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 EDITED BY
EDWIN E. ETIEYIBO
Method, Substance, and the Future
of African Philosophy
 Edwin E. Etieyibo
Editor

Method, Substance,
and the Future of
African Philosophy
Editor
Edwin E. Etieyibo
University of the Witwatersrand
Johannesburg, South Africa

ISBN 978-3-319-70225-4    ISBN 978-3-319-70226-1 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70226-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017960956

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

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 Preface

The idea for this book began with the need to bring together some of the
papers presented at the September 9–11, 2015 African Philosophy (African
Philosophy: Past, Present and Future) Conference at the University of the
Witwatersrand. The conference, as many will remember, drew and
attracted many scholars working in African philosophy—both some of the
most established and prominent ones and a number of promising ones.
However, within the two years when work started on the collection and
following a couple of peer reviews, a number of essays that were not origi-
nally part of the conference out of necessity and their importance found
their way into the edited volume.
Although all the chapters in the volume are united by one common
subject matter—African philosophy—each of them individually (directly
and indirectly) touch on and develop further aspects of one or more of the
following sub-themes: (a) African philosophy in history; (b) methodologi-
cal debates in African philosophy; (c) substantive issues, topics and debates
in African philosophy; and (d) the future of African philosophy. In this
sense, the book as a whole can be construed as contributing to contempo-
rary efforts aimed at invigorating the excavation of knowledge (both
extant and primordial) in African philosophy.
Some acknowledgments seem appropriate to the extent that the collec-
tion is seeing the light of day. I want to thank every one of the contribu-
tors for patiently and painstakingly working with me on volume. The book
would not be out now without the numerous efforts expended by them
into their various chapters. I would also like to express some gratitude to
the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences for the

v
vi PREFACE

s­upport that they provided, which helped to fund some aspects of the
conference as well as facilitate some of the editorial- and administrative-
related work of this volume. And finally, some appreciations are due to the
anonymous reviewers who twice went through the book and offered very
helpful and constructive feedback.

Johannesburg, South Africa Edwin E. Etieyibo

 Contents

1 Introduction   1
Edwin E. Etieyibo

Part I African Philosophy and History  11

2 African Philosophy in History, Context,

and Contemporary Times  13
Edwin E. Etieyibo

3 The Journey of African Philosophy  35

Barry Hallen

4 History of Philosophy as a Problem: Our Case  53

Dismas A. Masolo

5 The State of African Philosophy in Africa  71

Edwin E. Etieyibo and Jonathan O. Chimakonam

vii
viii Contents

Part II Method in African Philosophy  91

6 Questions of Method and Substance and the Growth

of African Philosophy  93
Simon Mathias Makwinja

7 Between the Ontology and Logic Criteria of African

Philosophy 113
Lucky Uchenna Ogbonnaya

8 The “Demise” of Philosophical Universalism and the Rise

of Conversational Thinking in Contemporary African
Philosophy 135
Jonathan O. Chimakonam

9 Is, Ought, and All: In Defense of a Method 161

Oritsegbubemi Anthony Oyowe

Part III Substance of African Philosophy 185

10 An Examination of Menkiti’s Conception

of Personhood and Gyekye’s Critique   187
Polycarp Ikuenobe

11 Justification of Moral Norms in African Philosophy   209

Uchenna Okeja

12 The Importance of an African Social

Epistemology to Improve Public Health and Increase
Life Expectancy in Africa   229
Helen Lauer

13 The Question of Rationality in Kwasi Wiredu’s

Consensual Democracy   251
Emmanuel Ifeanyi Ani
 Contents 
   ix

14 How to Ground Animal Rights on African Values:

A Constructive Approach   275
Thaddeus Metz

Part IV African Philosophy and Its Future   291

15 Philosophy and the State in Africa   293

Ifeanyi A. Menkiti

16 Jéan-Paul Sartre and the Agenda of an Africanist

Philosophy of Liberation   313
John M. Lamola

17 The Shaping of the Future of African Philosophy   335

Bernard Matolino

Index 355
 Notes on Contributors

Emmanuel Ifeanyi Ani is a senior lecturer at the University of Ghana,

Legon. He was appointed as a lecturer by the University of Ghana on August
1, 2011. He holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of Ibadan, a
BPhil in Philosophy from the Pontificia Università Urbaniana Roma (Urban
Pontifical University, Rome), Italy, and an MA and a PhD in Philosophy
from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nigeria. His research interests include
deliberative democracy, African philosophy, and philosophy of mind.
Jonathan Okeke Chimakonam is a senior lecturer at the University of
Calabar and a research associate at the University of Johannesburg. His
research interests include logic, African philosophy, and philosophy of
mind. His articles have appeared in journals such as Ultimate Reality and
Meaning, Confluence, South African Journal of Philosophy, African Studies
Quarterly, Phronimon, Polylog, Filosofia Theoretica, Philosophia Africana,
Dialogue and Universalism, among others. He is winner of ISUD’s Jens
Jacobsen Award for Outstanding Research in Philosophy (2016). He is
the African philosophy area editor for the Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. He propounded the theories of conversational thinking and
Ezumezuology.
Edwin E. Etieyibo is an associate professor of philosophy in the
Department of Philosophy, School of Social Sciences, University of the
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. His teaching and research
interests cover philosophy of law, ethics (theoretical and applied), social and
political philosophy, African philosophy, epistemology, history of philoso-
phy, philosophy of education and with children, and African socio-­political

xi
xii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

economy. He is the co-author (with Odirin Omiegbe) of Disabilities in

Nigeria: Attitudes, Reactions, and Remediation (Hamilton Books, 2017);
guest editor of the South African Journal of Philosophy special issue on
“Africanising the Philosophy Curriculum in Universities in Africa”; editor
of Perspectives in Social Contract Theory (CRVP, 2018), and Decolonisation,
Africanisation and the Philosophy Curriculum (Routledge, 2018).
Barry Hallen is currently director of Southern Crossroads Academic. He
was Reader in Philosophy at Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. He
has also been Professor of Philosophy, Morehouse College, Fellow of the
W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University, and director of a UNESCO
research project.
Polycarp Ikuenobe is a professor of philosophy at Kent State University,
Kent, Ohio, USA. He holds a PhD in philosophy from Wayne State
University, Detroit, Michigan, USA. His research and teaching interests
include African philosophy, philosophy of law, social, moral, and political
philosophy, informal logic, and philosophy of race. He is the author of
Philosophical Perspectives on Communalism and Morality in African
Traditions (Lexington Books, 2006), and numerous peer-reviewed journal
articles and book chapters.
John M. Lamola is a senior research fellow in philosophy at the University
of Fort Hare, South Africa. He holds a PhD (Edinburgh) and an MBA
degree in Aviation and Aerospace Management from Embry Riddle
Aeronautical University (Florida, USA). Dr Lamola is a public intellectual
and director of companies with an academic publishing track record in lib-
eration theology, African philosophy, politics, and business management.
Helen Lauer is a professor of philosophy in the Department of Philosophy
and Religious Studies, College of Humanities, University of Dar es Salaam.
From 1988 to 2015, she was on faculty of philosophy at the University of
Ghana. Prior to a post doctorate at Oxford University in 1987, her MPhil
(1983) and PhD (1986) were awarded by the philosophy program of the
City University of New York Graduate Center, under the doctoral supervi-
sion of David M. Rosenthal. In 2015 she was inducted as a fellow of the
Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Simon M. Makwinja is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy,
University of Malawi at Chancellor College. He has taught philosophy
undergraduate courses for more than ten years. Currently, he is a doctoral
 Notes on Contributors 
   xiii

candidate in the School of Religion, Philosophy, and Classics at the

University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg campus. He has research
interests in African philosophy and African moral theory. His publications
(with P.N. Mwale) include Critical Thinking and Reasoning Skills: An
Introduction to Logic (Montfort Press, 2016) and (with G.M. Kayange)
“Exploring the Ethical Basis of Animal Treatment in Malawi”
(J. Humanities, 24, 2016).
Dismas A. Masolo is a native of Kenya and professor of philosophy at the
University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. He is the author of
African Philosophy in Search of Identity (1994) and Self and Community in
a Changing World (2010). He is also co-editor (with Ivan Karp) of African
Philosophy as Cultural Inquiry (2000).
Bernard Matolino is a senior lecturer in philosophy at the University of
KwaZulu-Natal. His research interests are in African philosophy and race
and racism. He is author of Personhood in African Philosophy.
Ifeanyi A. Menkiti is professor emeritus, Department of Philosophy,
Wellesley College, Massachusetts. He was born in Onitsha, Nigeria. He
received his BA from Pomona College and PhD from Harvard University
where he studied with John Rawls, his dissertation adviser. He retired
from Wellesley College in 2014 after forty-one years of teaching. In addi-
tion to his work in philosophy, Menkiti is also a poet, and, at the present
time, is the owner/proprietor of the historic Grolier Poetry Book Shop in
Harvard Square, a bookshop made famous by its association with poets
such as T.S. Eliot, E.E. Cummings, Ezra Pound, Robert Lowell, and oth-
ers. Menkiti has served on the boards of many civic institutions such as the
Cambridge Arts Council, the Greater Boston Youth Pro Musica, and the
Board of Trustees of the Mount Auburn Hospital, Cambridge, Mass., a
Harvard University-affiliated teaching hospital.
Thaddeus Metz is distinguished professor at the University of
Johannesburg (2015–2019), where he is affiliated with the Department of
Philosophy. Author of about 200 books, articles, and chapters, he is par-
ticularly known for having analytically articulated an African moral theory,
applied it to a variety of ethical and political controversies, compared it to
East Asian and Western moral perspectives, and defended it as preferable
to them. His book, A Relational Moral Theory: African Contributions to
Global Ethics, is expected to be published by Oxford University Press in
2018.
xiv Notes on Contributors

Lucky Uchenna Ogbonnaya recently concluded his PhD program in

the Department of Philosophy, University of Calabar, Calabar. His areas of
specialization and research interests include metaphysics, logic, and African
philosophy. He is a member of the Conversational School of Philosophy
(CSP), Calabar Circle. He has some articles in academic journals and
chapters in a number of edited books. Ogbonnaya has presented papers at
a number of i­nternational and local conferences. He is an editorial assis-
tant of the journal, Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy,
Culture and Religions.
Uchenna Okeja is an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy
at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa. His research inter-
ests lie in the area of political philosophy, ethics, critical theory, and African
philosophy. He is the author of Normative Justification of a Global Ethic:
A Perspective from African Philosophy (Lexington Books, 2012).
Oritsegbubemi Anthony Oyowe is a senior lecturer in the Department
of Philosophy at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa where
he teaches African Philosophy and Political Philosophy. He was lecturer at
the University of KwaZulu-Natal and a fellow in the African Humanities
Program of the American Council of Learned Societies. He is currently
the secretary of the Philosophical Society of Southern Africa. His research
interests straddle the Western and African philosophical traditions and lie
at the points of intersection between metaphysics and value theory, with
specific focus on ethical, political, and legal issues. He has researched and
published in both local and international journals on questions related to
personhood, Ubuntu, justice, and human rights. He is co-author, with
David Bilchitz and Thaddeus Metz, of the book Jurisprudence in an
African Context (Oxford, 2018).
 List of Figures

Fig. 8.1 Conversational curve 148

Fig. 8.2 Diagram of conversational thinking 149

xv
 List of Tables

Table 5.1 Universities in Southern Africa 1 76

Table 5.2 Universities in Southern Africa 2 76
Table 5.3 Universities in Southern Africa 3 77
Table 5.4 Universities in Southern Africa 4 78
Table 5.5 Universities in Southern Africa 5 78
Table 5.6 Universities in West Africa 1 82
Table 5.7 Universities in West Africa 2 82
Table 5.8 Universities in West Africa 3 83
Table 5.9 Universities in West Africa 4 83

xvii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Edwin E. Etieyibo

This multi-authored volume is a welcome addition to the growing litera-

ture in African philosophy. Its principal focus is the invigoration of efforts
towards the excavation of knowledge (both extant and primordial) in
African philosophy. It does this by the different ways in which the contri-
butions attempt to develop further some important aspects and subthemes
in the field. Insofar as the edited collection does this, it contributes to a
number of contemporary endeavors aimed at straddling the fine and sub-
tle lines between methodological and substantive issues in African philoso-
phy, on the one hand, and the history of African philosophy as well as the
debates about the future direction of African philosophy, on the other
hand.
As part of developing and discussing these sub-themes, the book is
divided into four parts. Part 1 (African Philosophy and History) include
chapters that examine the history of African philosophy generally con-
strued. The chapters in Part 2 (Method in African Philosophy) discuss
some methodological issues in African philosophy. In Part 3 (Substance of
African Philosophy), we have chapters that are focused on some substan-
tive issues in African philosophy. The final part of the book, Part 4 (African

E. E. Etieyibo (*)
Department of Philosophy, University of the Witwatersrand,
Johannesburg, South Africa

© The Author(s) 2018 1

E. E. Etieyibo (ed.), Method, Substance, and the Future
of African Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70226-1_1
2 E. E. ETIEYIBO

Philosophy and its Future), brings together chapters that discuss to some
degree a couple of issues in relation to philosophical theorizing of African
philosophy in the context of its future or direction.

1   Part 1 (African Philosophy and History)

In Chap. 2, “African Philosophy in History, Context, and Contemporary
Times,” Edwin Etieyibo discusses a number of issues in the context of the
history of African philosophy and the progress that has been made follow-
ing the metaphilosophical debate that began in the 1970s. Two of the
standout issues that he sought to address include: does one’s origin as an
African place an obligation on one to work in African philosophy, and who
is an African philosopher? In addition to this, Etieyibo discusses two areas
in which progress can be said to have been made in African philosophy and
six areas where sufficient progress has not been made or where African
philosophy seems to lag behind.
The next chapter (Chap. 3), “The Journey of African Philosophy,” is by
Barry Hallen. Hallen traces the history of African philosophy in the
Anglophone Africa contemporary times beginning from around the early
1960s when African philosophers attacked some of the controversial ste-
reotypes of Africa’s intellectual heritage vis-á-vis rationality or the rational
in African philosophy culture or philosophy. As Hallen notes, part of the
motivation of these African philosophers was not only to point out the
untruths embedded in these stereotypes but to reclaim “their own terri-
tory when with both word and deed they reasserted the prerogative of
their discipline to define the ‘rational’ in the African cultural context.” As
part of this biographical note on the journey of African philosophy down
the years, Hallen suggests the importance of openness to different meth-
odologies and approaches to doing philosophy. And along the way he
expresses his desire to see more work in African philosophy done in the
mold of Kwasi Wiredu’s linguistic analysis approach to philosophy.
Dismas A. Masolo’s essay (Chap. 4), “History of Philosophy as a
Problem: Our Case,” builds on some of the ideas that Hallen suggest
about the significance of openness to different methodologies and
approaches to doing philosophy. In this chapter, Masolo invites African
philosophers to consider the importance of seriously engaging with one
another and on issues concerning indigenous African beliefs, conceptions,
values, and experiences. As he notes: “Sustained discourses among locals
give traditions of thought their identities.” This sort of engagement,
Masolo points out, will help sustain the “debate among ourselves about
 INTRODUCTION 3

the conceptual-theoretical implications of our own beliefs and experi-

ences.” The engagement will also ensure that much of the contemporary
work in African philosophy that has been done by African philosophers
will be located in place and time, and part of what it means to be located
in place and time is that one writes not exclusively for an audience outside
of Africa but one in Africa—an exercise that may sometimes require writ-
ing in Africa’s indigenous languages. Masolo argues that while some of the
work that had been done previously is good, much of it is in mere response
to Western scholars, namely correcting them on their “gross misunder-
standing or misrepresentation of our beliefs and practices.” The problem
with this is that we have not developed what, according to him, Wiredu
calls, “a tradition of philosophy,” which “is built on highlighting a discur-
sive sparring among ourselves about our own specific conceptions, beliefs
or experiences in a manner that would be called philosophical.” As part of
highlighting what it will take to build a tradition of philosophy and to
engage in philosophical issues and experiences that is located in time and
place, Masolo uses the example of Shaaban Robert who wrote in the
indigenous language of his people (Kiswahili) as part of his larger goal of
writing for his people and engaging with them. Part of the appeal of
Shaaban Robert is that he provokes us to the thought of what partly con-
stitutes a good writer, which according to Masolo, is one that shares with
her or his people temperaments, feelings, and aspirations about values and
what matters, reflectively being aware of what these values are and what
captures the attention of her or his people.
The essay (Chap. 5) “The State of African Philosophy in Africa” by
Edwin Etieyibo and Jonathan Chimakonam concludes this part of the
book. In this chapter, Etieyibo and Chimakonam embark on a stock-­
taking project with regard to the state of African philosophy in Africa.
Their stock-taking project can be construed as arising out of the need to
bring to the attention of African philosophers the importance of respond-
ing to the call for transforming the academy or institution of higher learn-
ing in Africa. Stated differently, the motivation and the measure of the
importance of their project lies in the fact that it constitutes a preliminary
framework as part of the general and overarching response to the debates
on the “lack of transformation in universities in Africa and the need to
Africanize or decolonize the philosophy curriculum in universities in
Africa.” Since such a stock-taking project involves a lot of moving parts,
Etieyibo and Chimakonam limit themselves to a couple of issues: firstly,
those relating to the number of universities/philosophy departments in
4 E. E. ETIEYIBO

sub-Saharan Africa that offer courses in African philosophy and African

philosophy-related content; and secondly, some general tendencies and
habits to the doing of contemporary African philosophy.

2   Part 2 (Method in African Philosophy)

The chapter (Chap. 6), “Questions of Method and Substance and the
Growth of African Philosophy,” by Simon Mathias Makwinja begins Part 2
of the book. Makwinja here takes the view that the preoccupation in con-
temporary time by scholars of African philosophy with what methods and
content are appropriate or not for the discipline is a problem for it. In
particular, he argues that such approach to doing African philosophy is a
hindrance to its development. In his view, this is partly because so much
energy is dissipated on “issues that have either been settled or will better
be defined while engaging with substantive issues.” If Makwinja is right in
this, then as he himself points out his argument can be taken to destabilize
any attempt to make the discussion of methodologies and apposite prob-
lems in African philosophy a center of African philosophy. The conclusion
he draws from this then is that until African philosophers spend much of
their time on “substantive philosophical problems, African philosophy will
always be” on the margin of the philosophical enterprise and discourse.
In Chap. 7, “Between the Ontology and Logic Criteria of African
Philosophy,” Lucky Uchenna Ogbonnaya argues primarily that the most
enduring question about the existence and future direction of African phi-
losophy is the “criterion question” and that our answer to this question
largely shapes African philosophy. The position that he defends is that
ontology is a defining feature of African philosophy and it is this (ontol-
ogy) that makes any philosophy African. In exploring the criterion ques-
tion and drawing his conclusion, Ogbonnaya surveys a number of criteria
that a number of African philosophers—such as Paulin Hountondji, Odera
Oruka, Peter Bodunrin, and Uduma Oji Uduma—have proffered as defin-
ing and delimiting the nature of African philosophy. In his view, all of
these criteria are inadequate. He then shifts his focus to the logic criterion
of African philosophy proposed by Chimakonam. He examines this crite-
rion against the background of the ontology criterion, which is his pre-
ferred criterion, and concludes that while the former is deficient the latter
provides a more plausible route of settling the question as to what makes
a philosophy African.
 INTRODUCTION 5

The theme of method in African philosophy that Makwinja explores, in

Chap. 6, is continued by Chimakonam in “The ‘Demise’ of Philosophical
Universalism and the Rise of Conversational Thinking in Contemporary
African Philosophy” (Chap. 8). In his contribution, Chimakonam sets out
to accomplish a threefold aim. Firstly, to criticize the Universalist School
(or Philosophical Universalism) as the most suitable method of doing
African philosophy. Secondly, to make a case as to why the Conversational
Thinking or School not only constitutes a mode of thought in African
philosophy but a doctrine in the discipline. And finally, using the themes
of Conversational Thinking he attempts a redefinition of the concern and
issues related to African philosophy in contemporary time. Part of
Chimakonam’s motivation is to highlight the point regarding an impor-
tant evaluative move with regard to the choosing of appropriate method-
ologies or approaches to doing African philosophy. And in the deployment
of this evaluative move, the requirement for approaches like the Universalist
School will be to show that its discourses beyond being argumentative are
thematic to contemporary demands and if not would have to move out of
the way for other approaches.
Part 2 comes to a conclusion with Oritsegbubemi Anthony Oyowe’s
piece “Is, Ought, and All: In Defense of a Method” (Chap. 9). The prin-
cipal focus of Oyowe in this chapter is the challenge posed by Thaddeus
Metz in respect of the methodological validity of approaches in contem-
porary African philosophy that seek to ground moral-political obligations
on a given metaphysics of the self and of nature. Metz, according to
Oyowe, argues that these approaches violate Hume’s Law, or what is gen-
erally called in the literature the “is-ought problem.” Among other things,
using the important distinction between a direct strategy and an indirect
strategy of deriving an is from an ought, Oyowe argues that “Metz is
unsuccessful in his attempt” at making a case that contemporary African
philosophers violate Hume’s Law in attempting to ground moral-political
obligations on a given metaphysics of the self and of nature.

3   Part 3 (Substance of African Philosophy)

In Chap. 10, “An Examination of Menkiti’s Conception of Personhood
and Gyekye’s Critique,” Polycarp Ikuenobe provides what may be consid-
ered a reinterpretation of Ifeanyi Menkiti’s conception of personhood in
relation to community. He does this with a view to engaging with the
criticisms against Menkiti’s view mounted by Kwame Gyekye. Menkiti’s
6 E. E. ETIEYIBO

normative view of personhood explicates his view of African communalism

and this view, Gyekye argues, is mistaken. It is mistaken, according to him,
because it is a radical form of communitarianism, which takes persons to
be ontologically constituted by the community—a view according to
which “the community and its interests have priority over individual rights
and autonomy.” Ikuenobe contends that on his interpretation of Menkiti’s
view, Gyekye’s construal and criticisms of Menkiti constitutes some mis-
understanding, in that Menkiti’s conception of personhood “is neither a
metaphysical thesis nor radical in the sense of undermining individual
rights and autonomy.” Ikuenobe further argues that Gyekye’s character-
ization of Menkiti’s view as radical and his own view as moderate involves
a false dichotomy and that both views (the radical and moderate views), if
properly construed and understood, will be seen not to be different.
The next chapter (Chap. 11) “Justification of Moral Norms in African
Philosophy” by Uchenna Okeja examines the different ways that African
philosophers have attempted to justify moral norms. Okeja identifies four
ways, which he calls typologies. These are: (1) appeal to tradition, (2)
appeal to community, (3) appeal to religion and the gods, and (4) appeal
to human well-being. His primary motivation for this examination is two-
fold. Firstly, to show that each of these typologies constitutes a family of
thought united by one central proposition. Secondly, to consider the
extent to which they are plausible. In light of this, Okeja argues that these
typologies or strategies of justification are significantly deficient in some
respect. These deficiencies concern both the credibility of the assumptions
of the perspectives of the typologies of justification of moral norms offered
and their sufficiency. The conclusion that Okeja reaches from this exami-
nation is that the typologies of justification require further theoretical
development if they are to command our acceptance.
The issue of Western knowledge paradigms and discourse in contrast
with knowledge paradigms and discourse in the Global South, but par-
ticularly in Africa, is an important one from the standpoint of epistemol-
ogy. The importance of science and knowledge paradigm and discourse is
further underscored by the fact that they play a significant role in applied
ethical issues. Helen Lauer in Chap. 12, “The Importance of an African
Social Epistemology to Improve Public Health and Increase Life
Expectancy in Africa,” takes this up in connection with public health issues
in Africa. Lauer criticizes the position of foreign medical experts for a
number of things in respect of public health issues in Africa: assuming that
their “expertise and moral initiative are required to control fatal African
 INTRODUCTION 7

epidemics” as well as compensate for the malaise of indigenes; indifference

shown for African-based expertise and neglect of their knowledge ability.
These factors, she argues, have exacerbated the conditions that have “been
responsible for maintaining high rates of mortality and chronic illness in
Africa.” While she acknowledges that her intention is to raise questions
rather than provide exhaustive arguments meant to resolve the worries
about the legitimacy of the science underlying global health strategies that
focus on African populations, she stresses the importance of “locally based
humanities specialists collaborating with indigenous leaders, public health
practitioners, medical researchers, and healing specialists to liberate health
care programming and national expenditures from the dictates of research
monopolies, the priorities of foreign defense alliances, and the interests of
mega-national drug manufacturing conglomerates.” At the end, her main
contention is that (a) “the rationales that motivate the complicity of
African academics and government officials in perpetuating the suppres-
sion of unscripted African critical voices of expertise” must be recognized;
(b) cognizance must be taken of “the value of heuristic work in the sociol-
ogy of African medicine for improving public health policy and medical
care delivery for the Two-Thirds World; (c) premium must be placed on
“African medical knowledge producers and professionals” as being
“among the best placed to critique and correct the global arena’s ‘images
of mass deception’ masquerading as certainty about the causes of illness
and early death in Africa;” and (d) the privileged position of African based
practitioners, researchers, and policy makers must be understood as
­providing “them an epistemic competitive advantage in critically assessing
the quality of applied medical knowledge” in the quest for an improve
public health care management in Africa.
In “The Question of Rationality in Kwasi Wiredu’s Consensual
Democracy” (Chap. 13), Emmanuel Ifeanyi Ani defends his earlier posi-
tion in respect of Wiredu’s proposal of democracy by consensus in place of
majoritarian democracy on the African continent against a number of
Bernard Matolino’s objections. The crux of the disagreement or debate
rests on the notion of rationality, namely, whether Wiredu is right to con-
strue deliberation as a purely rational activity. In an earlier article, Ani has
argued that Wiredu is wrong, a view that Matolino criticized in a couple
of articles. In this chapter, Ani attempts to set the record straight by show-
ing how and where Matolino has mischaracterized him and where he falls
into a number of contradictions, and logical fallacies.
8 E. E. ETIEYIBO

Rounding off Part 3 is Thaddeus Metz’s essay (Chap. 14) “How to

Ground Animal Rights on African Values: A Constructive Approach.”
What Metz does in this essay is to extend the discussions on his account of
animal rights (an account that Kai Horsthemke calls “African Modal
Relationalism”). On African Modal Relationalism, which has a sub-­
Saharan pedigree, the evaluation of the moral worth of beings hangs on
their capacity of relating. Simply put, on the African Modal Relationalism
view, a being has a greater moral status, if and only if it, in principle, has
more capacity of “relating communally with characteristic human beings.”
However, Horsthemke has argued in his 2015 book Animals and African
Ethics that this account of animal rights “is anthropocentric, poorly moti-
vated relative to his egalitarian-individualist approach, and does not have
the implications” that Metz contends it does. In this chapter, Metz argues
that Horsthemke criticisms are ill motivated and that African Modal
Relationalism remains “a promising way to” ground animal rights, theo-
retically and philosophically.

4   Part 4 (African Philosophy and Its Future)

Ifeanyi Menkiti’s “Philosophy and the State in Africa” (Chap. 15) exam-
ines African statehood, that is, the state or status of the state in Africa. His
examination of African statehood can be understood as a broad theoriza-
tion on African politics both as presently constituted and as pointing the
way forward in terms of the possible directions one might think African
politics should take (in the future). In this sense, his chapter is also about
the future of African philosophy insofar as one does take his analysis of
African statehood to be a call for African scholars (who are engaged in all
kinds of theorization in African politics) to interrogate certain important
concepts such as state, nation, and country in the process of their theoriza-
tion. In his discussion, Menkiti makes some important distinctions along
the way—distinction in respect of the country and state, the state and
nation, the nation and nation-state, political morality and common moral-
ity, and the person and citizen. These distinctions are part of the richer
regalia and elements that Menkiti deploys as resources in raising and
examining the question: What does it mean to say that African states are
“failed states”? As Menkiti points out, a meaningful way to answer this
question and to evaluate the notion of “failed states” in Africa has to be
against the backdrop of some goal or end. That is, if a state is to be judged
to have failed or succeeded (a) “it must be by reference to a goal, or end,
 INTRODUCTION 9

which it was supposed to be serving” and (b) in order for the judgment to
be consequential and expressive in the context of the notion of “failed
states” in Africa it is imperative that one articulates the end that the African
state is designed to serve.
In “Jéan-Paul Sartre and the Agenda of an Africanist Philosophy of
Liberation” (Chap. 16), John Lamola argues that it is important for philo-
sophical practice in Africa to be authentically contextual and that when it
is one will realize that the “most critical challenge of postcolonial African
life is an imperative for an authentic African identity.” In his development
of this argument he draws on an existentialist theoretical framework, that
is, Sartre’s existentialist phenomenological account of selfhood that is
entrenched in the notion of radical freedom. Given that Lamola considers
the Sartrean existentialist phenomenological framework or account as
imperative for an authentic and contextualized philosophical practice in
Africa, his project may be considered a proposal and encouragement to
scholars in African philosophy that going forward it is important to focus
on a philosophy of liberation that is well rooted in Africa’s existential
realities.
The book concludes with Bernard Matolino’s essay, “The Shaping of
the Future of African Philosophy” (Chap. 17). According to Matolino, to
talk of a future generally presupposes a number of related ideas: (a) that a
past and present existed; (b) a “search to break with either the past or the
present or both”; and (c) an affirmation of “the veracity and efficacy of
either the past or the present or both.” The position that Matolino defends
in the chapter is that we ought not to talk of the future of African ­philosophy.
He offers some reasons for taking this position—reasons that predomi-
nantly rest on the need to reject what he calls “an essentialist but subtle
rendering of what is African; and what is philosophy prefixed by African.”
Pacing through “a brief and selective analysis of the development of phi-
losophy” in Africa, Matolino proposes an outline of what he takes to be the
task of any philosopher that is situated in any given social-­cultural milieu—
an approach that he argues seems “better suited to shape and direct the
philosophy of the here” in comparison to the approach that is welded to
the notion of the future of African philosophy.
 PART I

African Philosophy and History

 CHAPTER 2

African Philosophy in History, Context,

and Contemporary Times

Edwin E. Etieyibo

1   Introduction
African philosophy does have a long history, albeit mostly undocumented,
unwritten, and oral. It is a history that stretches beyond modernity and
into antiquity both in substance and form. One might say that the sub-
stance and form is of a different garb than that with which we generally
will associate with modern and contemporary African philosophy.1 The
period that witnessed the great debate in African philosophy (the 1970s
through to the early 1990s) concerning its nature and existence is one that
did put, I think, into perspective the different ways of thinking about this
long history of African philosophy. I will say more about this period in the
context of the denial of African philosophy vis-à-vis rationality and racism
in a moment. In addition to this, I will in this chapter provide some con-
text for African philosophy. As well, I will say a few things about the flour-
ishing of African philosophy in contemporary times.
I do believe that to provide some context for African philosophy and to
talk about its thriving is to first and foremost concern oneself with history,
in this case the history of African philosophy. In saying this I am saying
that any serious discussion of African philosophy in terms of its progress

E. E. Etieyibo (*)
Department of Philosophy, University of the Witwatersrand,
Johannesburg, South Africa

© The Author(s) 2018 13

E. E. Etieyibo (ed.), Method, Substance, and the Future
of African Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70226-1_2
14 E. E. ETIEYIBO

must and ought to be cognizant of its history. However, as important as

the history of African philosophy is, it is important to note that such his-
tory and its discussion alone do not constitute all that can be said about
the progress of African philosophy.

2   African Philosophy Denied

As an undergraduate student in the Department of Philosophy, University
of Lagos, I was first introduced in 1994 by Campbell S. Momoh to the
metaphilosophical questions in African philosophy through a first-year
course entitled: “Ancient African Philosophy.” Issues about the existence
and nature of African philosophy dominated the landscape of African phi-
losophy in the 1970s and 1980s and continued into the early 1990s. Some
of the scholars that spearheaded the conversations on these issues include
Kwasi Wiredu, Barry Hallen, Henry Odera Oruka, Robin Horton,
Momoh, Paulin Hountondji, Gordon Hunnings, Sophie Oluwole,
Richard Wright, Chukwudum Barnabas Okolo, Theophilus Okere, Peter
Bodunrin, Kwame Gyekye, J. Olubi Sodipo, and Godwin Sogolo. During
the semester-­long course we spent a great amount of time discussing these
issues, that is, issues about whether African philosophy does exist, and if it
does, what is its nature and in what forms and periods it does exist.
Without doubt, these were some of the most exciting weeks for me in that
course, not the least because I enjoyed dwelling on abstract and meta-­
questions of philosophy—probably I did. Rather, I think that what made
these weeks stimulating for me was that it was during this time of getting
one’s hands “dirty” with these abstract and meta-issues in African philoso-
phy that two important ideas formed and matured in my mind. The first is
about the perverseness of racism and how subtly it can seep into the
thought of even the most profound and highly regarded thinkers. And the
second concerns my interest and desire to do more research in African
philosophy. Let me speak to the first idea since I do not think that the
second idea requires any further elaboration and elucidation from me
given that my writing this very chapter in conjunction with my other work
in African philosophy, seems to me, to provide some testament regarding
where this interest and desire to do more research in African philosophy
has led to.
How did the introduction in 1994 to the metaphilosophical questions
in African philosophy reinforce in my mind issues about the perverseness
of racism and its subtlety? It is this. The denial of the existence of African
 AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY IN HISTORY, CONTEXT, AND CONTEMPORARY TIMES 15

philosophy came across to me as a denial of humanity to Africans insofar

as what is being denied or questioned is reason or the rationality of
Africans, since for me, rationality is a core essence of humanity as well as a
defining feature of philosophy. That I think that rationality is the crux or
a core essence of humans does not mean that I’m suggesting that the aver-
age human is rational or exhibits rationality every moment, every day of
their life. As rational as humans can be, they are disposed to irrationality
and bouts of it aplenty. Sometimes they are and could be overtaken by
emotions, and in those emotional moments one might describe them as
being irrational. Although humans have their moments of irrationality,
however long they may last, one generally does not expect an individual to
be irrational for large periods of their life or throughout the course of their
entire life, unless of course he or she is struck by some underlying illness
that stretches into perpetuity. In such cases where an individual’s rational-
ity has been compromised, his or her very humanity or personhood is
generally called into question. Or at the very least, the questioning of the
individual’s rationality or the claim that a particular individual does not
have it is such that both in legal and medical language and parlance the
individual is usually said to lack the capacity to give informed consent. And
to say that one is incapable of giving informed consent is to admit that one
is not a full human or person.
The point of saying all of this is to emphasize the point that if rationality
is a core essence of humanity, and if it is unconceivable for humans to be
irrational for large periods of their life or throughout the course of their
life, then it strikes me as odd for anyone to deny rationality to Africans or
to question its existence among Africans.2 The oddity of the denial of
rationality for me, which crystalized during the chunk of time that my
classmates and I spent debating the metaphilosophical questions in the
first-year course on African philosophy, was amplified by the fact that it is
not just a denial of rationality to one or a couple of Africans but to all
Africans. My summation of the denial was therefore this: If rationality is a
core essence of humanity, and if Africans lack rationality, then Africans lack
a core essence of humanity, therefore, Africans are not humans since they
lack something that makes one characteristically human.3 But this is not
all. For as it concerns African philosophy, the denial of rationality is meant
to be the denial of the existence of African philosophy given that Africans
are supposed to lack rationality, and given that rationality is what makes
one characteristically human and any philosophy philosophical or a phi-
losophy. Of course, in talking about the denying of African philosophy in
16 E. E. ETIEYIBO

the context of humanity and rationality, one must keep in mind Momoh’s
five canons of discourse in African philosophy.4 The canons of discourse
serve as evaluative tools in discussions about the existence or otherwise of
African philosophy and employing them one way or another to present a
useful way of making sense of the existence and nature of African
philosophy.
The conclusion that I drew from this is that all the talk of the absence
of rationality or the debate about lacking what it takes to be characteristi-
cally human are cloaks for some larger agenda of racism, racist worldviews
and attitudes. In other words, saying that philosophy does not exist in
Africa and among Africans because they lack rationality is to say that
Africans are both biologically and ontologically inferior. And such inferior-
ity is one that one can say of them either that they are not humans or that
they are sub-humans or not full humans.

3   African Philosophy and Racism

The idea of biological and ontological inferiority, which is a mainstay of
racism, racist worldviews and attitudes, has been a central leitmotif of sci-
entific and philosophical racism, which has a long history in the West.5 It
is found in the triumphant narrative of white or Western superiority and
supremacy, the denial of rationality and humanity to Africans (as well as
other racialized groups and ethnicity), in the questions raised about the
existence of African philosophy, in other more substantive intellectual dis-
course regarding Africa and Africans, and in the perceptions of Africa and
Africans by the West.6 As George Stocking and Walter Rodney have sepa-
rately noted, the ideology of the moral inferiority of Africans was used to
justify the practices of slavery, the slave trade and colonialism.7 Stocking in
particular states that the thinking amongst scholars of science and letters
who were determined to demonstrate that non-Europeans are inferior was
one that construed Africans and African societies as being in need of the
assistance of Western civilized society. Accordingly, the Western civilizing
mission, and endeavors expended on behalf of “dark-skinned” were taken
as one that

could, over time, eliminate savagery from the world, not by destroying sav-
age populations, but by modifying their hereditary incapacity. In the mean-
time—which might be shorter or longer depending on the weight one gave
 AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY IN HISTORY, CONTEXT, AND CONTEMPORARY TIMES 17

to present as opposed to cumulative past experience—it was both s­ cientifically

and morally respectable for civilized Europeans to take up the white man’s
burden.8

As examples of how a profound and respectable thinker can maintain racist

attitudes and be an elaborated and purveyor of scientific and philosophical
racism, consider the examples of Western philosophers like David Hume,
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Immanuel Kant.9
Hume’s racism comes out in the infamous footnote that he added to
the essay “Of National Characters” in the 1753–1754 edition of Essays
and Treatises on Several Subjects. Hume says:

I am apt to suspect the negroes, and in general all the other species of men
(for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the
whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than
white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. No
ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences. On the other
hand, the most rude and barbarous of the whites, such as the ancient
GERMANS, the present TARTARS, have still something eminent about
them, in their valour, form of government, or some other particular. Such a
uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries
and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction betwixt these breeds
of men. Not to mention our colonies, there are NEGROE slaves dispersed
all over EUROPE, of which none ever discovered any symptom of ingenu-
ity; tho’ low people, without education, will start up amongst us, and distin-
guish themselves in every profession. In JAMAICA, indeed, they talk of one
negroe as a man of parts and learning; but ’tis likely he is admired for very
slender accomplishments, like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly.10

While Hume does his racist dance in the footnote, Hegel and Kant have
a more developed position on racism. Hegel wrote about slavery and colo-
nialism and critics have argued that his writing (notably in the Encyclopaedia
and the History of Philosophy) not only laid a basis for modern racism but
provided race in history a role by associating a hierarchy of civilizations to
a hierarchy of races. Kant taught courses in anthropology and geography
for about four decades and wrote about racism. Here are some selections
of passages that capture both Hegel’s and Kant’s racism.
Another random document with
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 XXVIII
It was with a feeling of intense bewilderment that Overton finally left
the seminary. Dr. Price had refrained from any reference to Diane,
but in his very caution in avoiding the subject there was something
that made his visitor more eager to fathom the little dean’s innocent
reservations. Fanny, having fired her shot at random, had become as
quiet as a mouse, scarcely responding to her father’s efforts to draw
her into the conversation; but there was a subtle suggestion of
something important, of some tragic climax, in the very atmosphere.
Overton felt it, felt that even his efforts to shield Faunce for Diane’s
sake had in some mysterious way been forestalled and stultified. He
was aware, too, of Fanny’s watchful eyes, of her air of divination.
Hitherto he had looked upon her as a mere child, and had never
credited her with much perspicacity. Now he felt a sudden leaning
toward her, a vague sympathy that made him look to her for help; but
she gave him no help at all, and let him go at last with a limp
handshake and a half-reproachful glance, which seemed, to his
aroused perception, to express his own thought that his return was
unfortunate and inopportune. Having apparently died, he had no
business to come to life again, to the inconvenience and discomfiture
of his friends.
As he made his way through the seminary gates and turned
westward along the quiet road, he was still possessed with these
conflicting impressions. He suffered, too, from a revival of the keener
and more poignant feelings that had overwhelmed him when he
knew that Diane was not only lost to him, but was the wife of the
coward who had left him to perish. He had subdued this suffering
once, he had even risen to the heights of self-sacrifice to shield her
from the shame of her husband’s exposure; but it was only after he
had convinced himself that there had never been any real foundation
for his hopes, that Diane had never cared for him.
But now a new and amazing crisis completely reversed the situation,
apparently making his sacrifice futile, for he had no reason to shield
Faunce unless he did it to save the woman he loved. He recalled
Diane’s face, the anguish in her eyes, her gesture that seemed to
thrust him away. He had taken these things for a final dismissal,
when another man might have seen in them a far more significant
revelation. He began to dimly recognize it now.
Staggered as his higher moral sense was by this new turn of his
thoughts, his heart leaped up at the change, as if the dark shadow of
disappointment had dropped its grisly shape and become a guiding
light. He felt, indeed, much like the ancient Cretan mariners when
the monster that had terrified them suddenly became a star-crowned
god, ready to guide their storm-tossed ship safely into port.
As Overton plodded along, however, his strongest feeling was one of
sheer perplexity. It was like entering a fair garden by the way of the
front gate and the sloping lawn, and suddenly losing oneself in a
labyrinth.
A determination to solve the riddle drove him toward the one person
who, he thought, might furnish a clue. If any one could point a way in
the maze, it was Dr. Gerry; but, as Overton turned in that direction, a
sudden slope in the hill gave him a wider prospect and a far glimpse
of the roof and chimneys of Judge Herford’s house. He paused and
looked toward it, his eye taking in the exquisite shading of the
landscape, the deep blue and orange of the sky, still pulsing with the
afterglow, the faint violet line of the distant hills, the nearer stretch of
woodland, with here and there a blooming althea showering its pale
blossoms against the green, or half veiling the red-tiled roof of some
house set low in the dense growth of shrubbery.
The sweet, keen air had in it that subtle fragrance which is summer.
Near at hand a robin whistled with a soft, throaty sound, sweet as
Apollo’s lute. Overton let his eyes rest for a moment on the broad,
slated roof that sheltered Diane. He had the keenest desire to see
her again, to know the worst or the best—which was it?
Had she ceased to love Faunce and left him, shocked by some
revelation of his character? Or had his own return—revealing the
falsehood of his death—broken her happiness? This thought stirred
him with profound emotion, and he turned and went on.
It happened to be the hour at which Dr. Gerry was usually at leisure,
and in a few moments Overton found himself following the doctor’s
man down the narrow hall to the study door. He remembered the
place well—the old striped paper on the walls, and the two or three
ancient prints in narrow black frames. They had been there when, as
a boy, he had tiptoed reluctantly down the hall to have the doctor
look at his tongue and administer some unpalatable dose.
Nothing that he had seen since his return had done so much to recall
him to himself, to the familiar surroundings, to the people he had
known from boyhood. The horrors of his experience in the antarctic,
the nearness of death, and the desertion of Faunce, became unreal.
He was at home again!
He was not surprised when the door opened on the old scene—the
small, stuffy room, smelling of drugs; the lamp on the table; the
doctor, in a flowered dressing-gown and slippers, reading a novel. It
had been Gerry’s favorite den since his wife’s death years before,
and it was the one place in which he seemed to fit exactly.
As Overton entered, he looked up over his spectacles, took in the
big, gaunt lines of his visitor’s figure, and held out a cordial hand.
The greeting had in it a moment of intimate feeling. The old man
quickly detected the ravages in Overton’s face, and his eyes filled
with tears, of which he was immediately ashamed. He bustled about
and thrust forward a chair to hide his own emotion.
“Sit down, my boy,” he said bruskly. “Have a cigar? Now tell me all
about it. Had a close shave, I know. I was told so a long while ago.”
Overton started with surprise.
“What do you mean?”
“Faunce told me. There’s no use making a secret of it to you, I
reckon.”
His visitor gazed at him blankly.
“What possessed him to do that?”
“Conscience, maybe. Personally I should call it nerves. He couldn’t
sleep, and he got to the point where he had to speak; he was too
pent-up to endure it any longer. It’s the kind of thing doctors and
ministers run against occasionally—a sort of almost hysterical desire
to get it all out, to make a clean breast of it, and to lighten the load in
that way. It’s about on a par with sending conscience-money to the
Treasury.”
Overton slowly lit his cigar.
“I’m amazed! Faunce said nothing about this when we talked
together the other night. I wonder if he’s told any one else!”
The doctor shook his head with a dry laugh.
“Not a bit of it. He kept still and married Diane Herford. I advised him
against it, I tried to stop it, but he wouldn’t listen. The result has been
just what I expected.”
“You mean——”
“She’s found it all out and left him.”
The hand that held the cigar shook so badly that Overton quietly
lowered it out of sight.
“I knew she’d left him,” he said huskily. “Fanny Price just told me.”
“Oh, yes, the judge isn’t making a secret of her home-coming. He
consented to hush up the rest—about Faunce, I mean—until he sees
you. There’s no need, is there, to make the scandal any worse? How
do things stand? Are you going to expose him?”
Overton shook his head.
“I thought we had come to an agreement about that—to save his
wife; but I can’t understand why he told her. It changes everything.
Meanwhile, I’ve refused the command of the new expedition and
urged them to retain Faunce.”
“So as to bolster him up for her sake?” the doctor mused. “That’s like
you, Simon, but she’ll know that, too, and it’ll only make her think
more of you. I’m afraid the cat’s out of the bag to stay!”
Overton turned troubled eyes upon him.
“Why in the world did it come off? Who let it be? She never should
have married him!”
The doctor picked up an old stump of a pencil from his table and
began to whittle it to a fine point.
“For one thing, I think she was a little in love with him. He’s very
handsome, and has a way that wins with women. Then the judge
was set on it. He believed that Faunce was going to be a great man,
cut on your pattern, you see——”
Overton interrupted him in a tone of sharp impatience.
“I’m not great!”
“Well, we’ll let it go at that, anyway. Diane has imagination, and she
married Faunce; now, her imagination being rudely shocked into
realities, she’s left him. The judge is frantic. He’s seen his son-in-law
to-day, and Faunce tells him he’ll offer no opposition to a divorce.
That means that Diane ought to be free before a great while.”
Overton jumped up and began to walk about excitedly.
“It’s incredible—I happen to know that he loves her!”
Gerry nodded.
“Just so! If he didn’t love her, he’d refuse to let her go. It’s the
supreme test, isn’t it?”
Overton was apparently deaf to this; his mind was absorbed with his
own problems.
“It was an agreement—I understood it as an agreement—that
nothing should be said. I’ve hushed up Asher. He was the one who
might have known that I couldn’t have been even near death when
Faunce left me. It never occurred to me—never—that he’d tell her!
It’s—it’s incredible!”
“No, it isn’t. I know the man. He’s crazed with remorse. He was
probably glad to be relieved from his secret. The thing has preyed on
him, and weighed him down like a yoke on his shoulders. He was
glad to get it off, I’ll wager!”
“He had no right to consider himself,” Overton broke out. “She was
the only one to be considered.”
The doctor sank back in his chair musingly.
“I think he’s considered her in the best way at last. She had to know.
What was wrong was not telling her at first; but he’s willing to right it,
and he has righted it as far as he could, by confessing. The judge is
bent on freeing her, and she’ll be free in a few months. That’s the
only way out of it, except death.”
Overton came back to the chair opposite and sat down. He was
strongly moved. Nothing that Gerry had said had taken much hold
upon him but the bare fact that Diane would be wonderfully set free
again. It seemed to restore the old order of things, to put him back
where he had been before she told him that she was married. His
heart leaped up in a new and keen desire for happiness. Then he
became aware of the doctor’s voice.
“It’s just as well you let him go in your place. It’ll hush up scandal,
and make people think the separation is only a lovers’ quarrel. The
question is, can you keep it quiet? Won’t these Englishmen tell the
story?”
“They don’t know much of it; I’ve thought of that. I took some
measures, too, as soon as—as I knew.”
“That he’d married Diane?”
Overton assented without looking up.
“It’s strange to me—strange and perplexing,” Dr. Gerry remarked
thoughtfully. “I knew when I first saw him that he had something on
his mind. Then I discovered that he tramped all night—some of the
boys thought he was a spook! He was taking chloral to make him
sleep. I guess he’s taking it still. One night he came in here and told
me.”
Overton took up another cigar and lit it mechanically, without
seeming to be aware of what he did.
“I hated him for it at first. I kept seeing him go off through the snow
with the sledge and the dogs; but afterward—I couldn’t blame him
altogether. It was a question of being willing to die with me, I
suppose, and I had no right to ask it. Yet, at the time, numb as I was,
it amazed me, for I had thought he was fond of me.”
“He was. It was one of those curious cases where a man is seized
with panic. It may be as much physical as moral. Practically
speaking, he had lost his mind. He was of no more use than a
frightened child. When he first told me, I thought it was one of the
most cowardly things I’d ever heard of; but he’s suffered for it—he’s
suffered the tortures of the damned!”
Overton was silent. He did not say he pitied Faunce. In fact, he was
grimly recalling that terrific moment when he had been abandoned to
die. Like Faunce, he visioned the polar wastes, and, unlike Faunce,
he felt the drowsy approach of a frozen death again steal over him.
“I suppose there’s no reason,” he said, hesitating, “why I shouldn’t go
to see Judge Herford?”
“You’re the best judge of that.”
Overton looked up.
“I see no reason why I shouldn’t, unless—unless you think she—she
would rather I didn’t go.”
A quizzical light showed in the doctor’s eyes.
“Are you still in love with her, my son? Are you going there to—help
matters along?”
“I’m still in love with her,” Overton replied, coloring deeply. “I told her
so when we met. That’s the worst of it! I had no idea she was
married; and she let me know she didn’t care for me.”
“Because she was married?”
Overton thought deeply.
“I’m afraid it was because she couldn’t.”
“Then I should think you have no reason to stay away—if the judge
wants to see you.”
“I want to see him, but I want to see her more—that’s the truth! It’s
an infatuation, of course—without excuse, too. She let me know that
when I saw her in the mountains.”
The doctor sat up in his chair.
“She saw you just before she left him?”
“Yes.”
The two men looked at each other for a moment, and the older one
smiled grimly.
“Then it seems to me that you can cry quits with Faunce,” Dr. Gerry
said. “You’ve hurt him nearly as badly as he hurt you. You’ve made
his wife see the truth about him.”
“You know I should scorn to do that!”
“You couldn’t help it. You can tell her all about it after the divorce.”
“I don’t see what you mean!”
The doctor smiled enigmatically this time.
“The judge is so angry that he’ll probably blazon the whole story out
anyway, and ruin Faunce.”
Overton rose abruptly to his feet.
“That won’t do! It’s useless. Besides, it would be like—like
vengeance on my part, as if I had come home to ruin him.”
“You can’t shoulder the blame of it; you’ve nothing to do with the
judge.”
“I’ve got this much to do—I’ve come back!”
The old man eyed him thoughtfully.
“I see! You’re taking up the load because you were disobliging
enough to live to contradict Faunce. That’s a new way to look at it,
my son!”
Overton glanced kindly at the old doctor. The familiar address fell
pleasantly on his ear, for at the moment he felt peculiarly desolate.
“It’s the only way to shield her. I’ve got it arranged; but I shall have to
see the judge.”
The doctor nodded.
“That’s right—I advise you to see him. He’s as hard to manage as a
bull in a china-shop—always was; but you’re right, it’ll shield her. As
for Arthur Faunce—well, he’s paying!”
“He’s paying—what?”
Overton stopped with his hand on the door, looking back at the old
figure in the armchair.
“The piper!” The doctor laid down his pipe. “He’s paying with his
heart’s blood, Simon, and I don’t know that he can do anything more
than that. It’s the way some men pay a debt of honor, isn’t it?”
“Brave men!”
Gerry nodded his head slowly.
“Of course, he’s a coward,” he admitted slowly. “Judge Herford calls
him a damned coward.”
“I don’t intend to bring up that subject. I’m simply going to ask the
judge to let matters stand as I’ve fixed them. Faunce keeps the
command and the story—my story is never known.”
“You’re going to tell him that you give up the command to Faunce?”
“Of course!”
“That’s right, my boy, that’s right; but Faunce is giving up Diane.”
Overton, aware of something at work in the back of the old man’s
mind, looked at him curiously.
“I don’t see what you’re driving at.”
The doctor got up and went down the hall to the front door with
Overton, one arm flung affectionately across the younger man’s
shoulders.
“I’m not driving at anything, Simon. I was weighing it—that’s all. You
were immeasurably ahead of him in the race when you forgave him
and gave up the command to shield him; but now, when he’s ready
to give his wife her freedom—well, he’s almost caught up with you,
hasn’t he? As I said, my boy, it’s his heart’s blood, and he’s offering it
as bravely as a brave man might. Let’s give the devil his due—he’s
paying up!”
 XXIX
It was dark by this time, and Overton consulted his watch, to be sure
that it was not too near the judge’s dinner-hour for his errand. He
was astonished to find that it was almost half-past eight. He had not
felt the need of food. He dismissed it entirely from his calculations,
and tramped steadily on in the moonlit mist. Through it he could see
the lights twinkling in distant houses, while the trees loomed up in
feathery, indistinct outlines, downy with foliage. Something in the
effect—the weird brightness of the white sky and the elusive lights—
reminded him of the mirage that had so often mocked him in his
polar quest. He recalled it with a keen recollection of Faunce’s
receding figure, and he thought grimly of the task that lay before him
—the task of persuading Judge Herford to spare his own son-in-law
for his daughter’s sake.
But the thought uppermost in Overton’s mind, as he opened the old
gate that had stood for so much in his life, was the prospect of
seeing Diane again. No matter how she regarded his return, even if
she felt that it was his hand that had destroyed her house of cards,
his heart leaped up with hope. The insistent demand for personal
happiness is not only a primal instinct of human nature, and as much
a constituent part of it as the flowers and birds and bees are
evidences of springtime and summer, but it is also the hardest
aspiration to kill, surviving blows that would destroy the strongest
impulse of endeavor or ambition.
In the words of the sage, “the veriest whipster of us all desires
happiness.” Overton, who had actually stood upon the bourn of the
undiscovered country, craved it the more keenly because of his long
starvation.
He noticed every familiar object as he walked up the path. The old
cedar was there, where he had put up the squirrel-house for Diane
when she was a child in short skirts and pigtails. There, too, was the
old worn seat around the oak, where they had read Tennyson
together. He remembered with a smile Diane’s cry to him that he
must go in quest of the Holy Grail. Had her insistence, her
inspiration, indeed, sent him on that quest which had led to this fatal
climax?
He went slowly up the steps, rang, and stood waiting, almost
expecting that she would open the door with the same inspired look
she used to wear, the same mystic charm of girlhood and dream-
land which had always clothed her, to his imagination, in a beauty
more spiritual than mundane.
But she did not come. A servant ushered him in, and, after a
moment’s delay, conducted him to the judge’s library.
The room was vacant when he entered, and he had an opportunity
to look about him, to recall the familiar objects, the rich old bindings,
and the glow of the ancient bronzes. The fireplace was not empty to-
night; a large porcelain jar stood inside the fender, filled with a
profusion of blossoms, their pink and white sprayed delicately
against the dark chimney-place, and their fragrance, subtle and
sweet, pervading the room. The old reading-lamp was burning on the
table, and the judge’s big shell-rimmed spectacles lay on the open
pages of the “Eumenides.”
Overton stood still, keenly moved by a rush of recollections. He
might have left the room yesterday, it was so unchanged; yet,
between his last sight of it and now, the whole world had changed to
him. The interval had been filled to the brim with suffering and
emotion; the gap was not even bridged. On one side of it stood
Diane; on the other he found himself condemned to wait in the
uncertain ground, no longer possessing a right to cross over and
resume his old place at the fireside.
Presently he heard a heavy step outside, and the judge opened the
door. He seemed to Overton much changed. His face was grim; his
gray hair showed more white. His eyes, however, retained their
intense warmth—the inner flame which at a word might flash up into
a conflagration. He held out his hand with a grim smile.
“It’s good to see you again, Simon Overton,” he said in his deep
voice; “and it’s good of you to come here. We must seem to you to
be part and parcel with—with the coward who left you to die!”
“You’re one of the best friends I ever had, Judge Herford, and one of
the very best my mother left to me. I’ve been looking about this room
and feeling—well, like a boy who’s been long from home. I’m glad
indeed to be here again.”
The judge motioned to an old armchair opposite his own.
“Sit down—I’m glad you’ve come. There’s nothing else clear in my
mind except the shock I’ve had. I believed in Faunce! It’s about used
me up to think I’ve married my girl to—to a craven like that!”
He sat down as he spoke, and fell into an attitude of dejection so
new to him that he seemed another and an older man. Overton,
taking the seat opposite, hesitated. It was difficult to frame what he
had to say. Meanwhile, the judge broke out again with great
bitterness:
“The shame of it! I’d rather take a whipping than have Diane
exposed to all this talk!”
The opening was obvious, and Overton took it, his face flushing
deeply as he met the old man’s troubled eye.
“I came to speak to you of that, judge. There’s no need of publicity.
I’ve arranged with Faunce and with certain other people. My return
needn’t upset everything. The trouble can be so glossed over that no
one will know of it. I think I can fairly say that I’ve succeeded in
arranging that much already.”
The judge eyed him keenly.
“You mean that you’ve arranged all this—to shield Faunce, to hush it
up, to let the public think you were found in some mysterious way? I
can’t quite follow you.”
“We needn’t go into detail, need we?” Overton replied steadily. “We
can leave so much in doubt that there’ll never be any certainty. In
those ice-fields a thousand men might well be lost—why not one?
The only danger is in what he’s already said. There are gaps—I’ve
been over them, I’ve filled in some bad breaks. I believe we can save
much talk, and hush it up.”
The judge leaned forward, his strong hands clenched on his knees,
looking at Overton.
“You’re trying to shield him—for what?”
“For your sake, Judge Herford, and—for hers.”
“You can’t hide a fire. The smoke gets out, people smell burning. No
more can you hide a coward! That’s what it is, Simon. The expedition
has been held up; they’re not going to give him the command;
questions will be asked.”
Overton shook his head.
“I’ve arranged that. They offered me the command. I refused to take
it from him. He’ll go.”
The judge bent his brows.
“You’ve no right to do that! It’s paying a premium on falsehood. He
came back here a jay in peacock’s plumes, and fooled us all; now
you’re letting him carry off the prize. You’ve no right to shelter him.”
“I have the right that comes to the injured party. If I have no mind to
enforce publicity, no one else should complain. You see that, judge?”
“I see you’re trying to spare him because”—he looked at his visitor
keenly again—“because of Diane?”
Overton’s face changed sharply.
“Yes.”
“She has left him—you know that?”
“Dr. Gerry told me. It doesn’t constitute a reason for me to ruin him.
Talk about him will involve her in the scandal.”
The judge sank back in his chair, strumming on the arms with
nervous fingers.
“You propose, then, to shield him, to set him up in your place—
because he has married Diane?”
Overton smiled as grimly as the judge himself.
“Not quite in my place. I’ve simply arranged to keep it quiet. After all,
it’s a personal question, judge. It’s true that he abandoned me; but
remember that to stay was to court death. He had no reason to die
with me or for me. We mustn’t expect too much.”
“I’ve noticed you didn’t leave Rayburn. I’ve read the account, and he
told us so himself. I could forgive him”—the old man laughed harshly
—“I could forgive sheer fright—Gerry says it was physical panic—but
I’ll never forgive him for marrying my daughter!”
“I don’t ask that.”
There was something in Overton’s tone which made the judge wheel
around in his chair and look his visitor sharply in the face. What he
found there gave him a shock. He got up, went to the mantel, found
his old pipe, and thrust some tobacco into it. While he was fumbling
for a match, he spoke over his shoulder.
“I’m going to get a divorce for her. At first I thought we should have to
fight for it, but he’s willing to let her get it. He has that much grace in
him. I’ll take her out West, establish a residence, and get a divorce
for her. We’re done with him—she and I!”
Overton did not trust himself to reply. He rose, instead, to say good-
night. The judge swung around.
“Stay, my boy, stay! I want to talk to you, to hear more of your great
adventure.”
“Not now, judge. To tell you the truth, I haven’t dined yet.”
The judge broke out.
“What a fool I am! Sit down and let me order something. We’ve
dined, but you mustn’t leave my house hungry!”
Overton laughed.
“No, I must be off. But it’s understood—we’ll let this matter remain
hushed up?”
The judge thought, standing on the hearth-rug, his feet wide apart
and his head down, the big pipe thrust into his mouth. After a while
he took it out and answered.
“I’d like to expose him. I meant to do it, to set Diane right; but there
might be reasons why silence would be best. I know she wants it.
She shrinks with horror from the whole thing, poor child!”
His tone had in it a note of tenderness that was new to Overton. He
looked up and again met the older man’s dark eyes resting
searchingly upon him. It affected him strongly. There was a subtle
suggestion of hope in it, a reassurance.
He turned hastily, and made his way out with an abruptness that
surprised his host. He had a craving for air and space; the sudden
change, the revival of hope after his despair, seemed to take his
breath away. He forgot his appetite for his delayed meal, and set out
for a long walk in the weird light of the half-clouded moon.
Having closed the door on his visitor, Judge Herford stood for a
moment with his hand on the knob, listening to the young man’s
footsteps until they finally reached the open road. He had received a
new and, to him, amazing impression, and it staggered him so much
that for the time being he forgot his wrath against his son-in-law. It
was a new impression, but it furnished the key to situations that had
previously seemed vague and perplexing. Now he understood them
all, and in this new light he thought he understood his daughter.
While he stood there, before he could clear up the ponderous
machinery of his judicial mind and set it in motion, he heard the
swish of skirts on the staircase and became aware of her presence.
“Papa, who was it?” she demanded tremulously. “Who went out just
now?”
He looked up and saw Diane leaning on the banisters. The strong
light on the landing made a luminous nimbus behind her small,
spirited head and outlined her slender figure in a loose evening
gown, the full, short sleeves falling away from delicate forearms and
slender wrists. Her whole attitude suggested suspense and
trepidation, and her father felt her eyes fixed on him, feverishly
bright.
“Don’t worry, my dear—it wasn’t Faunce.”
“Oh!” There was a suggestion of extreme relief in the tone, coupled
with some curiosity. “Then who was it?”
“Simon Overton.”
“Oh!” It was the same sound, but with a different note—a note that
spoke volumes to her father’s awakened ear.
“He came here—guess what for!”
She relaxed her hold on the banisters and sat down on the steps,
her face in the shadow, but her large eyes shining luminously
through it and making her face seem singularly white.
“I can’t guess. I give it up—unless he came to see you?”
The judge moved slowly over and stood near the foot of the stairs,
watching her.
“He came to ask me to keep silence, to shield Faunce. He’s
determined never to tell the true story.”
She did not say anything for a while. When she spoke, it was in an
awed tone.
“How noble of him!”
Her father nodded, his hand on the pillar at the foot of the banisters,
as he looked up at her.
“He had seen Faunce and arranged for silence. He wants to let the
whole thing blow over; he’s afraid of injuring you with the scandal.”
She seemed to shrink a little, and she was no longer looking steadily
at him.
“Is that all, papa?”
“No, not all. You know they’ve wanted to take the command of the
new expedition from Faunce and give it to Overton?”
“Yes, I suppose they will.”
“They won’t, for Overton has refused to accept it. He has asked them
to let Faunce keep it.”
She made no reply to this, but put her hand up and pushed back the
soft, loose hair from her forehead with a perplexed air.
“It’s a fine thing, Di, a noble thing for a man to do. It can mean only
one thing!”
She still said nothing, but leaned against the banisters, watching
him.
“He’s in love with you, Diane. There’s no other reason on God’s
earth for a man to do a thing like that, to shield another from the
blame that’s coming to him by rights. Did you know”—he stopped
and looked at her again—“before this that he cared for you?”
“I used to think he did,” she answered weakly, her head leaning
against the rail.
“It’s too bad, Diane!” the judge broke out. “It’s too bad that you didn’t
care for him!”
His tone, as well as his words, disarmed her. She did not even
suspect him of a ruse; but, in her pent-up state, it was too much, and
she broke down utterly, quite off her guard.
“Oh, I did!” she sobbed. “I did!”
She turned her head and hid her face on her arm, bursting suddenly
into wild tears and sobs.
 XXX
Diane staggered to her feet and went up-stairs. Her strongest feeling
was one of keen humiliation. She had made a confession that she
had never intended to make, and it did not matter if her father had
been the only listener. The actual admission, the spoken words, had
clothed a dim specter with reality. She had heard her own voice
making an admission that seemed to establish a motive—a motive at
once primal and unjustifiable—for her desertion of her husband.
It frightened her. She felt as if Overton must have heard her, through
the intervening night and the distance, that he must at last put the
true interpretation upon the terror with which she had thrust him
away when they met on the lonely mountain road. Then, as now, it
had come to her with a revealing shock that she still loved him, and
not the man she had married. Yet she must love Faunce, she argued
wildly to herself. She did love him, she had loved him when she had
married him, and it agonized her now to think of him as one who was
so totally different from the man she had imagined him to be.
She found herself in the most inexplicable tangle of emotions. She
did not know which way to turn. She had fled from her father, afraid
to meet his pitying eyes, afraid, most of all, to hear his reassuring
voice, for she knew what that meant!
She fled into her own room, and, locking the door, threw herself
down before the open window, her head on the sill, the soft night air
stirring the dusky hair on her forehead. It was a night for a love-
dream, not for such shrinking and terror as now harassed her.
When Faunce had confessed to her, when he had torn away the last
shred of her illusion about him, she had left him, overwhelmed with
horror and dismay. The revulsion of feeling had been so intense that
it had carried her home and swept her along in the current of her
father’s rage against her husband. She had been as eager as he to
get Faunce to consent to a divorce. She did not wish to bear the
name of a man who had so deeply disgraced himself.
When he had assented to Herford’s demands, when he had declared
that, if she wished it, she could have her freedom, the tension had
snapped, and she had collapsed. She had been ready for conflict,
ready to fight for her liberty; but when she found that there was to be
no opposition, she experienced a sudden feeling of helplessness.
She was adrift on a shoreless sea.
A beacon, indeed, shone across it—the beacon of Overton’s love,
which sometimes seemed to beckon her home to the harbor of
safety and happiness, but now there was this thing—this thing that
had risen out of the night, unasked and unheralded, and it was
pressing close upon her. She had discerned it from afar, and even in
the midst of her wild revulsion, her determination to escape, it had
filled her with awe and with dread.
It was imperceptible, yet it was with her. It held her back with strong
hands, though it was invisible—as invisible as the angel who
wrestled with Jacob. But she had no need to ask its name; she knew
the name by which men called it—unless, indeed, they called it God.
She felt it gaining upon her and threatening her, yet she would not
yield.
She lay across the sill of her open window, exhausted and prone, but
not beaten. She was fighting still, fighting for happiness, trying to
guide her shipwrecked bark into that safe harbor where the beacon
of love shone bright. She would not surrender, she would not admit
that there was no room for her there—not yet! But she wished that
she had not spoken, had not voiced her emotion. It seemed to give
this impalpable thing, this invisible angel, so much more power for
battle.
Then, suddenly as if the unseen wrestler had successfully thrown
her in the conflict, she saw herself as the type of woman she most
abhorred—the woman who divorces one man because she is in love
with another.