethnophilosophy using the example of the Bantu philosophy. Another point of criticism relates to colonialism and its consequences. These particularly economic after-effects are not given sufficient consideration in ethnophilosophy. Many African philosophers, including Amady Ali Dieng , Kwasi Wiredu and Youssouf M. Guissé , see ethnophilosophy as a “preliminary stage of conversion to Christianity” and as an act of distraction for Africans.

The biggest criticism of Placide Temple relates to its inability to differentiate philosophy and worldviews. "While the latter [world view] also deals with the nature of imaginations and dream images, philosophy as critical thinking is directed towards the truth of knowledge." One could say that Tempels may be instrumentalizing philosophy in order to weaken the African position. Tempels believed that all Africans think alike. With this thought he contradicts himself, because on the other hand he describes the Bantu philosophy as unique in that he draws parallels to Christianity . Since the belief in the unanimity of beliefs in Africa is a colonialist ideology, the concept of a story was and is unthinkable. According to Paulin J. Hountondji, it is “a discourse without reference” and can therefore never be falsified.

literature

Ethnophilosophical writings

  • 1949: Placide Tempels : La philosophie bantoue (French; German 1956: Bantu philosophy. Ontology and ethics ).
  • 1954: SF needle: Nupe religion (French).
  • 1956: Alexis Kagame : La philosophie Bantu-Rwandaise de l'Être (French).
  • 1958: Janheinz Jahn: Muntu. Outlines of a Neo-African Culture .
  • 1962: William Emmanuel Abraham: The Mind of Africa (English).
  • 1964: Francois-Marie Lufuluabo: La Nation luba-bantoue de l'être (French).
  • 1964: Kwame Nkrumah : Consciencism (English; German 1965: Consciencismus ).
  • 1964: Léopold Sédar Senghor : Liberté I. Négritude et humanisme (French).
  • 1969: John Samuel Mbiti: African Religions and Philosophy (English; German 1974: African Religion and Weltanschauung ).

Critical literature

  • 1927: Paul Radin: Primitive Man as Philosopher
  • 1948: Marcel Griaule: Dieu d'eau. Entretiens avec Ogotemmeli (French; German 1970: Black Genesis. An African account of creation )
  • 1950: Aimé Césaire : Discours sur le colonialisme (French; German 1968: On Colonialism )
  • 1952: Frantz Fanon : Peau noire, masques blancs (French; German 1980: black skin, white masks )
  • 1961: Frantz Fanon: Les Damnés de la terre (French; German 1966: The damned of this earth )
  • 1965: Vincent Mulago : Un visage africain du christianisme (French).
  • 1968: Fabien Eboussi-Boulaga: Le Bantou Problematique (French).
  • 1971: Marcien Towa : Essai sur la problematique philosophique dans l'Afrique actuelle (French).
  • 1972: Henry Odera Oruka : Mythologies as African Philosophy (English).
  • 1976: Paulin Jidenu Hountondji : African Philosophy. Myth and Reality (English; German 1993: African Philosophy. Myth and Reality ).
  • 1980: Kwasi Wiredu: Philosophy and an African Culture (English).
  • 1980: Terence O. Ranger: Colonization in East and Central Africa. In: JH Grevenmeyer (Hrsg.): Traditional society and European colonialism .
  • 1984: Kwasi Wiredu: How not to Compare African Thought with Western Thought. In: RA Wright (Ed.): African Philosophy (English).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jacob Emmanuel Mabe : Oral and written forms of philosophical thought in Africa. Lang, Frankfurt 2005, ISBN 3-631-54397-2 , p. 189.
  2. ^ Jacob Emmanuel Mabe: Oral and written forms of philosophical thought in Africa. Lang, Frankfurt 2005, ISBN 3-631-54397-2 , p. 184.
  3. ↑ Kwame Nkrumah : Consciencism. Philosophy and ideology for decolonization and development with a special focus on the African revolution. Westdeutscher Verlag, Cologne 1965, p. 82.
  4. ↑ Jean-Godefroy Bidimi : ethnophilosophy. In: The Africa Lexicon. A continent in 1000 keywords. Metzler, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-476-02046-0 , p. 167.
  5. ^ Jacob Emmanuel Mabe: Oral and written forms of philosophical thought in Africa. Lang, Frankfurt 2005, ISBN 3-631-54397-2 , p. 181.
  6. ^ Paulin J. Hountondji : African Philosophy. Myth and Reality. Dietz, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-320-01805-1 , p. 82.