Handbook of African Philosophy Handbooks in Philosophy 1st Ed 2023 3031251482 9783031251481 Compress

Handbooks in Philosophy
Elvis Imafidon
Mpho Tshivhase
Björn Freter
Editors
Handbook of
African
Philosophy
The Handbooks in Philosophy series is a comprehensive, wide-ranging multi-
volume research collection with contributions from experts in all areas of philoso-
phy. It offers up-to-date scholarly summaries and sources of information on the
major subject areas and issues of philosophy. Each handbook examines its particular
subject area in depth, providing timely, accessible coverage of its full scale and
scope, discusses substantive contributions for deeper understanding, and provides
reliable guidance on the direction of future developments.The series covers topics
within a wide spectrum of areas in philosophy and it will focus particularly in newly
emerging research fields. Each volume provides a state-of-the-art treatment of its
respective area. The series will quickly prove useful to a broad audience including
graduate students, senior undergraduates and scholars across a range of disciplines.
This handbook:
• Offers collections of emerging topics that discuss cutting-edge research and

ensure comprehensive and timely coverage of ever-expanding disciplines
• Written by distinguished specialists from multiple disciplines, these handbooks
can be easily updated creating a dynamic overview on the topic
• Useful reading for researchers and students in all branches of philosophy
Elvis Imafidon • Mpho Tshivhase •
Björn Freter
Editors
Handbook of African
Philosophy
With 4 Figures
Editors
Elvis Imafidon Mpho Tshivhase
Director of the Centre for Global and Department of Philosophy
Comparative Philosophies, School of University of Pretoria
History, Religions and Philosophies Pretoria, South Africa
School of Oriental and African Studies
SOAS
University of London
London, UK
Björn Freter
Visiting Assistant Professor in Philosophy
Gettysburg College
Gettysburg College
Pennsylvania, USA
ISSN 2524-4361 ISSN 2524-437X (electronic)

ISBN 978-3-031-25148-1 ISBN 978-3-031-25149-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by
similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors
or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims
in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Paper in this product is recyclable.

In memory of the Ghanaian philosopher,
Emeritus Professor Joseph Osei (1951–2022),
who passed on only a few months after
submitting a chapter to this Handbook,
joining the list of the revered ancestors of
African Philosophy, which has recently
included Kwasi Wiredu (1931–2022), Ifeanyi
Menkiti (1940–2019), John S. Mbiti
(1931–2019), and Sophie Oluwole
(1935–2018). Their positive impact remains
immeasurable.
Preface
This Handbook of African Philosophy has been developed in the last few years
through one of the most frightening and tumultuous periods of human and
non-human history, ranging from the lived realities of a questionable global pan-
demic to exciting yet threatening advances in posthuman and transhuman technol-
ogies. These lived experiences have not only impacted the project in terms of delays
to its completion but also in terms of the contents of the contributions made to
it. Philosophical inquiries are by their very nature attempts to understand and
interpret the very essence of our experiences and to search for reliable, meaningful,
yet debatable and questionable answers to such fundamental questions as what is
real, what it means to be, what is truth, what is knowledge, what is permissible
action, what is beautiful, and what is just. Such questions immediately imply a
concern with the unreal, the non-being, the untruth, the unknowable, the impermis-
sible, the un-beautiful, and the unjust as well as a concern with the constant struggle
by philosophers to sharpen and/or blur the dichotomies between the former and the
latter. A philosophical tradition thus consists of the longstanding, time-tested
responses to philosophical questions from a place in such forms as theories, concepts
formulation, arguments, and principles. It also consists of the means by which such
responses have been transmitted from generation to generation through various
repositories of knowledge, and the relevance and limits of such cherished responses
in a philosophical tradition for current users in understanding their world and lived
experiences. The analysis of the relevance and limits of a philosophical tradition
becomes a basis for re-philosophizing the contents of a philosophical tradition in
order to produce new knowledges, concepts, theories, and arguments for transmis-
sion onward to future generations in an endless progression of thought and action.
African philosophy as a tradition of philosophy showcases these features of a
philosophical tradition. It is intensely rich and filled with longstanding and time-
tested principles, theories, concepts, and arguments that are interpretive of human
and non-human existential conditions; the nature of being, knowledge, truth, and
reality; the meaningfulness of life, beauty, personhood, values, the body, and so on,
that contemporary African philosophers draw on, explore, and interrogate in terms of
relevance and shortcomings. In this Handbook, such reliance and critique of time-
tested philosophical theories in Africa run through the chapters. For example, the
Handbook consists of an engaging and fascinating exploration and critical
vii
viii Preface
interrogation in its chapters of Afro-communitarianism as a longstanding, overarch-

ing philosophical theory in African places as well as its application to current global
issues. It also consists of interesting discussions and analyses of longstanding
indigenous African philosophies of personhood, knowledge, morality, reality, phe-
nomenology, education, human rights, development, existence, death, and so on and
how these apply to such global issues as bioethics, animal ethics, AI, trans-
humanism, and democracies. Furthermore, African philosophy acknowledges and
relies heavily on the diverse philosophical repositories in its tradition. This is
because it acknowledges that it is not merely a textual tradition but also an oral
and symbolic one. Contributors to this Handbook have thus drawn heavily on the
textual, oral, and symbolic repositories of African philosophy to develop their
thoughts and ideas. These include the use of indigenous languages to arrive at the
genealogy of concepts and theories; reliance on indigenous African adages, prov-
erbs, and concepts; and the interpretation of indigenous symbols of philosophical
importance. African philosophy like any other philosophical tradition requires a self-
critique to flourish and remain relevant. This Handbook thus consists also of a
critical self-examination of African philosophical thought in many of its chapters.
It offers, for example, constructive criticisms of African communitarian philosophy,
African philosophy of education, indigenous perspectives on gender and woman-
hood, understanding of the problem of evil, and perspectives on personhood. It also
consists of a philosophical critique of the colonial/postcolonial experience in African
places, including issues of epistemic injustice, freedom, gender, and human rights.
The 11 parts of this Handbook are organized around core and emerging subject
areas in contemporary academic African philosophy. Part I provides an Introduction
to the book by exploring the meaning of African Philosophy. Part II – Afro-
Communitarian Philosophy – consists of chapters that explore and analyze this
overarching philosophy in sub-Saharan Africa. These chapters examine the mean-
ing, challenges, and relevance of Afro-communitarianism for global issues today.
Part III – Ethics – contains chapters dealing with the meaning, nature, contents, and
application of African normative ethics. Part IV – Epistemology, Metaphysics, and
Logic – consists of chapters discussing different aspects of African epistemology,
logic, and metaphysics. Part V – Political Philosophy – critically examines different
aspects of African political philosophy including conceptual and thematic issues
such as human rights, freedom, development, and sovereignty. Part VI – Feminist
Philosophy – of this Handbook pays close attention to some aspects of feminist
discourses in African philosophy. These include the implications of African under-
standing of personhood for gender discourse and the challenges of womanhood in
postcolonial Africa. Part VII – Philosophy and the Nonhuman – examines the
question of the nonhuman in African philosophy drawing on African Sufist under-
standing of the world and sub-Saharan perspectives on animals. Part VIII – Exis-
tentialism and Phenomenology – contains chapters that discuss existentialist and
phenomenological issues in African philosophy such as death, the meaningfulness
and meaninglessness of life, suffering, relationality, the struggle for meaning, the
problem of subjectivity, and the phenomenology of language. Part IX – Philosophy
of Religion – examines various aspects of African philosophy of religion such as the
Preface ix
idea of endogenous religion, the problem of evil, and the arguments for the existence
of God in African places. Part X – Philosophy of Education – consists of chapters
that discuss African philosophy of education through Southern African indigenous
repositories of philosophical knowledge as contained, for example, in the concept of
Ubuntu. Finally, Part XI – Future Considerations – provides an enthusiastic and
interesting conclusion in examining historically considerations of the future in
African philosophy.
I am indebted to my co-editors, Mpho Tshivhase and Björn Freter, for not only
accepting my invitation to join me in editing this important major reference work in
African philosophy but also for their sterling display of patience, collegiality, and
rigorous scholarship. This work would not be complete without them. And as
editors, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to the fine scholars and
African philosophers who contributed to this Handbook, for their patience, ideas,
cooperation, and collegiality. We are also very grateful to our families for creating
the enabling physical and mental environment for research, editing, and writing:
Sandra Imafidon, Evelyn Imafidon, Ellen Imafidon, Elliott Imafidon, Emilia
Imafidon, Ellen Tshivhase, Shonisani Tshivhase, and Yvette Freter to mention a
few. We also thank colleagues at our respective institutions for their support and
encouragement. We sincerely thank the editorial team at Springer including Michael
Hermann, Christopher Coughlin, and Shobana Lenin, who worked tirelessly to
ensure the successful completion of this Handbook.
London, United Kingdom Elvis Imafidon

September 2023
Contents
Part I Introduction ....................................... 1
The Meaning of African Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Isaac E. Ukpokolo
Part II Afro-communitarian Philosophy ...................... 11
African Philosophy of Communalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

F. Ochieng’-Odhiambo
Challenges of African Communitarian Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Elvis Imafidon
Afro-communitarianism and Transhumanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Amara Esther Chimakonam
Social Robots as Persons in Community ........................ 69
Mpho Tshivhase
Robots and Dignity: An Afro-communitarian Argument in Eldercare . . . 87
Karabo Maiyane
Part III Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
African Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Fainos Mangena
Doing Moral Philosophy Through Personhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Motsamai Molefe
African Research Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Joseph Balatedi Radinkudikae Gaie
Ubuntu and Bioethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Nancy S. Jecker
xi
xii Contents
Personal Autonomy and Shared-Value in Bioethics: An African

Communal Ethics Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Samuel J. Ujewe
Part IV Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
African Epistemology: Past, Present, and Future ................. 199

Peter Aloysius Ikhane
Knowledge and Testimony in African Communitarian Epistemology . . . 223

Anselm Kole Jimoh
Exploring Ignorance and Injustice in African Epistemology . . . . . . . . . 245

Kenneth Uyi Abudu
Trivalent Logic, African Logic, and African Metaphysics . . . . . . . . . . . 265

Edwin Etieyibo
Part V Political Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
African Political Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Doing Contemporary African Social and Political Philosophy

from Below . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Yeelen Badona Monteiro
The Philosophy of Human Rights: The Akan Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

Joseph Osei
Technologies of Human Rights Protection, Sovereignty,

and Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
Uchenna Okeja
African Philosophy of Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363

Monday Lewis Igbafen
Part VI Feminist Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
Gender and Afro-personhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389

Lindokuhle B. Gama
An African Feminist Interrogation of Existential Epistemology:

Women as the “Other of the Other” in (Post)Colonial Africa . . . . . . . . 413
Abosede Priscilla Ipadeola
Contents xiii
Part VII Philosophy and the Nonhuman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429
The Nonhuman in African Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431

Alena Rettová
The Animal in African Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457
Kai Horsthemke
Part VIII Existentialism and Phenomenology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471
Key Concerns in African Existentialism ........................ 473

Austine E. Iyare
African Conceptions of the Meaning of Life ..................... 491
Aribiah David Attoe and Yolanda Mlungwana
African Phenomenology: Introductory Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509
Abraham Olivier
Part IX Philosophy of Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537
Toward a Philosophy of African Endogenous Religions ............ 539

Lawrence Ogbo Ugwuanyi
God’s Existence and the Problem of Evil in African Philosophy
of Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555
Ada Agada
Part X Philosophy of Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575
A Sketch of an Ubuntu Philosophy of Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577

Chikumbutso Herbert Manthalu
Imfundo, Ubulumko, Nomthetho: A South African Philosophy of
Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593
Siseko H. Kumalo
Part XI Future Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 619
African Philosophy and the Question of the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 621

Bruce B. Janz
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 643
About the Editors
Elvis Imafidon (PhD) lectures in the Department of

Religions and Philosophies at the School of Oriental
and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.
He is also the Director of the Centre for Global and
Comparative Philosophies at the same institution and a
Research Associate at the African Centre for Epistemol-
ogy and the Philosophy of Science (ACEPS), University
of Johannesburg, South Africa. His background is in the
philosophy of difference, philosophy of corporeality,
philosophy of healthcare, philosophy of disability, com-
parative philosophy, ethics, and ontology, primarily
from African philosophical perspectives. He is the
author and editor of several books including
Ontologized Ethics: New Essays in African Meta-ethics
(Lexington Books 2014), The Ethics of Subjectivity:
Perspectives since the Dawn of Modernity (Palgrave
Macmillan 2015), African Philosophy and the Other-
ness of Albinism: White Skin, Black Race (Routledge
2019), Handbook of African Philosophy of Difference
(Springer 2020), and Cultural Representations of Albi-
nism in Africa: Narratives of Change (Peter Lang
2022).
Mpho Tshivhase is a senior lecturer in the Department

of Philosophy at the University of Pretoria. Her research
interests include, but are not limited to, existential
uniqueness, personhood, and themes of love, autonomy,
authenticity, death, aspects of race and feminism, as well
as African ethics. Mpho has worked on different inter-
disciplinary institutional projects at the University of
Pretoria that were hosted by the Center for Human
Rights, the Human Sciences Research Council, and the
Center for Advancement of Scholarship. She was a
xv
xvi About the Editors
member of the Moralities Research Group at Bayreuth

University in Germany where she was invited as a
visiting scholar. Mpho recently completed a fellowship
at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sci-
ences at Stanford University. She is a research associate
in the Center for Artificial Intelligence Research: AI &
Society Research Group.
Björn Freter received his doctorate with his thesis “On

Facticity and Existentiality” in 2014 from Free Univer-
sity, Berlin, Germany. Until 2023 he was Lecturer for
World Philosophy at the School of Oriental and African
Studies at the University of London, UK, and works
now as Visiting Assistant Professor at Gettysburg Col-
lege, Pennsylvania, USA. He has published on a wide
variety of topics, including pre-Socratic philosophy,
Baroque and Classical German literature, as well as
Decolonization, White Supremacy, and Veganism. His
current main research project aims at the Desuper-
iorization of Philosophy, i.e., developing a radically
anti-oppressive moral philosophy, and at the Foundation
of Superaltern Studies, a research area investigating the
Western superiorist traditions and its self-representation
as a global moral authority.
Contributors
Kenneth Uyi Abudu Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, Ambrose Alli

University, Ekpoma, Edo State, Nigeria
Ada Agada Centre for Leadership Ethics in Africa, University of Fort Hare, Alice,
South Africa
Aribiah David Attoe University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Yeelen Badona Monteiro Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy
Amara Esther Chimakonam Centre for Phenomenology in South Africa, Univer-
sity of Forte Hare, Alice, South Africa
Edwin Etieyibo Department of Philosophy, School of Social Sciences, University
of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Joseph Balatedi Radinkudikae Gaie Department of Theology and Religious
Studies, Faculty of Humanities, University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana
Lindokuhle B. Gama Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa
Kai Horsthemke KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Eichstätt, Germany
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, Oxford, UK
Monday Lewis Igbafen Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, Ambrose Alli
University, Ekpoma, Nigeria
Peter Aloysius Ikhane Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of
Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria
African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, University of Johan-
nesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
Elvis Imafidon Director of the Centre for Global and Comparative Philosophies,
School of History, Religions and Philosophies, School of Oriental and African
Studies SOAS, University of London, London, UK
Abosede Priscilla Ipadeola Department of Philosophy, University of Ibadan,
Ibadan, Nigeria
xvii
xviii Contributors
Faculty of Philosophy and Education, Katholische Universitaet, Eichstatt-Ingolstadt,

Eischtaett, Germany
Austine E. Iyare Department of Philosophy, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma,
Nigeria
Bruce B. Janz University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA
Nancy S. Jecker University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
Anselm Kole Jimoh Department of Philosophy, SS. Peter and Paul Major Semi-
nary, Ibadan, Nigeria
Siseko H. Kumalo Philosophy Department, University of Fort Hare, East London,
South Africa
Karabo Maiyane Department of Philosophy, Nelson Mandela University,
Gqeberha, South Africa
Fainos Mangena Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Zimbabwe,
Harare, Zimbabwe
Chikumbutso Herbert Manthalu School of Education, Chancellor College, Uni-
versity of Malawi, Zomba, Malawi
Yolanda Mlungwana University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
Motsamai Molefe Centre for Leadership Ethics in Africa, University of Fort Hare,
East London, South Africa
F. Ochieng’-Odhiambo Department of History and Philosophy, The University of
the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados
Uchenna Okeja Faculty of Humanities, Nelson Mandela University, Gqeberha,
South Africa
Abraham Olivier University of Fort Hare, East London, South Africa
Joseph Osei Fayetteville State University, Fayetteville, NC, USA
Alena Rettová University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany
Mpho Tshivhase Department of Philosophy, University of Pretoria, Pretoria,
South Africa
Lawrence Ogbo Ugwuanyi Department of Philosophy, University of Abuja,
Abuja, Nigeria
Samuel J. Ujewe Global Emerging Pathogens Treatment Consortium, Lagos,
Nigeria
Isaac E. Ukpokolo Department of Philosophy, University of Ibadan, Ibadan,
Nigeria
Part I
Introduction
The Meaning of African Philosophy
Isaac E. Ukpokolo
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Whose Philosophy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
What Is Meant by an African Place? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
The Handbook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Abstract
This chapter introduces this handbook. It begins with an examination of the
meaning of African philosophy and analyses some of the key challenges that
emerge from the definition of African philosophy as philosophy in an African
place. The key challenges examined are the extent to which the “philosophy” in
African philosophy can be genuinely said to be African, and the problem of
defining which place is exactly represented by “African” in African philosophy
without unduly essentializing the discourse and overgeneralizing theory. The
chapter then proceeds to examine the importance, rich contents, and limitations
of the handbook by highlighting the different parts and chapters. This introduc-
tory chapter thus provides an entry point for a robust engagement with the
handbook.
Keywords
African · Philosophy · Place · Postcolonial · Hanbook of African philosophy
I. E. Ukpokolo (*)
Department of Philosophy, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria
e-mail: ehaleoye@gmaill.com
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 3

E. Imafidon et al. (eds.), Handbook of African Philosophy, Handbooks in Philosophy,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_1
4 I. E. Ukpokolo
Introduction
The question of the meaning of African philosophy has preoccupied the recent
history and discourse of African philosophy in academic circles. This is primarily
because although indigenous African philosophical thought has always existed since
ancient times, such as how indigenous African communities understand reality,
existence, knowledge, and values and how they present and represent such under-
standings in repositories of knowledge, the need to interpret that thought to a global
audience, to do that interpretation within dominant institutional politics and struc-
tures, and to do the interpretation using nonindigenous African languages have never
been felt the way it has been in the last seven or so decades. So, African philosophers
are immediately and increasingly confronted with the problem of self-definition –
Who am I (who is an African philosopher)? What do I do (What is African
philosophy)? Kwasi Wiredu, therefore, captures this problem in the opening lines
of his Introduction to “A Companion to African Philosophy” (2004) as the post-
colonial situation for African philosophy:
A principal driving force in postcolonial African philosophy has been a quest for self-
definition. It was therefore quite appropriate that Masolo entitled his history of contemporary
African philosophy. . . African Philosophy in Search of Identity. This search is part of a
general postcolonial soul-searching in Africa. Because the colonialists and related personnel
perceived African culture as inferior in at least some important respects, colonialism
included a systematic program of de-Africanization. The most unmistakable example,
perhaps, of this pattern of activity was in the sphere of religion, where mighty efforts were
made by the missionaries to save African souls perceived to be caught up in the darkness of
“paganism.” But, at least, it did seem to them that Africans had something somewhat similar
to religion, and some of them actually wrote books on African religion and even, in some
cases, mentioned that subject in their university teaching. . . The position was markedly
different as regards African philosophy. Philosophy departments tended not to develop the
impression that there was any such thing (2004: 1).
Thus, closely tied to the question of self-definition was the question of existence.
Thus a lot of time and effort were devoted to answering these questions in the late
twentieth century and fragments of these questions continue to hunt African philos-
ophy and African philosophers to date.
The responses to these questions in the last seven decades have been robust, rich,
and quite overwhelming. The available literature on the meaning, nature, contents,
and thematic concerns of African philosophy as well as the academic fora for same
such as conferences, journals, workshops, taught modules, and research programs
that have emerged within this period consist of brilliant, comprehensive, and inter-
esting responses to these questions. These, at the very least, put to rest the existential
question and deal substantially but not conclusively with the self-definition question.
Be that as it may, there is more clarity now to a global audience about what is meant
by African philosophy. But it is surprisingly interesting that many books on African
philosophy do not always begin by explicitly stating the meaning of African
philosophy (e.g., Bell, 2002; Brown, 2004; Hallen, 2002; Wiredu, 2004). There is
rather a conceptual dance around it particularly due to the awareness of the questions
The Meaning of African Philosophy 5
of self-definition and of existence as well as related questions such as that of the

postcolonial challenge, the challenge of positionality, of Western philosophy, and so
on. But even in this conceptual dance, it is still possible to foreground what African
philosophy means.
Thus, in response to the question of self-definition and bearing in mind the rich
scholarly discourse on African philosophy since the second half of the twentieth
century, there will be little or no contention to this definition of African philosophy:
African philosophy consists of the theories deducible from indigenous African
places and postcolonial African literature as responses to questions and problems
that are fundamentally philosophical by nature as well as the critique and recon-
struction or deconstruction of such theories and responses. Thus, it is the African
formulative and critical responses to human philosophical questions such as the
nature of reality, being, knowledge, and morality, the essence of beauty and of
existence, and the nature of the human mind and of personal identity, responses
that are embedded in the interconnected indigenous and postcolonial repositories of
knowledge in African places. But this raises at least two questions: What makes such
questions and responses legitimately philosophical – who decides what is funda-
mentally philosophical? What constitutes an African place?
Whose Philosophy?
A dominant answer to this question of the ownership of philosophy is that philos-

ophy is genealogically a Greek and subsequently a Western academic activity based
on the fact that the naming of this field of inquiry as philosophy is coined obviously
from Greek words philos (lover) and sophia (wisdom). More so, the naming of its
core branches and other not-so-core branches are mostly from Greek words. For
example, epistemology, ontology, metaphysics, aesthetics, and logic are words that
emerge from Greek words and represent the Greek expressions of these forms of
inquiry. For example, we are familiar with how Andronicus of Rhodes coined the
word metaphysics from the Greek phrase meta-ta-phusika (things beyond the phys-
ical) when editing Aristotle’s manuscripts. But does the naming of the inquiry on the
things beyond the physical imply that the inquiry is experienced only by the one who
named it and, thus, the inquiry becomes the sole experience of the individual and
collective self that named it? More broadly speaking, does the naming of philosophy
and its several branches from Greek words imply that philosophizing in general or
inquiries about the nature of reality, knowledge, beauty, and so on are essentially
Greek experiences? There is ample evidence from all human traditions that philos-
ophizing and concerns with philosophical issues have existed in all human traditions,
taking different forms, stored in different repositories of knowledge and approached
using different methods within and across traditions. The “thing” or “activity” that
has been named by the Greeks as philosophy is a human thing or activity and not an
exclusively Greek thing or activity. Colonization came with it the imposition of the
colonizer’s language on the colonized and by implication, the imposition in this
particular case, of the Western, Greek-originating categories of philosophy on
6 I. E. Ukpokolo
colonized peoples (Wa Thiong’o, 1986; Wiredu, 2002; Ravishankar, 2020). Worst
still, colonization brought with it the denial of philosophizing as a human activity
and form of inquiry and the insistence that by virtue of naming, philosophizing is a
Greek-originated Western activity. But as it has now been made abundantly clear in
the postcolonial critique of philosophy and the deconstruction of this field of inquiry,
philosophy is a human activity and rich and comprehensive traditions of philosophy
exist around the globe.
African philosophy – or the activities and experiences in African places in
precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial eras that dealt with philosophical questions
and problems – has especially been marginalized and ignored in the global reposi-
tories of philosophical knowledge. Only recently has African philosophy been given
fair attention in academic philosophy, particularly since the increase in the textual
repository of African philosophical knowledge. This handbook provides an impor-
tant and much-needed contribution to enriching the textual repository of African
philosophical knowledge showcasing in its chapters the form of philosophizing that
has ensued in indigenous and modern postcolonial African contexts. But does the
continuous use of Western categories in presenting and representing African forms
of philosophizing not further perpetuate the claim that African philosophy is only a
mimicking of Western philosophy which would imply that philosophy remains a
Greek experience rather than a human experience? This seems a fair question but yet
a problematic one. First, as we see from this handbook and already existing literature
on African philosophy, not all categories and terms in African philosophy are
Western ones. More so, in an increasingly globalizing world, with academia already
suffocated by the English language and with the continuing struggle to disentangle
colonial legacies, the use of “philosophy” and related philosophical terms such as
epistemology, ontology, and logic may remain in philosophical vocabulary for a
while. But the contents of these terms will increasingly become more
de-Westernized, inclusive, and human. The “philosophy” in African philosophy is
thus meant to represent and signify philosophizing as a human – in this case,
African – rather than as a Western activity.
What Is Meant by an African Place?
In the words of Bruce Janz (2009: 1–9):
Why should “where” matter to African philosophers? The history of African philosophy has
been the history of struggle to find a place, or to claim a place, or to assert the entitlement to a
place, in the face of those who have maintained that it has no place. . . What is it to do
philosophy in this (African) place?. . . Where is this place?
Janz aptly captures a fundamental question in African philosophy: What place do

we refer to when we use the word “African” in African philosophy? To be sure, there
is already a lot of debate on the politics and problematics of the largely colonial
creation and construction of this physical, epistemic, philosophical, social, and

cultural place called Africa. Here, one can think easily of the important work of
V. Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of
Knowledge (1988), one of the most excellent critical narratives of the colonial
construction of a hermeneutics of African knowledge systems. But the interest
here is to briefly clarify what the African place is in terms of African philosophy
in a way that avoids the challenge of essentialism, the overgeneralization fallacy, and
the colonial construction of Africa.
There are at least two senses in which we used the word “African” in relation to
African philosophy. First, it implies philosophizing that draws from, and consists of
a critical reflection on, theories, principles, methods, arguments, thought experi-
ments, illustrations, examples, and frameworks from an African place, or from a
multiplicity of indigenous African places and thought systems such as the Zulus,
Akans, Yorubas, Igbos, Esans, Massais, Kikuyus, Sothos, and Xhosas. In this sense,
African philosophy does not essentialize Africa and philosophize about it as if the
philosophical resources within this huge, multicultural, and multifaceted place are
the same and uniform. Rather, it showcases the relevance of a commitment to a place
in the very definition of a philosophical tradition. An unavoidable comparison is
found in our use of the phrase “Western philosophy.” No doubt Western philosophy
does not in any way imply that there is uniformity of philosophical thought in the
West. Far from it – Western philosophy is as diverse and comprehensive as it can get.
It simply implies that ideally, Western philosophy emerges from the Western place. It
is a philosophical tradition from the West. African philosophers are conscious of and
generally carry with them a sense of an African place. Many chapters in this
handbook display this aptly. There is clear evidence of the drawing of philosophical
resources from several indigenous and postcolonial African places. As Janz puts it,
African philosophers,
. . . evoke in their writings a sense of place. . . speak eloquently about the way that place
affects how we understand the world. We are necessarily rooted in place, in the sense that we
necessarily come at the world from an understanding, from a set of commitments. We come
caring about something, no matter how dispassionate we try to be. We come from a place. It
is no accident that one of the great virtues of the Enlightenment was cosmopolitanism.
People thought that knowledge meant that you could draw back from any particular
commitments, and be a citizen of the world. . . Place, then, brings a great deal with it. In
various ways, to address place we must also address identity, history, memory, aspiration,
family and social connection (2009: 10–11).
Second, the use of “African” in African philosophy signals the critical reflection
on the shared lived experiences and concrete realities of African peoples, particularly
since the colonial-borne invention of Africa around the seventeenth century for the
purpose of exploitation. This critical encounter with Africa’s shared colonial past is
the basic foundation for postcolonial African philosophy. African philosophers
engage in postcolonial African philosophy, critically analyzing such issues as the
disentanglement of African philosophy from colonial webs and categories, trauma,
8 I. E. Ukpokolo
memory, identity, social order, democracy, language, art, gender, and religion. To be
sure, there is the danger of essentialism here as even the experience of colonization,
slave trade, and other forms of violence in Africa was not uniform and the same.
African philosophy is thus in a constant struggle to overcome such essentialism and
take the lived experiences of specific places seriously. But what is evident in the
exploration of the African place in these two senses of using the “African” in relation
to African places is that while the sameness or uniformity of philosophical resources,
concrete realities, and lived experiences is neither available nor cherished, there exist
a multitude of semblances across sub-Saharan African places that legitimates a sense
of relationality across places in Africa.
The Handbook
This handbook of African philosophy is an invaluable and important addition to the

textual repositories of African philosophy in the contemporary history of global
philosophy for at least two reasons. First, there are currently very few major
reference works on African philosophy. The major resources that have become
available in academic spaces as comprehensive references that touch on the different
subject matters and core conversations in African philosophy primarily include Eze’s
African Philosophy: An Anthology (Eze, 1997), Serequeberhan’s African Philoso-
phy: The Essential Readings (Serequeberhan, 1998), Coetzee and Roux’s The Afri-
can Philosophy Reader (Coetzee and Roux, 2003), Wiredu’s A Companion to
African Philosophy (Wiredu, 2004), and the Palgrave Handbook of African Philos-
ophy (Afolayan and Falola, 2017). This current handbook increases this small list of
important resources not as a mere addition but as one that provides fresh insights into
long and protracted debates, explores the focus of several subdisciplinary areas, and
engages new and emerging issues and realities around the globe from the African
philosophical perspective. Second, there is a strong sense of commitment to place in
this handbook as the novel exploration of conventional, new, and emerging dis-
courses in African philosophy in the handbook does not only draw on the rich
philosophical repositories in Africa, textual and oral, but are largely engaged in and
voiced by Africans themselves, Africans whose identities belong to different indig-
enous communities in sub-Saharan Africa. In the few cases where nonindigenous
Africans have contributed to the discourse in the handbook, such contributions have
been made by persons who can with no hesitations be called African philosophers,
not by virtue of their racial, indigenous, or ethnic identities but by virtue of their
commitment to a form of philosophizing that is at once African and about the
African experience.
The Handbook of African Philosophy has 11 parts organized in terms of
subdisciplinary and thematic areas. Part II titled ▶ “Afro-communitarian
Philosophy” provides a theoretical and applied discussion of an overarching
philosophical theory from sub-Saharan Africa: African communitarian philosophy,
also called Afro-communitarianism. Chapters in this part examine the meaning and
nature of Afro-communitarianism and its major challenges as a theory. This part

also consists of novel chapters that explore the prospects and limits of the contri-
bution of African philosophy to global issues by engaging in ongoing debates on
transhumanism, artificial intelligence (AI), and robotic technologies from the
perspective of Afro-communitarian philosophy. Part III (▶ “Ethics”) consists of
chapters that explore several aspects of African ethics. These aspects include the
conceptualization of African ethics, African philosophical perspectives on bioeth-
ics and bioethical issues, African research ethics, and the personhood foundation
for ethics in Africa. Part IV (▶ “Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Logic”) consists
of chapters exploring nature and key themes in African epistemology, logic, and
metaphysics. Some of the themes explored in this part from African philosophical
perspectives include knowledge, testimony epistemic injustice, and epistemic
ignorance. Part V (▶ “Political Philosophy”) examines various aspects of, and
themes in, the discourse of African political philosophy. These include discourses
on the conceptualization of African political philosophy, human rights, and the
philosophy of development. It also consists of thematic issues relating to questions
of freedom, democracy in Africa, sovereignty, and the technologies of human
rights protection. Part VI (▶ “Feminist Philosophy”) consists of chapters that
explore the African philosophy of personhood in relation to gender and the
problem of heteropatriarchy. This part also explores the challenges of womanhood
in postcolonial Africa.
The two chapters in Part VII (▶ “Philosophy and the Nonhuman”) provide an
interesting exploration of the African philosophical perspectives on the nonhuman.
While the first explores a Sufist and existentialist reading of the world in specific
African contexts, the second provides a robust and critical discussion of the status of
animals in African ontology and metaphysics, epistemology, sociopolitical and
moral philosophy, and aesthetics. Part VIII (▶ “Existentialism and Phenomenol-
ogy”) contains chapters that discuss specifically existentialism and phenomenology
in African philosophy covering themes such as different African conceptions of the
meaning of life, the nature of human existence, the understanding of death, the
relevance of relationality for existence, the philosophy of suffering, the crisis of
identity, and some key themes in African phenomenology. The ninth and tenth parts
(▶ “Philosophy of Religion” and ▶ “Philosophy of Education”) focus on the phi-
losophy of religion and the philosophy of education, respectively. Chapters in these
parts explore relevant themes in these subdisciplines of African philosophy such as
the African philosophy of the existence of God, African perspectives on the problem
of evil, the nature and philosophical contents of African endogenous religions, and
the grounding of education on Ubuntu. The final part titled ▶ “Future Consider-
ations” explores some questions of the future emerging from and entangled with
African philosophy’s past, present, and future, its contents and debates, and, more
broadly speaking, the futurity of philosophy in general and of African philosophy in
particular.
Thus, this handbook brings together in one volume rich, robust, and interesting
subject areas, themes, and issues in African philosophy and comprehensively
engages with some of the most fundamental conversations in African philosophy
10 I. E. Ukpokolo
today. But it does not pretend to cover all of the important topics, themes, and issues
in African philosophy. However, the goal to present in one volume a major resource
for the study of African philosophy in academic and nonacademic settings has been
achieved.
References
Afolayan, A., & Falola, T. (Eds.). (2017). The Palgrave handbook of African philosophy. Palgrave
Macmillan.
Bell, R. H. (2002). Understanding African philosophy: A cross-cultural approach to classical and
contemporary issues. Routledge.
Brown, L. M. (2004). African philosophy: New and traditional perspectives. Oxford University
Press.
Coetzee, P. H., & Roux, A. P. J. (Eds.). (2003). The African philosophy reader. Routledge.
Eze, E. C. (Ed.). (1997). African philosophy: An anthology. John Wiley and Sons.
Hallen, B. (2002). A short history of African philosophy. Indiana University Press.
Janz, B. B. (2009). Philosophy in an African place. Lexington Books.
Mudimbe, V. Y. (1988). The invention of Africa: Gnosis, philosophy and the order of knowledge.
Indiana University Press.
Ravishankar, A. (2020). Linguistic imperialism: Colonial violence through Language. The Trinity
Papers. https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/trinitypapers/87
Serequeberhan, T. (Ed.). (1998). African philosophy: The essential readings. Paragon House.
Wa Thiong’o, N. (1986). Decolonising the mind: The politics of language in African literature.
Pearson Education Limited.
Wiredu, K. (2002). Conceptual decolonisation as an imperative in contemporary African philoso-
phy: Some personal reflections. Dans Rue Descartes, 2(36), 53–64.
Wiredu, K. (Ed.). (2004). A companion to African philosophy. Blackwell.
Part II
Afro-communitarian Philosophy
African Philosophy of Communalism
F. Ochieng’-Odhiambo
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Part I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
A Person Is a Person Through Other Persons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
To Be Is to Participate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Personhood in African Cultures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Part II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Identity and Moral Personhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Concept of Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Buying and Selling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Abstract
The starting point of this chapter is that there is a basic distinction between
indigenous African societies and Western societies. It is argued that while the
former are largely communal, the latter are predominantly individualistic. The
communal emphasis in indigenous African societies is demonstrated on the basis
of Mbiti’s adage of “I am because we are, and since we are, therefore I am,” while
the individualistic attention in Western societies is exemplified on the basis of
Descartes’ dictum of “cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am).” It is further
argued that in order to understand and appreciate some of the different attitudes
and behaviors found in indigenous African societies and Western societies, one
must comprehend this communal/individual distinction; this is the distinction that
underlies several other differences in the two societies. Differently stated, several
other differences that punctuate the two societies are explainable in terms of this
F. Ochieng’-Odhiambo (*)
Department of History and Philosophy, The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados
e-mail: frederick.ochieng-odhiambo@cavehill.uwi.edu

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_21
14 F. Ochieng’-Odhiambo
distinction. The chapter goes on to illustrate some of these differences whilst

showing how they are derived from the basic communal/individual distinction. In
making the comparison, the interest is to assist in comprehension of some of the
notions and practices in indigenous African societies. The chapter is not
judgmental.
Keywords
Communalism · Individualism · Ujamaa · Ubuntu · Personhood · Concept of
time · Buying and selling · Rationale for greeting · Activity of eating
Introduction
One noticeable characteristic of indigenous African societies is the integral commu-

nal spirit upon which they are embedded. This spirit is concomitantly reflected in
their indigenous institutions, structures, beliefs, and behaviors. This chapter gives an
account of the communal spirit in indigenous African societies and also demon-
strates a reflection of the same in some issues and practices in Africa. For the sake of
clarity and comprehension, the issues and practices in indigenous Africa are juxta-
posed with their “equivalents” in the Western world.
There are two points to be noted on the outset. These are: (1) In spite of the
contention that communalism is a common feature found in indigenous African
cultures, it is necessary to add a rider that the assertion is not being made as a factual
feature of all and every African culture. Doing so would be presumptuous. Even
more fundamentally is the recognition that in Africa today individualistic elements
have crept in making it fairly challenging to argue that the cultures are (still)
communalistic. However, the truth is that African traditions are still privileged in
the villages (in the rural areas) and therefore the functional cultures there are still
largely communalistic. The urban centers, on the other hand, because of their
cosmopolitan and interethnic natures harbor explicit individualistic tendencies.
This fact should not however detract one from explicating the communal spirit and
its attendant cognate concepts and systems in indigenous Africa. (2) By indigenous
society it is meant a society that has existed for a considerable period of time with
minimal changes; a society where the role of custom and habit is predominant. Its
people are directed by collective memories sanctioned by social norms to ensure
continuity of its practices and way of life. This feature is more evident and clearly
practiced among the majority of rural rather than urban populations of the African
continent.
The centrality of the notion of communalism in indigenous Africa is tied to the
idea that the indexical “we” in African indigenous thought should not be construed
simply as the aggregate sum of individuals comprising a community. In truth, it
refers to a comprehensively fused collectivity. The “we” is not just a loose conglom-
eration of individuals but a consolidated absolute collectivity. It is not simply an
additive whole, but rather a composite whole. Communalism in indigenous African
African Philosophy of Communalism 15
societies therefore promotes unity, togetherness, and cooperation which are key
pillars in serious human relations. The second part of the chapter demonstrates the
communal spirit in some notions and practices in indigenous Africa. It sketches out
some ramifications of communalism in indigenous Africa, in particular, to the
question of identity and moral personhood, the concept of time, the activity of
buying and selling, and, to a lesser extent, the notions of greeting and eating.
Part I
A Person Is a Person Through Other Persons
In indigenous African experience, the notion of communalism characterizes the

African spirit. On the face of it, what this suggests is that there is a high evaluation
of the community in indigenous African thought and practice: the community is
valued higher than the individual. Put differently, communalism as a set of cultural
practices prioritizes the role and function of the collective group over the individual.
While this may be true, it should be noted that the high evaluation of the community
is not granted at the expense of forgetting or abandoning the individual person. This
is because the community and the individual are indivisible.
In indigenous African practice, the individual does not – indeed, cannot – exist
alone except collectively. This is essentially because in indigenous Africa the
community is a thoroughly amalgamated collectivity of individuals. Each individual
owes his or her existence to other members of the community. The individual’s
existence is intricately interwoven with the existence of other members of the
community, including those of past generations. Bearing in mind the thoroughly
fused nature of indigenous communities in Africa, the community has an overall
responsibility for its individuals. The community must therefore take care of the
individual since the individual depends on the corporate group. The relationship
between the individual and the community in the indigenous setup is such that it is
the community that gives meaning to the individual. The individual is but a reflection
of his or her community. It is the corporate group that humanizes the individual; it is
what models an individual into a human being. In other words, it is the group that
humanizes one’s being, it is what transforms an individual being into a being that is
human. In the absence of members of the group, the individual would simply remain
at the level of being, at the level of mere thingness.
In his essay “Ujamaa: The Basis of African Socialism,” Nyerere underscores the
same point. He argues that the communal spirit in African cultures enabled indige-
nous African communities succeed in taking care of their members. Ujamaa is
Kiswahili word meaning familyhood, where family is understood in both the
extended and nuclear senses. Ujamaa is therefore the grounding of communalism
and is inseparable from indigenous African communities. The family in indigenous
African communities includes not only the husband, wife, and children but also the
grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins. Hence, a number of kindred living with
their wives and children come together as one large extended family. This extended
family system makes the kindred not only conscious of their identity but also gives
them a sense of unity and solidarity. It discourages dehumanization, domination of
each other, and exploitative practices. Accordingly, present-day distinctions between
the haves and the have nots, between the rich and the poor are as such nonexistent.
Both the “rich” and the “poor” are completely secure in indigenous African com-
munities. Even if natural catastrophe brought famine, the famine affected all in
society including both the “rich” and the “poor.” Everybody shared in the misery.
Nyerere categorically affirms that in indigenous African communities, “nobody
starved, either of food or of human dignity, because he lacked personal wealth; he
could depend on the wealth possessed by the community of which he was a member”
(Nyerere, 1973: 164).
The underlying communal spirit in indigenous African communities is what the
Bantu peoples of the Republic of South Africa refer to as ubuntu. Ubuntu is part of
the Zulu phrase “Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu,” which literally means “a person is a
person through other persons.” To put it another way, one affirms one’s humanity
when one acknowledges the humanity of others. Ubuntu therefore speaks to the
question of humanity and could be translated to mean “humanity towards others” in
that an individual is expected to treat others with compassion, kindness, and
magnanimity. Ubuntu is therefore key to understanding the African view of a person
as will be demonstrated below. A person is a person only in relation to others in the
community. A person’s identity, and indeed his or her very life, is viewed through the
lens of his or her ethnic group. The deeper meaning is that an individual by himself
or herself is helpless and has little value. Desmond Tutu, South African theologian
and veteran anti-apartheid and human rights activist, in his No Future Without
Forgiveness captures the essence of ubuntu when he asserts that:
It [Ubuntu] speaks of the very essence of being human. . . . It is to say, ‘My humanity is
caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours.’ We belong in a bundle of life. . . It is not, ‘I
think therefore I am.’ It says rather, ‘I am human because I belong. I participate, I share.’. . .
Harmony, friendliness, community are great goods. Social harmony is for us the summum
bonum - the greatest good. . . To forgive is not just to be altruistic. It is the best form of self-
interest. What dehumanizes you inexorably dehumanizes me. It gives people resilience,
enabling them to survive and emerge still human despite all efforts to dehumanize them.
(Tutu, 1999: 31)
The Venda of the Republic of South Africa have a proverb that clearly expresses
this conception of personhood. The proverb is: “Muthu u bebelwa munwe” which
means “A person is born for the other.” This shows that, according to the Venda
philosophy, which is similar to the philosophy of other African peoples, one cannot
regard even one’s own life as a purely personal property or concern. It is the group
which is the owner of life, a person just being a link in the chain uniting the present
and future generations.
In affirming the same view, Mbiti explicitly asserts that it is only in terms of other
people – the community – that the individual becomes conscious of his or her own
being, his or her own duties, his or her privileges, and his or her responsibilities
towards other people. Differently put, it is the community that endows the individual
with humanity. When the individual suffers, he or she does not suffer alone but
suffers with his or her corporate group. When the individual rejoices, he or she
rejoices not alone but with his or her kindred, his or her neighbors, and his or her
relatives – whether dead or living. Whatever happens to the individual happens to the
whole group, and whatever happens to the whole group happens to the individual.
The relationship between the individual and the group is reciprocal. The individual
can only say “I am because we are; and since we are, therefore, I am” (Mbiti, 1989:
106). The indigenous African setup embraces the idea that individuals cannot exist
in isolation. An individual cannot meaningfully and purposely exist without the
others. While society is considered to be composed of individuals, it is not construed
simply as the sum of individuals and their behaviors, actions, and thoughts. Rather,
the society is construed as having a structure and existence that is tied to that of the
individuals in it. And what is more, society influences and constrains individuals in it
through norms and social currents. Another fitting way of expressing Mbiti’s dictum
is that an individual is human because of others, with others, and for others, and since
others are, therefore an individual is: “I belong therefore I am.”
To Be Is to Participate
For a Westerner to understand and, perhaps, appreciate the beliefs and attitudes of
Africans in their indigenous setup, the Westerner must be cognizant of the
communalistic emphasis of the indigenous African weltanschauung. Communalism
is the pedestal upon which their everyday existence, reality, behavior, and practices
are all grounded. African communalism points to an existing kinship link between
members of the community and membership to that community is constitutive.
For Africans in the indigenous setting, to be human is to belong to the whole
community, and to do so involves participating in the beliefs, ceremonies, rituals,
and festivals of the community. To be a person necessarily implies that one’s actions
and thoughts are in accord with those of the community. It follows therefore that an
African in the indigenous setup would find it extremely difficult to detach himself/
herself from the religion of his or her group because to do so is to be severed from
one’s roots, from one’s foundation and context of security, from one’s kinships, and
the entire group of those who make one aware of his or her own existence (Mbiti,
1989: 2). Detaching oneself from the religion and beliefs of one’s society amounts to
self-excommunication from the entire life of society, and African peoples in the
indigenous setting do not know how to exist in such a situation.
In the indigenous African locale, it is the community that gives meaning and
significance to the individual. It is the encircling community that defines and gives
reference to the individual. The individual is meaningless by himself or herself and
makes sense only as part of the group. The existence of an individual derives its
meaning from the individual’s participation in the activities of the community. No
one can isolate oneself from one’s community since the community is the vehicle
through which the rituals and activities of the people is practiced. Otherwise stated,
the individual apart from the community is not anything real. Hence, while Berkeley
reduced existence to perception (“to be is to be perceived”), in African indigenous

worldview human existence is seen in terms of participation: “to be is to participate.”
Therefore, just like the much known and cited “I am because we are,” “to be is to
participate” is also a synonymic expression of the communal spirit in indigenous
Africa. An individual is human if he or she says “I participate, therefore I am.”
One can safely argue that there exists a clear and momentous distinction of what
constitutes a person in indigenous Africa on the one hand and in a typical Western
world on the other. In the Western setting, a person is construed as an isolated
individual having the attributes of will and rationality. The individual is perceived as
a singular, personal, and impenetrable entity, but nevertheless capable of living in
glorious isolation. The individual is meaningful by himself or herself and does not
really need the community to make sense of his or her existence. To be or to exist is
not necessarily to participate. Though the individual is in nature and society, he or
she is distinct from these. Individuality is an island, is a knot in the web of
cosmological, biological, and social relations (Van der Walt, 1975: 103–108).
Given the underlying preeminence of individualistic tendency, emphasis is not
only on the self – the individual – but the individual is seen as consisting primarily
of personal attributes such as personality traits, beliefs, and attitudes.
In his text Bantu Philosophy, Tempels not only argues for the existence of African
philosophy but contends that the underpinnings of that philosophy is communalism.
Prior to the original publication of his book in 1945, the existence of African
philosophy was denied within academia. In the text, he highlights the significance
of the communal spirit among the Baluba, a Bantu group within the lower Congo in
Central Africa. He outlines the overriding role played by the communal-based
ontology among the Baluba. It is this communal ontology that gives a special
character, a local color, to their beliefs and religious practices, to their mores, to
their language, to their institutions and customs, to their psychological reactions and,
more generally, to their whole behavior. So, according to Tempels, if one wants to
understand the worldview and life of the Baluba, one must understand their
communal-based ontology. In accentuating the communal spirit among the Bantu
people, Tempels asserts that:
For the Bantu, man never appears in fact as an isolated individual, as an independent entity.
Every man, every individual, forms a link in the chain of vital forces, a link, active and
passive, joined from above to the ascending line of his ancestry and sustaining below him the
line of his descendants . . . the bantu is quite unable to conceive an individual apart from his
relationship.. . . (Tempels, 1959: 71, 72)
In the text, Tempels also asserts that the Bantu theory of muntu (person) is quite
different from the Western concept of individuated things, where things are conceived
as existing in themselves, isolated from others. The Bantu theory of muntu, on the
other hand, cannot conceive of a human being as an individual, as a force existing by
itself and apart from its ontological relationships with other living beings and from
its connection with animals or inanimate forces around it. The Bantu cannot be a
lone being since to be human is to belong to a community (Tempels, 1959: 48).
Ruch expresses this communal characteristic by using a fitting analogy. He asserts that
an African even when immersed in a sea of uncontrollable forces would not feel the
forces as a threat, but rather as a beneficial protection and the life-spring of whatever
he or she is or does. He or she does not feel himself or herself like a swimmer in a
hostile and foreign sea; he or she is part of that sea, he or she participates in it as it
participates in him or her (Ruch, 1975: 2).
Personhood in African Cultures
In order to understand and fully appreciate the nature of communalism in African

cultures as a way of life and as a normative theory and practice, one must be familiar
not only with both their conceptions of a person and community, but also with the
relationship between the two. Within philosophical circles in general, two broad
conceptions of personhood are often outlined, namely, the metaphysical (descrip-
tive) and the normative (moral). In the indigenous African worldview, the idea of a
person takes into account both descriptive and normative dimensions though pre-
mium is accorded to one of the dimensions, the normative.
The normative conception of a person is based on an intragroup’s moral and
social acceptance and recognition. In the indigenous African setting, the concept of
personhood is not primarily understood as a metaphysical stance regarding the
nature of the individual, but rather as a depiction of intragroup recognition. Stated
differently, in African cultures, personhood is conceptualized more in terms of the
moral and social norms of the community rather than explained and recognized in
terms of characteristics that make up an individual. The recognition of a person
implies that there are normative standards of awareness. The standards that are
normatively used to describe a recognized person implies a moral view of person-
hood. Thus, the moral view of a person, which is based on the social and moral
identity a person has or acquires, emanates from social recognition. Within the
normative, personhood is therefore explained in terms of moral capacity and ability
to live by societal norms. It involves duties and obligations. To be accorded
personhood status requires conducting oneself as expected of other persons. Being
a person has to do with what qualities one has as a human being. It concerns the
qualities in an individual that is in line with norms of the group or community that
the individual belongs to. Certain behavioral and characteristic outcomes are
expected from each person within the community and these outcomes must of
necessity accord with societal rules and norms before ascriptions of personhood
can be made. One is therefore not accorded personhood if one’s behavior runs
counter to rules and social harmony.
By contrast, a metaphysical or descriptive conception of personhood is the view
that all persons are first and foremost human beings who are embodied and endowed
with certain abilities. Within academia, therefore, scholars who adhere to this
conception of personhood analyze the ontological makeup of a person. They, for
instance, examine whether a person is material or immaterial, or whether a person is
made up of one or two essential characteristics. The metaphysical analysis of the
nature of the mind and body and the relationship between them, as an example, is in
essence a descriptive account of personhood. Metaphysical personhood is, therefore,
a descriptive notion. Attributing metaphysical personhood to an entity provides “at
least a partial description of it” (Kind, 2015: 12). This description allows one to
better understand what distinguishes metaphysical persons from nonpersons. It
follows therefore that metaphysical persons are basically biologically constituted.
However, it should be noted that when the question boils down to the exact
characteristics or abilities that constitute personhood in the metaphysical sense,
scholars have not been unanimous in their responses. For instance, some scholars
define metaphysical personhood as the existence of seven innate abilities: ability for
self-awareness, ability to sense, ability to imagine, ability to think, ability to reason,
ability to feel emotion, and ability to empathize. But others contest some of these
abilities. They do not think that each of these abilities must exist to the degree
necessary for its subject to have status dignity.
It should be noted that it is the normative conception of a person, and not the
metaphysical, which lends itself to communalism and is, therefore, the conception
indigenous African communities place a premium on. It is the conception that has
currency in African traditions. However, the two conceptions should not be viewed
as diametrically opposed with nothing in common between them. A normative
conception or dimension of a person does illuminate, and in some sense, depend
on the metaphysical conception or descriptive dimension of a person. One cannot be
described as a person if one has not satisfied the normative dimension and one
cannot satisfy the normative criteria if one does not have the descriptive features of a
person. For a detailed discussion on the distinction between the normative and
metaphysical conceptions of personhood, see chapter two of Polycarp Ikuenobe’s
(2006) publication Philosophical Perspectives on Communalism and Morality in
African Traditions; Lanham: Lexington Books.
The normative conceptions of personhood and community provide the founda-
tion for an understanding of African ontology, which indicates the concrete reality
and circumstances that help to account for the personal and social life of people.
A community, in a normative sense, is a group of normative persons, principles,
processes, and structures that define social norms or moral expectations and respon-
sibilities, on the basis of which a person is recognized and the community is
sustained. The moral or social recognition of a person depends, in part, on the
metaphysical view that a person is not a determined physical object that is governed
solely by physical laws over which a person has no control. The normative view of
personhood also depends on the idea that a mind is metaphysically free, is capable of
rational, voluntary, and moral agency, and hence can be ascribed moral
responsibility.
It is worth noting that the moral individual in indigenous African setting is quite
different from the moral individual in the Western world. The moral individual in
African traditions is not simply the rational and autonomous individual capable of
reasoning independently about the universal and objective principles as demon-
strated in typical Western ethics as, for example, in Kantian ethics. The moral
individual in African traditions is one who aside from being rational and autonomous
is also familiar and endowed with the normative principles and attitudes of his or her
community. In other words, over and above having the descriptive metaphysical
features of an individual, namely, being rational and autonomous, the moral indi-
vidual must reflect and abide by the norms and behaviors of his or her community.
Part I of the chapter has been an effort to outline the communal spirit in African
traditions by showing that the line of divide between the individual and the com-
munity is very thin: that there is a symbiotic relationship between the “I” and “We.”
In effect, therefore, in indigenous Africa (i) a person is a person through other
persons – ubuntu, ujamaa; (ii) to be is to participate in the activities and festivals
of the community, and (iii) the overriding conception of personhood is normative
and is pegged on the social life. In part II that follows, the endeavor is to delineate
some notions and practices in indigenous Africa where the communal spirit is
manifest.
Part II
Given the fused nature of African indigenous communities as outlined above, certain
implications regarding the conduct and behaviors of Africans necessarily follow. Put
differently, some of the beliefs, attitudes, and practices found in indigenous African
settings are explainable and make sense when viewed against the backdrop of the
specified communal emphasis in the indigenous African worldview. One who is not
cognizant of the communal ontology in indigenous Africa might not understand
some of the practices and mannerisms therein. In part II, some practices, beliefs, and
values in indigenous Africa have been outlined and discussed to illustrate the import
of the communal spirit. These have to do with the question of identity and moral
personhood, the concept of time, the practice of buying and selling and, to some
extent, the notions of greeting, and eating.
Identity and Moral Personhood
Hord and Lee in the introduction of their edited text I Am Because We Are: Readings
in Black Philosophy underscore the fact that communalism that underpins indige-
nous African cultures is the idea that the identity of the individual is never separable
from the sociocultural environment. They highlight the view that in African cultures
identity of the individual is not some Cartesian abstractions grounded in a solipsistic
self-consciousness, but rather that it is constructed in and at least partially by a set of
shared beliefs, patterns of behavior, and expectations (Hord et al., 1995: 7–8).
In other words, African cultures rather than defining the individual in terms of
Descartes’ “thinking I” (cogito) and using it as the basis for individual identity
instead emphasize on the affirmation of the community as a basis for defining the
identity of the individual. It appears therefore that in African cultures the moral or
social account of a person is logically or conceptually prior to the metaphysical
account of a person, as opposed to the Western philosophical tradition where the
metaphysical account of a person as the thinking, rational, autonomous, free indi-

vidual is logically prior to the moral account as someone who may be shaped by a
community.
Unlike the predominantly individualistic West, in indigenous Africa the individ-
ual does not consider himself or herself to be at the center of the universe upon which
everything else revolves. Solipsism, the philosophical idea that the self is all that can
be known to exist, would be considered not only as false, but as outright absurd.
Descartes’ “cogito ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am”) or Berkeley’s “esse est
percipi” (“to be is to be perceived”) are theories that would hardly find space in
indigenous African conversations.
In indigenous Africa, personhood is a status conferred by the community, not
possessed by an individual in isolation. Personhood must be understood relationally,
not as a consequence of an individual’s intrinsic properties. A person is one who
stands in appropriate relationships of care, responsibility, and deference to others.
Persons exist in the full sense only as members of their communities. The indigenous
African concept of identity is, therefore, relational. It is the community that gives
meaning and personality to the individual. The connection between the individual
and the community is considered to be so strong that some scholars believe that it
downplays the notion of individual freedom. Okot p’Bitek, for instance, insisted that
Rousseau was wrong to declare, at the beginning of The Social Contract, that “Man
is born free but is everywhere in chains.” On the contrary, p’Bitek argues that “Man
is not born free. He cannot be free. He is incapable of being free. For only by being
human in chains can he be and remain ‘human’” (p’Bitek, 1986: 19). Accordingly,
he emphasizes that:
Man cannot, and must not, be free. Son, Mother, Daughter, Father, Uncle, Husband,
Grandfather, Chief, Medicine man, and many other such terms are the stamps of man’s
unfreedom. It is by such complex titles that a person is defined and identified. The central
question ‘Who am I?’ cannot be answered in any meaningful way unless the relationship in
question is known. Because ‘I’ is not only one relationship, it is many relationships.
(p’Bitek, 1986: 20)
In contrasting the African and Western perspectives regarding the relationship

between the community and the individual, Menkiti argues that the indexical “we” in
African thought systems – as a reference to the group or community – is not simply
the aggregated sum of individuals comprising a community. Instead, the “we” as
used in African cultures refers to “a thoroughly fused collectivity ‘we’ (Menkiti,
1984: 179).” In other words, the “we” in African cultures is a transcendental or
organic “we” and cannot be reduced to its component parts. That “we” is not simply
a summation of several parts. It is in this respect that the self is indeed regarded as the
community. The identity of the individual and that of the community cannot be in
opposition. An individual in the indigenous African setup is known and identified in,
by, and through his or her community.
In the Western world, because of the individualistic emphasis, people see and
identify themselves descriptively as metaphysically isolated individuals who have a
personhood outside of the normative and cultural structures of a community and the
human relationships that define and sustain a community. A clear line of divide is
drawn between the “I” and “we,” between the individual and community. In the
indigenous African setup, on the other hand, because of the communal emphasis,
people see and identify themselves in terms of how their community trains, shapes,
and morally educates them to acquire personhood. The concern is how the moral
thinking of the people is shaped by the context of the community with respect to their
actions and behavior (Ikuenobe, 2006: 56). The line of distinction between the
individual and the community in indigenous African cultures is therefore fuzzy.
One cannot define personhood without making reference to societal norms and
expectations. Human relations in indigenous Africa is not simply a way in which
the individual may realize his or her objectives. As Ezenweke and Nwadialor
correctly assert, in indigenous Africa, “the essential element of personhood and
the quality of a person is dependent on the intensity of maintaining these relation-
ships. A common thread that runs through various definitions of human relations is
the idea of being embedded in the culture and as a corollary all the ways of doing
things of a community or people” (Ezenweke & Nwadialor, 2013: 62).
Human conduct, behavior, and morals are therefore elements of cultural environ-
ment and consequently community-based. This is to say that the interconnections
which create the human person and human communities impose moral obligations
and duties on the relationship between the individual and the community, and
between communities. Specifically, morality in indigenous African setups is a
communal affair. Morality is grounded on human well-being and the existence or
survival of the community. From the African viewpoint, moral principles are pri-
marily concerned with the maintenance of good relationship with others as opposed
to the maintenance of justice and individual rights as emphasized in the Western
world. In Africa, what is right is what connects people together and what separates
people is wrong. Basically, African morality is concerned with the well-being of all
members of the community. Consequently, the essence of goodness and good life in
African indigenous thought has to do with doing well and not harming others. To this
extent, indigenous African morality or ethics is essentially social-oriented and
anchored on the well-being of social being. Moreover, Africans in their indigenous
ethics place some sort of emphasis on goodness of character that promotes the good
life of the community. The promotion of good life is therefore the determinant
principle of indigenous African morality and this promotion is guaranteed only in
the community.
In indigenous Africa, morality is not merely a set of abstract justificatory princi-
ples. It is instead fundamentally a practical communal method and guide for action
that is externalized and finds expression in all aspects of people’s everyday lives and
activities. It is therefore this communalistic mentality that determines and makes
sense of not only the notion of personhood but the concept of individual identity as
well. An individual’s identity is defined by his or her actions, achievements, and
responsibilities that are pedestalled on a moral outlook that is communal, egalitarian,
and care-oriented. Stated differently, indigenous African communities are egalitarian
in that they emphasize equal distribution of communal goods, equality of communal

opportunity, and caring of others in order for an individual to achieve personhood
and identity (Ikuenobe, 2006: 66). The Yoruba proverb “However far the stream
flows, it never forgets its source” captures this African notion of personhood and
identity.
In indigenous African communities, the interests of the community provide the
moral basis for the various social institutions, such as marriage and its attendant
relationships and responsibilities. Take the activity of parenting as an example. The
notion of a father in the Western world is generally conceptualized in terms of a filial-
biological relationship or a parenting relationship in the case of step or adopted
father/child. In the West, one does not need any social recognition or initiation to
perform the role or have the relationship of a father. In Africa, however social
recognition is necessary. In this regard, Nzegwu in her Family Matters: Feminist
Concepts in African Philosophy of Culture points out that the roles and responsibil-
ities that are specified by certain relationships, such as being a father, are, in the
different African cultural and communal arrangements, exercised only by those who
have been formally and publicly declared, ritualistically initiated into adulthood, or
socially recognized as adults in the context of the community, based on their
readiness to perform the relevant duties (Nzegwu, 2012: 38–41).
It is important to underscore the fact that, in African cultures, the readiness to
perform parental roles and duties, for example, is determined by social achievements
and recognition as an adult in the community. The readiness is not based solely on
chronological age. Fatherhood in African cultures is therefore more of a social than
biological phenomenon, and the social aspect is cogently connected to the commu-
nal spirit. And it is for this reason that in African traditions one has several fathers,
mothers, brothers, sisters, etc. Persons who in the Western world are referred to as
uncles – that is, brothers of one’s biological father – are in African traditions referred
to as fathers. Those who are referred to as aunts – that is, sisters to one’s biological
mother – are referred to as mothers. This is essentially because they play the same
social role as the biological father and biological mother.
Also, the English term “cousin” would be translated properly as brother or sister
in African languages. A child of one’s “uncle” or “aunt” is a brother (if male) or a
sister (if female). Moreover, within the indigenous African setup, children do not
belong only to their biological parents; other family members are expected to take an
active responsibility for the well-being of their relatives’ children. Hence, as already
signaled above, one’s father’s brother is also one’s father. He is not only addressed as
such but is expected to behave in a manner deserving of a father. The same is
expected of one’s mother’s sister as well. All this is a reflection that in indigenous
African communities relationships are seen more in social terms undergirded by
communalism rather than in purely biological terms.
In indigenous African cultures, a community is defined by its ability to guide
individuals in it achieve moral personhood. Hence, a community is judged by the
nature of the people found in it. The community as a whole and each adult member
has the responsibility of morally educating a person. The idea of education
involves the broad process of learning, upbringing, socialization, initiation,
acculturation, and teaching people the community’s ways of life. The community’s
way of life would include its tradition, beliefs, values, a broad range of prescribed
conduct, and the general and moral principles that determine the acceptable actions
and behavior. Such principles constitute the foundation upon which the community
is able to practically ensure its own social, political, moral equilibrium, and organic
wholeness. Given the “I am because we are” axiom, a person is always seen both
as “a representative of oneself” and as an integral part of the community that one
hails from. A person is judged by how much that person has internalized the
virtues, beliefs, values, and attitudes that the community has taught the person in
terms of how that person displays them in his or her everyday actions and
decisions.
Concept of Time
The concept of time in indigenous Africa is quite different from the Western
conception and this has to do largely with the communal emphasis in African
cultures. Mbiti gave a clear outline of the African conception of time in his two
books African Religions and Philosophy and New Testament Eschatology in an
African Background: A Study of the Encounter between New Testament Theology
and African Traditional Concepts. In the texts, he contends that for one to under-
stand indigenous African beliefs, attitudes, practices, and activities, it is crucial that
one be familiar with their concept of time. Mbiti believes that the indigenous African
concept of time is intimately bound with the entire life of the people, including their
religious systems and philosophy.
In the indigenous African setup, according to Mbiti, time is simply a composition
of events: events which have occurred, those which are taking place now, and those
which are immediately to occur. It follows, therefore, that what has not taken place or
has no likelihood of an immediate occurrence falls in the category of “No-time.”
However, what is certain to occur, or what falls within the rhythm of natural
phenomena, is in the category of inevitable or potential time (Mbiti, 1989: 17).
The key word in the definition of the concept of time in indigenous Africa is events.
What has not taken place is not an event and, therefore, cannot constitute time. Mbiti
emphasizes that the African concept of time is therefore two-dimensional: it consists
of events that have happened (past) and events that are taking place now or about to
occur (present). The future dimension is evidently missing in this conception of time.
The three-dimensional linear conception of time with an indefinite past, present, and
infinite future is foreign in indigenous African setup where time is perceived in the
perspective of actuality, dominated by events. Time has to be experienced. It makes
meaning, for example, when it is related to weather, seasons, and natural phenom-
ena. Time then is not mathematical or numerical. It is simply time as experienced by
the people in relation to events around them.
Of the two dimensions in the African concept of time, it is the past (tene or
zamani) that is important. Tene is the Kikamba word for “past” and is equivalent to
the Kiswahili word zamani.
Tene period is technically an extension of mituki (present or sasa) . . . [Mituki is the Kikamba
word for “present” and is equivalent to the Kiswahili word sasa] . . ., but in the ‘backward’
direction. Both of these overlap: and when something disappears from mituki period, it
enters the tene dimension of Time. Before anything has been absorbed into the tene period, it
must go through mituki dimension. Tene becomes the final storehouse, the point beyond
which a phenomenon cannot go, the ultimate destiny of all things that maybe caught up in
the rhythm of motion. (Mbiti, 1971: 28)
So, in African thought, tene is the period beyond which nothing can go. It is the
graveyard of time, the period of termination, the dimension in which everything
finds its halting point. It is the final store house of all phenomenon and events, the
ocean of time in which everything becomes absorbed into a reality that is neither
after nor before (Mbiti, 1989: 23). Given that tene is the dimension into which all
phenomena sink, it follows that, just like actual time, history:
According to Akamba, is a movement from the mituki (temporal dimension signifying

present, very near past, or the future just about to be realized) dimension to the tene period.
History moves backwards from the now moment to that period in the past beyond which
nothing can go. So the tene period is the centre of gravity in the Akamba conception of
history: people’s thinking and understanding of the world are orientated towards this finality
- not in the future but in the past, in the tene dimension of time. (Mbiti, 1971: 28)
From the African conception of time outlined above, it follows that African
people in their indigenous setup are oriented more towards the past direction and
not towards the future as such. In this chapter, the relationship between the concept
of time and communal emphasis in indigenous African communities is underscored.
It is contended that the African conception of time and history is aligned to their
conception of community which includes the living as well as the living-dead
(ancestors). Connected to the past orientation of time, African ontology has it that
what lies in the past is regarded as much more powerful than the present; that which
is good, therefore, lies in the past and not in the future. In African ontological
hierarchy, God followed by spirits occupy a higher position than living humans. The
living humans occupy the sasa dimension of time and it is in this category that time
(history) starts. The living-dead are the departed of the community whose names are
still retained and transmitted to descendants, that is, their personalities are still living
with the people. They make part of the sasa or the nearest zamani. However, “after
three to five generations, when ordinary people can no longer recognize a living-
dead by name, he becomes a spirit, Iimu (pl. Aimu)” (Mbiti, 1971: 133). The spiritual
world is therefore the center towards which existence is directed. It is where the good
resides and concerted efforts of all living humans are directed towards
becoming aimu.
In consideration of the fact that time is a composition of events, it follows that it is
something relative, it depends on the context as well as on how one uses it in
relationship to others or how one experiences it. For that reason, the indigenous
African concept of time is dynamic, concrete, and interwoven with one’s daily
existence. Africans reckon time for a concrete and specific purpose and not just for
the sake of mathematics or in a vacuum. The African time is either time-for or time-to
or time-of. Numerical calendars stretching into the future and in a vacuum are not
African. Mbiti argues that what exists for the African are phenomenon calendars, in
which events which constitute time are reckoned. For instance, an expectant mother
counts the lunar months of her pregnancy. What is significant here is the pregnancy
and not the months; the months make meaning only because of the pregnancy. Thus
time is meaningful at the point of the event and not at the mathematical time. One can
also say that principally the time is kairological in that it is more concerned with the
right moment; it is contextual and concerned with the qualitative aspect. This can be
contrasted to the chronological perception of time which measures out time in a
linear and absolute sense where time is conceptualized as static, mathematical, and
measured in figures. It can also be argued that in indigenous Africa, time is
community-centered in that relationships are considered to be more important than
tasks. What follows therefore is that time is made when and to the extent that it is
needed, for example, for interpersonal communication. In the linear conception of
time which is dominant in the Western world, time is future-directed and less
directed upon the past. In the linear conception, time is not made but has to be
filled; hence, one can either lose, waste, or save time.
An implication of the conception of time in terms of events is that it is people who
create time. Van der Walt captures this succinctly when he infers that Africans in the
indigenous setup are masters, rather than slaves, of time. They are the architects of
time. More eminently, time is construed as a socialized activity, it is programmed
into sociocultural norms of human behavior and interpersonal relationship. Human
relationships are relaxed and the pace at which chores are undertaken is tranquil (Van
der Walt, 1997: 63). In this conception of time, premium is placed on relationships
than on tasks. Better yet, here tasks are subjugated to the relational aspect of life and
are completed in order to help the family, clan, and the community. In this socialized
conception, the use of time does not sacrifice social duties and human relations on
the altar unlike the Western linear clock time calculation which emphasizes on tasks
even at the expense of relationships. In clock time, tasks precede relationships.
Buying and Selling
Buying and selling are two sides of the same coin. When one sells something,
someone else is buying it. Buying is the acquisition of an object in exchange of
money, whereas selling is acquiring money, in exchange of relinquishing all claims
of ownership from an object. Therefore, buying and selling involves an agreement
between the buyer and the seller whereby the seller has the duty to transfer the
ownership of property to the buyer and the buyer pays the price of the property to the
seller. In this chapter, the contention is that even in the activity of buying and selling
the communal attention in indigenous Africa is reflected. There is a sense in which
the economic activity of buying and selling in indigenous African communities is
conducted somehow differently from the way it is conducted in the Western world.
In the Western world, the activity of buying and selling is regarded as a purely
impersonal economic transaction where prices of the commodities being sold are
fixed and clearly displayed on the items. Both the buyer and seller are not interested
in each other as such; the buyer is interested in the commodity and the seller in the
money. If the transaction can be undertaken in the shortest possible time with
minimal conversation, all the better. Why waste time; time is money!
In indigenous Africa, on the other hand, over and above the economic activity,
buying and selling is viewed as a social person-to-person transaction. The prices of
the commodities are not fixed as such and therefore no prices are displayed on the
items. The seller and buyer could therefore spend a considerable amount of time
“wrangling” over the price. However, underlying all the “wrangling” over the price
is the desire or wish to establish a social person-to-person relationship between the
buyer and the seller. Ordinarily the “wrangling” over the price would have nothing to
do with the buyer not having enough money to purchase the desired commodity. In
actuality, the buyer might even have much more money in his or her pockets but
would still choose to “bicker” over the price. In some cases, even before actually
engaging in the buying and selling activity, the buyer and the seller may in the initial
stages engage in a social conversation: greetings, discussing the weather and current
affairs, inquiring about each other’s family, etc. despite the fact that they could be
“strangers” meeting for the very first time. All this takes place because the whole
process of buying and selling is seen against the backdrop of communalism; the
social person-to-person activity is not lost sight of. Here one should note that the
African concept of time fits in very well. Because time is a two-dimensional
phenomenon entailing a movement from the sasa to the zamani, human relationships
are relaxed and activities are conducted at a tranquil pace.
Other instances or activities that reflect the communal emphasis in indigenous
African societies in contradistinction to the Western world include the rationale for
greeting and also eating. In indigenous Africa, the intent to greet is to build relation-
ships; one builds relationships by greeting people. One would not pass others on the
wayside without greeting them even if he or she is not acquainted with them. Doing
so would be considered inappropriate and rude. Given the intensity underlying the
communal spirit with its attendant cognate conceptions of identity and moral
personhood, one is under an obligation to greet others since it is an avenue for
establishing relationships and communication. In the Western world, on the other
hand, because of its strong individualistic character, one is under no such obligation.
In a typical individualistic environment, if one happens to greet someone then
chances are that that person wants to request something of you or obtain some
information. In the rural areas and villages in Africa, greeting is a common phe-
nomenon whereas in the urban areas it is not. In the villages, if someone passes
another without greeting the person (whether one is acquainted with the person or
not), that would be considered bizarre and morally unacceptable. In the urban areas,
on the contrary, what would be considered bizarre would be when one was to greet
someone whom he or she was not acquainted with. All this boils down to the fact that
while the rural areas and villages are largely communalistic in outlook and
orientation, the urban areas having adapted Western values and are generally
individualistic.
Another activity in indigenous Africa which has a somewhat additional justifica-

tion based on the communal emphasis is that of eating. It can be reasonably argued
that in a typical individualistic Western setup, the activity of eating is mainly directed
at acquiring new energy. The foods people eat provide the much needed energy to
work, to support their everyday activities, and promote their survival. In indigenous
African setup, however, eating has an added justification. It is also viewed as a social
event. People eat not merely in order to acquire new energy but also with a view to
sharing food and having discussions. As people eat, they chat, they tell stories, they
discuss. So eating is seen as an activity that goes beyond acquisition of new energy;
it has the social dimension to it. Again, in the urban areas it is quite common to find
that during meal times families do not engage in discussions; they would rather have
their discussions before or after meals. This is because in their minds, meal times are
basically occasions for acquiring new energy and not talking. The only sounds one
would hear during meal times are those made by the clattering of the eating utensils
and plates. However, in some few occasions, the urbanites may engage in socialized
eating. This could be when they are celebrating a holiday or an anniversary. In some
cases, it could be a family eat out in the city center or it could be on a date.
Conclusion
Part I of the chapter is an effort to show that communalism is a view that underlies
indigenous African communities and is a cardinal theory that punctuates cultural
traditions in Africa from those in the West. In the West the dominant underlying
postulate is individualism. Hence whereas indigenous African societies stress human
community, the West emphasizes the individual as the most important. Indigenous
Africa would therefore not easily understand human individuality because the
individual only exists in a community. The person is a reflection of the community.
“I am, because we are.” On the other hand, the West would not easily and genuinely
understand communality because a community is simply viewed as the collection of
a number of independent individuals. Community is an expression of the individual
will. “We are, because I am.” Several differences in the beliefs, attitudes, and
realities found in the two societies emanate from and are intelligible based on the
communalism/individualism divide. These include differences in their metaphysics,
ethics, epistemology, religion, psychology, etc.
In part II, the intention has been to explicate some of the notions and practices in
indigenous African societies that are grounded upon and reflect the communal
character. The notions and practices that have been discussed include in the main
the notions of identity and moral personhood, the concept of time, and the practice of
buying and selling, and in parenthesis the notion of greeting and the justification for
eating. While discussing these notions and activities in indigenous Africa, the
chapter has juxtaposed them with how the very notions and activities are conceptu-
alized in an individualistic society. The chapter has underscored the fact that the
comparison is purely for the sake of clear comprehension and not evaluative.
This chapter is an exercise in African sage philosophy which is one of the four
major trends in, or approaches to, the discipline of African philosophy as identified
by Odera Oruka. The other three are ethnophilosophy, professional philosophy, and
nationalist-ideological philosophy (Odera Oruka, 1981: 1–7). One of the definitions
of sagacity is that it is a body of basic principles and tenets that underlie and justify
the beliefs, customs, and practices of a given culture. This chapter has not only been
a demonstration of the communal principle, but it has justified some of the notions
and activities in indigenous Africa that are based on it.
References
Ezenweke, E. O., & Nwadialor, L. K. (2013). Understanding human relations in African traditional
religious context in the face of globalization: Nigerian perspectives. American International
Journal of Contemporary Research, 3(2), 61–70.
Hord, F. L., Okpara, M. L., & Lee, J. S. (1995). I am because we are: Readings in black philosophy.
University of Massachusetts Press.
Ikuenobe, P. (2006). Philosophical perspectives on communalism and morality in African tradi-
tions. Lexington Books.
Kind, A. (2015). Persons and personal identity. Polity.
Mbiti, J. S. (1971). New testament eschatology in an African background: A study of the encounter
between new testament theology and African traditional concepts. Oxford University Press.
Mbiti, J. S. (1989). African religions and philosophy (2nd rev. and enl. ed.). Heinemann.
Menkiti, I. A. (1984). Person and community in African traditional thought. In R. A. Wright (Ed.),
African philosophy: An introduction (pp. 171–181). University Press of America.
Nyerere, J. K. (1973). Ujamaa: The basis of African socialism. In J. K. Nyerere (Ed.), Freedom and
unity (pp. 160–165). Oxford University Press.
Nzegwu, N. (2012). Family matters: Feminist concepts in African philosophy of culture. SUNY
Press.
Odera Oruka, H. (1981). Four trends in current African philosophy. In A. Diemer (Ed.), Philosophy
in the present situation of Africa. Franz Steiner Verlag.
p’Bitek, O. (1986). Artist the ruler: Essays on art, culture and values. East African Educational
Publishers Ltd..
Ruch, E. A. (1975). Towards a theory of African knowledge. In D. S. Georgiades & I. G. Oelvare
(Eds.), Philosophy in the African context (pp. 1–22). Witwatersrand University Press.
Tempels, P. (1959). Bantu philosophy. Présence Africaine.
Tutu, D. M. (1999). No future without forgiveness: A personal overview of South Africa’s truth and
reconciliation commission. Doubleday.
Van der Walt, B. J. (1975). A comparison between Bantu and western thought. In D. S. Georgiades
& I. G. Oelvare (Eds.), Philosophy in the African context (pp. 103–108). Witwatersrand
University Press.
Van der Walt, B. J. (1997). Afrocentric or Eurocentric? Our task in a multicultural South Africa.
Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education.
Challenges of African Communitarian
Philosophy
Elvis Imafidon
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Bridging the Theory-Praxis Gap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
The Narrow Conception of Community and the Exclusion Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
The Normativity of Being and the Difference Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Hierarchical Communing and the Participatory Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Relational Dwelling and the Autonomy Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Abstract
The chapter critically examines the fundamental and all-embracing philosophy of
sub-Saharan African peoples, Afro-communitarianism or African communitarian
philosophy. The chapter shows that recent theoretical scholarship on African
communitarian philosophy is often removed from the concrete and lived experi-
ences of African peoples in terms of how community and communing are
understood. This results in a theory-praxis gap or dichotomy that needs to be
bridged to ensure that this philosophy remains relevant for African peoples. The
chapter analyses this gap and ways to bridge them by examining four challenges
of African communitarian philosophy: the exclusion challenge in relation to an
existentially narrow conception of community, the difference challenge in rela-
tion to a normative ontology of being in sub-Saharan African communities, the
participatory challenge in relation to hierarchies in African communities, and the
autonomy challenge in relation to the understanding of relationality. The chapter
concludes that the theorization of African communitarian philosophy can only
E. Imafidon (*)
Director of the Centre for Global and Comparative Philosophies, School of History, Religions and
Philosophies, School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS, University of London, London, UK
e-mail: ei4@soas.ac.uk

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_22
32 E. Imafidon
overcome a crisis of relevance and avoid the tendency of serving only the West if
it bridges the theory-praxis gap and pay closer attention to the lived experience of
African peoples.
Keywords
Afro-communitarianism · Ubuntu · Participation · Difference · Exclusion ·
Autonomy · Theory-praxis gap
Introduction
The overarching philosophy in sub-Saharan African traditions has been variedly

coined as Afro-communitarianism, African communal philosophy, African commu-
nalism, African communitarianism, or, as used in this chapter, African communitar-
ian philosophy. Notwithstanding the different coinages, the central idea remains
the same: African communitarian philosophy is an all-encompassing, all-inclusive,
and extensively broad philosophical framework by which sub-Saharan African
peoples think about, contemplate, reflect, deliberate, and provide answers to ques-
tions about reality, knowledge, truth, morality, values, existence, well-being, art,
beauty, governance, duties to the non-human, and other philosophical questions.
African communitarian philosophy is thus a philosophical, metaphysical, ethical,
epistemological, political, aesthetic, environmental, religious, and existential philos-
ophy that is (i) embedded in African oral, symbolic and textual heritages such as
languages, arts, symbols, storytelling, texts, and other repositories of knowledge,
(ii) hermeneutical in that it helps to understand, interpret and analyzing individual,
collective and shared, life-course, attitudinal dispositions, lived and concrete expe-
riences in an African place, and (iii) crucial in theorizing the African philosophical
contribution to global issues and challenges such as environmental crises, health and
well-being, governance, international relations, trans-human and post-human tech-
nologies, and business management. In the more recent history of academic and
largely textual African philosophical discourses, there is a rich and growing clarifi-
cation, conceptualization and application of African communitarian philosophy (see,
for example, Eze, 2008; Ikuenobe, 2006; Gyekye, 1992; Menkiti, 2004; Tutu, 1999;
Metz, 2007; Molefe, 2017). As Elvis Imafidon (2021: 50) puts it,
The value and pride that many African scholars have for African communitarian philosophy
is evident in the way that they have applied it as a theoretical framework for resolving issues,
challenges, and problems in different spheres of life in Africa and around the globe,
including environmental problems, business problems, governance issues, healthcare
challenges. . . and so on. For example, African environmental ethicists argue for an African
relational environmental ethics on the basis of African communitarianism. . . Other scholars
have applied African thought to business situations by theorising the ways that arguments in
business ethics can be deduced from African communitarian philosophy. . . In the area of
healthcare, some African healthcare professionals have also discussed in detail how the
relational, solidaristic, and the care-for-one-another or live-and-let’s-live elements of African
communitarian ethics can improve relationships between healthcare workers and patients. . .
Challenges of African Communitarian Philosophy 33
In short, African communitarian philosophy has become a rich and reliable theoretical
resource for African scholars.
But there is the danger for this rich and growing discourse of African communi-
tarian philosophy to be carried on in ways that essentialize and idealize the concept,
such that it is removed and binarized from the concrete and lived communal
experiences of African peoples. To avoid this danger, it is fundamental that a critical
engagement with the idea of African communitarian philosophy is not only vigor-
ously pursued but sustained. This is not to say that there have not been critical
engagements with the concept in recent times (see for example Wiredu, 1980;
Matolino & Kwindingwi, 2013), but one needs to be careful as well in pro-
blematizing and critically engaging with African communitarian philosophy in
order not to do so in ways that are completely destructive, colonial, Eurocentric
and in ways that are meant to radically sustain the tradition-modernity dichotomy,
one that remains a nightmare in African scholarship; most of the criticism of African
communitarian philosophy that has emerged in recent scholarship often resembles
the claim that it is a philosophy for the past (tradition) and not for the present
(modernity) (Matolino & Kwindingwi, 2013). A critical engagement with this
all-encompassing African philosophical thought would require first, the acknowl-
edgement of the importance and place of this philosophy for sub-Saharan African
peoples’ existential experiences even in modern contexts, second, the challenges this
philosophy poses to overall human well-being; and third, a constructive attempt to
reformulate and reimagine it in ways that overcome such challenges, making it a
philosophical framework that continues to be important and relevant for peoples
within and beyond Africa. Olufemi Taiwo (2016: 81) summarizes the importance of
a critical outlook on African communitarian philosophy thus,
Communalism and its cognates continue to exercise a vise grip on the African intellectual
imaginary. Whether the discussion is in ethics or social philosophy, in metaphysics or even,
on occasion, epistemology, the play of communalism,. . . is so strong that it is difficult to
escape its ubiquity. In spite of this, there is little serious analysis of the concept and its
implications in the contemporary context. Yet, at no other time than now can a long-suffering
continent use some robust debates on its multiple inheritances regarding how to organize life
and thought in order to deliver a better future for its population. Given the continual resort to
communalism as, among others, the standard of ethical behaviour, the blueprint for restoring
Africans to wholeness and organizing our social life, as well as a template for political
reorganization across the continent, one cannot overemphasize the importance of contribut-
ing some illumination to the discourse surrounding the idea.
Therefore, the goal of this chapter is to critically engage with African communi-
tarian philosophy in a (re)constructive way and, perhaps, the best place to begin the
critical analysis of the challenges of African communitarian philosophy that this
chapter is centrally concerned with, is to attempt to bridge and deconstruct the
theory-praxis gap in the discourse of African communitarian philosophy. This is
crucial in establishing the continuous importance of the concept as a philosophical,
hermeneutical, and existential framework in African contexts, and in clearly
34 E. Imafidon
identifying the challenges that it poses to human flourishing and well-being today.
The chapter will then proceed to examine four major challenges that African
communitarian philosophy face: the exclusion challenge, the difference challenge,
the participatory challenge, and the autonomy challenge. To be sure, these four
challenges are not clear cut from one another and they intersect and are interwoven
as we will see shortly.
Bridging the Theory-Praxis Gap
Philosophy often traditionally proceeds as a system of abstraction, abstracting and

formulating theory, idea, or concept from lived, concrete, and everyday experiences
by identifying, isolating, and deducing common features or shared characteristics
and by implication, disregarding or ignoring difference, concreteness, and unique
practical aspects of what is being abstracted and theorized. This mental process of
abstraction in philosophy breeds binaries and dichotomies in philosophy such as the
binary between the intelligible and the sensible, the real and the abstract, the
normative and the descriptive, the universal and the singular, the theoretical and
the practical, and so on. From Thales’ theory of water as the substance of reality,
Plato’s idea of being and becoming, Leibniz’s idea of monads, Lao Tzu’s theory of
inaction, to Zera Yacob’s theory of harmony, the history of philosophy shows clearly
that abstraction has been crucial in constructing the many isms and theories of
philosophy. To be sure, the human disposition toward abstraction is ontic. Therefore,
to philosophize through abstraction is a human yearning, but the challenge emerges
from radically dichotomizing abstracted theories, concepts, and ideas from the
concrete, lived, and everyday experiences from which the abstractions have been
made. This is typical of philosophical theories, to discard and treat as unimportant
that from which they have emerged. This is the theory-praxis gap. But there is a
strong interdependency and interwovenness between what is abstracted and where
the abstraction comes from, between theory and practice. Abstractions in philosophy
emerge from the philosopher’s everyday experiences (Oladipo, 2008); the theory,
idea, or concept abstract becomes an important standpoint for understanding the
experiences that produced it in the first place and of similar experiences elsewhere;
the everyday concrete and lived experiences also continue to unfold in ways that
provide the needed resources and raw materials for revising, rethinking, and
reconstructing the theory. Thus, rather than a theory-praxis gap, where theoreti-
cal philosophy pretentiously becomes star-gazing, detached, and disinterested in
human concrete experiences, a theory-praxis co-dependency, as applied philosophy
and social philosophy show, is crucial in making sense not only of our duties to
philosophize but also of what we philosophize about.
Afro-communitarianism or African communitarian philosophy is an apt example
in African theoretical philosophy of the theory-praxis gap. In the last six or so
decades, contemporary academic African philosophy has labored to theorize African
communitarian philosophy from the lived and concrete experience of communing in
African places. This labor as mentioned in the introductory section has resulted in a
robust and important communitarian philosophy that has become crucial in tackling
global issues. By implication, the abstraction of African communitarian theory as an
overarching philosophical theory follows the usual binarized pattern of abstraction
where the theory is detached from concrete experiences and becomes universal. The
abstraction of the concrete communal experiences and repositories in and across
specific African places into an overarching philosophical theory is problematic for at
least two reasons. First, the abstracted theory is often portrayed as equivalent to the
concrete realities of African peoples in and across African communities. There is no
doubt that the textual presentation of African communitarian philosophy as a theory
in contemporary academic African philosophy is derived from the textual, oral,
symbolic, and lived experiences of African peoples, but it is certainly not equivalent
to these experiences, for in theorizing, a lot of the lived experiences have been
essentialised and discarded and the focus has fundamentally been on extracting and
extrapolating essential and common features that produce an idealized theory. Thus,
as a philosophical theory, African communitarian philosophy, with its emphasis on
togetherness, unity, solidarity, a co-dependency ethic, ontological equilibrium, and
so on, becomes nearly hermeneutically irrelevant on its own in thinking about the
concrete experiences of discord, discrimination, marginalization, violence, disunity,
self-aggrandizement, and willful lack of sense of public service that saturate and
permeate African societies today in forms of tribalism, ethnicity, xenophobia,
sexism, ableism, economic and political violence and crises, poverty, wars, and so
on. More so, theoretical abstractions of African communitarian philosophy results in
essentialism and hasty generalization. That African communities A, B, C, and D
individually have indigenous repositories of philosophical knowledge of communi-
tarianism in the forms of orality, symbolism, and even textuality and that within each
of these communities, there is clear evidence that communal dwelling and approach
to existence saturate and permeates communal life do not indicate that African
communities A, B, C, and D collectively agree on what it means to commune nor
does it mean that they collectively practice communitarian philosophy. More so, that
African communities A, B, C, and D have developed and practiced a certain kind of
communitarian philosophy does not immediately indicate that African
communities X, Y, and Z live by the same or a similar philosophical outlook.
Second, the essentialist and overgeneralizing character of African communitarian
philosophy as a fundamental African philosophical theory becomes a foundation for
a destructive and radical criticism of the theory itself, particularly in cases where it
glaringly becomes hermeneutically irrelevant for concrete African experiences or
where it does not take into account nuances and place-based understanding of
communion and the right and duties to commune (Ekenia, 1998; Taiwo, 2016;
Matolino & Kwindingwi, 2013). The disparity between what is obtainable in an
African place with reference to communitarian philosophy and what has been
abstracted as theory beyond specific African places often raises the issue of perfor-
mative contradiction, questions the relevance of tradition for modern living and by
implication, deepens the tradition – modernity dichotomy, and may further
re-perpetuate colonial ideologies of the crisis of irrelevance of African philosophies.
36 E. Imafidon
Dealing with these problematics of the theorization of African communitarian

philosophy consists of acknowledging the two levels in which African communi-
tarian philosophy operates and promoting a constant and ongoing dialogue between
both levels. The two levels of African communitarian philosophy are the theoretical
level which signifies a broad sense of the deduced and extrapolated understanding of
communing from communities in Africa and the existential level which signifies a
narrow sense of communing in communities in specific African places (Imafidon,
2021). At the existential level,
. . . a narrow sense of community. . . is understood in a compact, restricted, sense, as

primarily consisting of beings that are intrinsically connected, bonded together by shared
values, culture, religion, beliefs, language, ancestry, ethnicity, and philosophy. This narrow
sense of community portrays a community as a closed entity, one that is uneasy about
difference and anything that departs from the specific forms of being that it recognizes. This
restrictive sort of community is structured for self-preservation and is indifferent to the
concerns of people outside of its closely knit frame of existence. Such a community could,
therefore, easily breed oppressive relationships with other communities based on ethnicity,
ethnocentrism, tribalism, discrimination, and xenophobia. (Imafidon, 2021: 55)
At the theoretical level,
A broad sense of community, on the other hand, involves a more open and receptive form of
communion among people, a communion that is grounded in general, flexible, and tolerant
principles of humanity and solidarity that accommodate differences rather than based on
very specific and rigid forms, features, or qualities of being. In this broad sense, . . .
[a communitarian philosophy] will promote communal living, sense of belonging, solidarity,
and togetherness, through the recognition of other possibilities and understandings of the
world different from its own. (Imafidon, 2021: 55)
The crucial role of contemporary African philosophers specifically interested in

communitarian philosophy is to promote a discursive formation (Eze, 2008) between
the theoretical and the existential in ways that the one continues to nourish the other
resulting in a situation where the theoretical becomes lived and existential, and the
existential provides the concrete data for (re)conceptualizing the theoretical. In what
follows, the chapter explores the tension between the existential and the theoretical
as the foundation for the challenges of communitarian African philosophy and
explores ways in which bridging the gap and easing this tension between theory
and praxis is fundamental in dealing with these challenges.
The Narrow Conception of Community and the Exclusion

Challenge
A closed society at its best can be justly compared to an organism. The so-called organic or
biological theory of the state can be applied to it to a considerable extent. A closed society
resembles a herd or a tribe in being a semi-organic unit whose members are held together by
semi-biological ties—kinship, living together, sharing common efforts, common dangers,
common joys and common distress. It is still a concrete group of concrete individuals,
related to one another not merely by such abstract social relationships as division of labour
and exchange of commodities, but by concrete physical relationships such as touch, smell,
and sight. (Popper, 2002: 165)
Karl Popper’s description of a closed society here (as distinct from an open one)
may provide a basis for reiterating the narrow (as distinct from the broad) conception
of community described in the previous section. But one must do so cautiously as the
closed versus open society distinction as presented by Popper is not an easy one to
sustain. For example, so-called open societies often operate with closed, tenaciously
and jealously guided ideologies that it will take a sort of Copernican revolution in the
Kuhnian sense (Kuhn, 1970) to open them to revision; open societies also have
closed communities within them that fit quite well with Popper’s description. More
so, the so-called closed societies are also characterized, at least as the history of
colonization shows, by being open(able) to new ways of life and thinking. So,
perhaps, the term “narrow” (vis-a-vis “broad”) conception of a community may
capture best what is in mind here than “closed” (vis-à-vis “open”) community/
society, although the description of a “closed” community, for example, may in
many ways be similar to the description of a “narrow” conception of community, yet
different.
A narrow community is a community where its members are conscious of and
rigid about its ontic and normative peculiarities, elevating such peculiarities over and
above those of other communities. These peculiar features such as religion, beliefs,
language, modes of dressing, art, ancestry, ethnicity, kinship, genes, and culture
become for this community the yardstick for admittance into the community and for
assessing, evaluating, and judging non-community members. The narrow commu-
nity is in this sense not closed to the ontic reality of other communities and other
ways of being. In fact, it is in the recognition of other communities that it finds its
pride and jealously guides and elevates its own ways of being above those of others.
A narrow community does not simply regard its ways of being as different from
others but as better than and superior to other ways of being and this becomes a basis
for exclusion.
From ethnic groups in Nigeria such as the Yorubas, Igbos, Hausas, Fulanis,
Igalas, Binis, and the Ijaws, the ethnic groups in Kenya such as the Kikuyus,
Maasais, Luos, and Luhyas, to the ethnic groups in South Africa such as the
Zulus, the Vuwanis, and the Bantus, and beyond to ethnic groups across
sub-Saharan Africa, narrow communities reign in forms of ethnocentrism, impacting
politics, economy, social relationships, security, and other aspects of existence
(Lentz, 1995). With reference to South Africa, for example, Baloyi (2018: 2–3) says,
There is enough evidence that South Africa had been and is still a divided country, not only
along racial lines but even on tribal or ethnic groupings. For apartheid regime to succeed,
tribalism was a tool that ensured that black people were divided and placed in tribal zones.
This became a fertile ground for racism, which ensured that South Africans are really divided
and blacks were subjected. The tribalism that was evidenced by tensions between Tsongas
and Vendas in the Vuwani-Malamulele municipality protests. . . potentially works against the
project of uniting a divided South Africa. The fact that racism used tribalism, among other
38 E. Imafidon
instruments, to ensure that South Africans were divided so that subjection of one race by the
other could take place, demands that tribalism is also addressed when the bigger picture of
racial division is to be overcome.
With reference to Kenya, Orvis (2001: 8) writes,
Kenyan politics have long been among the most “ethnic” in Africa. From the battles over the
constitutional formula for independence to the waning days of the one-party regime in the
late 1980s, Kenyan politicians sought support from their ethnic or subethnic groups, and
citizens perceived most political battles to be about dividing the “national cake” among the
constituent ethnic groups. Political liberalization since 1991 has not fundamentally changed
this atmosphere. Most obviously, it has allowed ethnic politics to reemerge into open, public
debate. Ruling and opposition parties represent primarily all, some, or coalitions of ethnic
groups. Ethnically marked electoral violence, largely instigated by the ruling regime, has
come to be expected, though not accepted, as part of the campaign season. Leaders are far
more prone to make appeals to the state for resources in openly ethnic terms than they dared
to do in the one-party era.
To be sure, these are not different from the growing and disturbing ethnic and
tribal attacks in Nigeria by Fulani herders for political, economic, and agricultural
reasons (Mustapha, 2005; Ajibefun, 2018). Thus, ethnocentrism and tribalism
remain major challenges to the more theoretical understanding of communalism in
African philosophy as inclusive in that an ethnocentric and tribalistic community
exclusively elevates herself and her interest above those of other communities and
by implication, such a community is interested in building and maintaining solidarity
within itself rather than beyond itself and with other communities.
More so, narrow communities operate on different levels and dimensions.
Beyond the tribal-ethnic level is an even more troubling level of nationalism
where members of an African nation-state prioritizes their interests as a (national)
community over and in exclusion of those of other nation-states in ways that are
harmful and detrimental. This approach to nationalism has been the basis for
exclusion, marginalization and verbal, psychological and physical violence
against those not belonging to one’s nation-state, real or imagined, as it became
apparent in xenophobic attacks and violence in South Africa in recent years,
violence meted out against fellow Africans who would usually belong to the
same Pan-African community of selves, at least in the theoretical sense of an
African community, fellow Africans from far and near such as Zimbabwe,
Malawi, and Nigeria (Steenkamp, 2009; Olofinbiyi, 2022; Misago & Landau,
2022). It is therefore not surprising that the deliberative and coercive expressions
of xenophobia in South Africa have often been hinged on an allegedly justified
exclusion of the foreign other in the interest of South Africans. As Misago and
Landau (2022) puts it,
Pronouncements of post-apartheid government officials illustrate this point. Previous Min-

ister of Home Affairs and leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party, Mangosuthu Buthelezi stated
in 1994: “If South Africans are going to compete for scarce resources with the millions of
‘aliens’ that are pouring into South Africa, then we can bid goodbye to our Reconstruction
and Development Programme.”
Thus, rather than formulating an all-inclusive, all-encompassing theory of Afri-

can communitarian philosophy that is removed from these glaring existential, lived,
and concrete experiences which showcase frictions and tensions in the theoretically
constructed Pan-Africanist community, contemporary academic African philosophy
must have as central goals acknowledging these tensions and exclusionary tenden-
cies between African communities and nation-states, and identifying and theorizing
shared commonalities in terms of features and experiences that cut across African
communities and nation-states that could be explored to resolve these tensions. Such
shared features would include similar ontological structures in sub-Saharan African
communities, shared colonial and postcolonial experiences, and shared political,
economic, and social challenges. The recognition of these share features would form
a basis for collectively working together toward not just a theoretically but an
existentially constructed and viable African communitarian philosophy, while at
the same time not undermining peculiarities within specific African communities
and nation-states.
The Normativity of Being and the Difference Challenge
In the previous section, the discussion has been around the tensions and frictions that
emerge between communities and nation-states and how such challenges lead to
exclusion in ways that undermine the theoretical construction of Afro-
communitarianism. In this section, the aim is to look more closely within and inside
specific African communities which are expected to be theoretically and existentially
communal in themselves but still exhibit frictions and tensions that threaten com-
muning. What can be deduced from the theoretical discourse of sub-Saharan African
ontology is that what it means to be is to possess specific ontic and normative
features and what it means to exist is to be in relationships with other beings. Put
simply, to be is to autonomously possess specific ontic and normative qualities; to
exist is to commune. For example, to be a human person is to, first of all, possess
specific ontic and normative features and then, use those features to build relation-
ships with others. The lack of some of the required ontic and normative features
results quickly in difference and consequently, othering and exclusion from com-
muning, a form of radical alterity from community members who fulfill the require-
ments for being a human person.
Perhaps, it is at this level of theorizing African communitarian philosophy that
contemporary academic African philosophers have been cautious of and have not
ignored the difference challenge in African communities, difference borne out of a
lack of certain ontic and normative features (Imafidon, 2020a; Ipadeola, 2023).
A vivid example in many sub-Saharan African communities is the treatment of
persons with disability as sub-human as disability is often interpreted as a lack of
certain ontic and normative features of being a human person. The difference of
40 E. Imafidon
persons with disability within African communities results in marginalization,

exclusion, discrimination, violence, and harmful practices against their well-being.
For example, with reference to the othering as sub-human and queer of persons with
albinism in African communities, Imafidon (2019: 39–40) writes,
In African ontology, persons with albinism may in all respects visibly appear to be human,
except, of course, for the lack of pigmentation. But they are, in fact, excluded from the
human category of beings. Rather, persons with albinism are viewed as queer, unusual
beings. . . It is evident from African traditions that while human beings possess not just vital
force, but also spirit, which makes them capable of becoming an ancestor, a manipular spirit,
or a deified divinity, persons with albinism. . . may have vital force but do not have spirit. It is
therefore not possible, for instance, to talk of a person with albinism as becoming an ancestor
after death. . . Such a person is also not viewed in the same way a human being is viewed as
possessing certain essential ontological qualities such as coming into being with a destiny
chosen before the Supreme Being. Rather, the coming into being of a person with albinism is
viewed as an outcome of a curse placed on the child bearer, the husband of the child bearer or
the family at large due to some wrong doing, from a higher force (such as an ancestor or
divinity). . .
Besides the normative construction of disability, another lived example of the

normativity of being that results in the harmful encounter of difference is the
existence of caste systems in different African cultures. By implication, to be
human or sub-human within the understanding of a caste system would be deter-
mined by the presence or lack thereof of certain ontic and normative features
including ancestry, genetics, birth-place, normative constructions of the self and
the other, endogamic norms, and so on. For example, the Osu caste system among
the Igbo people of Nigeria is an ancient system that has been the basis for radical
alterity of the self from the other, discrimination and marginalization with the
broader Igbo community (Obinna, 2012). The normative construction of the being
of the Osu people who are at the receiving end of marginalization and discrimination
emerges as well from the binary between the human and the sub-human. As
Emeghara explains (1994: 30), “. . . the Osu are people whose forbears were
dedicated or given to some deities. The deities accepted them as their property.
Consequently though human, they were no longer regarded as mere human by their
kit and kin. This is because they had crossed the boundary between the free born into
the community of the spirits. They were regarded as taboo once the ritual of initiation
into the spirit community had been performed.” To date, this normative interpreta-
tion of their being continues to impact negatively on the life, well-being and
existence of Osu people making it difficult for them to commune freely within
their own community as Igbos.
Therefore, the theorization of African communitarian philosophy must continue
to grapple with these existential tensions within specific African communities and
perhaps, find ways to explore indigenous understandings of difference that can be
useful in improving the existential experiences of African peoples. For example, the
richness of the concept of Ubuntu as a philosophy of difference can be foundational
in theorizing social and political theories that can enrich communal life. For the
assertion, “a person is a person through other persons,” encoded into the concept of
Ubuntu is first and foremost the acknowledgement and recognition of differences,
uniqueness, and diversity, and then, the acknowledgement and recognition of the
need to bring together these manifold differences to create an intensely rich and
diverse potpourri of social and human nourishment that every individual can benefit
from (Imafidon, 2022: 10). In this sense, difference does not become a dreaded
human experience, but one that can enrich humanity.
Hierarchical Communing and the Participatory Challenge
A third challenge to the theoretical construction of sub-Saharan, Pan-African com-

munitarian philosophy is the challenge of participation which, of course, is
connected with the two challenges already examined: exclusion and difference.
The invitation to commune, live together, and build solidarity inherent in the
indigenous philosophies of African peoples is first and foremost an invitation to
participate and actively take part in building a flourishing community. But as is
clearly evident from the discourse of the etymology and politics of participation
(Harrington, 1984; Croft & Beresford, 1992; Qvortrup, 2007), to participate invari-
ably implies being in possession of certain qualities or attributes needed to be part of
the group or association in which one participates in and, by extension, possessing or
being given the power to participate, the power which determines the extent of one’s
active participation and the capacity and influences one wields in the circle of
participation.
African communities, like all other human communities, are saturated with
communing groups or sub-communities of some sort including natural, human,
and supernatural levels and inter-levels of association that require the possession
of certain qualities or attributes for admittance and participation. These communing
groups are often structured hierarchically and require certain intrinsic and ontic
qualities (Imafidon, 2020b) to be fulfilled by communing groupmembers for admit-
tance to participate. Consider, for example, ancestorhood as a communing group in
an African community, one that is crucial for understanding the transgenerational
nature of community and the interwovenness of tradition, modernity, and the
postmodern, posthuman future. To become an ancestor and an active participant in
the ancestorhood of a community, watching “over the affairs of the living members
of their families, helping deserving ones and punishing the delinquent. . .” (Wiredu,
1992: 137), one needs to have certain attributes or have fulfilled several require-
ments. These include being physically dead after living a community-accepted life,
dying of natural causes at a ripe old age and, very crucially, being male. This
patriarchal politics in the admittance into, and participation in, ancestorhood can
be questioned from the perspective that in several sub-Saharan African communities,
words used to describe ancestors are gender-neutral words and thus, the
ancestorhood must be gender-neutral and include women who have fulfilled all
other conditions for admittance and participation. If we should follow this line of
argument, it would mean that in the communing groups of ancestors, there are active
members (males) and there are passive members (females), replicating the patriar-
chal community of the physically living. The clear evidence for this is that it is the
male ancestor that is venerated and approached for help by the physically living.
42 E. Imafidon
Females are not considered the focus of ancestral veneration nor are they consulted
as ancestors on matters affecting the kin after their physical death, and they are not
seen as actively acting and influencing community life. Gable (1996: 104) explains
with reference to the Manjaco people of Guinea-Bissau that ancestors are males and
cannot be females, a fact that both Manjaco women and men agree on. The argument
for this is that women wander. Women leave their natal kinship community – what
the Manjaco refer to simply as the “house” (kato) – to marry and bear children in
their husbands’ houses. They are “the gourd vine that grows under the fence to bear
fruit.” Because they move at marriage, they cannot be ancestors. Thus, the patriar-
chal politics of ancestorhood exclude women from participating in this communing
group, or at the very least, suspends their participation only admitting them as
passive members. This patriarchal politics of participation is replicated in commun-
ing groups of the physically living such as elders councils, and more recently, the
struggle of women to participate in politics entrepreneurship and other aspects of
postcolonial modern Africa.
The challenge of participation can be felt as well in the ageism emerging from
gerontocratic structures and institutions in African indigenous communities,
resulting in the exclusion of those outside an age bracket from actively participating
and contributing to the flourishing of communal life particularly in terms of decision-
making. Gerontocratic institutions of governance are in place for several reasons.
The elderly are seen as having not only the epistemic authority and agency to lead
but also the moral authority and wisdom to do so. But the rigidness around age as
crucial for admittance to and participation in governance stifles and excludes youth
participation. This has impacted leadership and governance in politics, academia,
business, and many other sections today in postcolonial Africa (Adebayo, 2018).
Presidents of several African countries are in their 80s and many have been in power
for decades; the system makes it difficult for the participation of the youth in politics.
It is the case that in many African nations, the youth are given youth wings in
political parties in which they are expected to canvass votes for the elderly and
support their gerontocratic rule.
Thus, while communing takes place within and among several groups and
associations in African indigenous and postcolonial societies, admittance and active
participation may be exclusive to those having certain biological or ontic attributes
or qualities such as sex, age, and so on. Over and above those possessing the social,
epistemic, and moral attributes as well as required training to commune within such a
group. The theoretical presentation of communing in these sub-communities must
acknowledge the problem of participation therein and find ways to make participa-
tion more open.
Relational Dwelling and the Autonomy Challenge
One of the most debated problems associated with African communitarian philoso-
phy is the autonomy, freedom and liberty of the individual within an intensely
communitarian existential structure. This is the classical radical versus moderate
communitarianism debate that has dominated a good chunk of contemporary aca-

demic African philosophy, with each side of these debates providing different
interpretations and reinterpretations of the nature of the relationship that exists
between the individual and the community. In the classical sense of the debate
between radical versus moderate communitarianism on the question of individual
freedom and autonomy, Molefe (2017: 2) provides an apt summary:
This debate is framed in terms of two disparate theses, roughly: (1) ‘the community takes
priority over an individual’ – radical Communitarianism. . .; and, (2) the individual and
community enjoy the same status – moderate communitarianism. . . There is general con-
sensus in the literature that radical communitarianism is flawed because it prioritizes the
community over the individual to a point of (allegedly) denying them their rights. On the
other hand, scholars are equally dissatisfied with. . . [the] solution that equalizes the good of
the community to that of an individual since these two will tend to clash. . .
Molefe further provides a more plausible interpretation of African communitarian

philosophy that deals with the excesses of the classical interpretations in this debate
by focusing on its relational element with regard to individual autonomy, person-
hood, and rights. In his words,
. . . the only way to realize one’s true social nature is by relating with others, and this relation
with others is characterised by one discharging her other-regarding duties (virtues) towards
them. . . this moral-political theory emphasizes duties that connect agents’ to others. This
connection is effected and maintained by other-regarding duties. . . Put simply,. . . a moral
agent understands herself to have duties to promote others’ welfare in her quest to achieve
the ideal of her leading a truly human life. (Molefe, 2017: 14)
Thus, central to Afro-communitarianism is the idea of relational dwelling, an

in-dwelling in a here by a self that is at once deliberately conscious of others as
needed for, and as needing the self. It is a collaborative, relational, collective, and
solidaristic existence where true meaning and self-fulfillment are found not within
the self but in and among relational selves. This explains why the community of
relational selves, a transgenerational, human, non-human, and ecologically deep
community of selves, is invoked and appealed to in meaning creation, knowledge
production, life-course, self-understanding, cognition, moral analysis, and more
generally speaking, in theorizing African philosophy. For example, in terms of
cognition,
. . .there is no doubt that there are individual minds cooperating, co-depending and
interacting together to grasp realities as well as a collective, relational, group mind. The
core principle of community in African philosophy ‘I am because we are’. . . aptly captures
this. It can be formulated with regard to cognition as ‘I cognise, because we cognise
together.’ In gatherings in African communities, there is a lot of emphasis on ‘we know
that’ rather than on ‘I know that’. Statements such as ‘It is a taboo not to bury the dead
properly’, ‘a good name is better than wealth’, or ‘colonialisation has destroyed Africa’ will
not usually begin with ‘I know that. . .’ but rather with ‘We know that. . .’. The emphasis is
on collective authorship and knowledge production. What is cognised and the knowledge
44 E. Imafidon
produced are collectively attained and passed down from generation to generation through
orality, symbolism and art, more than they are through writing. (Imafidon, 2023: 52)
But an individual weaved into an intrinsically intertwined web of relationships in

this way may still find herself in a suffocating relationship even though that
relationship is essential for her survival. These needed relationships may stifle
creativity, difference, and individual critique and questioning of collectively held
knowledge claims, bearing in mind that collectively producing knowledge and
understanding does not imply that such knowledge claims and beliefs are always
true and sacrosanct. Some collectively produced knowledge that are entrenched
deeply into communities may be non-factual, lacking evidence, and may result
from ignorance as we see in many knowledge claims about forms of disabilities in
African communities (Imafidon, 2019). It might become difficult for an individual to
freely challenge such knowledge claims as it would mean going against the
established status quo and producing knowledge inconsistent with the established
body of knowledge. But, in the words of Appiah (2005: 34–35),
consistency, as an ideal, is not enough. For someone could have a perfectly consistent set of
beliefs about the world, almost every one of which was not only false but obviously false. It
is consistent to hold, with Descartes in one of his sceptical moments, that all my experiences
are caused by a wicked demon, and, to dress the fantasy in modern garb, there is no
inconsistency in supporting the paranoid fantasy that the world is “really” a cube containing
only my brain in a bath, a lot of wires, and a wicked scientist. But, though consistent, this
belief is not rational: we are all, I hope, agreed that reacting to sensory evidence in this way
does not increase the likelihood that your beliefs will be true.
Thus, while relational dwelling and coexistence are crucial for the well-being and
meaningful existence of the individual and of the community in African contexts, it
is crucial that in theorizing African communitarian philosophy, contemporary aca-
demic African philosophy explores ways to guarantee a healthy level of freedom and
liberty for individual community members, one that allows for creativity and critique
that ensures the thriving and improvement of both the individual and the community.
Conclusion
That Africa has been explored and exploited for centuries for its human, natural, and
capital resources is a palpable truth that requires no elaboration or substantiation
here. The scramble for Africa and its rich human resources such as health workers,
scientists, researchers and laborers, and natural resources such as crude oil, diamond,
timber, minerals, and natural gas (Turner, 2007) continues today. In this scramble
and exploitation, Africa is left worst off in all ramifications. “As the industrial
powers race to extract the continent’s natural resources to feed their own consump-
tion, they are fostering environmental degradation, corruption and human rights
abuses” (Turner, 2007). “Africa not only underpinned Europe’s earlier development.
Its palm oil, petroleum, copper, chromium, platinum and in particular gold were and
are crucial to the later world economy” (Drayton, 2005). What is more worrisome is
that colonial and postcolonial institutions in and outside Africa have been engineered
in ways that continually perpetuate this exploitation to date of everything Africa
owns including in the context of this chapter, philosophical theory. Afro-
communitarianism, African communitarian philosophy, or, as is often commonly
known in Western circles, Ubuntu, is now a popular abstract concept in the West
removed from the lived and existential experiences of African peoples, in similar
ways human and natural resources are removed and extracted. In this smoothly
operating engineered system of extraction, which includes the politics of migration,
the politics of globalization, and the political economy of knowledge production,
African scholars can knowingly or unknowingly become complicit. Contemporary
academic African philosophers and scholars can engage in robust, interesting, and
fruitful discourses on the importance of African communitarian philosophy or
Ubuntu for inclusive AI, inclusive education, deep ecology, human rights, business
ethics, the humanitarian field, and so on, in ways that continually detach the theory
from the lived experiences of African peoples.
As examined in the sections of this chapter, a close examination of the existential
realities of African peoples in relation to – rather than as detached from – the
constructed and abstracted theory of Afro-communitarianism does not only reveal
the challenges that the theory could encounter in its application in any context but
also the urgent need to bridge the theory-praxis gap. The exclusion, difference,
participation, and autonomy challenges that have been discussed above are concrete
challenges in African places that must be paid attention to more fully in the discourse
of African communitarian philosophy in order for it to be a useful theory for the
African place it originally emerged from. A critique of African communitarian
philosophy means reimagining and interrogating the meaning of community, the
duty to commune, and the understanding of inclusion, participation, and autonomy,
drawing from the philosophies as well as lived and concrete experiences in African
communities.
References
Adebayo, J. O. (2018). Gerontocracy in African politics: Youth and the quest for political partic-
ipation. Journal of African Elections, 17(1), 140–161.
Ajibefun, M. B. (2018). Social and economic effects of the menace of Fulani herdsmen crises in
Nigeria. Journal of Educational and Social Research, 8(2), 133–139.
Appiah, K. A. (2005). African studies and the concept of knowledge. In B. Hamminga (Ed.),
Knowledge cultures: Comparative Western and African epistemology. Rodopi.
Baloyi, E. M. (2018). Tribalism: Thorny issue towards reconciliation in South Africa – A practical
theological appraisal. HTS Theological Studies, 74(2), 1–7.
Croft, S., & Beresford, P. (1992). The politics of participation. Critical Social Policy, 12, 20–44.
Drayton, R. (2005, August 20). The wealth of the west was built on Africa’s exploitation. The
Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/aug/20/past.hearafrica05
Ekenia, J. (1998). African communalism and political rationality. In J. Obi Oguejiofor (Ed.),
African philosophy and public affairs. Delta Publications.
46 E. Imafidon
Emeghara, N. (1994). The Osu caste system in Nigeria: A Christian response. African Journal of
Evangelical Theology, 13(1), 26–43.
Eze, M. O. (2008). What is African communitarianism? Against consensus as a regulative ideal.
South African Journal of Philosophy, 27(4), 386–399.
Gable, E. (1996). Women, ancestors and alterity among the Manjaco of Guinea-Bissau. Journal of
Religion in Africa, 26(2), 104–121.
Gyekye, K. (1992). Person and community in African thought. In K. Wiredu & K. Gyekye (Eds.),
Person and community: Ghanaian philosophical studies (pp. 101–122). Council for Research in
Values and Philosophy.
Harrington, C. B. (1984). The politics of participation and nonparticipation in dispute processes.
Law and Policy, 6(2), 203–230.
Ikuenobe, P. (2006). Philosophical perspective on communalism and morality in African traditions.
Lexington Books.
Imafidon, E. (2019). African philosophy and the otherness of albinism: White skin, black race.
Routledge.
Imafidon, E. (Ed.). (2020a). Handbook of African philosophy of difference. Springer.
Imafidon, E. (2020b). Intrinsic versus earned worth in African conception of personhood. In
E. Imafidon (Ed.), Handbook of African philosophy of difference (pp. 239–254). Springer.
Imafidon, E. (2021). African communitarian philosophy of personhood and disability: The asym-
metry of value and power in access to healthcare. International Journal of Critical Diversity
Studies, 4(1), 46–57.
Imafidon, E. (2022). Exploring African relational ethic of Ubuntu for inclusion and solidarity in the
humanitarian field. Europe Talks Solidarity, SALTO-YOUTH.
Imafidon, E. (2023). Exploring the theory of communo-cognition. In P. A. Ikhane & I. E. Ukpokolo
(Eds.), African epistemology: Essays on being and knowledge. Routledge.
Ipadeola, A. P. (2023). Feminist African philosophy: Women and the politics of difference.
Routledge.
Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions. University of Chicago Press.
Lentz, C. (1995). ‘Tribalism’ and ethnicity in Africa: A review of four decades of anglophone
research. Cahiers des Sciences Humaines, 31(2), 303–328.
Matolino, B., & Kwindingwi, W. (2013). The end of Ubuntu. South African Journal of Philosophy,
32(2), 197–205.
Menkiti, I. A. (2004). On the normative conception of a person. In K. Wiredu (Ed.), A companion to
African philosophy (pp. 324–331). Blackwell Publishing.
Metz, T. (2007). Toward an African moral theory. The Journal of Political Philosophy., 15(3),
321–341.
Misago, J. P., & Landau, L. B. (2022). ‘Running them out of time:’ Xenophobia, violence, and
co-authoring spatiotemporal exclusion in South Africa. Geopolitics. https://doi.org/10.1080/
14650045.2022.2078707
Molefe, M. (2017). Critical comments on Afro-communitarianism: The community versus indi-
vidual. Filosofia Theoretica Journal of African Philosophy Culture and Religions, 6(1), 1–22.
Mustapha, A. R. (2005). Ethnic structure, inequality and governance of the public sector in Nigeria.
Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity working paper. 18. https://
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/57a08c97ed915d3cfd0014aa/wp18.pdf
Obinna, E. (2012). Contesting identity: The Osu caste system among Igbo of Nigeria. African
Identities, 10(1), 111–121.
Oladipo, O. (2008). What philosophy is. Hope Publication.
Olofinbiyi, S. A. (2022). Anti-immigrant violence and xenophobia in South Africa: Untreated
malady and potential snag for national development. Insight on Africa, 14(2), 193–211.
Orvis, S. (2001). Moral ethnicity and political tribalism in Kenya’s “virtual democracy”. African
Issues, 29(1–2), 8–13.
Popper, K. R. (2002). The Open Society and its enemies. Routledge Classics.
Qvortrup, M. (2007). The politics of participation: From Athens to e-democracy. Manchester

University Press.
Steenkamp, C. (2009). Xenophobia in South Africa: what does it say about trust? The Common-
wealth Journal of International Affairs, 98(403), 439–447.
Taiwo, O. (2016). Against African communalism. Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy,
XXIV(1), 81–100.
Turner, M. (2007, May 02). Scramble for Africa. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/
environment/2007/may/02/society.conservationandendangeredspecies1
Tutu, D. (1999). No future without forgiveness. Random House.
Wiredu, K. (1980). Philosophy and an African culture. Cambridge University Press.
Wiredu, K. (1992). Death and after life in African culture. In K. Wiredu & K. Gyekye (Eds.), Person
and community: Ghanaian philosophical studies (pp. 137–152). The Council for Research in
Afro-communitarianism and
Transhumanism
Amara Esther Chimakonam
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Understanding Transhumanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Afro-communitarian Understanding of Personhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Will the Transhumanization of Our World Change Our Values System? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Abstract
This chapter examines the status of the transhumanist future that seeks to use the
means of science and technology to radically enhance human moral capacities. I
investigate the claim about the possible transformation of the human social
conditions that could enable them to transcend the limitations imposed on them
by biology and nature to become posthumans. I suppose that such a transhumanist
future would be possible and then pose the question: How would the trans-
humanization of our world change our Afro-communitarian values system? In
exploring this question, I employ the Afro-communitarian idea of personhood as
a foil to argue that such transhumanization would affect our current values system
in surprising ways. I will argue that it could cause a radical shift from the
orientation of normal values system to the orientation of anormal values system
and diminish the importance of moral choice.
A. E. Chimakonam (*)
Centre for Phenomenology in South Africa, University of Forte Hare, Alice, South Africa

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_44
50 A. E. Chimakonam
Keywords
Transhumanism · Afro-communitarianism · Personhood · Normal values
system · Anormal values system · Moral zombies · Technologized personhood ·
Technologized moralism
Introduction
In this chapter, I invoke the Afro-communitarian idea of personhood to question

several presuppositions of the transhumanist future. I will do so by deploying Ifeanyi
Menkiti’s account of the normative conception of personhood based on harmonious
communal relationship salient to Africans of the Sub-Saharan region. As such, this
chapter differs from extant literature on the Afro-communitarian perspective on
transhumanism by employing the normative conception of personhood in critical
conversation with transhumanists. In exploring the transhumanist future, I will offer
new criticisms against transhumanism. First, I will argue that the transhumanist
future would be a radical change from the orientation of the normal values system
that characterizes the normative conception of personhood to the orientation of
anormal values system that would characterize the transhumanist future. And sec-
ond, I will argue that there would be an absence of moral choice in the transhumanist
future since personhood would be technologically engineered. These criticisms have
not been considered in African perspectives of transhumanism. They stand to
represent a new vista for thought that will give a global shape to the discourse as it
brings to the limelight a differing view other than what is obtainable in mainstream
Western criticisms of transhumanism.
To achieve my aim in this chapter, I divide this work into three sections. In section
“Understanding Transhumanism,” I will do two things: First, I will conceptualize
transhumanism and moral enhancement. Second, I will offer an overview of trans-
humanism. This section is important because it will show how I will employ
transhumanism and moral enhancement in this chapter. Section “Afro-communitar-
ian Understanding of Personhood” represents the theoretical framework of my
chapter. I will discuss Menkiti’s account of normative personhood. Further, I will
investigate transhumanism using this theoretical framework. In the final section:
“Will the Transhumanization of our World Change our Values System?,” I will
critically engage with the question of how would the transhumanization of our
world change our Afro-communitarian values system? In responding to this ques-
tion, I will argue that the transhumanization of the world would significantly impact
the Afro-communitarian values system and eliminate moral choice encapsulated in
the journey toward personhood.
Understanding Transhumanism
It is important to state from the outset that I will not be able to address the complex
conceptual issues with transhumanism in this section. Yet, the following must be
Afro-communitarianism and Transhumanism 51
noted: Scholars have variously defined the term “transhumanism” (see Bostrom,
2014; More, 2013; Lee, 2019; Manzocco, 2019; Vita-More, 2019). Transhumanism
is defined as a philosophical movement that seeks the transcendence of human
biological and natural limitations through science and technology. Max More, in
his 1990 article, defines transhumanism as “[p]hilosophies of life (such as extropian
perspectives) that seek the continuation and acceleration of the evolution of intelli-
gent life beyond its currently human form and human limitations by means of
science and technology, guided by life-promoting principles and values” (quoted
from More, 2013: 3). Also, transhumanism is conceived as a cultural movement that
affirms the rational use of applied technology to enhance human capacities. Nick
Bostrom construes transhumanism to mean “[t]he intellectual and cultural movement
that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally improving the human
condition through applied reason, especially by developing and making widely
available technologies to eliminate ageing and to greatly enhance human intellectual,
physical, and psychological capacities” (Bostrom, 2014: 1).
Others construe transhumanism to mean a kind of pseudoscience that fantasizes a
technoscientific world inhabited by superhumans. According to David Livingstone,
transhumanism “represents the idealistic and false appropriation of fantasies about
the possibilities of science into the real world. In other words, transhumanism is
pseudo-science” (Livingstone, 2015: 315). Some others understand transhumanism
to be a form of “para-scientific fantasies” that seek a secular solution to human
biological and natural limitations such as aging, disease, and death. Roberto
Manzocco conceives transhumanism as a “coherent system of rational para-scientific
fantasies that act as a secular answer to the eschatological aspirations of traditional
religions” (Manzocco, 2019: 32). However, what seems to be the recurrent themes in
these various definitions are science, technology, enhancement, and human nature.
In my perspective, transhumanism can be defined broadly as seeking to use the
means of science and technology to enhance human capacities radically and to
transform their social conditions by transcending the limitations imposed on them by
their biology and nature in order to create posthumans. This definition means that
transhumanism aims at enhancing humans’ physical, psychological, moral, and
mental abilities and capacities. It also aims at eliminating diseases, reversing
aging, and radically extending human life through the techniques of cognitive
enhancement, moral enhancement, genetic enhancement, bionic limbs, cryonics,
singularity, brain-computer interface, and other emerging and converging biotech-
nologies. According to Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, “transhumanism advocates the
application of science and technology to the amelioration of the human condition
through genetic engineering, robotics, informatics and nanotechnology” (Tirosh-
Samuelson, 2014: 49).
One might object that this definition is too narrow, rigid, and radical to account
for the transhumanists’ project. It might be claimed that this definition cannot be
broadly applied. So, it eliminates some essential features of transhumanism: Defin-
ing transhumanism as seeking to create posthumans would lead one to a rather
absurd conclusion that the transhumanists’ aim to make the human species more
human by creating transhumans is not transhumanism. A plausible response to this
52 A. E. Chimakonam
objection would be that transhumanists’ ultimate aim is to create posthumans

(supermoral agents) who would surpass all known human limitations (Kurzweil,
2005; Bostrom, 2014; More, 2013).
Biologist Julian Huxley is said to have coined the term “transhumanism” (see
Bostrom, 2005; Tirosh-Samuelson, 2014; More, 2013; Ranisch & Sorgner, 2014). In
his book, New Bottles for New Wine, Huxley introduces transhumanism thus:
The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself not just sporadically, an individual here
in one way, an individual there in another way, but in its entirety, as humanity. We need a
name for this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will serve: man remaining man but
transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature. (quoted
from Ranisch & Sorgner, 2014: 10)
He continues, “‘I believe in transhumanism’: once there are enough people who
can truly say that, the human species will be on the threshold of new kind of
existence, as different from ours as ours is from that of the Peking man. It will at
least be consciously fulfilling its real destiny” (Huxley, 1957, quoted from Ranisch
& Sorgner, 2014: 10). Earlier than this, he writes in his Religion without Revelation
(1927) that “[Man] is always not only surmounting what it thought were the
limitations of its nature, but, in individual and social development alike, trans-
cending its own nature and emerging in newness of achievement” (quoted from
Bashford, 2013: footnote 14).
However, studies have reported that before Julian Huxley’s introduction of the
term transhumanism, there have been fragments of it in other literature. For example,
in 1312, Dante Alighieri, in his book, Divine Comedy, uses the term “trans-
umanare.” Transumanare is an Italian word that means “go-outside the human
perception” (see More, 2013: 8; Vita-More, 2019: 50). In The Cocktail Party, T. S.
Eliot used “transhumanized” to mean an “illumination” process in which humans are
“transhumanized” (see More, 2013: 8; Vita-More, 2019: 50). Pierre Teilhard de
Chardin employed the term “transhuman” when he writes in his The Future of Man
that “liberty is the chance offered to every man . . . of ‘transhumanizing’ himself by
developing his potentialities to the fullest extent” (Teilhard de Chardin, 1964; see
Ranisch & Sorgner, 2014: footnote 4). But none of these scholars used trans-
humanism in a sense Huxley had introduced it.
Huxley inspired the idea that human nature can be transcended, which is at the
core of contemporary transhumanism. Traditionally, the talk on human nature is
based on those essences possessed by humans that differentiate them from other
species, i.e., those distinct traits that make humans who they are (Devitt, 2008;
Dumsday, 2012). Elliott Sober puts it this way: “The essentialist hypothesizes that
there exists some characteristic unique to and shared by all members of Homo
sapiens which explains why they are the way they are” (Sober, 1980: 354). This
traditional sense, often referred to as “essentialism,” sees humankind as having some
intrinsic and unique characteristics that make them stand out from other species. In
this traditional sense, human nature is seen as something sacrosanct and unalterable,
because any attempt to alter human nature would strip humans of their humanity.
Huxley rejects this idea that human nature is sacrosanct, unchanging, and unalter-
able. He upholds that human nature is not an end; instead, it is something that can be
changed using applied reason.
However, transhumanism has assumed a meaning other than that of Huxley.
Transhumanism has become an attempt to undo the human biological and natural
limitations through the techniques of cognitive enhancement, moral enhancement,
and other emerging and converging technologies that will possibly birth transhuman
(a transitional human) and posthuman (supermoral and immortal species). I will
further explain these two concepts later in this chapter. While Huxley foresaw a
future where humanity will triumph its biological limitations through education and
cultural reorientation that will leave the biological nature of humans unaltered, the
contemporary transhumanists envisage a future where humanity will employ bio-
technologies to augment its abilities and become more than human, possibly trans-
humans and posthumans.
Other founding fathers of transhumanism are the following: Francis Bacon, in his
Novum Organum, advocated for scientific method; John Burdon Sanderson Haldane,
in his book, Daedalus, or Science and the Future, articulated the idea of “gene
crafting” that would help humans to live on “other planets, satellites, asteroids, or
artificial vehicles”; J. D. Bernal, The World, the Flesh and the Devil, envisioned that
humans would in the future colonize other planets (the idea known as space
colonization), augment their intelligence, and attain long life span; Robert Ettinger’s
The Prospect of Immortality proposed cryonics – the idea that we can clinically
freeze our corpse at ultralow temperature for future resuscitation; Fereidoum
M. Esfandiary (later known as FM-2030), maintained in his work, Are You a
Transhuman?, that humans can overcome death and attain immortality by becoming
“transhumans,” whom he described as a “transitional human”; Irving J. Good
(1965), Venor Vinge (1993), and Ray Kurzweil (2005) foretold the possibility of
ultraintelligent artificial intelligence through the technological singularity, an idea
known as “The Singularity”; and Eric Drexler’s Engines of Creation (1986)
envisioned nanotechnology that can manipulate data at a molecular and atomic
level. Others are Max More (2013), Nick Bostrom (2014), and Natasha Vita-More
(2019), among others.
It has been said that the contemporary understanding of transhumanism, espe-
cially in the field of philosophy, was introduced by Max More in his 1990 paper
titled, “Transhumanism: Towards a Futuristic Philosophy” (see Bostrom, 2005;
More, 2013). In this paper, More describes transhumanism as life philosophies that
promote the “continual evolution of intelligent life” beyond its current human
limitation through the reasonable use of science and technology guided by “life-
promoting principles and values” (quoted from More, 2013: 3). Furthermore, he
created “extropianism” that rides on the principles of “perpetual progress, self-
transformation, practical optimism, intelligent technology, open society, self-
direction, and rational thinking” as his variant of transhumanism (More, 2013: 5).
Transhumanism sees itself to be compatible with the ideologies of Enlightenment
that affirm reason, science, progress, individual right, self-perfection, and secular
humanism. For example, Ranisch and Sorgner point out that “transhumanism . . . is a
54 A. E. Chimakonam
contemporary renewal of humanism. It embraces and eventually amplifies central

aspects of secular and Enlightenment humanist thought, such as belief in reason,
individualism, science, progress, as well as self-perfection or cultivation” (Ranisch
& Sorgner, 2014: 8). Transhumanism renews and revises the main ideas of Enlight-
enment in light of new knowledge. The humanism strong emphasis on man, for
instance, has been changed to include transhuman and posthuman. The recent
developments in genetics, robotics, nanotechnology, and informatics will not only
enable humans to enhance their biological states, but they can also replace their brain
with nonbiological computing power and become transhumans and posthumans.
More articulates this point thusly:
The search for absolute foundations for reason, for instance, has given way to a more
sophisticated, uncertain, and self-critical form of critical rationalism. The simple, unified
self has been replaced by the far more complex and puzzling self-revealed by the neurosci-
ences. The utterly unique status of human beings has been superseded by an understanding
that we are part of a spectrum of biological organisms and possible nonbiological species of
the future. (More, 2013: 10)
Transhumanism, unlike humanism, does not see humanity as the finality of

creation. It considers humanity as another stage in the creation process. It is in this
light that transhumanism considers itself at par with the tenet of evolution, which
posits humanity, not as an end but a phase in the evolutionary process. In the spirit of
evolutionism, transhumanism affirms that humanity is in its early stage of develop-
ment and aims at technologically evolving the human species to a new phase of
transhumans and then to a higher stage of posthumans, at which stage humanity must
have “overcome” itself, to use Friedrich Nietzsche’s word. Humans are saddled with
the responsibility of engineering this technological evolution that would create
transhumans and posthumans. Humans as self-creating animals possess the innate
“Will to Evolve,” which is “the instinctive drive . . . to expand (their) abilities in
pursuit of ever-increasing survivability and well-being” (Young, 2006: 39). In this
way, “[H]umanity will take evolution out of the hands of butterfingered nature into
its own transhuman hands” (Young, 2006: 38).
The starting point for this technological evolution is human nature. Proponents of
this idea (such as Stock, 2002; De Grey & Rae, 2007; Kurzweil, 2005; More, 2013;
Bostrom, 2003; Lee, 2019) see human nature as something that can be altered and
remade. As Newton Lee claims, “[T]he human body is a good beginning, but we can
certainly improve it, upgrade it, and transcend it” (Lee, 2019: 70). Human nature is
no longer fixated but evolving. It is dynamic and improvable through technology.
Transhumanists are very optimistic that human nature can undergo some fundamen-
tal alterations because of the exponential growth of science and technology. Through
these technoscientific means, humans can alter their nature to be happier, smarter,
wiser, and so on. As Bostrom succinctly puts it:
[T]ranshumanists view human nature as a work-in-progress, a half baked beginning that we

can learn to remold in desirable ways. Current humanity need not be the endpoint of
evolution. Transhumanists hope that by responsible use of science, technology, and other
rational means, we shall eventually manage to become posthuman, beings with vastly
greater capacities than present human beings have. (Bostrom, 2003: 493)
Transhumanists aim at promoting individual happiness. Transhumanists see

individual happiness as the main aim of life and assume that human emotions can
be improved to achieve this. Transhumanists are confident that biotechnology would
be used to abolish suffering, ameliorate human conditions, and increase happiness.
For example, transhumanists see aging as conferring great suffering on humans and
aim to wage “war on ageing” through radical life extension (De Grey & Rae, 2007:
312). In his Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs that Could Reverse
Human Aging in Our Lifetime (2007), Aubrey de Grey defines aging as a “deadly
pandemic disease” (De Grey & Rae, 2007: 78) and describes it as a “humanitarian
crisis” (De Grey & Rae, 2007: 36). The problem with aging is that it not only
destroys our youthful vitality, but it also denies us the opportunity to enjoy life in its
fullest and kills us in the end. Transhumanists believe that altering some of our cells
through cloning techniques would make us live younger than what is considered
normal for humans since aging occurs by the mutations of defective mitochondria
caused by free radicals. As Kurzweil says:
[W]e are beginning to understand ageing, not as a single inexorable progression but as a
group of related processes. Strategies are emerging for fully reversing each of these ageing
progressions, using different combinations of biotechnology techniques. (Kurzweil, 2005:
212–213)
The key to the transhumanists understanding of human nature is the remaking of

humanity through technology. The Transhumanist Declaration signed by the World
Transhumanist Association in 1998 is very explicit on this point. For instance, article
one states: “[H]umanity will be radically changed by technology in the future. We
foresee the feasibility of redesigning the human condition, including such parame-
ters as the inevitability of ageing, limitations on human and artificial intellects,
unchosen psychology, suffering, and our confinement to the planet earth” (The
Transhumanist Association, 1998). This technological remaking of humanity will
birth transhumans and then posthumans characterized by unifying humans and
technology. On the one hand, transhumans are “transitional humans” that possess
both human and technology features. According to Sorgner; “[T]ranshumans are
transitory human beings who still belong to the human species but have technolog-
ically enhanced capacities, which is why they represent the evolutionary link to post
humans” (Sorgner, 2009: 1376). The continuous and rational application of tech-
nology on ourselves would help us transform from our present human form to a
transhuman form. Our abilities will be technologically enhanced beyond their
current states. We will become happier, smarter, healthier, and more intelligent,
live longer, and be better at actualizing our goals at the individual and societal
levels. At this stage, we will no longer be talking about humanity but transhumanity –
a stage where all humans have moderately use of technology to enhance themselves,
56 A. E. Chimakonam
being half-human and half-technology. Transhumans stand between humans and

posthumans.
On the other hand, posthumans are ultraintelligent minds with supermoral capac-
ities who have overcome the biological and natural limitations that confront humans.
Posthumans would possess greater physical, intellectual, moral, and psychological
capacities. They would be immortal persons with unlimited abilities. Posthumans
will no longer bear the burden of disease, aging, cognitive incapacity, moral disabil-
ity, and even death. Nick Bostrom conceptualizes posthumans thusly:
I shall define a posthuman as a being that has at least one posthuman capacity. By a
posthuman capacity, I mean a general central capacity greatly exceeding the maximum
attainable by any current human being without recourse to new technological means. I will
use a general central capacity to refer to the following: healthspan – the capacity to remain
fully healthy, active, and productive, both mentally and physically; cognition – general
intellectual capacities, such as memory, deductive and analogical reasoning, and attention, as
well as special faculties such as the capacity to understand and appreciate music, humour,
eroticism, narration, spirituality, mathematics, etc.; emotion – the capacity to enjoy life and
to respond with appropriate affect to life situations and other people. (Bostrom, 2013: 28–29)
One of the key concerns of transhumanism is human enhancement. Trans-

humanists conceive human enhancement as “any intervention . . . aimed primarily
at the improvement of one or more core capacities of an individual beyond species-
typical limits with the aim of overcoming human biological limitations” (Cabrera,
2015: 64; see also Miah, 2003: 5). Given this definition, one can consider human
enhancement as involving radical technological intervention that can directly
improve individuals’ capacities beyond what is normal for humans in order to
overcome the biological, cognitive, moral, emotional, natural, and psychological
human limitations. Transhumanists suggest that we can achieve human enhancement
using different means. Moral enhancement (or moral bioenhancement) is one of
those means through which transhumanists aim to enhance humans.
Moral enhancement is mostly focused on augmenting our moral capacities, moral
beliefs, moral behaviors, and moral motivations beyond their current state using
technology. Individuals’ emotions can be enhanced through the use of pharmaceu-
ticals and biomedical technologies to incorporate moral virtues and forgo all vices.
Such individuals would be morally upright, responsible, and virtuous. The rationale
here is that individuals’ moral dispositions are connected to their biological makeup,
and morally enhancing those biological aspects responsible for moral dispositions
would help humans to behave morally. Mark Walker (2009: 28) has observed that
genes influence human behavior in such a way that altering them may alter the
influence they exert on human behavior. Altering individuals’ biological nature
through science and technology would help avoid immoral dispositions and promote
moral dispositions. Although there is currently not a single “morality pill” one could
take to always be morally upright, scholars are very optimistic that such a pill, or any
other biotechnological means, would be available in the near future (see Shook,
2012; Lavazza & Reichlin, 2019). Such optimism arises from the recent research in
neuroscience that has shown that structural and functional deviation in the brain
contributes to an understanding of antisocial behaviors in individuals (Horstkötter

et al., 2010) and that the administration of neurotransmitters like serotonin and
oxytocin can decrease antisocial behaviors, like aggression, and increase prosocial
behaviors, like empathy. Also, brain activity can be affected through noninvasive or
minimally invasive electromodulation techniques to increase self-control, and psy-
choactive substances, such as methylphenidate or lithium, that can inhibit violent or
sexually inappropriate behavior (Lavazza & Reichlin, 2019: 2).
According to Thomas Douglas, moral enhancement is those “interventions that
will expectably leave an individual with more moral (viz., morally better) motives or
behavior than she would otherwise have had” (Douglas, 2011: 3). An individual is
morally enhanced when they improve themselves using technological means to
become more moral other than what they would have if they have not done so. A
moral agent, “P,” who in their natural state can only be motivated to Ώ, morally right
actions, at T1, a specific moral circumstance, and not at other T2 or T3, might be
improved to be motivated to Ώ in all possible Ts. Through enhancement, moral
agents are motivated to make a better moral judgment, choose the right actions, and
confirm to such actions. As such, moral enhancement improves moral capacities
from a former state to a new and better state within human-moral limits. This form of
procedural moral enhancement implies that there would be chains of improvement
that would leave humans in a better state than they formerly were. Individuals are
allowed to keep on improving their moral abilities from one state to another until
they attain a higher level of moral functioning where they would be better motivated
to do the right thing within what is normal for humanity.
However, this definition of “moral enhancement” is too loose, for any interven-
tion that would leave an individual with morally better motives would be counted as
a moral enhancement. For example, moral therapy would account as moral
enhancement since it is a procedural attempt at making individuals more moral.
Moral improvement up to the level that is designated “human” “aims at a therapeu-
tic end by making good a specific deficiency” (Agar, 2014: 369). For instance, the
recent empirical studies on oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine have proven that
human beings can biologically improve their moral capacities and better place
themselves in a position of making moral choices. Paul Zak’s (2005) work on
oxytocin suggests that this hormone has a role to play in trustworthiness, empathy,
and generosity. It has also been suggested by Molly Crockett (2010) that the
neurotransmitter serotonin can regulate human emotions as well as mediate between
the moral judgment of harm and fairness. Research conducted by James Hughes
reveals that dopamine is a neurochemical that influences “the personality factor of
consciousness” which “is associated with carefulness, self-discipline and thinking
carefully before acting” (Hughes, 2012). All these studies show how neurobiolog-
ical substances can help human beings behave in a certain morally recognizable
way. Moral therapy then includes those interventions that would leave individuals
with better moral motives at levels considered normal for humans. An individual
who exhibits violent aggression against gay couples due to a deficiency in his
empathy would be assisted through oxytocin therapy to improve his proclivity to
empathize with them.
58 A. E. Chimakonam
Drawing a clear distinction between moral therapy and moral enhancement would
help delineate the conceptual sphere of moral enhancement (see Shook, 2012).
Moral therapy is characterized by “moral normality.” What we might call moral
normality arises from the “interplay among normal moral motive, normal moral
insight and normal moral behavioral capacities” (Agar, 2014: 369). Individuals
acting at this level are often motivated to do the right thing. Most of the time, they
conform to appropriate norms both at personal and societal levels. They are not
individuals who always do the right thing in all possible moral situations, but they do
the right thing most of the time. Moral therapy involves those interventions that
would improve an individual’s moral motives for better within the human-normal
limit, whereas moral enhancement aims at augmenting moral motives beyond the
human-normal limit. Norman Daniels has rightly pointed out that interventions
“designed to restore or preserve a species-typical level of functioning for an indi-
vidual should count as a treatment,” whereas those that “would give individuals
capabilities beyond the range of normal human variation” are enhancement (Daniels,
1992: 46). Moral therapy aims at maintaining individuals’ moral capacities at levels
of functioning that humans consider normal.
Taking all of this into consideration, I agree with Nicholas Agar that moral
enhancement “has the purpose of boosting responsiveness to ethical or moral
reasons to levels beyond that considered normal for human beings” (Agar, 2010:
73). Moral enhancement refers to those interventions that would leave individuals
with moral capacities never seen among humans. In this case, a morally enhanced
individual possesses moral capacities that are far beyond humans. This radical moral
enhancement refers exclusively to those interventions that would radically augment
individuals’ moral motives, or behaviors, to always act morally, which would result
in such an individual becoming a supermoral agent. Elsewhere I have defined moral
enhancement as “biomedical and genetic interventions that would directly and
radically augment individuals’ moral capacities beyond what is therapeutically
necessary and considered normal for humans so that they always act morally and
become more virtuous” (Chimakonam, 2021: 48, footnote 2). Two things can be
drawn from this definition: One, a moral agent that has undergone moral enhance-
ment will continue at all times do what is right; two, under no circumstances should
such a moral agent do what is wrong. For example, let us take Y to stand for every
moral actions, Z to represent immoral actions, and X to be a moral agent. According
to our definition, an agent X is morally enhanced if and only if they always do Y over
and above Z in all possible moral circumstances. Again, let us take a, b, and c, as
possible moral circumstances. X would be morally enhanced if they do Y at possible
moral circumstances a, b, and c and never do Z in any of these circumstances.
Contrary, X would be morally not enhanced if they do Y at a moral circumstance
a and do Z at a moral circumstance b. From this, it is evident that while a morally
enhanced agent persistently does what is right at all times, a morally not enhanced
agent fails at some point.
Before exploring the question of how transhumanism would change our values
system, it will be pertinent to provide an overview of the Afro-communitarian
personhood within the African philosophical context. In the next section, while
discussing Afro-communitarian personhood, I will focus primarily on Ifeanyi

Menkiti’s account of the normative conception of personhood.
Afro-communitarian Understanding of Personhood
One area in which African philosophers have produced rich ideas is on the topic of
personhood and the ethics of personhood. Since the last decade of the twentieth
century, that area of study has become a site for intellectual opposition to Western
epistemic hegemony. As a result, there is now a parallel between what is done on the
topic in both Western and African philosophical traditions. Kwame Appiah (2004)
has pointed out that African notions of personhood are different from Western
notions of personhood. Unfortunately, instead of interpreting such a difference in
terms of varying perspectives, some dismiss African modes of thought as irrational,
prelogical, unscientific, mythical, and ahistorical (Levy-Bruhl, 1947; Horton, 1967).
They claim that it lacks any intellectual rigor and reflection definitive of a sophis-
ticated philosophical exercise. Similarly, some African scholars, like Kwasi Wiredu
(1980) and Pauline Hountondji (1983), have denied the existence of Traditional
African philosophy on the basis that it is a communal worldview lacking philosoph-
ical rigor. It does appear that one way of countering such a claim was to demonstrate
its baselessness in facts by doing African philosophy.
So, as a response to the false categorization of the cognitive significance of
African modes of thought, many African philosophers employed the “idea of
difference” (see Oyowe, 2013: 205) to expound the thoughts, worldviews, beliefs,
and philosophies that emerge from Africa and to assert its intellectual place in world
history. Some illustrious examples would include but are by no means limited to the
following: (Abraham, 1962; Senghor, 1964; Mbiti, 1970). This idea of difference has
been employed to show that Africa has a distinct and unique mode of thought. One
area in which this assertion of difference is more compelling and obvious is in the
African discourse on personhood (see Oyowe, 2013).
Many African philosophers believe that this Western approach to personhood is
contrary to the African approach that considers not only isolated individual quality
but also other holistic qualities. It has been said that while the dominant Western
notion of personhood is subjective, individualistic, and solitary (see Atkins, 2005;
Doyle, 2018), the dominant African notions of personhood are communal, relational,
and holistic. To this regard, Placid Tempels (1959), Alexis Kagame (1989), Kwame
Gyekye (1992), Segun Gbadegesin (1991), Barry Hallen (2000), Appiah (2004),
Kwasi Wiredu (2009), and Menkiti (1984, 2004, 2018), among others, have articu-
lated distinctive African notions of personhood.
Within the African philosophical context, the discourse on personhood oscillates
between the ontological and normative accounts of personhood (see Ikuenobe, 2016;
Molefe, 2019, 2020). Motsamai Molefe discusses these accounts. He explains that
the ontological account of personhood “deals with the fact of being human,” while
the normative account “refers to the reflexive process of moral becoming, where the
agent adds dimensions of moral virtue to her humanity” (Molefe, 2020: 18; see also
60 A. E. Chimakonam
Ikuenobe, 2016: 144–145). On the one hand, ontological personhood involves those
biological traits that define a human being, which has necessitated questions about
human nature. The notion of human nature denotes those attributes that make a being
human without which such a being will not be included in the species of Homo
sapiens. This ontological notion of personhood seems to be what Gyekye refers to
when he insists that “[W]hat a person [human being] acquires are status, habits, and
personality or character traits: he, qua person acquires and thus becomes the subject
of acquisition, and being thus prior to the acquisition process, he cannot be defined
by what he acquires. One is a person because of what he is, not because of what he
acquires” (Gyekye, 1992: 108). This implies that a person is first a human being
before the acquisition of personal and social traits. In this sense, Gyekye refers to a
person’s ontological makeup independent of their socialization. As Molefe’s work
has demonstrated, the ontological personhood stipulates those metaphysical and
descriptive properties that are constitutive of human nature.
Central to the ontological personhood is the attempt to deal with the question of
what is a person? The ontological enquiry into this question is supposedly descrip-
tive. According to Polycarp Ikuenobe, “a descriptive conception of personhood
seeks to analyze the features and ontological makeup of an isolated individual”
(Ikuenobe, 2016: 118). It seeks to specify those attributes that are typically and
distinctively human. Such attributes will be what differentiates humans from other
creatures. For instance, let A stand for attributes, H for humans, and C for other
creatures. Attributes A make H a human being and not C. These attributes prevent H
from being a member of C. In this regard, ontological personhood seeks to specify
those descriptive qualities that are definitive of human nature.
On the other hand, the normative conception of a person deals with the question
of what makes an individual a person as distinct from them being a member of homo
sapiens. What this question tends to establish is that individuals are first and
foremost humans before becoming persons. As D. A. Masolo points out:
We are born humans but become persons. We are human beings by virtue of the particular
biological organism that we are. . . we become persons through acquiring and participating in
the socially generated knowledge of norms and actions that we learn to live by in order to
impose humaneness upon our humanness. (Masolo, 2010: 13, 154–155)
The normative conception of personhood deals with a process of becoming

morally virtuous individuals in society. In this sense, having personhood is to exhibit
humaneness, such as kindness, courage, love, empathy, compassion, and merciful-
ness, and also to become a virtuous person. A normative account of personhood
seeks to analyze ways in which individuals acquire moral virtues or excellences,
examining, for instance, whether “social relationships help to achieve personhood or
personhood just is being engaged in certain kinds of social relationships” (Molefe,
2019: 55). Analyses of the relationship between the individual and the society are
efforts to give a normative account of personhood.
In Personhood and Community in African Traditional Thought (1984), Menkiti
provides an account of normative conception of personhood. In this article, Menkiti
aims to portray personhood in a certain traditional African thought system as distinct

from the conception in Western literature (Menkiti, 1984: 171). He pins the differ-
ence between Western and African worldviews on the premium which the former
places on the “physical or psychological characteristics of the lone individual” that
differs from the emphasis by the latter on humans being defined by their “environing
community” (Menkiti, 1984: 171). In a sense, we will understand Menkiti as saying
that what defines a person in Western thought is his rational capacity, autonomy,
knowledge, and self-realization, unlike in the African context where community
defines humans. Another way of putting this is that individualism – “broadly
conceived as the view that the individual human being is a maker of the world
they inhabit” (Soares, 2018: 11) – chiefly characterizes dominant Western concepts
of personhood (Vincent, 1995; Metz, 2015). He refers to the former as “minimal
conception of personhood and the later as “maximal conception of personhood”
(Menkiti, 1984). In the maximal conception of personhood, individuals attain
personhood through an incorporation into the community that involves adherence
to social norms. As Menkiti points out:
Without incorporation into this or that community, individuals are considered to be mere
danglers to whom the description person does not fully apply. For personhood is something
which has to be achieved, is not given simply because one is born of human seed.
Personhood is something at which individuals could fail, at which they could be competent
or ineffective, better or worse. We must also conceive of this organism as going through a
long process of social and ritual transformation until it attains the full complement of
excellencies seen as truly definitive of man. And during this long process of attainment,
the community plays a vital role as a catalyst and a prescriber of norms. Hence, the African
emphasized the rituals of incorporation and the overarching necessity of learning the social
rules by which the community lives so that what was initially biologically given come to
attain social self-hood, i.e., become a person with all the inbuilt excellencies implied by the
term. (Menkiti, 1984: 172–173)
Personhood involves the process of character formation that depicts excellencies

and virtues. One of these excellencies, according to Menkiti, is wisdom. He believes
that as we grow old, we become wiser and better disposed to comply with social
rules and norms. At this stage of life, one would have performed the proper rituals,
and accumulated moral characters and massive experiences that would accord one
full personhood since one has been an active community member. Menkiti treats the
accumulation of excellencies obtained through compliance with societal rules and
norms as a necessary condition of personhood. Menkiti would say that individuals
can only strive to be approximations of full personhood since they sometimes fail at
it. As such, an individual acquires personhood to the extent they adhere to communal
norms and discharge their communal obligations. This is what Menkiti describes as
“processual,” which means that “[P]ersonhood is the sort of thing which has to be
attained and is attained in direct proportion as one participates in communal life
through the discharge of various obligations defined by one’s stations” (Menkiti,
1984: 176). Processual personhood involves an “ontological progression” that
begins with the child (“it”) to moral persons, then to ancestors, and finally, ends
62 A. E. Chimakonam
with the nameless dead (it), what Menkiti describes as “. . . a journey from an it to an
it” (Menkiti, 1984: 173, 2004: 325–326). In Menkiti’s account, a child assumes
personality, identity, and name that work together to formalize the process of
reaching “ethical maturity” that is definitive of personhood.
Menkiti’s use of ontological progression is somewhat different from the ontolog-
ical personhood we considered above. This is because it does not offer a descriptive
account of a person but a normative sense of a person. Menkiti employs this
normative ontology to show that morality plays a vital role in the consideration of
the ontological person. Biological and metaphysically speaking, Menkiti acknowl-
edges that a person is a human being without any moral features, i.e., ontological
personhood precedes normative personhood. However, he maintains that a person in
this normative ontological sense can move processurally into normative personhood
based on incorporation into and adherence to communal norms.
In the next section, I will examine the impact of the transhumanist future on Afro-
communitarian conception of personhood. Imagining the transhumanist future
shows the influence it would exact on our current Afro-communitarian values
system. For the sake of argument, I will assume that the transhumanist future
would be feasible, and I will explore its implications for the normative personhood.
Will the Transhumanization of Our World Change Our Values

System?
Imagine a transhumanist future where people have been morally enhanced to

inevitably act morally, where people have surpassed all known biological and natural
limitations, and where biological and technological enhancement makes life happier.
People in this future would be fully aware that their actions result from their moral
enhancement, even though each individual did not decide whether to be morally
enhanced since society imposes such enhancement on them. But they find it per-
fectly satisfactory, even though they have not chosen it. No one misses having the
option to choose between moral alternatives: right and wrong, good and evil, and just
and unjust. They are happy to always act morally.
The transhumanist future is not apocalyptic. Functioning values do exist in this
future. Individuals are susceptible to technologized personhood. But the world in
which such values take place is different from our Afro-communitarian natural
community. The transhumanist future would be feasible since there is a likelihood
that the exponential advancement of science and technology would make it possible
for people to be morally enhanced. And there is no certainty that such a world would
not happen. No one can reasonably be confident that such a future would not emerge.
This should not be construed to mean that the transhumanist future would definitely
occur; rather it should be conceived as one possibility.
For the present discussion, I suppose that the transhumanist future is feasible and
pose the question: How would it affect our current Afro-communitarian values
system? I stipulate that the transhumanist future would be morally problematic.
Since every moral enquiry seems to have some controversial claims, I will consider
these to be mine: First, there would be a radical shift in the society from what can be
described as the orientation of normal values system, where communal norms
prescribe the criteria for personhood and individuals strive to conform to them, to
the orientation of anormal values system, where persons would be those who are
enhanced to “inevitably” conform to relevant social norms. Second, there would be
the absence of moral choice in the orientation of anormal values system, which
would eliminate the premium placed on personhood. Something of great value
would be lost in the transition to the transhumanist future. These moral judgments
are not uncontroversial. But this might be the general intuitions of Africans in the
Afro-communitarian community who would probably find the transhumanist future
undesirable. They may claim that something vital is lost in a transhumanist future if
one is morally enhanced to attain personhood. However perfect, it tends to be
compared to the less perfect Afro-communitarian community.
I will begin with the first controversial claim. From the Afro-communitarian
standpoint that prizes communal relationship and common good, individuals
would be technologically enhanced, irrespective of their personal preferences, to
inevitably conform to social norms (Chimakonam, 2021). There will also be a
radical change of norms since the transhuman society would be an entirely new
one and requires new moral orientations for the enhanced individuals. As Werner
Stegmaier (2019) points out, moral orientation is a self-binding commitment due to
certain norms and values originating from a specific ethical situation. Moral
enhancement then would be a radical shift from one orientation (normal values
system) to another (anormal values system). I introduce the concept of “normal
values system” to describe the norms, values, and moral orientations of Afro-
communitarian community where the normative conception of personhood obtains.
In such a community, there is a presence of choice and the possibility of success and
failure in attaining personhood. In the orientations of the normal values system,
communal norms prescribe the criteria for personhood, and individuals strive to
conform to them, which makes it possible for the individual to succeed or fail at
personhood (Menkiti, 1984, 2004).
Communal norms provide the context that locates individuals within a network of
harmonious, communal relationships. Individuals act according to norms that entail
specific goods within the normal values system. In ordering their actions according
to such norms, they participate in communal relationships. In other words, every
individual has a particular set of norms guiding their action based on the notion of
the good or bad, right or wrong, and just or unjust, which could be context-
dependent, i.e., based on communal norms and practices.
However, I introduce the concept of anormal values system to describe the nature
of the norms, values, and moral orientations of the community in the transhuman
world, where there is the absence of choice and no possibility of failure in attaining
personhood and where technologized personhood obtains (see Chimakonam, 2021).
The transhumanist future values would center around technologized moralism –
conceived as the technological determination of values that involves adherence to
social norms without reference to the journey and strive associated with acquiring
64 A. E. Chimakonam
personhood. Normative personhood would need to earn its keep within the over-
arching transhumanist future governed by technologized moralism.
In the anormal values system, personhood is approached primarily through
biological means. Individuals could be biologically or genetically enhanced to
behave morally. Through moral enhancement, persons would be those who are
enhanced to “inevitably” conform to relevant social norms. They would be wired
to always behave in specific ways that are morally upright (see Persson & Savulescu,
2008). There is no doubt, however, that moral behavior could be biologically
engineered – an idea that happens to embody a distorting misrepresentation of
normative personhood to technologized personhood in which personhood can be
technologically given by simply pumping a few biological or genetic pills. In this
sense, what matters in personhood is the biological element. However, the biolog-
ical, psychological, cognitive, sociocultural, motivational, environmental, political,
personal, emotional, economic, religious/spiritual, and other elements that play a
role in the journey toward personhood are ruled out. Personhood requires the
interaction of complex biological, psychological, sociocultural, and many other
elements that cannot be reduced to a biological element alone. Normative person-
hood then is an integrated combination of these elements, which can be characterized
as a potpourri. It is within the interconnectedness of these elements that the real
complexities of normative personhood arise. First, an individual acquires person-
hood by adhering to communal norms and practices that inform and shape his
identity. Second, in acquiring personhood, an individual goes through a journey
that involves learning and mistakes making and corrections that inform his moral
character. We should bear this interconnectedness in mind while considering the
biological engineering of normative personhood and acknowledge that biology is
but one element of personhood, one among many potpourri.
Furthermore, one ethical concept that is difficult to translate is our notion of moral
choice, which is suggestive of the normative personhood in the normal values
system. Would moral choice be nonexistent in the orientations of anormal values
system of the transhumanist future? I begin with the Afro-communitarian notion of
moral choice obtainable in the normal values system. Within the normal values
system, moral choice consists of the freedom to choose between right and wrong
alternatives. Individuals have the autonomy to choose whether to comply or not to
comply with social norms, making them to either succeed or fail at personhood. This
Afro-communitarian moral choice faces serious difficulty in the anormal system of
the transhumanist future. If we insist that moral choice is having the freedom or
autonomy to choose between good and wrong, to comply or not to comply, then the
very idea of moral choice seems to disappear in such a future. If individuals are
morally enhanced to inevitably conform to the personhood-based theory of right
action, how can we say they have moral choice? One might conclude that the
transhumanist future would abandon moral choice. A consequence of this would
be that individuals would be what I call moral zombies – human technological
replicas that inevitably lack moral choices. My use of the word zombie is somewhat
different from philosophical zombies in the context of philosophy of mind, which is
often invoked as a counterexample to physicalism. On the one hand, philosophical
zombies are thought experiments designed to show the problem between conscious-
ness and the physical world. They are imaginary beings that are identical to humans
but lack consciousness. On the other hand, moral zombies are human technological
replicas that lack moral choices designed to illuminate the problem about Afro-
communitarian personhood and the transhumanist future. While moral zombies
would never be susceptible to immoral conduct, it will arguably eliminate autonomy
or freedom to comply or not to comply with the norms.
One might argue that individuals in the anormal values system of the trans-
humanist future would find new ways to think about moral choices. In this future,
moral choices would only be conceived in terms of choosing from degrees of good,
right, or just. This might be necessary to guarantee moral choice in the transhumanist
future. Perhaps, for them, this is what moral choices would be: choosing between
degrees of good, right, and just. However, a plausible response would be that to
apply this to our Afro-communitarian community would be a monstrous violation of
normative personhood since it accords individuals the freedom to decide whether to
adhere to social norms. For instance, let us call the Afro-communitarian ethical
paradigm in a normal values system a disjunctive moralism. Let us invoke this
example again: Take Y to stand for every moral action, Z to represent immoral
action, and X to be a moral agent. In a normal values system, X is a moral agent if he
has the capacity to choose Y or Z moral course of action at a specific time. Also, let
us call the Afro-communitarian ethical paradigm in anormal values system negative
moralism, where X is a moral agent if he inevitably does Y course of action, and he
never does Z course of action in all possible moral circumstances. While in the
former there is a presence of moral choices, there is an absence of moral choices in
the latter. In turn, Afro-communitarian natural community prizes moral choices
through the journey of personhood that allows individuals to either adhere or not
to adhere to social norms.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I introduced transhumanism and moral enhancement. It defined

transhumanism as the idea that seeks to use the means of science and technology
to enhance human capacities radically and to transform their social conditions by
transcending the limitations imposed on them by their biology and nature in order to
create posthumans. And it conceived moral enhancement as the biomedical and
genetic interventions that would directly and radically augment individuals’ moral
capacities beyond what is therapeutically necessary and considered normal for
humans so that they always act morally and become more virtuous. I have also
unpacked the various conceptions of personhood within the African philosophical
context by discussing both the ontological and normative accounts of personhood.
While the ontological account of personhood deals with those metaphysical qualities
that constitute a person, the normative deals with moral becoming. I provided a brief
background to the African conceptions of personhood by discussing how Western
intellectual hegemony has sidelined intellectual contributions from Africa, which led
66 A. E. Chimakonam
some African scholars to claim that African modes of thought are unique and
distinct. And I discussed Menkiti’s account of normative personhood, which I
deployed to question some of the presuppositions of transhumanist moral
enhancement.
Finally, I have shown that the transhumanization of our world would impact our
Afro-communitarian values system. Given the exponential growth of science and
technology, there is the possibility that humans would be able to transform them-
selves into technologized beings, attain personhood, and even create technologized
species. And given that this transhumanist future may be our future (since there are
not already existing technologized species in a distant world), there is a need to
worry about this future.
References
Abraham, W. E. (1962). The mind of Africa. University of Chicago Press.
Agar, N. (2010). Enhancing genetic virtue? Politics and the Life Sciences, 29(1), 73–75.
Agar, N. (2014). A question about defining moral bioenhancement. Journal of Medical Ethics,
40(6), 369–370.
Alighieri, D. (1935, originally published in 1312). The divine comedy of Dante Alighieri: Inferno,
purgatory, paradise. The Union Library Association.
Appiah, K. A. (2004). Akan and Euro-American concepts of the person. In L. M. Brown (Ed.),
African philosophy: New and traditional perspectives (pp. 21–34). Oxford University Press.
Atkins, K. (2005). Self and subjectivity. Blackwell Publishing.
Bashford, A. (2013). Julian Huxley’s transhumanism. In M. Turda (Ed.), Crafting humans: From
genesis to eugenics and beyond (pp. 153–168). National Taiwan University Press.
Bostrom, N. (2003). The transhumanist FAQ, version 2.1. Available at: http://www.transhumanism.
org/resources/FAQv21.pdf
Bostrom, N. (2005). A history of transhumanist thought. Journal of Evolution and Technology,
14(1), 1–25.
Bostrom, N. (2013). Why I want to be a posthuman when I grow up. In M. More & N. Vita-More
(Eds.), The transhumanist reader: Classical and contemporary essays on the science, technol-
ogy, and philosophy of the human future (pp. 28–53). Wiley-Blackwell.
Bostrom, N. (2014). Introduction – The transhumanist FAQ: A general introduction. In C. Mercer &
D. F. Maher (Eds.), Transhumanism and the body: The world religions speak (pp. 1–18).
Palgrave Macmillan.
Cabrera, L. Y. (2015). Rethinking human enhancement: Social enhancement and emergent tech-
nologies. Palgrave Macmillan.
Chimakonam, A. E. (2021). Transhumanism in Africa: A conversation with Ademola Fayemi on his
Afrofuturistic account of personhood. Arumaruka, 1(2), 42–56.
Crockett, J. M., Clark, L., Hauser, D. M., & Robbins, W. T. (2010). Serotonin selectively influences
moral judgment and behavior through effects on harm aversion. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 107(40), 17433–17438.
Daniels, N. (1992). Growth hormone therapy for short stature: Can we support the treatment/
enhancement distinction. Growth: Genetics and Hormones, 8, 46–48.
De Grey, A., & Rae, M. (2007). Ending aging: The rejuvenation breakthroughs that could reverse
human aging in our lifetime. St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
Devitt, M. (2008). Resurrecting biological essentialism. Philosophy of Science, 75, 344–382.
Douglas, T. (2011). Moral enhancement via direct emotion modulation: A reply to John Harris.
Bioethics, 27(3), 160–168.
Doyle, D. J. (2018). What does it mean to be human? Life, death, personhood and the trans-
humanist movement (Vol. 3). Springer.
Drexler, K. E. (1986). Engines of creation: The coming era of nanotechnology. Fourth Estate.
Dumsday, T. (2012). A new argument for intrinsic biological essentialism. Philosophical Quarterly,
62, 486–504.
Ettinger, R. (1964). The prospect of immortality. Doubleday.
FM-2030. (1989). Are you a transhuman? Warner Books.
Gbadegesin, S. (1991). African philosophy: Traditional Yoruba philosophy and contemporary
African realities. Peter Lang.
Good, I. J. (1965). Speculations concerning the first ultraintelligent machine. In F. Alt &
M. Ruminoff (Eds.), Advances in computer (pp. 31–38). Academic Press.
Gyekye, K. (1992). Person and community in Akan thought. In K. Wiredu & K. Gyekye (Eds.),
Person and community: Ghanaian philosophical studies (Vol. 1). The Council for Research in
Hallen, B. (2000). Eniyan: A critical analysis of the Yoruba concepts of person. In C. S. Momoh
(Ed.), The substance of African philosophy (pp. 297–310). African Philosophy Projects’
Publication.
Horstkötter, D., Berghmans, R., & de Wert, G. (2010). Moral enhancement for antisocial behavior?
An uneasy relationship. AJOB Neuroscience, 3(4), 26–28.
Horton, R. (1967). African traditional thought and Western science. Africa, 37(2), 155–187.
Hountondji, P. (1983). African philosophy: Myth and reality. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press.
Hughes, J. (2012). Morality in a pill?. Available at: http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/
hughe20121009
Ikuenobe, P. (2016). Good and beautiful: A moral-aesthetic view of personhood in African
communal traditions. Essays in Philosophy, 17, 124–163.
Kagame, A. (1989). The problem of “man” in bantu philosophy. Journal of African Religion and
Philosophy, 1(1), 35–40.
Kurzweil, R. (2005). The singularity is near: When humans transcend biology. Viking.
Lavazza, A., & Reichlin, M. (2019). Introduction: Moral enhancement. Topoi, 38, 1–5. https://doi.
org/10.1007/s11245-019-09638-5
Lee, N. (2019). Brave new world of transhumanism. In N. Lee (Ed.), The transhuman handbook
(pp. 3–48). Springer.
Levy-Bruhl, L. (1947). Primitive mentality. France: University of France Press.
Livingstone, D. (2015). Transhumanism: The history of a dangerous idea. America: Sabilillah
Publications.
Manzocco, R. (2019). Transhumanism-engineering the human condition: History, philosophy and
current status. Springer.
Masolo, D. A. (2010). Self and community in a changing world. Indiana University.
Mbiti, J. S. (1970). African religions and philosophy. Doubleday.
Menkiti, I. (1984). Person and community in African traditional thought. In R. Wright (Ed.),
Menkiti, I. (2004). On the normative conception of a person. In K. Wiredu (Ed.), Companion to
Metz, T. (2015). How the West was one: The Western as individualist, the African as communitar-
ian. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 47(11), 1175–1184. https://doi.org/10.1080/
00131857.2014.991502
Miah, A. (2003). Be very afraid: Cyborg athletes, transhuman ideals and posthumanity. Journal of
Evolution and Technology, 13(2). Available at: http://jetpress.org/volume13/miah.htm
Molefe, M. (2019). An African philosophy of personhood, morality and politics (pp. 31–32).
Palgrave Macmillan.
Molefe, M. (2020). An African ethics of personhood and bioethics: A reflection on abortion and
euthanasia. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46519-3
68 A. E. Chimakonam
More, M. (2013). The philosophy of transhumanism. In M. More & N. Vita-More (Eds.), The
transhumanist reader: Classical and contemporary essays on the science, technology, and
philosophy of the human future (pp. 1–17). Wiley-Blackwell.
Oyowe, O. A. (2013). Personhood and social power in African thought. Alternation, 20(1),
203–228.
Persson, I., & Savulescu, J. (2008). The perils of cognitive enhancement and the urgent imperative
to enhance moral character of humanity. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 25(3), 162–177.
Ranisch, R., & Sorgner, S. L. (2014). Introducing post- and transhumanism. In R. Ranisch & S. L.
Sorgner (Eds.), Post- and transhumanism: An introduction (pp. 7–28). Peter Lang.
Senghor, L. S. (1964). On African socialism. Praeger.
Shook, J. R. (2012). Neuroethics and the possible types of moral enhancement. AJOB Neurosci-
ence, 3(4), 3–14.
Soares, C. (2018). The philosophy of individualism: A critical perspective. International Journal of
Philosophy and Social Values, 1(1), 11–34.
Sober, E. (1980). Evolution, population thinking, and essentialism. Philosophy of Science, 47,
350–383.
Sorgner, S. L. (2009). Transhumanism. In H. J. Birx (Ed.), Encyclopedia of time, science, philos-
ophy, theology & culture, vols. 1–3. Sage Publications.
Stegmaier, W. (2019). What is orientation? A philosophical investigation (trans: Mueller, R. G.).
Walter de Gruyter.
Stock, G. (2002). Redesigning humans: Our inevitable genetic future. Houghton Mifflin.
Teilhard de Chardin, P. (1964). The essence of the democratic idea: A biological approach.
In P. Teilhard de Chardin (Ed.), The future of man. Collins. 238–243.
Tempels, P. (1959). Bantu philosophy. Presence Africaine.
The Transhumanist Declaration. (1998). Available at: https://www.google.com/url?sa¼t&rct¼j&
q¼&esrc¼s&source¼web&cd¼&ved¼2ahUKEwi8o_Wv-vPsAhWdZxUIHTePDIcQFjA
DegQIAhAC&url¼https%3A%2F%2Fitp.uni-frankfurt.de%2F~gros%2FMind2010%
2FtranshumanDeclaration.pdf&usg¼AOvVaw0n19EOIgbaAGzeYQl5NcIw
Tirosh-Samuelson, H. (2014). Religion. In R. Ranisch & S. L. Sorgner (Eds.), Post- and trans-
humanism: An introduction (pp. 49–72). Peter Lang.
Vincent, A. (1995). The ontology of individualism. Theoria, 85, 127–149.
Vinge, V. (1993). The coming technological singularity: How to survive in the post-human era
(NASA version 21) (pp. 11–22). NASA Lewis Research Center.
Vita-More, N. (2019). History of transhumanism. In N. Lee (Ed.), The transhuman handbook
Walker, M. (2009). Enhancing genetic virtue: A project for twenty-first century humanity. Politics
and the Life Sciences, 28(2), 27–47.
Wiredu, K. (1980). Philosophy and an African culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wiredu, K. (2009). An oral philosophy of personhood: Comments on philosophy and orality.
Research in African Literatures, 40(1), 8–18.
Young, S. (2006). Designer evolution: A transhumanist manifesto. Prometheus Books.
Zak, P., Kurzban, R., & Matzner, W. (2005). Oxytocin is associated with human trustworthiness.
Hormones and Behavior, 48(5), 522–527.
Social Robots as Persons in Community
Mpho Tshivhase
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Relationality in Afro-communitarianism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Nature of Moral Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Humanity, Uniqueness, and Social Robots in Sociopolitical Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Abstract
The enthusiastic introduction of artificial agents in society raises many questions
relating to humanity. One of the questions that comes up has to do with the place
of social robots in society. While social robots tend to be awarded legal person-
hood, it is unclear that they should automatically be considered moral persons.
A closely related concern has to do with the kind of membership to community
that can be allocated to social robots. Are humans to consider social robots as
members of the moral community in virtue of their presence in society and their
interaction with persons in society? I will analyze the membership of social robots
in society using the framework of the Afro-communitarian view of persons in
community. The overall aim is to arrive at a plausible way to situate social robots
in community with persons. The Afro-communitarian view of persons accom-
modates humans, nonhuman animals, as well as the environment. In this chapter,
I aim to test whether the Afro-communitarian view of person could be stretched to
accommodate social robots as well.
M. Tshivhase (*)
Department of Philosophy, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
e-mail: Mpho.tshivhase@up.ac.za

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_48
70 M. Tshivhase
Keywords
Community of fate · Norm creation · Economies of relationality · Techno-
relationality · Toxic relationality · Techno-communal beings · Social robots
Introduction
One of the commonly accepted assumptions is that humans are social animals and
therefore, they always enter the world as members of some or other community,
wherein they develop into beings who are self-aware and conscious of their rela-
tional state of being which necessitates that their behavior be governed by certain
norms and principles that are aimed at the welfare of the community (p’Bitek, 1998:
73–74). Afro-communitarianism is an approach in African philosophy that captures
the moral way that humans ought to interact with each other in community. Given
the existence of synthetic beings in the form of social robots and the existing
knowledge about the nature of humanity as captured in the sense of sociality, one
cannot help but become curious about the human understanding of community and
what conditions need to be met for one to become a recognized member of
community. In light of such sociality, should social robots be considered members
of community in much the same way people have come to recognize humans, other
animals, and the environment as members of community? Is it even necessary for
humans to rethink the organization of community to include (or exclude) social
robots? If social robots are included as members of community, people might have to
think about the kind of regard humans should extend toward social robots and vice
versa. The presence of artificial agents in community has implications for the ways in
which individuals think about community and what conditions need to be met to
become a member of community. The Afro-communitarian theory of personhood
deals with the relationship between persons and community and so I will look to this
theory to unpack the plausibility of social robots joining moral communities and
what this might imply for human-to-human as well as human-to-machine relations.
Afro-communitarian theories have been used to account for the moral value of
humans, nonhuman animals, as well as the environment. Given the advent of
artificial intelligence (AI) – in the form of social robots, conversational agents
such as chatbots, algorithms that can track one’s activity to tell when one is
conscious and unconscious, care robots, and the like – has thrown humans into
some form of relations with various forms of technology, it seems apt to question
how to make communal sense of AI in community. It seems pertinent to ask whether
the Afro-communitarian theory could help account for this techno-relationality in the
context of human-to-machine interactions. The overarching question here has to do
with how humans should understand relationality considering the presence of
artificial conversational agents, who may not be moral persons, but whose activities
and/or functionalities can have a moral impact on human lives.
In a world of diversity and technological advancements, what accommodations, if
any should humans make to include social robots in existing communities? The
Social Robots as Persons in Community 71
underlying concern has to do with the human-to-machine relations and the implica-
tions these relations might have for a clear understanding of the requirements for
membership in a community. It matters to discuss this issue as it affects the way
humans organize and consider each other, other animals, as well as the environment
in the techno-communal sense of being with others.
In the first section, I will briefly discuss the nature of Afro-communitarianism to
illustrate relationality in the context of humans in community. Thereafter, I will
move on to discuss the nature of community in its generic and moral forms with the
aim to illustrate the concept of community that applies in the discussion of the
membership of social robots in community. This conception of community will help
clarify considerations of the conditions that would have to be in place to accommo-
date social robots as members of a community. In the sections that follow I
interrogate what it means be a member of community and whether this is a privilege
set aside only for humans and thus not pertinent for the consideration of human-to-
machine relationality. Overall, my concern is that social robots may present human-
ity with a new reality that requires recognition and management of a kind of
dislocated relationality that meets the expectations of utility with the undesirable
consequence of the potential displacement of human interaction and unmediated
human relationality. Before I construct that argument, I will explain relationality in
the Afro-communitarian sense to set the tone of relationality relevant in the consid-
eration of social robots as persons in community. Overall, I argue for distinguishing
different economies of relationality that need not misrecognize social robots as
persons in order to enable coexistence in community.
Relationality in Afro-communitarianism
One clear characteristic of Afro-communitarianism is the fact that its primary focus
has to do with the relation between persons and community. What is at issue here is
the nature of the relationship between persons and community with a focus on which
of the two takes priority in the determination of one’s personhood. This discussion is
central in debates about what it means to be a person in the relational sense of
it. Radical Afro-communitarianism recommends the primacy of community in the
relational concept of persons (Menkiti, 1984: 171–174). Herein what it means to be a
person already implies a connectedness in and with community. On this view,
community is ontologically prior to a person, thereby implying that what matters
in defining a person is centrally communal. That is to say that the personal goals of
individuals should not take precedence over the welfare of a community. The welfare
of a community is characterized by a maintained harmony that enables solidarity
among persons in community (Metz, 2022: 91–92).
What is prioritized here is the overall welfare of community which, when secured,
would bring harmony and solidarity to the community’s social structure. Herein, the
principles of mutual respect and reciprocity form an integral part of the guiding
principles of living well with others (Imafidon, 2021: 48–49). Herein, the central
tenet of Afro-communitarianism reveals the good relations among persons as a
72 M. Tshivhase
matter that is beneficial to both persons and community. It captures an

interdependency among persons as well as the community (Gbadegesin, 1998:
131–134). The relationality that is championed in this theory draws two forms of
connectivity: one among persons and another between persons and community
where the sense of community here extends to nonhumans and the environment.
What drives the interconnectivity is a morally loaded concern for the well-being
of others with the encompassing aim to secure harmony and unity in the community.
It is the values of unity and harmony, among fellow members of community, that
should motivate individuals to create a moral environment that is conducive to
morally perfect individuals living well together in a moral community. It is this
requirement for moral perfection that enables persons to behave in prosocial ways
that enable overall social welfare. What ought to be recognized in individuals to
consider them persons is their prosocial relationality which illustrates a person’s
value in community and grounds one’s dignity (Molefe, 2019: 29–30; 50).
A community in this relational sense then comprises, in the main, of persons with
dignity so that community maintains a morally loaded significance.
The aspect about humans that should move them to respect each other and refrain
from violating their welfare and their normative value, which are generally thought
to, in part, comprise of dignity (Gyekye, 1997: 63–64). It matters that an agent who
is acting in society has a normative value that is recognized and respected by fellow
members of the community. Judgments about actions as well as the allocation of
accountability for praise or blame are often informed by the normative value of the
acting agent as well as the agent on the receiving end of the action. Viewed in this
way, moral value is central to determining the moral consideration and treatment of
the individual in question as well the consequences for agents who act against or for
another being.
As the community expands with the addition of social robots, so too the idea of
community should be reexamined with the aim to clarify the plausibility of the
inclusion of social robots in community and the conditions that should be met to
accommodate the technological members of the community. Humanity might need
to think about how they determine membership in community. In relation to social
robots, the relation between community and social robots might seem a bit straight-
forward. Classic Afro-communitarianism might be right about the community being
ontologically prior to social robots as it is indeed a fact that social robots developed
post the formation of the communities that are centrally designed with the aim to
govern mainly human-to-human relations. The complication would possibly arise
with the accompanying expectation of reciprocity in the morally loaded idea of
communities. While it seems obvious that social robots exhibit actions that have
moral implications, it is unclear that they can express relationality in its moral form
as they are not moral agents with the accompanying normative values and the
capacity to recognize the moral value of humans and other nonhuman members of
community.
The principle of moral value in Afro-communitarianism is not as straight forward
when applied to social robots. While they are present in society, they are – in a
considerably limited sense – somewhat akin to animals and the environment in the
sense that they are not conscientious moral actors but could loosely be considered
moral patients. Social robots may be interacting with persons, but in the event of a
moral dilemma, it is unclear that they can be held accountable. One of the require-
ments of moral praise or blame is autonomy. On the technological reference to social
robots as autonomous agents, one could intimate that artificial agents are in the
mechanical sense of self-governing.
However, I would caution against conflating this mechanical application of
“autonomous” with the sense of moral autonomy that has moral connotations – at
least the kind that is relevant for moral decision-making and awarding personhood to
humans, wherein such personhood is a matter of moral excellence, at least according
to the Afro-communitarian view of persons. The point is that there are several factors
that determine moral responsibility, and autonomy is one of them. But the kind of
autonomy that is relevant to moral decision-making and moral value of the individ-
ual is unlike the sense of autonomy used in reference to artificial intelligence
(Laceulle, 2008: 162–165).
In order to best contemplate the plausible African perspective on the community
membership of social robots, it is worthwhile discussing the concept of community
upon which the idea of Afro-communitarianism is based. This concept of commu-
nity in Afro-communitarianism is central to this discussion as it also gives insight
into the African view of the relational nature of humanity. Herein what grounds an
interest in the concept of human is the curiosity about the nature of a human. African
thought, according to Kwame Gyekye (Gyekye, 1998: 59–61), locates the essence of
a person in a combination of three elements: ōkra (soul), sunsum (spirit), and honam
(body) – all expressed in social relations in community. The ōkra is constituted by
the life force closely related to what we understand as breath – honhom. The
departure of one’s ōkra is marked by the cessation of breath. “Thus the honhom is
the tangible manifestation or evidence of the presence of ōkra (ibid). Another
metaphysical element of a person is the sunsum, which is considered an element
relating to dreams, desires and personality. The sunsum has a psychical foundation
(ibid, 60-61). Sunsum is the source of dynamism of a person, the active part of the
human psychological system; its energy is grounded for its interaction with the
external world” (ibid, 63). This sunsum is not to be mistaken for the brain even
though it is understood to have extrasensory capacities of thinking, desiring, and
feeling. The third element of a person’s essence is the honam – the body, which
accounts for the material elements of being (ibid).
The person’s essence is also characterized by a complex relation to time and
space, which expresses itself in culture and ritual where such rituals contain sym-
bolic significance that convey the value of persons in society (Etim, 2019: 3, 6–9).
The cosmological extension of the world of spirits forms part of the essence of
humanity which is characterized by the meaningfulness of the relationship between
persons and the living dead. Human life is physically and spiritually dynamic.
Humans relate to others in forms of attachments that make them partial to those
they relate with. They rely on moral principles to manage their partiality especially
when faced with moral dilemmas. Said partiality indicates an emotional sensitivity
toward the needs of others. Humans also have social and spiritual interests that tend
74 M. Tshivhase
to align to make their lives sensible. Humans care about experiences that involve
love, identity, and culture. They care about the future and tend to plan for those
envisioned futures. They also generally commit to causes that contribute to the
welfare of others who are less fortunate and to the environment and many other
things in the world that add value to society. They are curious about the meaning of
life and reflect on political issues as they pertain to the welfare of all persons. The
point is humans are multidimensional in ways that cannot be captured and replicated
in algorithms but hold significance for society as they inform human alignment with
Afro-communitarian ideals grounded on relationality.
On a basic understanding of relationality, humans currently share their communal
spaces with machines, which indicates a basic connectivity characterized by the
instrumentality of machines to humans. What is important here is that social robots
exist in virtue of their usefulness to humanity. Social robots are often designed for
the convenience of humans. Viewed in this way, social robots are the tools that erase
the inconveniences that disrupt or slow down human productivity (Taipale et al.
2015: 12–15). So, we use them to organize and manage our time, measure the
frequency of movement, count our calories, do the mundane tasks to free up time
for humans so that they can perform tasks that yield more value in productivity. The
point is that the relationship between social robots and humans is mainly one of
utility.
What we get from the node of social relations is the notion of relationality, which
has a compelling moral tone. The moral value of a person is grounded on three
things: capacities, normative value, and recognition. The relationship between these
three facets of moral life is the main considerations of personhood, where person-
hood matters as a requirement for membership in a moral community. Herein,
personhood matters for the human-to-human relationality (Laitinen, 2007:
250–257). The question is, should personhood matter for human-to-machine
relationality in ways that require machines to meet the requirements for personhood?
In answering the question above, one should consider the other aspect of
relationality has to do with the fact that personhood, which is characterized by
moral value, is an aspect about humans that is attained and not given. Given that
the idea of community embedded in the Afro-communitarian theory of personhood
is morally loaded, it follows that the developmental process of personhood will also
be morally loaded. This is in line with the logic of Afro-communitarianism which
maintains the normative requirement for membership into community. The founda-
tion of that normative requirement is the recognition of human dignity and taking
care to avoid violating their welfare (Molefe, 2019).
To have dignity means that each person commands the respect of all human beings – dignity
is a sign of moral characters achieved by one’s particular contribution to the whole
community (Bell, 1997: 213).
Given that when it comes to humans, it is the value of dignity that persons are
encouraged to respect and not violate, what would move persons to offer the same
moral consideration to social robots? Would social robots have to meet the dignity
requirement to become members of community? What matters to take note of here is
the moral value of dignity as one condition that is relevant to the understanding of
the traits of relational members of community.
On the classic view of Afro-communitarianism, one could gather from the fact
that the theory is said to be grounded in “traditional African thought,” that this is a
reference to communities that are governed by traditional African norms. The
popular Afro-communitarian theory of personhood, in its varied compositions, is
built on the assumption that persons exist within communities and that their actions
should always be in the moral interest of the community (Masolo, 2010). Afro-
personhood can be seen as a theory that determines which beings in the world should
be considered part of the community of persons. Herein, the biological makeup of an
individual being is not enough since what it means to be a person is a matter of moral
excellence, which can only be developed by beings with an understanding of moral
rules and their significance for a community that is characterized by harmony and
mutual respect.
In close relation with Afro-communitarianism, one finds that the theory of
ubuntu, which I have come to understand as a theory that illuminates the kinds of
principles that make a person moral – the kinds of principles one must espouse if
they are to be considered morally excellent. It is from the ubuntu theorists such as
Ramose (2002: 326–327), Murove (2014: 42–44), Metz (2022), and others that one
gets that a prosocial tone that drives relationality on the Afro-communitarian view of
personhood. In short, being relational is a matter of behavior toward others, wherein
such behavior is grounded on prosocial norms that inform the acceptable ways of
interacting as persons. This raises curiosity about how the principles of engagement
among humans might inform the principles of engagement that would govern
interactions between humans and machines. The question here is mainly about the
principled organization of communities given the introduction of social robots as
synthetic persons.
One could argue that the prosocial norms that govern human relations could be
applied to machines. This would imply that norms that regulate human behavior are
programmable. Indeed, humans are not born moral; however, they are born in
communities that teach them the difference between morally blameworthy and
morally praiseworthy actions, so it is not implausible to argue that machines could
“learn” to be moral agents. The learning of such norms does not take place in a
formal classroom. It is dynamic and often met with critical analysis when children
require the moral members of community to explain why they are expected to act a
certain way. This implies that moral development is communal and can be detected
in expressions such as “it takes a village to raise a child.” This expression illustrates
that children are raised by the nuclear family, the extended family, as well as
neighbors, teachers, priests, and others. This means that the moral fabric of the
community is a communal responsibility. Nonetheless, the idea of moral community
still needs to be unpacked if one is to figure out whether social robots should be
considered members of moral communities.
76 M. Tshivhase
Nature of Moral Community
The word “community” is used expansively in society to capture different size

groups. Sometimes the “community” captures the smaller face-to-face associa-
tions/groupings or larger global alliances. Viewed in this way, a community can
vary in size. Another element of community is the kinds of relationships that exist
within communities. Andrew Mason (2000) identifies two kinds of relationships that
can be found in relation to the notion of community, namely, ordinary and moralized
senses of community.
For Mason a community is a group of people who share some values and a way of life,
identify with the group and recognize each other as members of the group. What Mason adds
to this account is the distinction between an ordinary concept of community – one that meets
the criteria just indicated – and a moralized concept of community. The latter is the concept
of a community whose members display solidarity with, that is mutual concern for, one
another and between whom there is no systematic exploitation or injustice. The two concepts
play different roles, and the moralized concept will inevitably be the subject of contestation
(David Archard, 2006: 188).
According to Mason, the formation of an ordinary community required four

criteria: (1) a shared range of values among the people involved in the process of
forming a community; (2) a shared way of life; (3) a way of identifying with the
group and its practices; and (4) mutual recognition of each other as members
belonging to that community (Mason, 2000: 21).
The moralized sense of community requires two more criteria to be met –
solidarity or mutual concern and justice (Mason, 2000: 27). The moralized sense
of community necessarily involves a concern for the good – a kind of good that is
based on the welfare of all persons involved in the community’s formation and
occupancy. A community can meet conditions that grant it the ordinary character of
community but lack the moralized sense of it. Slave-owning communities, for
instance, were communities in the ordinary sense of it but lacked the additional
concern for solidarity and justice that would grant them the moralized character of
community.
Furthermore, the ordinary and moralized senses of community have instrumental
and noninstrumental value. The noninstrumental value is evident in the cooperative
activities that characterize a shared way of life (Ikäheimo, 2009: 38). A shared way
of life is one aspect about humanity that connects humans. Herein, the cooperative
activities are part and parcel of the mechanisms that generate moral rules of
engagement. The shared way of life connects humans across different communities
and thus matters for the interconnectivity among humans in a global context. The
cooperative activities enable persons to negotiate and renegotiate similarities and
differences in personalities and values, both of which matter in issues of co-author-
ship of norms and values (Ikäheimo, 2009: 36–38). These ideas of cooperative
activities and co-authorship of norms are understood to be specifically human
activities.
Most people are part of many different communities with different characters and
so it is not impossible that they might encounter conflicting values as they move
through the different communities. When persons think about issues of identity –
whether ethnic, racial, gendered, religious, or personal – they already enter a space
on contested values, wherein community is often expected to be a safe space for the
process of self-discovery and uniqueness free from toxic relationality.
Overall, community provides a space for humans to explore relations with
themselves and others. This is an activity built on values that are generally aimed
at maintaining harmony in community. This concern to maintain harmony and create
solidarity is one borne of compassion, care, and other values that create a community
of fate (Alquist & Levi, 2013). These values require certain sensitivities in order to
engage fruitfully in relations with others in community, thereby giving rise to an
inclusive processes of norm creation.
Norm creation is understood loosely as the process(es) that members of society
engage in with the aim to settle on principles that will guide human behavior in a way
that minimizes harm and enhances the welfare of the members of society. John
Rawls (1999: 17; 118–119) suggested the veil of ignorance as a neutral starting point
from which to begin thinking about norms that govern redistribution of goods. Here,
the standard he was aiming for was equality, where equality is considered central to
ideas of fairness. On his logic, unequal starting points in norm creation have the
potential of muddying the process as norms may be created to benefit some and
disadvantage others. The point is that there cannot be inequality in the starting point
of norm creation, and if the starting point is equal, the expectation is that the norms
that will be created will maintain the equality.
Immanuel Kant (2002) approaches morality in a similar way. He advocates for
norm creation processes that are built on impartiality; the point being that there
should be some principles that guide the processes of authoring norms. Impartiality
is regarded a useful guiding tool in the process of authoring norms as it champions
the removal of the influence of personal relationships when individuals decide what
counts as right or wrong. Kant’s view is based on the idea that the judgment of right
or wrong should not be driven by the fact that one is related to the individual in
question in one way or another. When adjudicating moral options, one ought to look
at the merits of the case and not the familiarity one has to the parties involved.
Viewed in this way, norm creation should be driven by impartiality.
Rawls and Kant’s processes support Heikki Ikäheimo’s view that co-authorship
of norms is fundamental to the equal recognition of members of society. According
to Ikäheimo (2009), part of what it means to be a member of society should involve
co-authorship of the norms that govern society so that one’s deontic aspect of
personhood is recognized and respected accordingly. This idea of deontological
value reemerges in Drucilla Cornell’s idea of respecting the deontological core of
a person if humanity is to fix what has gone wrong in society (1997: 8; 10).
Although her focus is on women, her view on recognizing and respecting the
deontological core remains pertinent in activities of norm creation in moral
communities.
78 M. Tshivhase
This idea of co-authorship is not spelled out in terms of how much contribution
one makes in the authorship of societal norms. However, one can imagine that
co-authorship is not limited to penning down the rules and guidelines for human
behavior, but that co-authorship could come in the form of behavior modeled in
society. Whatever form the co-authorship takes, it is unclear that social robots can be
viewed as co-authors of societal norms. But we could take a moment to imagine
what it might look like if moral agents considered them to be co-authors. In order to
do this, we may have to look more loosely at the idea of the deontological core that
Cornell refers to in her work against patriarchy. This idea of the deontological core
speaks to the requirements for moral participation on norm creation, where such
norm creation is understood in terms of pro-sociality that may be seen to be unique to
humans, thereby intimating a kind of humanism as necessary for moral participation.
What is important to distill from the abovementioned assertion is the duty humans
have to fellow humans, nonhumans, and the environment through drafting norms
that aid social cohesion and welfare of beings in the world. It remains unclear that
social robots should be objects to be considered under concerns of moral welfare or
participation in norm creation as they lack a fundamental aspect of a deontological
core, i.e., subjectivity – where subjectivity is, presently, not a programmable aspect
of being.
Humanity, Uniqueness, and Social Robots in Sociopolitical

Contexts
The technology community aims to develop systems and machines that will improve
the lives of humans in the world. This aim is based on a misconceived neutrality of
technology. The view here is that this aim to improve society is meaningless and
misdirected given that it is blind to the power inequities that subjugate, dehumanize,
and disenfranchise marginalized people, thereby missing the core values of
co-authorship fundamental to pro-sociality. The argument that will be advanced is
that AI engineers are building general AI based on a misconstrued view of humanity
that is adopted from the colonial view that awards legitimacy to whiteness. The
definition of humanity, prevalent in the technology community, is based on the
disenfranchising sense of personhood that is built on the idea of rationality. Ratio-
nality has been systematically used to dehumanize and subjugate black people.
When creating AI systems patterned on this rationality-based humanity, what the
technology community is essentially doing is perpetuating the preexisting structures
of exclusion and devaluation of some members of society, thereby showcasing the
discriminatory foundation of technology. We live in a world built on inequities that
reinforce a hierarchy of white humanity. When the technology community fails to
take into account the superiority that is foiled in the superficial social cohesion, then
it diverges from its aim to contribute toward the greater good and creates a form of
technological oppression, which leads to greater entrenchment of inequities and
injustices.
African ontology, as conceived by Alexis Kagame, illuminates and clarifies the

misperception that AI engineers have about humanity. The categories he identifies
are muntu (human being), kintu (thing), hantu (place and time), and kuntu (modal-
ity), all of which are understood as present in the world of being and becoming. We
can correctly categorize AI mainly as kintu (though it also lends itself to hantu).
Kintu do not have agency, for they exist as “frozen forces” that demand the
command of a muntu to function (Kagame in Ramose, 2002: 324–325). This
structure of categories could help capture the different natures of things in the
world without anthropomorphizing AI and/or removing its connectivity with
humans. Moreover, Kagame’s structure of African ontology enables a decolonizing
of the language used to capture what it means to be human in the age of technology.
It also allows social robot engineers to reimagine humanity and human intelligence
in useful ways that can offer nuanced variations of social robot capabilities that are
patterned after diverse representations of human intelligences and the accompanying
ethical considerations.
Ubuntu is the ethical theory that captures the fifth category of African philosophy,
which is normative, and prescribes relationality and the interconnectedness between
the muntu, kintu, hantu, and kuntu. Mogobe Ramose unbundles ubuntu to explain
that ubu- captures the universal force that guides being and becoming, and it is the
-ntu that gives beings in the world the epistemologically concrete mode of existence
in the process of becoming (Ramose, 2002: 324–327). Given that technology is
being developed in an antiblack world, ubuntu’s emphasis on relationality encour-
ages the technology community to design algorithms that contribute to social
cohesion; drive reconciliation through prioritizing the needs of the disenfranchised
communities, thereby stimulating upward mobility of persons from those commu-
nities and counteract the abuses by the antiblack world through the authentic
inclusion of marginalized communities in the design stages of AI; and reduce
inequality by recognizing the interconnectedness of all humans in society. Overall,
ubuntu prizes the relationality because it combines principles of virtue, duty, and
utility to capture the right way in which people ought to interact to serve the society
well and flourish as individuals. Ubuntu’s emphasis on relationality can help cham-
pion the need to structure a balance between capitalism and ethical consideration of
all persons and this requires co-authorship with AI engineers and designers.
In her work on AI ethics, Emma Ruttkamp-Bloem (2022) recognizes the potential
problems that AI presents for our social reality. She focuses on the AI owners and
engineers and recommends that we hold them accountable for the action of AI that
have moral and legal impact. Ruttkamp-Bloem recommends virtue ethics as the
appropriate moral theory that AI owners and engineers ought to employ in the design
stages as this will enable a fairer approach to what is created in AI. Ruttkamp-
Bloem’s main emphasis is on responsible AI creation which should be grounded on
policymaking, thereby making the technology community actively accountable for
what they create.
Sabelo Mhlambi (2020) also expresses concern in relation to AI in community.
He recognizes that AI is built on a misconceived idea of persons. He critiques
rationality as a misleading foundation for the definition of humanity. He
80 M. Tshivhase
recommends an African view of personhood that emphasizes relationality. In addi-

tion, he offers an inductive view that begins with the correct moral recognition of all
persons. In his view, the technology community has convinced itself of a kind of
moral and political neutrality, which allows them to prioritize efficiency and opti-
mization of technology. He notes that such efficiency and optimization seem to
require a kind of amnesia or blindness toward the colonial histories of the world,
which are then simply reproduced in the design of general AI. The claim of neutrality
enables and reinforces discriminative practices in the technology community,
thereby enabling toxic relationality.
Mhlambi recommends ubuntu as the appropriate moral theory that can help the
technology community to decolonize the processes of AI design, revivify the
interconnectedness of community, and make all persons aware of their positionality
as digital beings who are also data resources. His concern is that data collection
could turn humans into disenfranchised slaves who, in using their devices, freely
offer valuable information that enriches technology companies, thereby making
those companies richer. Moreover, humans, as data resources, are at a great disad-
vantage since the data companies know more about the users than users know about
them. Herein lies another concrete instance of a form of inequity between technology
companies and the humans who offer the necessary data for technological
advancements.
While creating a balance in society is a noble aim, persons should not forget the
emotional effect that technology has on humans. Humans have a legitimate fear that
the reality of AI is minimizing opportunities that enable the upward mobility of
marginalized groups. Disenfranchised humans are afraid of being replaced by AI that
can perform instrumental and/or social tasks. Herein, I think humans need to
recognize their roles as beings with a wealth of information that technology com-
panies need to build useful algorithms that generate money. As data resources,
humans should think about ways to protect and benefit from their own data. Humans
exist in a world that has systems that know more about humans than humans know
about them. As data resources, it matters for persons to know who they are and what
distinguishes them from other persons as well as AI. A personal way of responding
to this data exploitation might involve fostering an existential uniqueness of persons.
The existential condition and identity of persons are unique in part because they are
cognitive, subjective, experiential, and meaningful. Given the complexity of the
existential condition of persons, AI cannot replace persons in significant ways that
require collective, relational, and mental agency, as well as coherent self-interpreta-
tion/understanding. In reinventing themselves in the technological world, persons
could foster existential uniqueness to create distinctive data as well as revivify their
place in the world as irreplaceable and incomparable in relation to AI as well as
fellow human persons.
When thinking about what it means to be a human in the age of technology, I
focus on the ontological categories of things in the world and the accompanying
ethical principles that emphasize prosocial relationality. I also consider the human
fear of being replaced by AI. When thinking about what it means to be a human in
the age of technology, the technology community should critically reflect on how the
antiblack world and the matrix of power influence what they create. In short, when
thinking about creating technology that benefits the society, the technology commu-
nity should recognize their positionality and the fact the capitalist machine they serve
requires inequality and that it is the antiblack attitudes that enshrine the inequities.
The world has existed for centuries based on systems that thrive in condition of
inequality. The age of technology is radically advancing in a largely unequal society
and is clear that it seems to be contributing to the continued sustenance of that
unfairly empowered group. Most of us are familiar with the concept of human rights,
yet it seems that these are reserved for some people and not others. Some of the
material used for the technologies that we celebrate and endorse in the advancement
of AI are mined by children in Africa. This is but one example of the injustices upon
which the development of AI is built – injustices that destroy moral welfare of
communities in ways that harm humans but leaves social robots unaffected.
John Lamola (2022) argues that we seem to be in haste to enter an age of
posthumanism, and his concern is the perpetuated view that the sense of “human”
purported in our assumption that what it means to be human in the age of AI is the
same. The question of human identity and human dignity in the age of AI becomes
one that should be approached with a critical view to first understand which
members of society we are referring to when we say “human.”
“Human” is a contested term, and the contestation has been evident in debates on
human rights where hopes for equality have been corroded and eroded by capitalistic
goals, which are enshrined by racism and classism. People in society tend to speak
universally about human rights, especially within Western spaces, and yet the same
economic giants that champion human rights and the free-market system are built on
the exploitation of poor people, some of whom are children. Viewed in this way, AI
is (1) not a solution to the human problem of inequities in the society but, when
placed greedy hands, an additional oppressive element to the suffering of already
devalued humans who have been disenfranchised by political, economic, and social
inequities, and (2) what it means to be human is dominated by Western ideas that
continue to marginalize poor people. In order to understand the question regarding
what it means to be human in the age of AI technology, humans must recognize the
fact that the term “human” does not hold universal meaning, which makes it
necessary to rephrase the question – what does it mean to be a privileged human
in the age of technology? The rephrasing is necessary since there are many people
who have never owned an electronic gadget which immediately excludes them from
debates about rethinking their lives in light of the rapid development of technology.
The technology society, while it aims to create AI that benefits the world, serves
the capitalist deity and so does more for the rich and powerful at the cost of the
welfare of the marginalized groups. To my mind, this necessitates that individuals
become vividly aware of their context as an extended community of fate. Develop-
ments in the world – whether they be medical, political, economic, or religious –
affect us all in one way or another, but it is humans who bear the consequences and
not the social robots.
Our existence in community connects us in ways that are obvious and covert. The
idea of community of fate is borne of instances of extreme disaster, like the current
82 M. Tshivhase
Covid-19 pandemic. I discuss it here because I think Africans have been living in a
community of fate for centuries due to the extreme disaster known as colonialism.
John Ahlquist and Margaret Levi illustrate the community of fate as the recognition
of shared interests that bind humans in solidarity when they aim to secure those
interests. In addition to the recognition of each other’s humanity, there is an
awareness of a bounded fate. “A community of fate requires recognition of common
goals and enemies, and it is strengthened by interdependence” (Alqhuist and Levi,
2013: 2). Humans seem to have been thrown into a bounded fate with social robots in
the sense that our actions coalesce with the activities of machines in tangible ways
that require individuals to think about the connectivity with machines and how they
affect relationality among humans, nonhumans, and the environment. The extended
community necessitates an exercise in clarifying the economies of relationality that
inform our movement in community with others.
Conclusion
Given that social robots cannot be part of the cooperative activities that include co-
authorship of norms, why are some humans so eager to uncritically accept social
robots as moral members of the community, even in their status as moral recipients
and not moral agents. This, I suspect, has to do with the error of anthropomorphizing
social robots. Humans tend to attach to other beings emotionally. It is evident in the
way they attach to pets and use that attachment to inform their valuation of their pets.
They seem to do the same with social robots. Some go so far as falling in love with
and eroticizing social robots. When people see this human attachment to animals,
they call it a sexual disorder – beastiality. Is it possible that emotional attachment to
machines could also land on some spectrum of psychological illness? The point I am
making here is that there is something concerning about human creating and
prioritizing close relations with machines rather than fellow humans. Is it a matter
of humans having become so morally degraded that they feel unsafe around each
other? Have humans overly romanticized human-centered relations so much that
they missed the relational degradation? It takes one look at crime statistics to realize
that the moral fabric of humanity is degraded. History has also shown society that
part of humanity felt it was flourishing and doing the work of God when they
enslaved Africans. This is a clear indication of the warped belief that toxic
relationality brings about social development or advancement.
More to the point, I dismiss the plausibility of the moral membership in the
community of social robots based on three considerations:
1. Social robots exist as synthetic persons, and this limits their existence to infor-
mation collected and transferred in mechanized ways that lack the kinds of
relational considerations that enable full-personhood understood in terms of
moral consciousness and worth, complex communication, and complex connec-
tions that extend into the spirit world.
2. Because of their synthetic personhood status, social robots cannot be co-authors

of social norms that inform the moral relationality that gives rise to communities
driven by pro-sociality.
3. Social robot are tools and so they lack the inherent moral worth captured through
dignity.
The fact that social robots lack moral agency, moral consciousness, emotional
intelligence, and cannot be accountable for their actions makes them ineligible for
membership in moral community. They can be fully recognized for membership in
descriptive community, wherein they simply add to the various thing and individuals
that are present in community.
While it is possible to exclude social robots from getting a membership into moral
communities, one should be cautious not to award humanity moral membership by
virtue of being human. Herein, it helps to remember that the Afro-communitarian
view does not automatically give humans moral value simply because of their
ontological status. Moral value in the form of personhood is achieved, at least in
the radical sense of communitarianism.
It follows then that humans are not natural members of the moral community;
they are expected to meet certain obligations to show their fitness for membership
into a moral community. Membership is not permanent – it depends on one’s proven
ability to live well with others. Social robots do not have a natural life force in the
same way humans speak of it in reference to animals (humans included) and other
living things such as plants. Social robots have what people may call “artificial
force” – it is powered by electricity, batteries, etc. Their utility ends, but one does not
refer to them as having a life. Thus, one cannot speak about social robots as having a
way of life.
While the designers insist on giving social robots personas and giving them
human forms, it does not make them humans. Their existence does motivate one
to reconsider and possibly revise the way people move in the world, the way people
relate to each other, the way people value themselves in relation to others – and
perhaps remain cognizant not to perpetuate social challenges such as equality,
citizenship, migration, justice, and more. It might help to simply maintain a separa-
tion of values and not allow people to be fooled into overvaluing technological tools
simply because they are designed to look like humans. No matter how intelligent
they are, they cannot be persons with full membership in moral communities.
If anything, the Covid-19 pandemic illustrated that while humans can live without
direct human contact, it is weird to do so and still truly flourish as well-balanced
persons. Indeed, AI enables the individual to stay in touch with loved ones and even
allowed individuals to broaden their reach professionally, so they were able to attend
international conferences, meetings, and other events from the comfort of their own
homes. This kind of relationality is driven by the sophisticated utility of artificial
agents. In short, how do humans maintain relationality in the communitarian sense in
a world that is growing globally, yet the growth of technology seems to create a
disconnect among humans? The proliferation and deployment of technologies create
a new form of human-to-machine relationality that may not be compatible with the
84 M. Tshivhase
moral principles that regulate human-to-human relations. My sense is that, if left

unrestricted, human-to-machine relations may further degrade the moral fabric of
human-to-human interactions by creating a kind of techno-communal relational
dissonance.
References
Alquist, J. S., & Levi, M. (2013). In the interest of others: organization and social activism.
Princeton University Press.
Archard, D. (2006). Book review: Andrew Mason, community, solidarity and belonging: Levels of
community and their normative significance (Cambridge: Cambridge university press, 2000),
pp. viii-246. Utilitas, 18(2), 188–190.
Bell, R. H. (1997). Understanding African philosophy from a non-african point of view: An
exercise in cross-cultural philosophy. In E. C. Eze (Ed.), Postcolonial African philosophy: A
critical reader (pp. 197–220).
Cornell, D. (1997). Are women persons? Animal Law, 3(7), 7–11.
Etim, F. (2019). Ontology of African ritual. Advances in Applied Sociology, 9, 1–14.
Gbadegesin, S. (1998). Yoruba philosophy: Individuality, community, and the moral order. In E. C.
Eze (Ed.), African philosophy anthology (pp. 130–141). Blackwell Publishers.
Gyekye, K. (1997). Tradition and modernity: Philosophical reflections on the African experience.
Oxford University Press.
Gyekye, K. (1998). The relation of the Ōkra (Soul) and Honam (Body): An Akan conception. In E.
C. Eze (Ed.), African philosophy: an anthology (pp. 59–66). Blackwell Publishers.
Ikäheimo, H. (2009). A vital human need: Recognition as inclusion in personhood. European
Journal of Political Theory, 8(31), 31–45.
Imafidon, E. (2021). African communitarian philosophy of personhood and disability: The asym-
metry of value and power in access to healthcare. International Journal of Critical Diversity
Studies, 4(1), 46–57.
Kant, I (2002). Groundwork for the metaphysics of morals. (Transl. A. W. Wood). Vail-Ballou
Press.
Laceulle, H. (2008). Ageing and self-realization: Culture narratives about later life. Aging Studies
(17), Deutsche Nationalbibliothek: University of Humanistic Studies.
Laitinen, A. (2007). Sorting out aspects of personhood: capacities, normativity and recognition. In
A. Laitinen & H. Ikäheimo (Eds.), Dimensions of personhood (pp. 248–270). Blackwell
Publishers.
Lamola, J. M. (2022). The future of artificial intelligence, posthumanism and the inflection of Pixley
Isaka Seme’s African humanism. AI & SOCIETY, 37, 131–141.
Masolo, D. A. (2010). Self and community in a changing world. Indiana University Press.
Mason, A. (2000). Community, solidarity and belonging: Levels of community and their normative
significance. Cambridge University Press.
Menkiti, I. (1984). Person and community in African traditional thought. In R. A. Wright (Ed.),
Metz, T. (2022). A relational moral theory: African ethics in and beyond the continent. Oxford
University Press.
Mhlambi, S. (2020). From rationality to relationality: Ubuntu as an ethical and human rights
framework for artificial intelligence governance. Harvard Kennedy School – Carr Center for
Human Rights Policy, 2020–009, pp. 1–27.
Molefe, M. (2019). African philosophy of personhood, morality, and politics. Palgrave Macmillan.
Murove, M. F. (2014). Ubuntu. Diogenes, 59, 36–47.
p’Bitek, O. (1998). The sociality of self. In E. C. Eze (Ed.), African philosophy anthology
(pp. 73–74). Blackwell Publishers.
Ramose, M. (2002). The ethics of Ubuntu. In P. H. Coetzee & A. P. J. Roux (Eds.), Philosophy from
Africa: A text with readings, Second Edition (pp. 324–330). Oxford University Press.
Rawls, J. (1999). A theory of justice – Revised Edition. Harvard University Press.
Ruttkamp-Bloem, E. (2022). Re-imagining current ai ethics policy debates: A view from the ethics
of technology. In E. Jembere, A. J. Gerber, S. Viriri, & A. Pillay (Eds.), Artificial intelligence
research. SACAIR 2021. Communications in computer and information science (Vol. 1551,
pp. 319–334). Springer.
Taipale, S., de Luca, F., Sarrica, M., & Fortunati. (2015). Robot shift from industrial production to
social reproduction. In J. Vincent, S. Taipale, B. Sapio, G. Lugano, & L. Fortunati (Eds.), Social
robots from a human perspective (pp. 11–24). Springer.
Robots and Dignity:
An Afro-communitarian Argument
in Eldercare
Karabo Maiyane
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Robots in Eldercare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Afro-communitarian Conceptions of Human Dignity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Afro-communitarian Evaluation of Eldercare Robots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Abstract
This chapter evaluates the impact eldercare robots could have on human dignity.
It specifically seeks to answer the question: under which conditions would the
application of robots in eldercare undermine human dignity? This question is
motivated by the recent disparity between the number of older persons in need of
care and the number of care providers able to give care. While the number of older
persons needing care has steadily risen, there has been a shortage of healthcare
providers. In addition, negligence and ill-treatment of older persons in care
facilities have been reported. These issues have increased the interest and devel-
opment of care robots. Debates regarding whether it is ethical to enable certain
aspects of care for older persons to be relegated to robots have since emanated.
One of the chief arguments is that using robots in eldercare would undermine the
dignity of older persons. The chapter responds to the proposed question by
outlining the approaches to dignity that are salient in the discourse. It then
introduces the Afro-communitarian conception of dignity as another plausible
approach to evaluate such impact, especially in communitarian societies. It argues
that robot-assisted care does not pose much risk in a communitarian setting, while
robot-based care is unlikely. This point will be highlighted by evaluating existing
K. Maiyane (*)
Department of Philosophy, Nelson Mandela University, Gqeberha, South Africa
e-mail: Karabo.Maiyane@mandela.ac.za

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_49
88 K. Maiyane
and espoused robot technologies within the care paradigm. It concludes that there
are more instances where using such robots would benefit the dignity of both the
older persons and the community. Thus, conducting such evaluations helps
mitigate the risks before such systems are implemented.
Keywords
Human dignity · Afro-communitarian · African · Artificial intelligence · Care
robots · Eldercare robots
Introduction
The development and introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, espe-

cially within the care paradigm, hold a serious potential to improve people’s lives.
One such development is that of care robots, also known as “socially assistive
robots.” Care robots are artificially intelligent technologies designed to help care
for those who cannot care for themselves, such as older persons, people with
disabilities, and children. These robots can assist people with daily tasks such as
eating and bathing. They can also provide social and emotional support. Since their
introduction, these robots have found the most prominence in eldercare for several
reasons, such as their potential to mitigate an increasing shortage of caregivers for
aging populations (Girling, 2021) and reported cases of ill-treatment in certain care
facilities by caregivers (Sharkey, 2014; Sharkey & Sharkey, 2012). There has been
an increased interest in developing such technologies for these reasons. Examples of
such AI-enhanced robots are “Lovot,” “Pillo,” “Paro,” “Moflin,” and “Qoobo,” to
name a few.
As with many new developments, these robots are both praised and criticized.
Those supporting their development argue that robot caregivers, unlike humans, do
not become tired, stressed, and overworked, and they cannot be cruel and unkind.
Robots helping adults with toileting facilities would reduce the humiliation of being
assisted by a human caregiver. They could stimulate older persons mentally, thus
avoiding cognitive deterioration and providing entertainment (Arkin et al., 2012;
Coeckelbergh, 2016; Sharkey & Sharkey, 2012). In terms of criticisms, one of the
often-cited reasons these technologies should not be developed or should be strongly
regulated is that they would undermine human dignity. It is argued that in their use,
they would infantilize, manipulate, objectify, or deny privacy to the very people
meant to be in their care (Sharkey & Sharkey, 2012; Sparrow, 2016; Sparrow &
Sparrow, 2006). The question that emanates from these claims and this chapter seeks
to answer is as follows: Under which conditions would robots in eldercare under-
mine human dignity?
Amanda Sharkey (2014) has responded to this question by applying Martha
Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach (CA). The other response is from Laitinen
et al. (2019). Both these responses are based on Western individualist normative
positions. Thus, this chapter proposes the African communal conception of human
Robots and Dignity: An Afro-communitarian Argument in Eldercare 89
dignity as another plausible approach when evaluating the conditions under which
robot caregivers could undermine older persons’ dignity. This proposition has
several motivations: First, African communal conceptions of dignity introduce a
relational component often neglected in Euro-American conceptions due to their
focus on individualist values. Also, ethical debates resulting from various AI
applications have almost always exclusively existed in Euro-American discourses.
The novelty of the chapter is evaluating the impact of eldercare robots on human
dignity from an Afro-communitarian perspective. It argues that a plausible African
conception of dignity suitable for evaluating the impact of eldercare robots is one
that enhances one’s capacity for communal relationships, promotes communal
values, protects individuals’ rights, is inclusive, and ensures respect for all.
The chapter first discusses conceptions of dignity that are prevalent in eldercare
robot discourses. These are Nussbaum (2008, 2011) and Laitinen et al.’s conception
(2019). Following this, two African communal conceptions of dignity will be
discussed: Metz (2012, 2021) and Ikuenobe (2016). An argument will be made as
to why Metz’s conception is best. His conception will then be applied to evaluate
how various AI robots could impact human dignity. The evaluation will reveal that
there are more instances where eldercare robots would enhance the dignity of those
they are aimed at caring for instead of undermining it.
Robots in Eldercare
This section previews the existing AI-based technology prevalent in eldercare. The
aim is to provide the reader with a brief overview of the technologies and arguments
currently in place to clearly understand the ethical challenges of already existing
technologies and the potential impacts of upcoming technologies. The technologies
under review here are broadly called care robots based on their primary function:
providing care and support for the young, old, and disabled. Sharkey (2014)
categorizes these technologies into three broad categories: assistive robots, monitor-
ing robots, and companion robots.
Assistive robots are designed to aid people with tasks that become increasingly
difficult to do as they age. These robots can help older persons by picking them up
and placing them in bathtubs or helping them reach toileting facilities, dispensing
medication, or with mobility. These include robots such as “My Spoon,” an auto-
matic feeding robot that enables people with limited motor control to feed them-
selves. The Sanyo bathtub robot provides an automatic washing facility (Sharkey,
2014: 69). There has also been a growing prominence in the development of exo-
skeletons. These “improve the mobility of frail older people or could help their carers
to have the strength to lift and move them” (ibid.). One of the recent robots
introduced in this category is called “Pillo,” a home health robot that manages and
personalizes a family’s healthcare regimen. “Pillo” is equipped with facial recogni-
tion technology. As such, it can differentiate between patients nd thus dispense
medication to the appropriate member of the family. It can also store medicine and
refill prescriptions (Girling, 2021).
90 K. Maiyane
Monitoring robots are used to monitor the behavior of frail older people. They can
also serve as mobile entertainment and communication devices. They are not too
different from assistive robots, except that other people outside the patient can
connect, access their mechanisms, and communicate with them, such as family
members and human caregivers (Sharkey, 2014). These robots can send emergency
messages if anything goes wrong. Most are fitted with cameras, meaning others can
observe the person cared for, even from a distance. For example, Gecko Systems has
developed the CareBotTM, a personal robot that can follow an older person in their
home. This robot can also deliver medicine, conduct remote video monitoring, and
give verbal reminders at predetermined dates and times. There is also the “Kompai
robot” developed by RoboSoft, which can find its way around the home, respond to
simple spoken commands, and even connect family members to the person being
contacted via Skype (ibid.). Another exciting development in this category is a robot
called HECTOR. This mobile companion robot interfaces with a “smart home” and
offers support services such as fall detection, diary management and reminders about
taking medicines, and remote videoconferencing with family members (ibid.).
Companion robots are built to create some form of relationship with the user.
Many such robots have been built, and some are already used in care facilities. Some
can even be bought for personal use (Sharkey, 2014). The most famous robot in this
category is Paro, a seal-like-looking robot that provides the benefits of having an
animal pet that can be used in places that are not pet friendly. An older person having
this robot would enjoy the benefits of owning a pet without the responsibility of
caring for it (Girling, 2021).
Laitinen et al. (2019) conduct a similar comparison to the one above. They argue
that robots in eldercare can be based on three categories: robot-based, robot-assisted,
and teleoperated care. With robot-assisted care, the robot can be near the older
person or in the background. In cases where the older person has certain capabilities,
the robot can assist them or their caregivers with things they both struggle with. In
robot-based care, the robot is in direct contact with the older person. It is the robot
that provides care without any assistance. The third category is robots, where the
caregiver teleoperates. Below is a diagram that shows Laitinen et al.’s (2019: 371)
three categories and examples of robots (Fig. 1).
Distinguishing between these robots assists in evaluating how care by robots
could affect dignity. Some authors have argued in favor of and against using robots
in eldercare (Coeckelbergh, 2012, 2016; Sharkey & Sharkey, 2012; Sparrow, 2016;
Sparrow & Sparrow, 2006). These authors raised many issues, including privacy,
autonomy, infantilization, and dignity. Issues raised about how using some of these
technologies could undermine human dignity are of particular concern to this
chapter.
In the literature about dignity, Amanda and Noel Sharkey (2012) highlight that
using robots in eldercare could result in increased social isolation and involve
deception and a loss of dignity. Later, Amanda Sharkey (2014) highlights that
although robots could undermine the dignity of older persons, there are evident
cases of ill-treatment at the hands of human caregivers and that certain use of AI
technologies could provide better treatment. Sparrow and Sparrow (2006) and
Michael Decker (2008) also point out that using robots in eldercare could undermine
Fig. 1 Categories of robot care (Laitinen et al., 2019)
the dignity of older persons if their introduction is for commercial purposes. The idea
that robots could be sold to older persons for commercial benefits can be seen as
treating older persons as a means to an end, thus undermining their intrinsic value.
Although the concern for dignity is often listed as one of the ethical challenges that
could emanate from the use of robots in eldercare, not much systematic work has
been conducted to highlight how dignity can be undermined; Sharkey (2014) and
Laitinen et al. (2019) conduct such an evaluation using the capabilities approach to
dignity and multiple sense approaches.
Sharkey (2014) conducts this evaluation using Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities
approach to dignity. Nussbaum’s (2008, 2011) capabilities approach to human
dignity suggests that human beings have dignity because of their capacity for
basic capabilities. Because of these capacities, they deserve a life worthy of dignity,
a life that guarantees ten basic capabilities. These capabilities are life; bodily health;
bodily integrity; senses, imagination, thought, and emotions; practical reason; affil-
iation; other species; and play and control over one’s environment. Accordingly,
these ten capabilities are the necessary conditions for a life worthy of dignity and,
thus, the bare minimum to which every individual should be entitled. The central
characteristic of these capabilities is that they “belong first and foremost to individ-
ual persons and only derivatively to groups” (Nussbaum, 2011: 35). They are also
“heterogeneous and irreducible” (ibid.). They are irreducible in that no capability is
derived from any other. Furthermore, they are heterogeneous in that, in providing for
92 K. Maiyane
these capabilities, a state cannot implement a one-size-fits-all approach to provide

such capabilities. The level at which any capabilities should be realized must vary
based on individual needs. Of importance is that all central capabilities are realized
to ensure that people are guaranteed a life worthy of dignity.
Using this approach, Sharkey (2014) found that there are cases where the use of
such could enhance dignity and cases where it could undermine it. In terms of
assistive robots, “Exoskeletons and driverless cars such as the ROPITS (Robot for
Personal Intelligent Transport) could provide fragile older people with improved
‘Bodily Integrity, and increased ability ‘to move freely from place to place’” (ibid.,
69). Assistive robots that increase older persons’ mobility could assist them in other
capabilities, such as affiliating with others. These robots could also assist caregivers
in that they could help them with the heavy work of having to lift patients. They
could also have adverse effects, such as the patient feeling objectified while being
lifted by these robots. Such could make them feel humiliated and thus affect their
self-respect. Another example would be that the improper and unsafe use of exo-
skeletons might cause injury the elderly. In effect, this would affect their bodily
integrity. Lastly, the increased use of assistive robots could mean less human contact,
affecting the patient’s sense of affiliation.
Sharkey (2014: 70) argues that monitoring robots would enhance the dignity of
older persons by expanding their range of capabilities, whereby they would increase:
their bodily health; their ability to move freely; communication, thus increasing their
ability to engage in social interaction; and to use imagination and thought to produce
works and events of one’s own choice. These robots could also improve the lives of
caregivers in that they would not have to constantly monitor the older persons since
they would be alerted whenever there is a problem. Such assistance could also
benefit families as they would not have to live in constant anxiety and stress caused
by worrying about whether their loved ones are okay. The disadvantage or potential
negative impact of such robots on the older persons’ dignity would be that moni-
toring is intrusive. No one wants to live under constant surveillance. Such surveil-
lance would undermine the elder’s rights to privacy. Another possible adverse effect
would be that the effectiveness of such robots might minimize social contact since
those caring for the older person would only really pay attention to them when there
is a problem. Typically, people do not check on each other as much if they believe
one is fine and adequately monitored. Another issue would be that such robots could
prohibit specific actions because said actions are “not safe.” By so doing, they would
be limiting the elder’s freedoms.
With companion robots, Sharkey (2014: 71 – 72) argues that these robots could
address the commonly held criticism against robot care –that it would take away the
older persons’ need for social interaction. Having companion robots would fulfill the
need for interaction with older people and thus could be fulfilling the capabilities of
affiliation, emotion, and play. A robot pet would mean the older persons have a play,
conversation, and interaction companion. Such social contact has been said to reduce
stress and anxiety in older persons. However, the risk remains that such an applica-
tion could reduce human social contact, which could be detrimental. However, that
would result from the robot’s effectiveness, not its lack thereof.
Having applied the CA to evaluate the effects of three kinds of eldercare robots,
Sharkey (2014: 74) argues that “[s]ince the CA offers an account of what is required
for a life worthy of human dignity, its use as a framework for evaluating the effects of
robots on the dignity of older people equates to assessing how robots can increase, or
impede their access to the central capabilities.” From the evaluation, she concludes
that “the CA permits a valuable and balanced perspective on the relationship
between robots and the dignity of older people, highlighting some positive conse-
quences that could result from the careful deployment of certain forms of robotics
and warning of potentially negative ones” (ibid.).
Laitinen et al. (2019) conduct a similar investigation to that of Sharkey (2014).
They argue that the answer to whether eldercare robots could affect dignity depends
on two things: first, whether the care at stake is robot-based, robot-assisted, or
teleoperated, and second the distinction between the demands and realizations of
human dignity applies. They consider dignity as having two aspects: the inalienable
aspect and the variable aspect. First, dignity as an inalienable aspect is “a source of
strictly undeniable, stringent, and unconditional normative claim; dignity is some-
thing that everyone possesses automatically and equally merely because they are
humans or persons” (Laitinen et al., 2019: 372). They argue that the normative
demands for this aspect of dignity do not dimimish regardless of any behavior or
treatment. Because persons inherently have this high moral value, they demand
respectful treatment. These demands take the form of negative and positive duties.
The second aspect is dignity as a variable aspect. This aspect is gradable and
contingent on how it can be realized (ibid).
In this regard, inaction would constitute respecting negative duties because harm to
dignity cannot occur through inaction. In contrast, positive duties would aid in
enhancing one’s dignity. Laitinen et al. (2019: 372) argue that although robots are
not moral agents, yet they must be designed so that their actions align with the positive
and negative duties of moral agents. They call this robot requirement “ought to be
norms.” They argue that “How these requirements are met in practice, by each agent in
their self-regard and in their recognition of others’ living conditions, will constitute the
variable realisation-aspect of dignity” (ibid.). The second aspect of dignity (D2) is
“contingent and gradable in how it is fully realised in actual living” (ibid.).
Regarding the impact that eldercare robots could have on dignity, Laitinen et al.
apply the three norms that emanate from positive duties, i.e., vulnerability, agency,
and experiential and cognitive subjectivity, to evaluate three types of robot technol-
ogies: robot-based, robot-assisted, and teleoperated robots. What is key about their
findings is that the major controversy regarding robots in eldercare comes from
robot-based care. The challenge with robot-based care is that it is unclear “whether
interaction with or recognition from robots can be directly constitutive of human
dignity; whether robot-based care could directly provide the needed recognition for
patients” (ibid., 377). With assistive and teleoperated robots, “it is easy to see how
robots could help support dignity by assisting the agent’s actions, and how they can
be a smart part of living conditions consistent with human dignity” (ibid.). Another
central challenge highlighted in human contact is that these technologies’ sole or
increased use would reduce human contact.
94 K. Maiyane
Both Sharkey (2014) and Laitinen et al. (2019) provide a convincing evaluation
of the impact that eldercare robots could have on dignity. Similar to them is that both
sources agree that there are identifiable benefits to assistive, teleoperated, and
monitoring robots. Their instrumental use makes them less likely candidates for
fundamental harm to human dignity, especially when used with human caregivers or
by patients with some discernment capabilities. Although there could be harm from
using these robots, that harm does not pose much threat to human dignity. The injury
from these can easily be covered in risk and liability principles in other technologies
such as cell phones or cars.
The challenge emerges when these assistive technologies are used exclusively for
caregivers. Robot-based care might be challenging because it takes away human
contact, which is already challenging in the care environment. Of course, Sharkey
(2014) clearly remarks that companion robots such as “Paro” are created to alleviate
this very problem. There should, however, always be a conscious effort to reinforce
companionship, not to substitute it. Although Robot-based care is frowned upon by
others, such as Sparrow (2016), their use has clear advantages. If the patient in
question still has certain capabilities, then such care would advance their agency and
alleviate having to feel like one is a burden. However, if they rely entirely on care, it
might perpetuate loneliness and, thus, unhappiness.
These two analyses show a clear case about the benefits and consequences of
using robots in care – their differences lie in their approaches to human dignity. They
are, however, both based on individualist normative principles. On these grounds,
the next section aims to conduct a similar evaluation from an Afro-communitarian
perspective. The chapter does not in any way argue for the inadequacy of the existing
evaluations above. It argues that individualist conceptions have limitations in com-
munitarian contexts. It thus proposes the Afro-communitarian conception of dignity
as a plausible way from which one can evaluate the impact of eldercare robots.
For this reason, the following section proposes two conceptions of dignity based
on communitarian underpinnings. These conceptions that will be proposed are based
on African articulations of communitarianism. This choice is based on the fact that it
is not a debated point that African normative ascriptions have communitarian
features (Gyekye, 2002; Ikuenobe, 2016; Matolino, 2009; Menkiti, 1984). The
proposition is not meant to overlook or overtake the already made propositions but
to contribute another plausible way of evaluating the impact robots could have on
human dignity in communitarian societies, particularly in Africa. This chapter
ensures that the debate on robots and eldercare finds expression in other parts of
the world and is not largely polarized in Europe and America.
Afro-communitarian Conceptions of Human Dignity
This section discusses the salient communitarian conceptions of dignity in Africa. It

acknowledges that there are other prevalent conceptions of dignity in Africa apart
from the communitarian one, such as the one based on spiritual nature and vitality
(Metz, 2012, 2014; Molefe, 2022). The chapter takes on the communitarian con-
ception because, among the ones mentioned, it is the preferred one, has a higher
contemporary uptake, and is most linked to human rights. The section discusses two
communitarian conceptions, one by Thaddeus Metz (2012, 2014, 2021), which
argues that one has dignity due to their capacity for communal relationships and
one by Polycarp Ikuenobe (2016), which argues that dignity is predicated on the
active use of one’s capacities for harmonious communal living. The author favours
Metz’s conception because it is more inclusive in that it accounts for the shortfalls
other communitarian conceptions have in granting dignity on the grounds of mem-
bership or action in the community. It argues that a plausible African conception of
dignity suitable for evaluating the impact of eldercare robots enhances one’s capacity
for communal relationships, promotes communal values, protects individuals’
rights, is inclusive, and ensures respect for all. This section does not, however,
endeavor to highlight other communitarian conceptions as it takes for granted that
Metz has conducted a comprehensive report of the said conceptions (see Metz, 2012,
2014, 2021). It will only elaborate on Metz’s conception and the main criticism from
Ikuenobe (2016).
According to Metz (2012: 25–26), “[o]ur communal nature makes us the most
important beings in the world.” Because of this, most African cultures place norma-
tive priorities on the community, with a communal account of dignity being one
philosophical expression of such an orientation. However, this does not mean
community membership is obvious and open to all. Certain conditions must be
met before one qualifies to enter a community. Metz (2012: 26) argues that “the
capacity to enter into a community with human beings grounded in African thought
is well construed in terms of a combination of two logically distinct kinds of
relationships, identity and solidarity.” Identity refers to people conceiving them-
selves as a collective that engages in joint projects, coordinating their behavior to
realize common ends and sharing a way of life (ibid.). Solidarity refers to people
who “care about each other’s quality of life” (ibid.) by engaging in mutual aid, acting
in beneficial ways, and caring for one another. Thus, a sought-after community that
embraces African communal values embraces relationships with a combination of
identity and solidarity. From this idea of a sought-after community, Metz constructs
his communal conception of dignity.
According to Metz (2012, 2021), agents have dignity, a superlative non-
instrumental value, by virtue of their capacity for loving relationships. Unlike
Ikuenobe (2016), agents have dignity because they have the capacity, not because
of the use of the capacity. One does not have to be in a said relationship to have
dignity. One has dignity by merely having the capacity to be in a communal
relationship. Metz (2021) argues that one can be part of or party to a communal
relationship as a subject or object. One can be a subject in a communal relationship if
one considers themselves a collective member, cooperates with others, helps them,
and acts out of sympathy. As a subject of communal relationships, a being has the
capacity to befriend others. This requires identifying with others and exhibiting
solidarity. In comparison, one can be an object in a communal relationship if other
human beings consider them part of a collective, advance their goals, benefit it, and
act out of sympathy for them. As an object, the being is recognized by others as an
entity that can be befriended, meaning that other subjects can identify with them and
exhibit solidarity toward them. What is involved in being capable of being a subject
96 K. Maiyane
or object of a communal relationship is simply “being able in principle, i.e., without

changes to a thing’s nature” (Metz, 2021). A being can be a subject or object in a
communal relationship if their moral status remains unchanged.
In sum, the capacity to be part of or party to communal relationships based on
identity and solidarity grants agents a superlative noninstrumental value that war-
rants respectful treatment. One can have this capacity as a subject or an object of
communal relationships. Important in his conception is that one has dignity by virtue
of having the capacity to be a party to or part of a communal relationship, not by
being in said relationship. Hence being an object of such a relationship does not
require any action on the part of the being. Respect is also owed by virtue of having
such capacity. Respecting others can be in the form of respecting their human rights –
such respect can be construed as respecting one’s capacity to love and be loved.
Violating others’ human rights would mean degrading this capacity. Since rights are
(or at least are supposed to be) equal for everyone, respecting others’ rights does, in a
way, guarantee that one’s rights will be protected as well. Violating them undermines
others’ rights which might result in negative treatment of the self by others.
Ikuenobe challenges Metz’s communitarian conception that dignity is the capac-
ity for loving relationships. He (2016: 454) argues that “dignity is not just mere
capacity for harmonious communal relationships, but the proper use and
actualisation of one’s capacity as manifested in virtuous character and good behav-
iour within the context and help of the community.” For Ikuenobe, capacities in
themselves have no inherent moral worth; they are just instrumentally good. Their
moral worth depends on how they are used to promote the moral good of the
community.
Using Metz’s conception as a foil, Ikuenobe (2016: 453) proposes a conception of
dignity that “involves earned respect by others based on a person’s actions and a
proper use of his capacity for harmonious communal living.” Like Laitinen et al.’s
(2019), this conception of dignity addresses multiple aspects or use-senses of dignity
and their connections. His formulation of dignity accounting for the different senses
is as follows:
(1) x has dignity (as a fact or a natural inherent feature), (2) x ought to be treated with dignity,
(3a) x acted or behaved with dignity, and (3b) x or x’s character manifests or exemplifies
dignity. The first sense is a factually descriptive statement of capacity as a potential. The
second is a normatively prescriptive statement, while the third (a & b) are evaluative
statements of a judgment of one’s personhood, character, action, or comportment regarding
the actualisation of one’s potential. (Ikuenobe, 2016: 457)
Accordingly, the first sense could be based on spiritual, metaphysical, or psycho-

logical factors such as autonomy, capacity, relationality, agency, or community. This
sense can also refer to one’s profession, class, position, or office. So, when people
refer to having dignity, they refer to this sense. However, Ikuenobe argues that
having these capacities does not necessarily warrant the moral and evaluative
component of dignity or what he calls moral dignity. For him, moral dignity
involves:
normative evaluative judgment about someone based on the moral quality of her character,
achievement, comportment, or behaviour. This judgment engenders moral respect regarding
a normative prescription of how we ought to treat someone. People say usually that ‘one is a
person of dignity’ in a moral sense. However, this is usually not understood in the factual
sense, simply as the affirmation of the descriptive features, one has inherently or of one’s
position, profession, and achievement. (Ikuenobe, 2016: 458)
This sense of dignity is based on how others judge one’s actions. It is from this
judgment that one will either receive deserts or not. The moral sense of dignity also
combines both the prescriptive (2) and the evaluative (3a&b) senses. The relation-
ship between the two senses is that the moral sense of dignity depends on the factual
sense in that “one must be seen as having the factual sense in order for the other two
senses to be applicable” (Ikuenobe, 2016: 459). According to Ikuenobe, when
conceiving a comprehensive conception of dignity from an African communal
viewpoint, it should be conceived as a coin with two sides. On the one side, it is
the factual descriptive sense, and on the other, the normative, prescriptive sense. To
be a person of dignity (or dignified person) would require one to possess these
senses. Only when a person possesses both senses, it can be said with confidence that
they are “a person with dignity” and thus are “worthy of moral and social respect by
others based on communal values” (ibid.). Having only descriptive capacities is
insufficient to warrant total moral consideration and respect. One must possess the
normative and evaluative components to be worthy of moral dignity.
Having examined both conceptions of human dignity, as argued by Metz and
Ikuenobe, what follows is the response to highlight why Metz’s conception would
fare better in evaluating the impact of eldercare robots on human dignity in a
communal sense. It will start with the criticism Ikuenobe (2016) makes that dignity
is beyond having the capacity for communal relationships but the active use of such
capacities to benefit the community. The idea that dignity is contingent on acting in
ways that satisfy the community tends to be challenging because it imposes mem-
bership to a community as a necessary condition for dignity. This, in turn, discrim-
inates against those unable to be members of a community either by choice or by
circumstance. If dignity requires morally worthy actions which earn the agent some
respect, this suggests that the actions will occur in a context where said actions could
be evaluated, such as a community, which means that a hermit or a prisoner in
solitary confinement would not have dignity (Metz, 2012). This is because these
agents, although they have the capacity, cannot use it (a prisoner in solitary confine-
ment has no community from whom to act) or choose not to (a hermit lives in
solitude by choice), unable to act because of their disposition. Denying these entities
such moral consideration might put them at risk of bad treatment.
Basing dignity on the action also means that those who are unable to act because
of old age, disability, or infants (marginal cases) are also removed from the scope of
dignity. Ikuenobe’s (2016: 464) defense on this is that his conception implies that
“we have unconditional responsibility to respect, love and care for those (children,
those with mental or physical disability) who lack the ability to use their capacity to
earn respect.” He argues that if one feels a diminished sense of dignity because of the
98 K. Maiyane
lack of autonomy or lost physical or mental capacities, they deserve a high degree or
duty of respect from others. Essentially the burden of care and respect for those
lacking the capacity to earn it themselves befall those who can. The capable would do
this as part of their roles and responsibility to the community mainly because acting
this way would earn them more respect. In this sense, the thriving of the incapable in
the community would be at the mercy of the capable. In Ikuenobe’s conception, those
who act to enhance the community and those who cannot deserve respectful treat-
ment. Those who act earn it, and those who cannot deserve it (perhaps because if they
could, they would). Molefe (2019) also points out that Ikuenobe’s conception of
dignity does not state where this “unconditional respect” would emerge. Ikuenobe’s
justification of “ought implies can” bases this unconditional respect on the unknown
and unprovable claim that if these agents had capacities, they would use them.
However, this does not provide a sufficient reason why there is an exception to his
rule that respect is earned through positive action that benefits the community.
On these grounds, Metz’s conception is more attractive because it ascribes dignity
merely by having a capacity for communal relationships. This avoids the pitfalls
Ikuenobe and other communitarians face by basing dignity on the capacity to act or
on community membership. An attractive conception of dignity is one based merely
on having capacities. Whether one uses said capacities lies squarely on the person
involved. That means that even respectful treatment is granted regardless of any
action. So, whether one is an active community member, their dignity will not be
affected. The key takeaway from Ikuenobe’s conception is emphasizing agents’
responsibility in ensuring harmonious relationships. This positive outlook on the
community ensures communal relationships exhibiting identity and solidary. In
essence, it emphasizes communal relationships that are friendly.
The emphasis on duties as more central than rights in African communitarian
contexts is also attractive. However, it is important to note that although duties are
pertinent in communitarian contexts, they do not take away the significance of rights.
As a part of protecting one’s rights and those of other members of the community,
persons are likely to act in a way that encourages friendly and harmonious relationships.
From this evaluation, the author reiterates that a plausible African conception of
dignity suitable for evaluating the impact of eldercare robots on dignity is one that
enhances one’s capacity for communal relationships, promotes communal values,
protects individuals’ rights, is inclusive, and ensures respect for all. In comparison to
Ikuenobe, Metz’s conceptions does well in this regard. In what follows, this chapter
applies Metz’s conception of human dignity as a possible framework to evaluate
whether using robots in eldercare would impact the dignity of older persons in an
African communal setting.
Afro-communitarian Evaluation of Eldercare Robots
This section evaluates the impact of eldercare robots on dignity. It seeks to answer
the question: Under which conditions would robots in eldercare undermine dignity?
Metz’s conception of dignity will be applied as a framework to evaluate the impact
eldercare robots could have on dignity. Metz (2012, 2021) argues that an agent has
dignity by virtue of their capacity to be part of or party to communal relationships.
Because of these capacities, they are owed duties by other agents. In essence, agents
must act friendly toward each other. So, the response to the above-stated question is
that robots would undermine the patients’ dignity if their use were construed as
unfriendly either by the patient or any agent observing, that is, if their use under-
mines the agent’s capacity to commune with others or others to commune with them.
The evaluation will be conducted on assistive, monitoring, and companion robots.
Assistive robots in eldercare could positively or negatively impact human dignity
in a communal society. Using robots would enhance the dignity of older persons if
their use can help them with their capacities for harmonious relationships, such as
ensuring their mobility, communication, or health needs are met. Wheelchairs, as
one of the mobility technologies, have empowered so many people that they do not
have to rely on others for the most rudimentary of tasks, such as moving. These, in
effect, have drastically improved the quality of life of their users. Thus, more
advanced mobility technologies would do the same, even on a greater scale. For
example, exoskeletons would enhance the elder’s capacity for movement without the
aid of others, and self-driving cars could assist visually impaired older persons in
traveling to their desired destination without having to rely on others. The ability to
move freely could mean older persons can participate in community activities in a
meaningful way. A person who feels empowered and self-sufficient is more likely to
be a productive community member. Other assistive robots such as “Pillo,” “Robert
the Robot,” “My Spoon,” and others would help them with bathing themselves,
accessing toileting facilities, or eating, thus alleviating the humiliation that could
emerge from relying on others for such basic needs. The use of assistive robots could
benefit the patient and, thus, the rest of the community. Such help could mean
alleviating the burden on their loved ones who would otherwise have to do so. If
one does not have to care for their parents on full-time bases, they would have more
time to do other things. Enabling older persons to have such capacities would ensure
they can contribute to and benefit from communal relationships without being
compelled to be in them because of their needs. This would, in effect, enhance
their dignity. Of course, there are risks, such as injuries or improper use. These risks
are not so novel that they would require new risk mitigation processes or undermine
the patient’s dignity because they would be used with the patient’s consent, who
could stop using them when they feel discomfort. Thus, the risks of assistive robots
do not outweigh their benefits. Having assistive technologies is like having an extra
hand to do what is essential.
Similarly, the use of monitoring robots would enhance elder’s dignity if their use
assists them in ensuring that: They take their medications on time, fill up their
prescriptions, remind them to eat, ensure that they feel safe knowing that someone
is watching over them, and enable them to communicate with their loved ones, even
from a distance. Having such assistance would minimize the load for the caregivers
and ensure that the patient does not feel like a burden to those who care for them.
These robots can also send emergency messages to caregivers in times of danger.
Like assistive robots, monitoring robots would give the older person and other
100 K. Maiyane
members of the family peace of mind knowing that their loved ones are safe. They
would not have to be physically present all the time to care for their loved ones.
Thus, the cost of caring for one’s loved ones would not require them to forfeit their
ambitions. One of the risks of such robots would be that monitoring is intrusive. No
one wants to live under constant surveillance. Such surveillance would undermine
the elder’s need for privacy. One way to resolve this would be to ensure that the use
of such robots is consented to by the older persons. It would have to be the
responsibility of other family members to explain the benefits and risks of such
robots to their loved ones. If there is informed consent from the patient, then at least
the patient would be aware of the risk. That way, it would be something they agree
to, not something imposed. If monitoring robots are applied in the way proposed
here, their use would enhance the patients’ dignity by enhancing their capacities for
friendly communal relationships.
One of the often-cited rebuttals against robots in eldercare is that such use
would diminish the level of human contact the older persons could receive. This
criticism is especially prevalent in companion robots because, as their names
suggest, their function is to offer companionship, a quality usually attributed to
humans. There is a fear, especially in cases where older persons stay in care homes,
that their family members and caregivers would rely on these robots to keep their
family members company and therefore neglect to visit them. Although this
criticism could be the case in other parts of the world, it is not likely to be the
case in African communal societies. Here older persons carry such a high value
that it would be unlikely first that they would be sent to nursing homes and second
that they would be neglected if they were there. Many families would even opt to
hire a nurse as an additional caregiver at home rather than send a family member to
care institutions. In this regard, companion robots would not be a substitute for
humans or human contact but serve as a value added as and when the patient needs
it. Thus, having such robots would only enhance already existing networks of care.
The risks of such would be mitigated by the fact that there is always someone
available to care for older persons or monitor the technologies instituted. In
essence, the use of companion robots would not remove human contact. It would
only add more ways of receiving companionship, thus not undermining dignity in a
communal sense.
The evaluation conducted in this section shows that the use of robots in eldercare
in African communal settings would not undermine human dignity. They would, in
fact, enhance the capacities of the older persons if their use is meant to complement
already existing, tightly-knit values that inform many communities. They would
enhance the patient’s dignity if used in the ways explained above. If used contrarily,
such as without the patient’s consent, used to substitute human care, then they would
undermine the patient’s dignity. Any robot that, in use, enhances the community’s
well-being and enhances the dignity of its members would be welcomed. Suppose
robots are used to assist older persons in everyday tasks. Such assistance would
minimize the responsibility of other community members, who can then contribute
in other ways that complement their well-being.
In confronting contemporary technologies, one must accept that communities’

contemporary formation and functions have changed from what they were in the
past. People now have to work to maintain their livelihoods and care for their loved
ones. Because of this, they sometimes have to rely on other means to connect and
care for them. In this context, the use of robots seems to be one way this is possible.
The recent COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for technologies to do
certain things that were taken for granted, like connecting with loved ones from
different parts of the world. Productivity applications are used to track, submit work,
and meet virtually, using video calls and e hailing services for food and transporta-
tion. In combination, all these technologies assist in social and productive aspects.
During the full lockdown in 2020 at the start of the pandemic, people were confined
to spaces they found themselves in, with no opportunity to visit their loved ones. The
only way to safely communicate with community members was through various
technologies such as cell phones. Even if one was in a different country, in times of
danger, they could call an ambulance for their family members, call a neighbor to
check on them, or send money using electronic means. Essentially, one could care
for their loved ones without being physically there. Those who could galvanize such
technologies were not as isolated and in danger as those who could not. The lesson
from this time is that technologies are almost always created to resolve societal
issues. Of course, some would use them for malicious purposes. That is why it is
always important to monitor them and ensure that they align with the values of those
they are meant for in use. That way, the use of various technologies will be beneficial
to society.
Conclusion
This chapter highlighted the impact of care robots in eldercare on human dignity.
It first discusses Nussbaum and Laitinen et al.’s conceptions as salient in eldercare
robot discourses. The chapter argues that these approaches provide a good frame-
work for evaluating the implications of the application of robots in eldercare to
human dignity. They are, however, based on Western normative principles and might
fall short in communitarian contexts. It thus proposed Metz’s communitarian con-
ception of dignity as a plausible conception to evaluate the impact of eldercare robots
on human dignity. It found that robot-assistive care does not pose much threat to
human dignity, while robot-based care is unlikely in African communities.
The chapter provided a novel approach to evaluating the impact eldercare
robots could have on human dignity. Thus far, the evaluations in eldercare apply
the Western individualist approaches. The evaluation based on the African com-
munitarian approach is a novel contribution to the discourse of eldercare robots.
The contribution ensures that there is yet another way of making these consider-
ations in line with African communal values. Within a larger human-robot
interaction domain, this approach could also be applied as a framework to evaluate
the impact of dignity in childcare and care for people with disabilities.
102 K. Maiyane
References
Arkin, R. C., Ulam, P., & Wagner, A. R. (2012). Moral decision making in autonomous systems:
Enforcement, moral emotions, dignity, trust, and deception. In Proceedings of the IEEE (Vol.
100, pp. 571–589). https://doi.org/10.1109/JPROC.2011.2173265
Coeckelbergh, M. (2012). “How I learned to love the robot”: Capabilities, information technolo-
gies, and elderly care. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, 5, 77–86. https://doi.org/10.
1007/978-94-007-3879-9_5
Coeckelbergh, M. (2016). Care robots and the future of ICT-mediated elderly care: A response to
doom scenarios. AI & Society, 31(4), 455–462. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-015-0626-3
Decker, M. (2008). Caregiving robots and ethical reflection: The perspective of interdisciplinary
technology assessment. AI & Society, 22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-007-0151-0
Girling, R. (2021). Can care robots improve the quality of life as we age? Forbes. https://www.
forbes.com/sites/robgirling/2021/01/18/can-care-robots-improve-quality-of-life-as-we-age/?
sh¼79596e6a668b. Accessed 28 Jan 2022.
Gyekye, K. (2002). Person and community in African thought. In P. Coetzee & A. Roux (Eds.),
Philosophy from Africa: A text with readings (pp. 297–312). Oxford University Press.
Ikuenobe, P. A. (2016). The communal basis for moral dignity: An African perspective. Philosoph-
ical Papers, 45(3), 437–469. https://doi.org/10.1080/05568641.2016.1245833
Laitinen, A., Niemelä, M., & Pirhonen, J. (2019). Demands of dignity in robotic care: Recognising
vulnerability, agency, and subjectivity in robot-based, robot-assisted, and teleoperated elderly
care. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 23(3), 366–401. https://doi.org/10.5840/
techne20191127108
Matolino, B. (2009). Radicals versus moderates: A critique of Gyekye’s moderate communitarian-
ism. South African Journal of Philosophy, 28(2), 160–170. https://doi.org/10.4314/sajpem.
v28i2.46674
Menkiti, I. A. (1984). Person and community in African traditional thought. In African philosophy:
An introduction (pp. 171–182).
Metz, T. (2012). African conceptions of human dignity: Vitality and community as the ground of
human rights. Human Rights Review, 13(1), 19–37. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-011-0200-4
Metz, T. (2014). Dignity in the Ubuntu tradition. In The Cambridge handbook of human dignity
(pp. 310–318). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511979033.037
Metz, T. (2021). A relational moral theory. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/
9780198748960.001.0001
Molefe, M. (2019). An African philosophy of personhood, morality, and politics. Springer Interna-
tional Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15561-2
Molefe, M. (2022). Human dignity in African philosophy. Springer International Publishing. https://
doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93217-6
Nussbaum, M. (2008). Human dignity and political entitlements. In Human dignity and bioethics:
Essays commissioned by the President’s council on bioethics (pp. 351–380).
Nussbaum, M. (2011). Creating capabilities: The human development approach. Belknap Press:
Harvard University. https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674061200. Accessed 5 June 2023.
Sharkey, A. (2014). Robots and human dignity: A consideration of the effects of robot care on the
dignity of older people. Ethics and Information Technology, 16(1), 63–75. https://doi.org/10.
1007/s10676-014-9338-5
Sharkey, A., & Sharkey, N. (2012). Granny and the robots: Ethical issues in robot care for the
elderly. Ethics and Information Technology, 14(1), 27–40. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-010-
9234-6
Sparrow, R. (2016). Robots in aged care: A dystopian future? AI & Society, 31(4), 445–454. https://
doi.org/10.1007/s00146-015-0625-4
Sparrow, R., & Sparrow, L. (2006). In the hands of machines? The future of aged care. Minds and
Machines, 16(2), 141–161. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-006-9030-6
Part III
Ethics
African Ethics
Fainos Mangena
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
African Ethics: Definitions and Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Religion as the basis of African Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
African Ethics and Intercultural Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Recourse to African Applied Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Abstract
This chapter focused on some of the pertinent questions in African ethics such as:
What is the status of African ethics today? What is the basis of African ethics? Do
African ethics practitioners have any contribution to the wider discourse of
intercultural philosophy? These three pertinent questions clearly guided this
chapter. In an attempt to address the first question, I made a cursory survey of
the current debates on the status and place of African ethics today. In particular,
I made the discovery that African ethics is suffering from distortions especially by
African ethics practitioners who are non-Africans by descent such as Thaddeus
Metz and others. In my attempt to answer the second question, I exposed some of
Metz’s fallacies with regard to this subject matter, one of which is that African
ethics do not need religion to authenticate them. In answering the third question,
F. Mangena (*)
Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe
e-mail: fmangena@arts.uz.ac.zw

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_4
106 F. Mangena
I sought to show that the failure by African ethicists of non-African descent to

recognize and valorize African ethics as a competitive discipline was tantamount
to epistemic genocide meant to disadvantage indigenous African ethicists, ensur-
ing that they are denied the opportunity to engage in intercultural debates under
the banner of intercultural philosophy.
Keywords
African ethics · Hunhu/ubuntu · Religion · Intercultural philosophy · Applied
African ethics · Commom moral position
Introduction
In this chapter, I argue that African ethics need not be compared with Western ethics
in order to establish its status as a genuine or authentic ethic. Firstly, I argue that
claims by some African ethics practitioners of non-African descent that African
ethics is not genuine because it lacks form and content are, in my view, not justified
and are tantamount to epistemic genocide. Such insinuations also imply that African
ethics lack conceptual constructs, organization, and method. Secondly, I refute the
claim that religion should not have a part to play in the definition of African ethics.
My position is that culture is made up of beliefs and values, and in the majority of
cases, people’s values are derived from their belief systems. I divide this chapter into
four sections. The first section focuses on the status of African ethics in the global
arena, through interrogating the work of Metz and others. In this section, arguments
from Wiredu and Ramose are also marshaled to challenge Metz. The second section
focuses on the merits of the claim that “religion is the basis of African ethics,” a view
which is completely dismissed by Metz and other like-minded philosophers. Here
I argue that religion is an important aspect of culture, which cannot be easily
separated from philosophy; in particular, ethics as the values of a society also derive
their impetus from the society’s belief systems. Thus, I argue that religion is part of
the garbage of being African, and this view finds expression in the claim by John S
Mbiti (1969: 215) that “Africans are notoriously religious.”
The third section focuses on whether or not African ethics can contribute some-
thing in the discourse of intercultural philosophy. In this section I argue that only an
authentic African ethic will contribute to intercultural philosophy. By “authentic,”
I mean, one that is not based on distortions but that recognizes the contributions of
indigenous African ethicists as well. This section relies on the works of Jonathan
Chimakonam (2017) who defines the province of the Global Expansion of Thought
(GET), which is achieved through conversations, and Kaltenbacher (2014) who tries
to define and map the contours of Intercultural philosophy. The fourth section is a
recourse to African applied ethics.
African Ethics 107
African Ethics: Definitions and Issues
For more than five decades, philosophers from diverse cultural orientations have
sought to establish the status of African ethics. Those with Western cultural roots
have sought to make comparisons between African ethics and the so-called domi-
nant Western theories of ethics, with a view to show that on its own, African ethics is
deficient. Thus, they have defined African ethics by laying a lot of emphasis on rules/
principles that should guide and regulate behavior in the African place. Conversely,
those with African cultural roots, have put emphasis on the place of the community,
group, or family in relation to behavior expected in an African context, without
necessarily having to make comparisons with ethics from other cultures or putting
emphasis on the place of rules/principles in their definition and characterization of
African ethics.
It is important to note that while both groups of African ethicists (those from the
West and those from Africa) endeavor to show the true nature and character of
African ethics, they both differ fundamentally with regard to the place of the
individual and community in the definition of African ethics. While Western phi-
losophers believe that the individual is prior to the community, Indigenous African
philosophers view community as being prior to the individual. At this moment in
time, I sample two of the many definitions of African ethics that are more common to
most readers of African ethics. One of these definitions is from an African ethics
practitioner who has Western cultural roots, while the other one is from an African
ethics practitioner who has African cultural roots.
The first definition is by Thaddeus Metz (2007a, b: 321) who defines African
ethics as relating to the “values associated with the largely black and Bantu-speaking
peoples residing in the sub-Saharan part of the continent, thereby excluding Islamic
Arabs in North Africa and white Afrikaners in South Africa, among others.” Metz
(2007a, b: 321) further argues that African ethics is bereft of a general principle that
prescribes the duties or obligations of moral agents in a sub-Saharan African context.
Metz (2007a, b: 321) also argues that this general principle which should be derived
from these values must be comparable to the dominant Western principles that
include Hobbesian egoism or Kantian respect for persons, but he does not explain
why this is important. For this view, Edwin Etieyibo (2016: 87) labels Metz a
Western Universalist (WU) given his tendency to evaluate the ethical experiences
of Africa using his own Western understanding of the same. Etieyibo (2016) calls
this attitude “double consciousness,” borrowing the term from Du Bois (1903).
I now get into the details of Metz’s argument by looking at his sixth Ubuntu
account for the simple reason that he considers it to be quite promising in explaining
the moral judgments typically held by Africans. Before I do that, I will very briefly
go through the first five Ubuntu accounts for the sake of those who are not familiar
with Metz’s project. To begin with, the first Ubuntu account which Metz (2007a, b:
328) calls U1 says:
108 F. Mangena
An action is right just insofar as it respects a person’s dignity: an act is wrong to the extent
that it degrades humanity.
Though some positives can be drawn from this account, Metz (2007a, b: 329)
dismisses it for failing to account for “several of the intuitions” cited earlier. In
particular, Metz argues that if “respect means treating human life as the most
important intrinsic value in the world, then it cannot easily account for the wrong-
ness of deceiving (C) and breaking promises (E), for such actions need not eradicate,
impair or degrade life” (Metz, 2007a, b: 329).
The second Ubuntu account which Metz (2007a, b: 330) calls U2 says:
An action is right just insofar as it promotes the well-being of others: an act is wrong to the
extent that it fails to enhance the welfare of one’s fellows.
Metz has problems with this Ubuntu account because of its inclination towards
utilitarianism. Metz (2007a, b: 330) thinks that “an exclusively consequentialist
focus on human well-being has notorious difficulties grounding
constraints. . .against stealing (D) or discriminating (F) as means to the greater
good.”
The third Ubuntu account which Metz (2007a, b: 330) calls U3 says:
An action is right just insofar as it promotes the well-being of others without violating their
rights: an act is wrong to the extent that it either violates rights or fails to enhance the welfare
of one’s fellows without violating rights.
Notwithstanding the positives, Metz dismisses this account for failing to account
for all his list of intuitions in this project. In particular, Metz (2007a, b: 331) argues
that this Ubuntu account cannot speak to intuitions such as Consensus (G), Coop-
eration (I), and Tradition (K), which are desirable from an African perspective but
can be inefficient as ways to promote human well-being.
The fourth Ubuntu account which Metz (2007a, b: 331) calls U4 says:
An action is right insofar as it positively relates and thereby realizes oneself: an act is wrong
to the extent that it does not perfect one’s valuable nature as a social being.
Despite seemingly having some positives, given that it is perceived to be the

dominant interpretation of African ethics in the literature, Metz (2007a, b: 332)
criticizes this account for failing to justify why an individual should act for self-
realization. Remarks Metz (2007a, b: 332):
If I ask why I should help others, for example, this theory says that the basic justificatory
reason to do so is that it will help me by making me. . .a better person. However, a better
fundamental explanation of why I ought to help others appeals not to the fact that it would be
good for me. . .but to the fact that it would be good for them.
The fifth Ubuntu account which Metz (2007a, b: 333) calls U5 says:
African Ethics 109
An action is right just insofar as it is in solidarity with groups whose survival is threaten: an
act is wrong to the extent that it fails to support a vulnerable community.
Metz (2007a, b: 334) argues that although this Ubuntu account has the potential to
account for all the 12 intuitions, he criticizes it for being vague, especially as it does
not clearly articulate the idea of harmony. Metz (2007a, b: 334) argues that “there are
respects in which the fundamental requirement to promote harmony and to prevent
discord could use clarification and specification.”
For starters, U6 states that: An action is right just insofar as it produces harmony
and reduces discord; an act is wrong to the extent that it fails to develop community.
Metz (2007a, b: 334) thinks that when compared to the other 5 Ubuntu theories, U6
has the potential to account for all the 12 intuitions alluded to earlier, but he
acknowledges that the account is still too vague as it does not quite explain what
“harmony” means. I will return to this argument later. For Metz (2007a, b: 335)
harmony is made up of two ideas, namely, shared identity and goodwill.
With regard to the idea of shared identity, Metz (2007a, b: 335) makes the
important point that an individual firstly thinks of him/herself as being part of a
group. Thus, one refers to him/herself in the plural as “we.” Secondly, the group that
one considers him/herself to be part of also affirms his/her membership (Metz,
2007a, b: 335). Thirdly, Metz observes that people share identity when they have
common ends or motives (2007a, b: 335). Fourthly, Metz (2007a, b: 335) argues that
“shared identity consists of people in the group coordinating their activities in order
to realize their ends, even if they do not use the same means or make the same
amount of effort.” Coming to the notion of goodwill, Metz (2007a, b) observes that
“one has a relationship of goodwill insofar as one”:
1. Wishes another person well

2. Believes that another person is worthy of help
3. Aims to help another person
4. Acts so as to help another person
5. Acts for the other’s sake
6. Feels good upon realizing that another person has benefitted from his/her actions
and feels bad upon realizing that she has been harmed
Metz (2007a, b: 336) further argues that goodwill and shared identity are distinct
types of relationship in the sense that there exist cases of shared identity without
goodwill as well as cases of goodwill without shared identity. Metz (2007a, b: 336)
gives an example of the former when he makes reference to the relationship between
management and workers at a firm where, in his view, workers will not always work
for the management. I will not give an example of the later as outlined and explained
by Metz as it lies outside the scope of this chapter. Most importantly for this chapter,
Metz (2007a, b: 336) remarks that goodwill without shared identity has more moral
value than does shared identity without goodwill. Metz, however, thinks that U6 can
be enriched by combining the notions of shared identity and goodwill and thereby
leading to the formulation that: An action is right just in so far as it promotes shared
110 F. Mangena
identity among people grounded on goodwill; an act is wrong to the extent that it
fails to do so and tends to encourage the opposites of division and ill-will (Metz,
2007a, b: 338).
I do agree with Metz when he makes the observation that ubuntu entails living a
harmonious relationship with others and that harmony entails two aspects, namely,
the aspect of shared identity and the aspect of goodwill. Although Metz reformulates
U6 by combining shared identity and goodwill and thereby making the principle
“less vague and metaphorical,” I still submit that Metz considers goodwill to
foreground shared identity. In my view, shared identity should be the basis for
goodwill. For instance, one is more inclined to wish another person well (1) when
he or she knows that they have something in common that they share, which is that
they belong to the same community, and that they share the same value system.
One’s belief that a colleague needs help (2) will usually stem from the fact that the
two have shared identity. One’s motivation to act in order to help another person
(4 and 5) will almost always be motivated by his or her desire not to see one of his or
her own suffering. Thus, using this reasoning, it can be argued that shared identity
does not necessarily depend on goodwill. It is therefore probably wrong for Metz to
argue that goodwill has more moral value compared to shared identity since shared
identity is a precondition of or antecedent to goodwill. There is another criticism
from Motsamai Molefe (2017: 59–60) who argues that Metz’s relational ethic tends
to focus more on relations than the self. Thus, Molefe argues that Metz’s African
ethics is impartial rather than partial, and he sees a problem in that. In his parent-
child relationship example, Molefe argues that one should not save a drowning
daughter because she is her mother, but that she is an individual with a threatened
welfare (2017: 60). I find this criticism to be unwarranted because African ethics
cannot be based on partiality as this has the effect of promoting an individualistic
moral ethos, which is a negation of Ubuntu. Metz does not seek to do that, although I
differ with him with regard to his prioritization of goodwill over shared identity.
There is also another sense in which harmony can be construed, which lends
credence to the view that shared identity does not necessarily depend on goodwill.
For instance, Mogobe Ramose (2005: 43) explains the notion of harmony in Africa
using a music-dance metaphor. Ramose (2005: 42) begins his account by critiquing
De Tejada (1960, 1979) who argues that African music seems to point to the
conclusion that Africans are more emotional than rational because they (Africans)
dance spontaneously to music, and the rhythm of their dance consistently rhymes
with the music. In response, Ramose (2005: 42) argues that African philosophy does
not subscribe to the radical opposition between reason and emotion. He also
challenges the naïve view that Africans are persistently in search of harmony in all
spheres of life, although he agrees with the notion that “the concrete expression of
African thought is the continual quest for consensus aimed to establish harmony.”
My analysis of Ramose’s thinking is that he does not seem to view harmony as a
stand-alone concept; instead he thinks that it is an idea that is preceded by consensus
building.
In my view, Ramose succeeds in showing that the idea of a shared identity,
which, according to Metz, is of less value when compared to goodwill, is at the
African Ethics 111
core of Ubuntu. The reasons are twofold: Firstly, Ramose (2005: 43) is on point
when he argues that the Bantu people do not dance spontaneously to music, instead
dancing is a rational act that is aimed at establishing harmony. My position, which is
based on personal experience, is that the Bantu people do not always dance without
their dances being occasioned by an important function. In the context of the Shona
people of Zimbabwe, people dance at different occasions or festivals which include
humwe (a gathering of people helping a fellow to till the land in preparation for
farming), mutambo wekukunda (a gathering to celebrate the success of one of the
family members), Mutambo we Kuwana kana kuwanikwa (a marriage ceremony), or
Mutambo wekuzvagwa kwe mwana (a gathering to welcome new life into the world).
So when they dance, they are doing it to show solidarity with one of their own, a
fellow they share identity with. Secondly, Ramose (2005: 43) is spot on when he
argues that “the concrete expression of African thought is the continual quest for
consensus aimed to establish harmony.” Ramose’s point is that consensus is a
precursor to shared identity, which, in turn, is an important aspect of harmony. The
reasoning, here, is that before people share something, including identity, there must
be some agreed principle(s) or position (s) which must undergird the sharing.
Elsewhere, I have called this agreement, the Common Moral Position (CMP)
(Mangena, 2012: 11).
I have argued that the CMP is attained when the moral opinions of the elders are
put together in order to come up with a common position regarding issues of right
and wrong (cf. Mangena, 2012: 11). The opinions of the elders matter because they
are considered to be wise because of the experiences that have accrued to them as a
result of agedness, as well as their connection with the spirit world. I have also
argued that the CMP is packaged in proverbs. Thus, Bantu people share their identity
because they believe that what unites them is more than what divides them. The
point is that the Bantu people subscribe to the position that they have a common
identity which is derived from their shared values of empathy, love, respect, and
togetherness, among other values. It is these shared values that bring about shared
identity. It is important to note that this reasoning challenges Metz’s position to the
effect that goodwill is more valuable than shared identity as it generates the
equation that:
Consensus þ Shared Identity ¼ Harmony
I do not have problems with the first part of Metz’s definition of African ethics,
where he remarks that African ethics refers to the values of black or Bantu speaking
people resident in sub-Saharan Africa. I have problems with Metz when he makes
the claim in U6 that in Africa, goodwill is more important than shared identity. . . I
also have problems with Metz when he alludes to the view that African ethics lacks a
general principle of right action which could be compared to Western ethics.
The second definition is by Kwasi Wiredu in his 2010 publication entitled: The Moral
Foundations of an African Culture. In this publication, Wiredu (2010: 193) begins by
making the claim that “morality is universal to human culture.” Wiredu argues that any
society that does not have a moral campus will not survive the test of time (2010: 193).
112 F. Mangena
In his definition of morality, Wiredu (2010: 195) puts emphasis on three key
concepts, namely, rules, harmony, and individual interests. Thus, for him, morality
has to do with observing rules for the harmonious adjustment of individual interests
and communal interests (2010: 195). What is good, in general, is what promotes
human interests, and what is good in the narrowly ethical sense is what is conducive
to the harmonization of those interests (2010: 195). While Metz, Ramose, and Wiredu
place a premium on harmony in their definitions of Ubuntu, Wiredu, just like
Ramose, does not see the importance of distinguishing between shared identity and
goodwill as Metz does. For Wiredu, it is pretty obvious that human interests in an
African context presuppose that individual interests are submerged into the interests
of the community. Once that is established, then there is no need to argue on whether
or not shared identity has less value than goodwill.
Religion as the basis of African Ethics
Many claims have been made in the field of African ethics, some of which are that:
1. The field of African ethics lacks a general principle that should guide action
(Metz, 2007a, b).
2. Morality is universal to all human cultures (Wiredu, 2010).
3. African ethics need not be undergirded by a supernatural power or religion (Metz,
2007a, b).
In this section, while I can confirm the validity and soundness of the second
claim, I challenge the validity and soundness of the last claim. In the interest of time
and space constraints, I do not intend to challenge the first claim in this chapter as I
have done that elsewhere (cf. Mangena, 2016a, b; Mangena, 2018). To begin with,
Metz (2007a, b: 328) believes that African ethics does not require religion to be at its
base in order to validate it. He remarks, thus:
There is debate about the respects in which religion and morality relate to each other in
African thinking, with some arguing that religion is foundational with respect to morality,
and others denying it. . . I think it is clear that at least many African societies are best
interpreted as believing moral norms to be logical independent of supernatural theses.
However, I am not out to defend an anthropological representation of the nature of African
belief systems here; I instead stipulate that I seek to develop a moral theory that is
non-religious at its base. (Metz, 2007a, b: 328)
From the foregoing, it is clear that Metz does not think that religion has any
association with African ethics, the same way religion has no association with
Western ethics. Metz seems to be taking a Western moral template and applying it
to an African context as if to suggest that all cultures in the world use one moral
template. Metz also uses a general statement as he bases his argument on a very
general claim: “I think it is clear that at least many African societies are best
African Ethics 113
interpreted as believing moral norms to be logically independent of supernatural

theses” (Metz, 2007a, b: 328). There is no indication, in the text, where he got this
idea. There is also no indication as for how he wishes to use this claim to defend his
argument. It is just thrown into the picture without a clear explanation.
In this chapter, I seek to completely refute this claim and show that the relation-
ship between religion and African ethics is not disparate. I begin this refutation by
revisiting 4 of Metz’s 12 intuitions, showing how they, in fact, resonate with a view
that religion and African ethics are not disparate concepts. I concentrate on those
moral judgments which, according to Metz, are accepted by Africans than by
Westerners. I show that these four moral intuitions point to one thing that African
ethics have both horizontal and vertical dimensions. By horizontal, I mean that these
intuitions explain the relationship between a person and his or her fellow beings. By
vertical, I refer to the relationship between human beings and the spirit world
(c.f. Mangena, 2016a, b).
The first Metzian intuition I discuss says:
To make policy decisions in the face of dissent, as opposed to seeking consensus.
Metz (2007a, b: 324) argues that Africans value unanimity whereby discussions
should go on until there is a solution to a conflict or until a compromise is reached.
This is normally common in the realm of politics. Metz is quite correct here. Going
by this thinking, there is nowhere people’s value system can be separated from what
they hold onto as their beliefs. The second Metzian intuition I discuss in this
section says:
To make retribution a fundamental and central aim of criminal justice, as opposed to seeking
reconciliation.
With regard to this intuition, it would seem that Metz is right to argue that
Africans favor a restorative approach to punishment than a retributive one. The
latter would involve appeasing angry ancestors and protecting the community from
their wrath (Metz, 2007a, b: 325). I wish to point out that restorative approaches to
punishment, while they are aimed at appeasing angry spirits (not ancestors), are not
really aimed at protecting the community from their wrath but are aimed at bringing
about social equilibrium. The point is that justice must be seen to be promoted with a
view to benefit the victim of injustice. Having said, Metz is confirming the view that
African conceptions of morality are not entirely divorced from African religious
experiences. However, he contradicts himself when he remarks thus, “I seek to
develop a moral theory that is non-religious at its base” (Metz, 2007a, b: 328).
There is no prize guessing that all restorative processes especially in an African
context have both horizontal and vertical dimensions. The third Metzian intuition I
discuss is:
To fail to marry and procreate, as opposed to creating a family.

114 F. Mangena
Metz (2007a, b: 327) argues “that many people think that there is some strong and
moral reason to extend familial relationships by finding a (heterosexual) spouse and
having children.” While Metz does explicitly acknowledge that Africans disapprove
those who fail to marry and procreate, he does not go further to outline and explain
the sanctions that accrue to them such as the loss of respect from the other members
of the community and their disqualification from becoming ancestors when they
finally die.
The Shona people of Zimbabwe always say: munhu asina mhuri haana
chiremera kubva kune vamwe (A man without a family has no respect from others.).
The Shona also say: Munhu asina mhuri anotsamwisa vadzimu (A man without a
family, upsets the ancestors.). Please note that before somebody can qualify to be
munhu/umuntu (person), he or she should just be incorporated into the community
through initiation which involves ritual enactment (Ramose, 2005: 58).
Among the Tswana of Botswana, one of the most important functions of the rite
of initiation is the qualification to participate in marriage, which is seen as the basis
of the future community (Ramose, 2005: 64). It should, however, be noted that this
qualification is only possible once somebody has become a person through a stage-
by-stage process of incorporation into the community (Ramose, 2005). Once some-
body has been incorporated into the community, he then qualifies to marry, and once
married, the expectation is that he should procreate. Thus, the main reason why
Vadzimu (ancestors) disqualify those who fail to marry and procreate from becoming
Vadzimu (ancestors) when they finally die is that these people do not create future
communities or generations. Thus, if we go by what is obtained in Shona and
Tswana cultures highlighted above, then Metz’s attempt to develop a moral theory
that is nonreligious at its base would remain an exercise in futility. The fourth
Metzian intuition I will look at is:
To ignore others and violate communal norms, as opposed to acknowledge others, upholding
tradition and partaking in rituals.
As Metz rightly points out (quoting J.S Mbiti), “. . .it is common among Africans,
and more so than among Westerners, to think that one has some moral obligation to
engage with one’s fellows and to support the community’s way of life” (Metz,
2007a, b: 327). Africans believe that laughing at a fellow colleague who is
experiencing problems or difficulties in life is tantamount to laughing at themselves
as the ancestors may allow them to suffer a similar fate tomorrow. To amplify this
view, in Shona language, there is a proverb which says: Chawira hama hachisekesi
(What has befallen a relative cannot be a subject of mockery or a laughable matter.).
What is critical to note here is that part of the reason why Africans, in general, and
the Shona, in particular, feel compelled to care for others’ welfare may not be totally
divorced from their fear of receiving ancestral disapproval should they fail to do
so. As a result of the role which the spirit world plays in safeguarding the moral
values of the Shona, it may therefore not be correct to argue that African ethics need
not be founded on religion, as Metz (2007a, b: 328) arrogantly claims.
African Ethics 115
Thus, my claim that religion and African ethics are not disparate concepts is in
line with Ramose who observes that concepts of moral personhood cannot be
divorced from religion:
Holism is the starting point of the concept of a person. The human person in African thought
is not definable in terms of a single physical or psychological characteristic to the exclusion
of everything else. For Ramose, the traditional African thought of a person is not only this-
worldly; meaning to say, a person is here and now as a corporeal being, but is also other-
worldly; meaning to say that in and through corporeality, the person is oriented towards the
greater, all-encompassing wholeness. Thus, the person in African traditional thought is
simultaneously a physical and a metaphysical being. (2005: 56–57)
This claim alone makes it very clear that personhood as a moral concept cannot be
divorced from traditional African religion. Ramose (2005: 58) amplifies this view
when he argues that “in traditional African thought, personhood is acquired and not
merely established by virtue of being human – as is the case with the West. Thus,
there is a religious dimension to it apart from the moral dimension (of moral agency)
brought about by the age of consent.” In the next section, I look at African ethics in
relation to the idea of Intercultural philosophy in order to buttress the foregoing.
African Ethics and Intercultural Philosophy
In this section, I argue that genuine intercultural philosophy, whose aim is to promote
the Global Expansion of Thought (GET), is only possible when philosophers from
the so-called dominant cultures, particularly Western cultures, stop imposing their
views or methods of philosophizing on people from the so-called less dominant
cultures, particularly African cultures. The GET is an idea originated and developed
by Chimakonam in some of his writings in conversational philosophy. Chimakonam
(2017: 117–118) thoughtfully summarizes this point when he observes that:
To use one’s method to evaluate another’s assumption – articulated with a different method –
can only lead to two possibilities, namely; the falsification of another’s assumption or the
falsification of another’s method. But we cannot proceed this way with two negative
outcomes. . .True intercultural philosophy cannot proceed this way. . .Intercultural discourse,
therefore, ends up as pseudo European philosophy where what is sanctioned as epistemically
correct, is that which aligns with the basic assumptions of European thought.
Before I seriously delve into the problems of the views of Metz on African ethics
in relation to intercultural philosophy, it is important to define the phrase
intercultural philosophy itself and distinguish it from conversational philosophy. It
is critical to note that although intercultural philosophy has become a buzz phrase in
recent years, and although it has come to mean different things to many different
people, many philosophers now seem to agree that intercultural philosophy is “the
endeavor to give expression to the many voices of philosophy in their respective
116 F. Mangena
cultural contexts and, thereby, generate a shared and fruitful discussion granting
equal rights to all” (Kaltenbacher, 2014: 39).
Put differently, intercultural philosophy “recognizes the existence of different
traditions of philosophy in different places and thereby argues that all these different
traditions house ideas that can be critically and creatively harnessed for the benefit of
humanity” (Chimakonam, 2017: 39). In intercultural philosophy, we see a new
orientation and a new practice of philosophy that entails an attitude of mutual
respect, listening, and learning (Kaltenbacher, 2014: 39). We do not seem to see
this in Metz’s project which is highly prescriptive and disrespectful of the African
folks.
As Chimakonam (2017: 125–126) correctly observes, “Intercultural philosophy
seeks to question and relativize the self-erected claim of the universality of views
from reductive philosophy, in terms of the history of ideas, philosophy and devel-
opment.” By so doing, argues Chimakonam, dialogue is made possible between
cultures and traditions without one culture imposing itself upon the other. In other
words, intercultural philosophy seeks to harmonize ideas from the global south with
those from the global north through dialogue. On the basis of Metz’s project, it
would seem that this is not what African ethics practitioners from non- African
descent are seeking to do.
In my view, adopting Metz’s ideas on African ethics will not promote genuine
intercultural philosophy in the following ways: First and foremost, adopting Metz’s
prescriptive approach to doing African ethics would be problematic in that he is
defining and characterizing African ethics using approaches borrowed from the
West. This is so because he is neither keen to learn nor keen to listen to the views
of indigenous African philosophers in his foiled attempt to map the contours of
African ethics.
For instance, he is not conversant with any one of the Bantu languages, from
which the idea of Ubuntu is extracted. As Ramose (2015) summarily put it, “... I
wish to add to my criticism of Metz, the point that as a frequent and speedy writer on
ubuntu philosophy, he is yet to demonstrate in his writings on the subject a working
knowledge of at least one Bantu language.” It would also seem that Metz believes
that his knowledge of South Africa alone is enough to help him to “develop” an
African moral theory because he does not make an effort to appreciate some of the
Bantu languages spoken in countries that border South Africa such as Zimbabwe,
Malawi, Zambia, and Namibia.
For instance, Ramose (2003) observes that in his attempt to find the equivalent of
the word Ubuntu in the Shona language of Zimbabwe, Metz ends up corrupting the
Shona word hunhu with a nonexistent word, nunhu, and the meaning of hunhu as
relating to character or goodness is immediately lost thereof. Thus, to use Metz’s
views on African ethics to promote a genuine intercultural philosophy will be to
completely mislead the world, as this is tantamount to using questionable ideas to
define a concept or a theory. Against this background, I argue that African ethics
must be properly defined and characterized if its practitioners are to participate in any
meaningful intercultural dialogue.
African Ethics 117
Language is important in philosophizing in the sense that it is an expression of

culture. This means that if one has no appreciation of a particular language, there is
no way that person can have an appreciation of the culture in which that language is
spoken, and by extension, the culture’s philosophy. In fact, while the colonization of
Africa meant that Africans were forced to abandon their languages and adopt
English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish as new and official languages of commu-
nication, it is high time that Africans revert back to their own languages and
philosophize in these languages. This point is amplified by philosopher and poet
Bongasu Tanla Kishani (2001) who observes that, “African languages should play
significant roles in both the exploration of the past, and in contemporary and future
philosophical inquiries in Africa.” As Kishani (2001) aptly puts it:
The real problem is not so much to determine how far philosophy is compatible or
incompatible with specific languages and with language as whole or vice versa as to discern
what role African languages should play within the framework of the past, contemporary and
future philosophies in Africa.
The import of the above paragraph is that Africans need to abandon the idea of
philosophizing using a borrowed language or borrowed languages because African
languages are capable of doing the same if not better. Thus, to consider Metz’s voice
as an authoritative voice on African ethics will be gross injustice given his lack of
knowledge about African languages and culture. This means that Metz cannot
represent Africans when it comes to genuine intercultural dialogue. Ramose,
Wiredu, and Mangena can represent Africans at the international table of dialogue
by virtue of their knowledge and appreciation of the African languages as well as the
African culture (s), having been born and bred in those cultures. But it is also
important to briefly explain how African applied ethics can contribute to the
betterment of the world. Below, I do just that.
Recourse to African Applied Ethics
Unlike African ethics, African applied ethics has not been discussed widely in
contemporary African philosophical discourses. The few contributions that are
there do not seem to focus on the importance of this discipline in addressing global
challenges and enriching perspectives from other ethical traditions. I will begin this
section by defining African applied ethics. By “African applied ethics” is meant the
application of African ethics in the contemporary cultural life of the African man and
woman. For example, social ethics can be applied in the social set up where it can be
used as a tool for hospitality or generosity.
Thus, from a social ethics point of view, visitors and strangers should be treated
well once they visit. They are given good food and shelter until they leave. For
example, in the Shona culture of Zimbabwe, there is a proverb which says, “muyenzi
haapedzi dura” (A visit cannot deplete food stocks in a home.). This thinking can
118 F. Mangena
make the world a better world and can enrich other philosophical traditions espe-
cially those that promote individualism like the Western philosophical traditions.
Through African environmental ethics which connects nature to spirituality, and
thereby promote harmonious living, the environment can be preserved for future
generations of both human beings and non-human beings and thereby discourage
anthropocentrism. Through African biomedical ethics, the relationship between a
doctor and a patient could improve if the doctor could realize that his or her
personhood also depends on the personhood of his or her client, who is the patient.
Thus, prescriptive tendencies will disappear completely.
Conclusion
This chapter argued that the status of African ethics seemed not to be properly
established and recognized at the global stage because they were some philosophers
who thought that the subject matter lacked in form and content, when compared to
the “more established” Western ethics. One of the chief defenders of this view was
cited as Metz who sought to establish the principle upon which African ethics could
be based. However, counterarguments by Wiredu and Ramose seemed to point
towards the direction that Metz’s project was an exercise in futility, as he was not
well versed with African languages and culture. It was argued that without a proper
appreciation of a people’s language, it was impossible to say something about their
philosophy (ies).
This view was ably defended by Ramose, Mangena, and Kishani. The chapter
also argued that African ethics has a closer link with African religion since the values
were derived from a people’s belief system. In the final analysis, the chapter argued
that once it can be established that African ethics have the same status and appeal as
Western ethics, because they both have form and content, it could not be disputed
that African ethics can also make a huge contribution to the discourse of intercultural
philosophy. Not only that, through the contribution of African applied ethics, such as
social ethics that promote the spirit of hospitality, and African environmental ethics,
that engenders harmonious living in nature, the environment can be better preserved.
References
Chimakonam, J. (2017). What is conversational philosophy? A prescription of new theory and
method of philosophising, in and beyond African philosophy. Phronimon, 18, 115–130.
Etieyibo, E. (2016). African philosophy in the eyes of the west. Phronimon, 17(1), 84–103.
Kaltenbacher, W. (2014). Beyond the cultural turn: Intercultural philosophy in its historical context.
In W. Sweet (Ed.), What is intercultural philosophy? (pp. 39–50). The Council for Research in
Kishani, B. T. (2001). On the interface of philosophy and language in Africa: Some practical and
theoretical considerations. African Studies Review, 44(3), 27–45.
Mangena, F. (2012). Towards a Hunhu/Ubuntu dialogical moral theory. Phronimon, 13(2), 1–17.
African Ethics 119
Mangena, F. (2016a). Ramose’s legacy and the future of African philosophy. Philosophia Africana:
An Analysis of Philosophy and Issues in Africa and Black Diaspora, 18(1), 53–65.
Mangena, F. (2016b). African ethics through Ubuntu: A postmodern exposition. Africology:
Journal of Pan African studies, 9(2), 66–80.
Mangena, F. (2018). Racial prejudices in current South African philosophical discourses. In
F. Mangena & J. D. McClymont (Eds.), Philosophy, race and multiculturalism in Southern
Africa: Zimbabwean philosophical studies III. The Council for Research in Values and
Philosophy.
Metz, T. (2007a). The motivation for toward an African moral theory. South African Journal
Philosophy, 26(4), 331–335.
Metz, T. (2007b). Toward an African moral theory. Journal of Political Philosophy, 15, 321–341.
Molefe, M. (2017). Relational ethics and partiality: A critique of Thad Metz’s ‘towards an African
moral theory’. Theoria, 64(3), 53–76.
Ramose, M. B. (2003). I doubt, therefore African Philosophy Exists. South African Journal of
Philosophy, 22(2), 113–137.
Ramose, M. B. (2005). African philosophy through Ubuntu. Mond Books.
Ramose, M. B. (2015). On the contested meaning of ‘philosophy’. South African Journal of
Philosophy, 34(4), 551–558.
Wiredu, K. (2010). The moral foundations of an African culture. In K. Wiredu & K. Gyekye (Eds.),
Person and community: Ghanaian philosophical studies I. The Council for Research in Values
and Philosophy.
Doing Moral Philosophy Through
Personhood
Motsamai Molefe
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Three Distinct Concepts of a Person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Ontological Personhood: Ethical Humanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Ontological Personhood: Ethics of Dignity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Normative Personhood: Character and Achievement Dignity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Miscellaneous Ethical Themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Theory of Right Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Partiality and Impartiality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Animal Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Abstract
The chapter provides the reader with one way to approach and understand African
moral philosophy. It pivots African moral philosophy on the concepts of person-
hood. It identifies these concepts of personhood in the salient axiological concept
of Ubuntu, which is typically explained in terms of the saying “a person is a
person through other persons.” In relation to the first two instances of the
concepts of personhood in the saying, it identifies three crucial themes of African
moral philosophy. First, it identifies foundational issues relating the source and
the nature of moral value as secular and construes morality to be derived from
human nature. In relation to foundations, it further clarifies that African ethics is a
dignity-based ethics. Second, it identifies and elucidates the final good to revolve
M. Molefe (*)
Centre for Leadership Ethics in Africa, University of Fort Hare, East London, South Africa
e-mail: mmolefe@ufh.ac.za

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_5
122 M. Molefe
around the pursuit and acquisition of virtue or excellence. Finally, it considers the
robustness of African moral philosophy by considering how it can account for
right action, the debate on partiality and impartiality and the status and place of
animals in African moral philosophy.
Keywords
Animal ethics · Dignity · Excellence · Humanism · Moral philosophy ·
Personhood · Virtue
Introduction
The chapter offers an interpretation of moral philosophy in the light of intellectual

resources in African cultures. It does so by appealing to the prominent concept of
personhood in African philosophy. The concept of a person or personhood is one of
the most important intellectual and axiological resources in African cultures to
imagine and construct African moral philosophy. In its typical day-to-day use in
African communities, it functions as an honorific, or a status term. It is a status term
in as far as to be recognized as a person is tantamount to receiving social approval for
having lived a decent or good human life. The life of a human agent is good or decent
if the agent’s conduct is characterized by excellence. To be associated with the status
of being a person amounts to being praised for having led a true human life. To deny
some human agent, the status of a person – to consider them to be a nonperson –
denotes that they are living below the acceptable standards of human conduct.
In African thought, the notion of a person is intrinsically tethered to that of
achievement. To be a person denotes a status of socio-moral achievement. The
association of personhood with a particular standard of achievement implies that
the notion under consideration is normative (see Menkiti, 2004; Wiredu, 2004). That
is, for the agent to attain personhood, they must live up to the specified norms of
conduct. Scholars associate the attainment of personhood with the norm of excel-
lence (Dzobo, 1992; Masolo, 2010; Behrens, 2013; Oyowe & Yurkivska, 2014). For
example, Ifeanyi Menkiti, famous for pioneering a philosophical exposition of the
concept of a person in African thought, associates it with the acquisition of excel-
lence four times in his essay (see Wiredu, 2004). In one of the four instances, he
observes that “[w]e must also conceive of this organism as going through a long
process of social and ritual transformation until it attains the full complement of
excellencies seen as truly definitive of man” (1984: 172). In this light, to be a person
requires a socio-moral transformation of what was initially merely a biological
organism to become a person, a human agent with the full complement of
excellencies.
The aim of this chapter, therefore, involves philosophically unfolding African
moral philosophy, or African ethics, through the concept of personhood.
To give the reader a picture of African moral philosophy through the lens of
personhood, it is important to begin by clarifying two important issues. The first
Doing Moral Philosophy Through Personhood 123
issue involves the very concept of a person or personhood in African philosophy. It is

more accurate to think of African moral philosophy through concepts of personhood
rather than the concept of a person. In other words, it is a combination of several
crucial concepts of personhood that provides a more comprehensive and approxi-
mate framework to understand African moral thought than a single one – the chapter,
hopefully, will justify this claim. The first section of this chapter focuses on this very
point of elucidating various concepts of personhood that are crucial to constructing
African moral philosophy. The second point pertains to clarifying the idea of
“African moral philosophy.” The first part of the clarification is methodological as
it involves explaining the use of the concept African in the phrase “African moral
philosophy.” The second part involves the question of scope as far as it relates to
“African moral philosophy.”
To begin, it is absolutely crucial to clarify the use of the moniker African in
relation to the phrase “African moral philosophy.” There is no denying that the use of
the moniker African has been and can be very controversial (see Ramose, 1999).
Surely there are many ways of using this term that are obviously problematic like the
uses of it in the construction of the narratives and justification of colonization, which
is eloquently captured by V. Y. Mudimbe (1988) in his book The Invention of Africa.
The uses of Africa in this instance have racist, objectifying, animalizing, and
dehumanizing connotations (Mbembe, 2001). There are also uses of Africa that
tend to be characterized by gratuitous simplifications, or sweeping generalizations,
which treat Africa as a single, homogenous, and monolithic, which is far from the
truth (Amin, 1972).
This chapter proposes two senses of the idea of Africa that do not imply the above
problematic uses. First, the use of the concept “African” refers to a geography or a
concrete place in the world. It is a kind of a thing, a place, one can identify on a map,
as that particular region with such and such geographical details (Janz, 2009). In this
light, one can identify some presidents, say, Nelson Mandela, as a president of an
African country. In this instance, one will be informing us that Mandela is a president
that comes from the place on the map called Africa, or at least, he is the president of
one of the countries in the place Africa. The second sense of the term refers to a set of
items, be it ideas or practices, which can be rightly associated with the place Africa.
These practices or ideas are identified as African largely because they are salient in
this place and have persisted in it for a very long time (Oyowe, 2014). Take, for
example, the belief in ancestors among African cultures. The idea that when a human
being dies they join a spiritual community where they serve as a guardian to their
family and community is salient among African cultures (Wiredu, 1992). The belief
in ancestors is ubiquitous and pervasive among African cultures (Ramose et al.,
2003). It is important to note that to identify some belief as African, in the second
sense, is not the same as suggesting that it only occurs in Africa, or that everyone in
Africa actually believes it (Metz, 2007). Rather, to identify some view as African
amounts to recognizing it as salient in that place over a long stretch of time (Metz,
2021).
In light of the above, when reference is made to “African” moral philosophy, the
idea being advanced is that there are certain intuitions and ideas salient in the place
124 M. Molefe
Africa that are useful to construct African ethics. In the instance of this chapter, the
concept of a person will serve as an axiological resource to reflect on African ethics.
There is no doubt in the literature that the concept of personhood is at the heart of
African moral thought. Notice the following comments from some of the leading
scholars of African thought on personhood. Kwasi Wiredu (2004: 18), in an impor-
tant volume dedicated to African philosophy, discusses the importance of the
normative concept of personhood in African philosophy, and he proceeds to inform
us that this concept “brings us naturally to the subject of morality.” Dismas Masolo
(2010: 135), an important historian of African philosophy, suggests that the notion of
a person is a gateway to African moral thought describing it as the “pinnacle of an
African difference in philosophical theory.” Kevin Behrens (2013: 104 emphasis
mine), in his analysis of personhood, reflecting on Kwasi Wiredu and Dismas
Masolo’s analysis of personhood in African philosophy concludes that “there is an
African conception of personhood that is not only distinct from Western notions, but
is also foundational and characteristic of African philosophical thought.” Polycarp
Ikuenobe (2006: 128 emphasis mine), one of the leading contemporary scholars of
African moral and political thought, informs us that “[o]ne feature of communalism,
which is the core of African cultural traditions, is its normative . . . conception of
personhood.” This brief survey is sufficient to secure the view that the (normative)
concept of personhood is a gateway to understand African moral thought.
To construct a picture of African moral philosophy through personhood, four
sections follow. The first section offers a philosophical discussion of the three
distinct concepts of personhood crucial to understand African moral philosophy,
namely, personhood as (1) the fact of being human, (2) human dignity, and (3) virtue.
The second section turns to the ontological notion as it relates to the question of
foundations. Two foundational aspects associated with the ontological concept of
personhood will be considered. On the one hand, it will emerge that the ontological
concept of personhood embodies ethical humanism. On the other hand, it will
emerge that the ontological concept embodies a dignity-based account of morality.
The next section focuses on the normative concept of personhood, where it will
primarily expound what it means to achieve personhood. The final section focuses
on different themes that will further help the reader to have a firm grasp of African
moral philosophy through the lens of personhood. Three such themes will be
considered – (1) action-centered theory of value; (2) the debate on partiality and
impartiality; and (3) animal ethics.
Three Distinct Concepts of a Person
One of the crucial ways to understand African ethics is through the concept of
Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a Nguni term that captures a prominent way to understand
African moral thought below the Sahara (Ramose, 1999; Shutte, 2001; Eze, 2005).
Ubuntu, as an African axiological system, is usually explained in terms of the
aphorism “a person is a person through other persons.” I appeal to the ethical idea
of Ubuntu because it presents us with the concepts of personhood that are crucial to
properly frame and understand African moral philosophy. I hope the reader imme-
diately notices the salience of the word person in the aphorism. The word person
occurs three times in the aphorism. The repetition of the word person in the aphorism
of Ubuntu, which is believed to be crucial to understand African ethics, implies that
to grasp African ethics an analysis of the word/concept(s) of a person is necessary
and inescapable.
The first suggestion the reader should take notice of is that this aphorism should
be understood as a normatively loaded one, though it is open to nonnormative
interpretations (Munyaka & Motlhabi, 2009). Actually, it should be read as making
a moral prescription to the effect that a human agent should become a person in the
context of positively relating with other human agents. If the phrase “a person is a
person. . .” is interpreted as a moral prescription, then it can no longer be seen as a
mere tautology. Rather, it promises a rich normative framework that is evaluatively
and prescriptively informative in as far as it enjoins the human agent to become or
achieve personhood. The aphorism is composed of three phrases containing the
word person – (1) “a person”; (2) “is a person”; and (3) “through other persons.” For
the sake of getting a sense of African moral philosophy, a philosophical explication
of the concepts of personhood is urgent, and much of this chapter focuses on their
elucidation.
The first instance of the word person, “a person,” as it appears in the aphorism,
refers to the ontological concept of a human being. The ontological concept of a
person identifies beings like me and you, the reader of this chapter, Homo sapiens.
The second instance of the word person, as it occurs in the second phrase “is a
person,” refers to the normative concept of a person, which identifies moral agents
that have actually acquired virtue or moral excellence. The last instance of the word
person, as it occurs in the phrase “through other persons,” refers to the importance of
the community of persons as the proper and only context within which the agent can
develop virtue (Lougheed, 2022). To proceed to offer an analysis of African ethics,
the chapter pays special attention to the first two instances of the word person, the
ontological and normative concepts of a person. The phrase “a person” in the
aphorism embodies two significant ethical themes, ethical humanism (section “Onto-
logical Personhood: Ethical Humanism”) and the ethics of dignity (section “Onto-
logical Personhood: Ethics of Dignity”). The phrase “is a person” embodies the final
good, which is typically described as the normative concept of personhood (section
“Normative Personhood: Character and Achievement Dignity”). Next follows the
exposition of the foundations of African ethics (section “Ontological Personhood:
Ethical Humanism”), the ethics of dignity (section “Ontological Personhood: Ethics
of Dignity”), the final good ala the normative concept (section “Normative Person-
hood: Character and Achievement Dignity”), and a discussion of miscellaneous
themes like the metaethical theme of partiality and impartiality to help the reader
to appreciate the robustness of African ethics.
The next section focuses on the ontological concept of a person and its implica-
tions for African moral philosophy.
126 M. Molefe
Ontological Personhood: Ethical Humanism
Note the distinction between the ontological and the normative concept of person-
hood considered above. In the literature on African philosophy, it is common for
scholars to point us to this distinction (see Gyekye, 1992; Ikuenobe, 2006; Behrens,
2013). It is worth noting that scholars of African thought often observe that the
normative notion of personhood is more important than the ontological notion of a
person (see Gbadegesin, 1991; Wiredu, 2009). For example, Wiredu (2009: 13)
informs us that “[t]he African mind is not oblivious to the ontological aspects of the
concept of a person, and has ideas thereto. But ethical issues are more dominant.”
The implication of this claim is that the normative concept, which will be considered
at length later on in the chapter, is more relevant and important in African philos-
ophy. This claim by Wiredu has the potential to offer a less than satisfactory
approach to African moral philosophy. A more promising approach recognizes the
distinction between the ontological and the normative notions of personhood without
suggesting that either of the two concepts is more important than another. In fact,
some scholars have started to take the line of reasoning that considers how these two
concepts play distinct but equally crucial roles in African moral philosophy (see
Ikuenobe, 2017; Molefe, 2020).
This section helps us to appreciate the significance of the ontological notion of
personhood in African moral philosophy. The significance of the ontological notion
of a person involves the roles it plays in African moral thought. The first role
involves the question about the nature of moral properties, i.e., is morality essentially
physical or spiritual? Alternatively, it involves the question about the source of
morality. The ontological notion of a person provides a particular answer to this
question. The second role of the ontological view is that it embodies a metaphysical
explanation for why agents ought to expect or believe that human agents can achieve
personhood. It is because of these two foundational considerations, which will be
elaborated below, that the ontological notion ought to receive equal consideration in
the imagination and construction of African moral philosophy, contra Wiredu’s
observation.
The ontological concept of personhood has implications regarding the founda-
tions of African moral thought. Remember, the first phrase “a person” is an onto-
logical one that refers to the fact of being human. The fact that this phrase “a person”
is the first suggests that the ontological notion ought to take priority in the imagina-
tion and construction of African thought. It is reasonable to interpret the phrase to
suggest that human beings are the foundation of morality. In other words, the entire
project of morality revolves around the fact of being human. Scholars of African
thought endorse the view that humanity is the source or foundation of morality. Note,
for example, that Wiredu (1992: 65) informs us that “the first axiom of all Akan
axiological thinking is that man or woman is the measure of [moral] value.” For
another example, consider Stephen Bantu Biko (2004: 45) who observes that “[o]ne
of the most fundamental aspects of our culture is the importance we attach to Man.
Ours has always been a [hum]an-centred society.” He continues to inform us that
African cultures “. . . always place man [human beings] first” (46). Kwame Gyekye
(2010) in an encyclopedia article titled “African ethics” makes the following com-
ment about the nature of African moral thought.
. . .African morality originates from considerations of human welfare and interests, not from
divine pronouncements. Actions that promote human welfare or interest are good, while
those that detract from human welfare are bad. It is, thus, pretty clear that African ethics is a
humanistic ethics, a moral system that is preoccupied with human welfare.
The phrase “a person” points us to the primacy of humanity in grounding

morality. The source and goal of morality revolves around humanity. Humanity is
the source of morality in as far as there is no meaningful talk of morality without
human beings. It is the very presence of human beings that occasions the very
possibility of morality because the values encapsulated by morality are intrinsically
connected with humanity. One upshot of the primacy of humanity, as the source and
goal of morality, is that African ethics, metaethically speaking, can be described in
terms of ethical naturalism.
Ethical naturalism is the claim that moral properties are definable entirely by
appealing to some physical property (Metz, 2007). African scholars are very specific
about the nature of natural property that accounts for morality – these are human-
based properties. It is because morality is grounded on certain aspects of human
nature, be it human interests, needs, or dignity, that this approach to morality is
characterized as humanistic in its orientation (see Wiredu, 1992; Gyekye, 1995;
Metz, 2021). The conclusion that follows is that the ontological notion of person-
hood entails that African moral philosophy embodies a secular (or nonreligious)
ethics, which grounds the entire project of morality on certain features of human
nature. The phrase “a person” captures the ethical humanism characteristic of
African ethics where morality essentially involves the human good.
In the next section, I consider another important aspect of the ontological notion
of personhood.
Ontological Personhood: Ethics of Dignity
The ontological notion of personhood captures not only ethical humanism, but also
the primacy of the concept of human dignity in African moral philosophy. In other
words, another underexplored insight associated with the ontological concept of
personhood is that of human dignity. In this sense, the phrase “a person” signals that
a human being is a bearer of intrinsic and superlative worth. In virtue of the status of
dignity, a human being is owed utmost moral respect. Typically, in the philosophical
literature, human dignity is described as “human” because it is a function of
possessing certain value-endowing metaphysical capacities of human nature
(George & Lee, 2008). In other words, the mere possession of certain distinctive
metaphysical capacities, depending on the theory of human dignity under consider-
ation, such as cognitive abilities, basic capabilities, or relational capacities, means a
human being has dignity (Donnelly, 2015). Note, it is the mere possession of the
128 M. Molefe
relevant metaphysical feature that secures the status of dignity and nothing more, at
least in the dominant interpretation of it.
In this light, the status of dignity is not one that the agent acquires or achieves.
Rather, the agent possesses it merely because of the relevant metaphysical features
(Hughes, 2011). The status of dignity is thought to be inherent or intrinsic because it
is a function of our human nature (Sulmasy, 2009). The significance of it being
intrinsic denotes that it is a kind of value that does not depend on any external
features of the world. Moreover, since dignity is a function of internal features of our
nature, it is not the kind of thing that agents come to achieve; it is a natural part of
metaphysical makeup of human nature. As much as agents do not achieve it, there is
nothing agents can do that can lead them to lose it unless there is a fundamental
change in our metaphysical makeup, which is almost impossible (Miller, 2017).
Another crucial consideration related to human dignity that all those that have it have
it equally – is an egalitarian value (Jaworska & Tannenbaum, 2018). This is the case
because it is something agents have merely because they possess the relevant
metaphysical equipment rather than its use. Finally, having dignity creates stringent
duties of respect for moral agents (Darwall, 1977). The duties of respect might at
least take two forms. Negative duties of respect require that agents refrain from
interfering or harming beings of dignity (McNaughton & Rawling, 2006). Positive
duties require that institutions and agents empower or assist, where possible, a being
of dignity (Jaworska & Tannenbaum, 2018).
Does the ontological notion of personhood entail a particular conception of
human dignity? The answer to this question is affirmative. To get a clue that the
notion of personhood embodies a conception of human dignity, one needs simply to
revisit the aphorism constitutive of African thought – “a person is a person . . .” The
underlying consideration in the aphorism seems to be that there are certain meta-
physical facts about “a person,” the ontological notion of it, which explains and
justifies the expectation that the agents/he can actually become “is a person,” the
normative notion of a person. The ontological notion of a person serves as a
metaphysical foundation that grounds the moral expectation in relation to the
agent being able to pursue and acquire virtue. The insight that the ontological notion
embodies a conception of human dignity is suggested in several ways in the
literature.
To begin, notice the comment by Mogobe Ramose et al. (2003: 413, emphasis
mine) –
the concept of a person in African thought takes the fact of being a human being for granted.
It is assumed that one cannot discuss the concept of personhood without in the first place
admitting the ‘human existence’ of the human being upon whom personhood is to be
conferred.
By “a concept of a person in African thought,” Ramose is making reference to

the normative notion of it, which he takes to be distinct from the fact of being human,
the ontological notion of it. Here, Ramose recognizes the distinction between the
ontological and normative concepts of personhood, and he equally recognizes the
interconnection between the two concepts – one (the normative notion) is not
possible without the other (the ontological notion). The point that might extract
from Ramose’s comment is that there are certain metaphysical aspects of a human
being that are necessary for the possibility of achieving personhood. Masolo (2004:
493) refers to these metaphysical aspects that inform the possibility of achieving
personhood as “moral capacities” Menkiti (1984: 177). Gyekye (1992: 110) refers to
these metaphysical capacities as the “capacity for moral sense.” The capacity for
moral sense refers to the metaphysical equipment that ought to be developed for one
to have become a moral agent, one that can be held responsible for her actions, which
will explain the expectation that they ought to pursue virtue. Gyekye (1992: 110)
further informs us that “the human person is considered to possess an innate capacity
for virtue.”
The point that emerges from the above is that there is an interconnection between
the ontological concept of personhood and the normative one. The explanation of the
connection under consideration resides in the ontological notion, which captures the
essential metaphysical (or moral capacities) that must be nurtured so that personhood
may emerge. Thus, it is the possession of the metaphysical capacities that are
necessary for the emergence of a virtuous human agent (the normative concept of
a person). In other words, human agents can acquire virtue, and, this expectation is
justified because they possess the capacity for it. It is the capacity for virtue that
refers to the metaphysical feature of human nature that explains why human beings
have status of dignity. What is most distinctive and special about “a person” is the
fact that s/he possesses the capacity for virtue. For example, Martha Nussbaum’s
(2011) capabilities approach identifies basic capabilities, which refers to raw human
abilities necessary for human freedom and agency, as the most distinctive and special
of human nature. Kantian ethics identifies the superior cognitive capacity as the basis
for human dignity African ethics, on the other hand, identifies the capacity for virtue
(Rosen, 2012).
Several things are worth noting in relation to the phrase “a person” in relation to
human dignity. The value encapsulated by the capacity for virtue is an innate or
intrinsic one. It is the kind of value that does not depend on the community or social
relationships for its reality. It is a fact that stems in relation to the nature of the human
person as a possessor of the relevant internal feature. It is also crucial to note that the
value is possessed by the individual in and of herself. The idea of intrinsic value
refers to the value-endowing features the individual possesses in her own right. The
possession of the capacity for virtue entails that moral individualism is an escapable
feature of African thought (Molefe, 2017). To associate the possession of dignity qua
the possession of the capacity for virtue is not to dismiss the community, or its
importance, rather it also reveals and emphasizes that the importance of the com-
munity cannot supersede the value of each individual in her own right. Moreover, the
community is important as far it has the duty to recognize and respect the dignity of a
person. The lack of recognition of this inherent value of the individual, however,
would not negate or annihilate it.
In sum, the first phrase of the aphorism “a person is a person through other
persons” has two moral-theoretical implications. On the one hand, it embodies
130 M. Molefe
ethical humanism, the doctrine that humanity is the source and standard of all
morality. On the other hand, it embodies an ethics of dignity, which embodies the
claim that human beings are distinctive and special in the moral community because
they possess the capacity for virtue. Next, the focus turns to the normative concept of
a person.
Normative Personhood: Character and Achievement Dignity
I hope the reader notices the connection between the ontological and normative
concepts of personhood. The ontological notion captures the metaphysical features –
the capacity for virtue – that make the pursuit of personhood possible in the first
place. The reader will do well to remember that scholars of African thought talk of
personhood as some kind of moral acquisition or achievement. For instance, Menkiti
(1984: 176) informs us that “various societies found in traditional Africa routinely
accept this fact that personhood is the sort of thing which has to be attained.” The
question that emerges immediately in relation to personhood being some kind of
achievement is – what exactly is it that a moral agent attains when they achieve
personhood? The standard answer is that the attainment of personhood is tantamount
to acquiring or developing a good character (Menkiti, 1984; Dzobo, 1992; Wiredu,
1996). To be a person denotes being virtuous. Note, for example, that Metz (2010:
83) observes that being a person involves a human being becoming “a full person, a
real self, or a genuine human being, i.e., to exhibit virtue in a way that not everyone
ends up doing.”
The achievement of personhood requires the agent “to develop her capabilities,”
or the capacity for virtue, and the development of this capacity for virtue leads to an
agent exhibiting virtue (Wiredu, 2009: 16). The pursuit of personhood is open to
human beings as long as they are alive – one can become more and better of a person.
Scholars of African thought are also very specific about the nature of the virtues
associated with personhood – a person tends to be characterized by other-regarding
or relational virtues (Molefe, 2019). Notice that Wiredu (2009: 15) observes that the
achievement of personhood refers to “a morally sound adult who has demonstrated
in practice a sense of responsibility to household, lineage and society at large.”
Wiredu explains personhood in terms of outward and other-oriented responsibilities.
Gyekye (1992: 109–110) informs us that personhood involves “the display of moral
virtue” and further explains that the “norms, ideals and moral virtues [associated
with personhood] can be said to include generosity, kindness, compassion, benev-
olence, respect and concern for others; in fine, any action or behaviour that conduces
to the promotion of the welfare of others.” Thus, to be a person involves the
development of a virtuous character.
In African thought, the moral story begins by recognizing that the human agent is
endowed with a certain distinctive capacity, the capacity for virtue. The essence of
the moral life, in African thought, involves the nurturing of the capacity for virtue,
which, when successfully developed, will result in the acquisition and display of
virtue. The kind of virtues usually associated with the achievement of personhood
place emphasis on benefitting others is they are the ones that throw agents into
interactive and productive social relationships with others. At this point, it might be
crucial to inform the reader that the normative notion of personhood is not entirely
other-regarding. The reader should remember that the quest to achieve personhood is
based on the individualistic feature of the human agent – the capacity for virtue
(human dignity). This is a feature of moral worth that they possess as an individual. It
is also important to notice that it is she and she alone that can develop this feature.
Moreover, personhood essentially involves the development of the capacity for
virtue. Personhood is a function entirely of developing the capacity for virtue.
An ethics associated with personhood is described as a self-realization or moral
perfectionist because it essentially involves the development or perfection of a
certain component of human nature (Metz, 2007; Lutz, 2009; Behrens, 2013;
Molefe, 2019, 2021). The point that emerges is that the object of morality is the
agent’s capacity for virtue, but this capacity can only be developed in positive social
relationships with others. Another way to think about a personhood-based morality
involves appreciating the relation between the self and the exhibition of virtue. The
final of good of virtue is pursued by the agent, and it is achieved by the agent. It is the
individual, as the moral agent that acquires virtue, which points us to the individu-
alistic aspect of African ethics. Moreover, to bring in a balance, the agent, as an
individual, can only acquire personhood, manifest virtue, by communing or partic-
ipating positively in the community. It is the context of communing with others that
personhood or virtue is possible. In this light, it can be duly noted that in terms of the
final good, the achievement of virtue, the normative notion is self-regarding, but the
content and process of acquiring personhood essentially requires and involves other-
regarding duties. The conclusion that emerges is that although the essence of
morality revolves around “a person,” a self, the agent, acquiring virtue, the self-
realization component, they cannot pursue virtue separated, indifferent, or alienated
from others. Hence, the now-famous expression by John Mbiti (1969) “I am because
we are” captures the I, the self-regarding component of morality, which can only
realize her true moral destiny in the context of “being-with-others,” which implicates
the other-regarding component of morality (Menkiti, 2004: 324).
The normative notion of a person can also be expressed in terms of the language
of dignity. The literature on human dignity distinguishes between various concepts
of human dignity (see Sulmasy, 2009; Rosen, 2012; Michael, 2014). Of relevance
here are two distinct but related concepts of human dignity – there is the kind of
dignity that is a function of the natural endowments of human nature, and there is a
kind of dignity that emerges in consequence to the agents nurturing and developing
of these natural endowments. For example, Sulmasy (2009) refers to the dignity that
is a function of the endowments of human nature as intrinsic dignity (Rosen 2012).
Miller (2017), among others, refers to it as status dignity. These scholars variously
refer to the dignity that emerges in relation to the positive use of agency or conduct in
terms of inflorescent or achievement dignity (Sulmasy, 2009; Michael, 2014). In this
light, a distinction can be drawn between the ontological and normative concept of
personhood. The ontological concept of a person embodies a conception of human
dignity, which is a function of the endowment or capacity for virtue. The capacity for
132 M. Molefe
virtue captures intrinsic or status dignity. The normative notion of personhood,

which refers to the acquisition or display of virtue, captures inflorescent or achieve-
ment dignity.
Hopefully, the ontological and normative concepts of a person have given the
reader a clearer picture of African moral philosophy. The ontological concept
identifies human beings as bearers of intrinsic dignity, which entails duties of respect
for moral agents. Agents’ ought to relate with a human being, as the bearer of
dignity, with utmost respect. On the other hand, the normative notion of personhood
specifies the chief duty of the agent to nurture a virtuous disposition, which will
render the person as a responsible member of the family, community, and society at
large. The agent has a duty to herself that involves moral-personal development.
This development requires her to relate positively with others. The agent is called
forth to live a life of dignity – to recognize herself as a bearer of intrinsic dignity and
to develop this capacity by exhibiting virtue.
Next, the focus turns to select themes in ethical theory in light of the personhood-
based view of ethics.
Miscellaneous Ethical Themes
Above, the reader was provided with a picture of moral philosophy in light of the
concepts of personhood in African philosophy. To provide this picture, the aphorism
“a person is a person through others persons” was heuristically useful. The aphorism
permitted a philosophical exploration of the ontological and normative concepts of
personhood. The view that emerged is that the two concepts embody two distinct
concepts of human dignity, status and achievement forms of dignity. The agent has
status dignity because they possess the capacity for virtue and, by arduously
developing this capacity, they can achieve virtue, or achievement dignity. In what
follows, the focus shall turn to several select important themes in ethical theory,
namely, theory of right action, partiality and impartiality, and animal ethics.
Theory of Right Action
Above, the discussion concluded that the idea of personhood embodies a dignity-
and-virtue-based account of morality. That is, the basis for the aspiration to pursue
personhood as the final good is the fact that human beings are endowed with the
capacity for virtue, which captures status or intrinsic dignity. The final goal of
achieving personhood, or what we also called achievement dignity, amounts to
nurturing and exhibiting virtue. The reader might complain that even after this
exposition of the personhood-based account of ethics, it is still not obvious how
this moral view might account for permissible or impermissible actions. Here, the
inquiry involves articulating an action-centered theory of value, which will help
distinguish right from wrong actions.
The principle of right action anticipated must be able to recognize the agents and
others’ human dignity. The agents’ human dignity, which they have because of their
capacity for virtue, requires the agent to realize the potential of their nature – to
acquire virtue. For her to do so, the agent ought to relate positively with others. In
this light, it can be noted that the dignity-based interpretation of the personhood-
based account of morality requires the agent to achieve virtue by positively relating
with others. Metz (2007: 331) in his exposition of the ethical concept of personhood
proposes an action-centered theory of value that accommodates the self-and-other-
regarding elements of it in this fashion – “An action is right just insofar as it
positively relates to others and thereby realizes oneself; an act is wrong to the extent
that it does not perfect one’s valuable nature as a social being.” Notice that this
principle of right action specifies both the moral means and ends. Positively relating
with others serves as a moral means to achieve the final good. The moral end, or the
goal of morality, requires the agent to actually realize the potential of her humanity,
which involves nurturing her capacity for virtue.
On this view, it emerges that actions such as rape, kidnapping, unnecessary
stealing, murder, and robbery are wrong because they fail to positively relate with
others and they do not lead to the agent developing and exhibiting virtue, i.e., realize
the destiny of her social nature.
The next section considers how personhood might resolve to the debate on
partiality and impartiality.
Partiality and Impartiality
One of the debates that have characterized moral philosophy involves the question of
the nature of moral properties, specifically the question of whether morality is
essentially characterized by moral partialism or impartialism (Wolf, 1992). Moral
partialism is the claim that a robust moral philosophy or theory ought to have a place
for special relationships (Cottingham, 1986). There is a difference between volun-
tary and involuntary special relationships. The former refers to those that agents
choose to form like a romantic relationship or a friendship. A nonvoluntary rela-
tionship is one that agents do not choose such as parental relationships or family.
Agents owe special obligations to their special relationships. In other words, agents
have special duties to prioritize or show preference for the interests, welfare, and
general good of their loved ones or close ties over the interests, welfare, and general
good of strangers. Moral impartialism is the view that agents have a duty to treat all
moral patients equally (Jollimore, 2014). It forbids all instances of favoritism and it
operates on the logic of egalitarianism.
Another technical way to capture the distinction between moral partialism and
impartialism is in terms of what is called in the literature in philosophy reasons for
acting (McNaughton & Rawling, 2006; Loschke, 2018). Note the distinction
between agent-relative and agent-neutral reasons for acting. “Agent-relative rea-
sons” are those that have an essential self-reference to the agent as part of the
explanation and motivation for the agent’s actions. For example, the reason for
134 M. Molefe
saving my mother over the stranger in the burning building is the mere fact that she is
my mother. The self-referential element is an ineliminable part of the explanation for
why they chose to save her over the stranger – she is my mother (Loschke, 2014). On
the other hand, “agent-neutral reasons” are those that are general in nature in as far as
they make no essential reference to anyone. Act-utilitarianism is the paradigm
example of a moral theory characterized by agent-neutral reasons. The agent has a
duty to promote anyone and everyone’s welfare so far as it is possible. Her reasons
for promoting welfare essentially revolve around maximizing the good for anyone
even at the expense of the agent or even her special relationships. In this case, the
agent may save a stranger over her mother because saving the stranger will promote
more good than saving her own mother. It is the general consideration of promoting
the good that informs the agents’ reasons. Moral partialism is characterized by agent-
relative reasons and moral impartialism by agent-neutral reasons (Molefe, 2021).
Which, moral partialism or impartialism, captures the essence of personhood as a
moral theory? Interestingly, personhood embodies both partialism and impartialism.
Remember that personhood embodies two distinct concepts of human dignity –
intrinsic and achievement dignity. Intrinsic dignity refers to the kind of worth equally
possessed by all human beings. Intrinsic dignity embodies moral egalitarianism. In
this light, in as far as personhood grounds dignity as a crucial component of moral
thought, it should follow that it embodies moral impartialism, or at least impartialism
is an important aspect of it. The implication is that agents do not have a no
nonarbitrary basis to discriminate among two beings of dignity since they are equally
valuable (Jaworska & Tannenbaum, 2018). The kind of moral impartialism associ-
ated with personhood best explains macroethical duties associated with public
institutions. Public institutions, which have a responsibility to promote the common
good, require that they treat all moral patients qua their status of dignity equally
(Molefe, 2021).
The normative notion of personhood accommodates moral partialism. Specifi-
cally, it accommodates two kinds of moral partialism – agent-and-other-centered
partialisms (Molefe, 2019). For the sake of demonstrating the place of moral
partialism, the discussion will be limited to the agent-centered partialism. Agent-
centered partialism is accounted for by the self-realization component of the norma-
tive concept of personhood. Remember, the normative concept of personhood
enjoins the agent to nurture her own humanity, her capacity for virtue, so as to
achieve a good character. The personal project of acquiring virtue is one that belongs
to the agent, and it is only the agent that can pursue and achieve this goal. Moreover,
in the pursuit of the goal of acquiring virtue, the agent, like every other, has to
prioritize her own humanity. It is the self-prioritization associated with the goal of
acquiring virtue that captures the agent-centered partialism. The basic idea is that if
the agent has the duty to realize her true moral destiny, then it is her sole responsi-
bility to favor her own self in its pursuit.
To further bolster the claim that the normative concept of personhood entails
moral partialism consider the reasons that characterize the agent acting motivated to
achieve it. The chief moral goal, which contains the agent’s reasons for acting,
involves the agent exhibiting virtue. The question is asked about the agent regarding
why they help others in society. If they act motivated by the goal to achieve virtue, an
essential part of their explanation ought to include the fact that it is good for their
self-realization. Remember that morality revolves around realizing one’s true moral
nature, which involves developing a virtuous disposition. The reasons for her actions
associated with the pursuit of virtue are, in part, essentially agent-relative (Metz,
2007; Molefe, 2019, 2021). It is in the nature of the self-realization approach to
morality that part of the reason why they pursue this goal ought to make reference to
the self whose goal it is.
In this light, it emerges that the dignity component of personhood entails moral
impartialism and the self-realization component, achievement of dignity, embodies
moral partialism. The next section considers the place of animals in this moral
system.
Animal Ethics
Above, in relation to the ontological notion of a person, it emerged that it entails a

humanistic ethical theory. The source and measure of all moral value is humanity. If
it is the case that morality is humanistic, then the question that arises involves the
place of animals in the personhood-based account of morality. There are two
possible ways to imagine the place of animals in African moral philosophy. The
first way to do so is by appealing on indirect grounds. In this approach, duties toward
animals revolve around the normative concept of a person. Part of what it means to
be a person involves being kind, loving, and caring, or manifesting any moral
disposition that is associated with virtue. Part of what it means to be a person surely
ought to involve being kind even toward sentient nonhuman entities. It is not in
keeping with the nurturing and bearing of virtue to manifest unkindness or even
cruelty toward sentient beings. Part of what it means to be truly human involves
being sensitive and responsive to the plight of animals. Purely on the basis of this
indirect consideration, grounded on what it means to be a person, the interests and
goods of animals can be secured at least to some extent.
Many scholars may not be entirely satisfied with an indirect animal ethics. In this
approach, a robust animal ethics ought to ground the good of the animals on some
facts about them at least to some extent. As example of such interpretations of what
animals think, consider Peter Singer’s sentience-based account of morality. The
agents’ obligations toward animals arise in relation to their ability to suffer. It is a
fact about them, animals, that grounds morality. Another personhood-based inter-
pretation of animal ethics considers animals to possess partial moral status. To have
dignity is tantamount to having full moral status, and to have partial moral status
denotes having lower grading in terms of being an object of direct ethical concern
(Oyowe, 2021). In this view, human beings possess full moral status and the duties
that agents have toward them are stronger and more demanding. To have partial
moral status, as this account claims animals do, entails agents do have duties toward
136 M. Molefe
them but they are not as strong and as demanding as agents are toward a being with
full moral status (Metz, 2012; Molefe, 2020). Human beings have full moral status
because they can be objects and subjects of personhood, i.e., human beings can
pursue virtue and they can be positively affected by its virtue (Metz, 2021). Animals
have partial moral status because they cannot be subjects of virtue, but they can be
objects of it. In other words, the expression of virtue or the withdrawal thereof can
affect them either positively or negatively. In this view, animals, as objects of virtue,
in as far as it (virtue or lack thereof) can affect them as sentient and goal-directed
beings, have partial moral status.
If it is true that animals are objects of virtue, then it should follow that it is
immoral to be cruel toward them for two reasons. On the one hand, one will be
harming animals by being cruel toward them. On the other hand, one that is cruel
toward them will be acting contrary to the demands of morality associated with
perfecting one’s nature. Being cruel surely cannot be part of moral development. No
matter what agents can do to a tree, whether by being kind or cruel toward it, they
may not harm it because it cannot be affected, in a morally relevant way, by such
actions. Most animals, given their sentience and goal-direct behavior, can be made
better or worse off by the agents’ expression or denial of virtue. In as far as the
personhood-based account grants animals partial moral status and full moral status to
human beings, it follows that it embodies a weak version of anthropocentrism (Metz,
2012; Molefe, 2020).
Conclusion
This chapter sought to give the reader a rough picture of African moral philosophy.
It painted this picture using the axiological resources of personhood salient in
African thought. Specifically, it identified the ontological and normative concepts
of personhood and used them as the basis to account for morality in an African
context. The ontological concept of personhood contains two foundational con-
siderations. On the one hand, it embodies the metaethical stance of ethical human-
ism, which positions humanity as the source and standard of all morality. On the
other hand, it recognizes human dignity as the basis for the pursuit of virtue since
human beings essentially are the kinds of things that have the capacity for virtue.
The normative concept of personhood involves just the development of the capac-
ity for virtue. To be a person means to have virtue, and the virtues associated with
personhood are those that are relational like being kind, forgiving, generous, and
so on. The discussion noted that the ontological notion embodies status or intrinsic
dignity and the normative notion embodies inflorescent or achievement dignity.
The chapter concluded its analysis by considering the action-centered theory of
value according to personhood, and its implications for the partiality and impar-
tiality debate in moral philosophy, and it also explored animal ethics in light of the
humanistic orientation of this view of morality.
References
Amin, S. (1972). Underdevelopment and dependence in black Africa-origins and contemporary
forms. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 10, 503–524.
Behrens, K. (2013). Two ‘normative’ conceptions of personhood. Quest, 25, 103–119.
Cottingham, J. (1986). Partiality, favouritism and morality. The Philosophical Quarterly, 144,
357–73.
Darwall, S. (1977). Two kinds of respect. Ethics, 88, 36–49.
Donnelly, J. (2015). Normative versus taxonomic humanity: Varieties of human dignity in the
Western tradition. Journal of Human Rights, 14, 1–22.
Dzobo, K. (1992). Values in a changing society: Man, ancestors and god. In K. Gyekye &
K. Wiredu (Eds.), Person and community: Ghanaian philosophical studies (Vol. 1, pp.
223–242). Council for Research in Values and Philosophy.
Eze, O. (2005). Ubuntu: A communitarian response to liberal individualism. Masters Dissertation,
University of Pretoria, Pretoria.
George, R., & Lee, P. (2008). The nature and basis of human dignity. In the President’s Council on
Bioethics Human dignity and bioethics essays commissioned by the President’s Council on
Bioethics. President’s Council on Bioethics.
Gyekye, K. (1992). Person and community in African thought. In Person and community: Ghana-
ian philosophical studies (Vol. 1, pp. 101–122). Council for Research in Values and Philosophy.
Gyekye, K. (1995). An essay on African philosophical thought: The Akan conceptual scheme.
Temple University Press.
Gyekye, K. (2010). African ethics. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy.
Retrieved October 27, 2019, from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/african-
ethics
Hughes, G. (2011). The concept of dignity in the universal declaration of human rights. Journal of
Religious Ethics, 39, 1–24.
Ikuenobe, P. (2006). The idea of personhood in Chinua Achebe’s things fall apart. Philosophia
Africana, 9, 117–131.
Ikuenobe, P. (2017). The communal basis for moral dignity: An African perspective. Philosophical
Papers, 45, 437–469.
Janz, B. (2009). Philosophy in African place. Lexington Books.
Jaworska, A., & Tannenbaum, J. (2018). The grounds of moral status. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The
Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Retrieved October 30, 2019, from https://plato.stanford.
edu/archives/sum2013/entries/grounds-moral-status/
Jollimore, T. (2014). Impartiality. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy.
Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2011/entries/impartiality/
Loschke, J. (2014). Partiality, agent-relative reasons, and the individuals view. Social Theory and
Practice, 40, 673–692.
Loschke, J. (2018). Relationships as indirect intensifiers: Solving the puzzle of partiality. European
Journal of Philosophy, 26, 390–410.
Lougheed, K. (2022). Molefe on the value of community for personhood. South African Journal of
Philosophy. https://doi.org/10.1080/02580136.2021.2020514.
Lutz, D. (2009). African Ubuntu philosophy and global management. Journal of Business Ethics,
84, 313–328.
Masolo, D. (2004). Western and African communitarianism. In K. Wiredu (Ed.), A companion to
Masolo, D. (2010). Self and community in a changing world. Indiana University Press.
Mbembe, A. (2001). On the postcolony. University of California Press.
Mbiti, J. (1969). African religions and philosophies. New York: Doubleday and Company.
138 M. Molefe
McNaughton, D., & Rawling, P. (2006). Deontology. In D. Copp (Ed.), Oxford handbook of ethical
theory (pp. 425–458). Oxford University Press.
African philosophy (pp. 324–331). Blackwell.
Metz, T. (2007). Toward an African moral theory. The Journal of Political Philosophy, 15,
321–341.
Metz, T. (2010). Human dignity, capital punishment and an African moral theory: Toward a new
philosophy of human rights. Journal of Human Rights, 9, 81–99.
Metz, T. (2012). An African theory of moral status: A relational alternative to individualism and
holism. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice: An International Forum, 14, 387–402.
University Press.
Michael, L. (2014). Defining dignity and its place in human rights. The New Bioethics, 20, 12–34.
Miller, S. (2017). Reconsidering dignity relationally. Ethics and Social Welfare, 2, 108–121.
Molefe, M. (2017). Individualism in African moral cultures. Cultura, 14, 49–68.
Molefe, M. (2019). An African philosophy of personhood, morality and politics. Palgrave
Macmillan.
Molefe, M. (2020). African personhood and applied ethics. NISC [Pty]Ltd.
Molefe, M. (2021). Partiality and impartiality in African philosophy. New York: Lexington Books.
Mudimbe, V. Y. (1988). Invention of Africa. Indiana University Press.
Munyaka, M., & Motlhabi, M. (2009). Ubuntu and its socio-moral significance. In F. M. Murove
(Ed.), African ethics: An anthology of comparative and applied ethics (pp. 324–331). University
of Kwa-Zulu Natal Press.
Nussbaum, M. (2011). Creating capabilities: The human development approach. The Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press.
Oyowe, A. (2014). Fiction, culture and the concept of a person. Research in African Literatures, 45,
42–62.
Oyowe, O. A. (2021). Menkiti’s moral man. New York: Lexington Books.
Oyowe, A., & Yurkivska, O. (2014). Can a communitarian concept of African personhood be both
relational and gender-neutral? South African Journal of Philosophy, 33(1), 85–99.
Ramose, M. (1999). African philosophy through Ubuntu. Mond Books.
Ramose, M., Bewaji, J., & van Binsbergen, W. (2003). The Bewaji, Van Binsbergen and Ramose
debate on Ubuntu. South African Journal of Philosophy, 22, 378–415.
Rosen, M. (2012). Dignity: Its history and meaning. Harvard University Press.
Shutte, A. (2001). Ubuntu: An ethic for a new South Africa. Cluster Publications.
Sulmasy, D. (2009). Dignity and bioethics: History, theory, and selected applications. In The
President’s council on bioethics, human dignity and bioethics: Essays commissioned by the
President’s council (pp. 469–501). Washington DC: President’s Council on Bioethics.
Wiredu, K. (1992). Moral foundations of an African culture. In K. Wiredu & K. Gyekye (Eds)
Person and Community: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies, 1. Washington DC: The Council for
Research in Values and Philosophy, 192–206.
Wiredu, K. (1996). Cultural universals and particulars: An African perspective. Indiana University
Press.
Wiredu, K. (2004). Introduction: African philosophy in our time. In Companion to African
philosophy (pp. 1–27). Blackwell Publishing.
Research in African Literatures, 40, 8–18.
Wolf, S. (1992). Moral Saints. Journal of Philosophy, 79(8), 419–439.
African Research Ethics
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Research Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
African Research Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Classification of Some Research in African Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Scientific Validity, Varied Understanding of Human Tissue and Medicine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Sharing Research Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Abstract
Research Ethics is a new area even though the questions that are being addressed
are as ancient as humanity since they are about doing right and avoiding moral
wrong. Research ethics is a subdiscipline of applied ethics, supposing the exis-
tence of ethical theory upon which ethical solutions are based for solving the
problems that arise. As a new area, scholars have been addressing its definition.
Most of research ethics literature is based on the medical sciences. This chapter
will identify ethical issues arising from research and give examples of how
African indigenous thinking is left out when research ethics is discussed. A
good understanding of African thought systems will suggest a distinct approach
to African Research Ethics. This is important because African research ethics will
make demands from researchers from an African perspective, not an imposition
of understanding ethical decision-making from a Western perspective. The chap-
ter therefore identifies strands in African research ethics that demand attention. It
will go on to show how more needs to be done to ensure ethical considerations are
J. B. R. Gaie (*)
Department of Theology and Religious Studies, Faculty of Humanities, University of Botswana,
Gaborone, Botswana
e-mail: gaiejbr@ub.ac.bw

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_9
140 J. B. R. Gaie
made in research in a way that acknowledges the African world view. This
exercise will ensure that African societies are the authorities of their ethical
perspectives on research among their people taking the question of positionality
and decoloniality seriously in research. For example, when we assess risk in
research, we are not going to be using Western type of analysis. If we do, we are
likely to miss the people we are trying to address when we examine the ethical
issues of research in Africa.
Keywords
African research ethics · African epistemological liberation · Applied ethics ·
Bioethics · Philosophy · Responsible conduct of research
Introduction
The title of this chapter is “African Research Ethics.” Firstly, it assumes the existence
of African research ethics. This assumption is based on the view that out of the many
branches of philosophy there is ethics, which has its own branches. As a subject,
ethics is rich with theories as well as the applied and/or the contextual(ized) part.
Research ethics is the applied and contextualized part of the general ethics. This
means if we have research ethics, we will have the applied or contextual aspect of
research ethics such as African, Australian, English, Scottish, and German research
ethics. So this chapter starts with a definition of research ethics and then proceeds to
define African research ethics before delving into some practical matters that need to
be discussed.
This is an important chapter because it provides new perspectives that can help in
making African research ethics not only relevant to the continent but also more
meaningful to the Africans. It is a small contribution to one of the ways in which
Africans can define how they ought to investigate themselves for an authentic,
disciplined, and heuristic system of knowledge making. This process is a small
part of a larger endeavour for African epistemological liberation. It deals with
practical issues that arise in the process of aligning African research ethics with
the international movement to protect research subjects, researchers, and communi-
ties, thereby contributing to the provision of a just society.
The main argument of this chapter is that in order to properly deal with African
research ethics, one has to understand African traditional cultures so that they can
properly identify risks in doing research within African contexts. This is well
expressed in the statement:
There can be no form of reflection in Africa today that does not bear a direct relation to
history and culture (emphasis added). In this broad perspective of the conditions of thought
and discourse, the present debate on the question of African Philosophy, for all its academic
and technical character, can be seen to form part of a comprehensive process of reflection by
the African intelligentsia upon our total historical being: it represents a significant moment in
African Research Ethics 141
the intellectual response of Africans to the challenge of Western civilization. (Irele, 1983:
10–11)
When we engage in philosophy, a subject that is self-reflective (Hountondji, 1983:

4), we are able to come to the point of identifying not only African philosophy but
also African research ethics, for:
This process of self-reflection, inherent in the nature and practice of philosophy, bears not
only upon its purposes, objectives and methods, upon its relation to the world and, to human
experience in its multiple expressions, upon its status among other disciplines and forms of
intellectual pursuit and discourse, but also, most radically, upon its very nature as an activity
and as an enterprise. (Hountondji, 1983: 7)
In that spirit, we can start by looking at what research ethics is.
Research Ethics
Research ethics is difficult to define because scholars have various conceptions when
they think about it. The subject ranges from biomedical, medical, clinical, research,
health care, biotech/genethics, public health, neuroethics, administrative, professional
ethics (Holm & Williams-Jones, 2006), and Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR).
For some research, ethics are rules, regulations, and laws governing the conduct of
research such as the CIOMS (Council for International Organizations of Medical
Sciences) guidelines in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO,
2002) and Belmont Report (Research, 1978) that governments, national and interna-
tional professional bodies come up with from time to time. “Bioethics is understood
specifically in terms of the regulations of biomedical research” (Langlais, 2016: 41).
The above position is limited in the sense that it does not capture the depth and
breadth of the subject of research ethics. If research ethics were just regulations, the
absence of rules and regulations would mean there is no research ethics to talk
of. This does not deny the fact that ethics presupposes principles and regulations that
form the basis of ethical behaviour. Guidelines and regulations are different from
ethical principles in the sense that the former can be changed at the pleasure of the
formulator whereas the latter might be more difficult to change at will because they
are based on reason and they should be applied consistently. Ethical principles are
based on philosophy.
It is understandable that research ethics is confused with just guidelines and
regulations because of the history out of which it has developed. It is a fairly new
area of specialization mainly resulting from abuse and scandal that have taken place
in research (Eisen & Parker, 2004: 694; McGee et al., 2008: 31). It has mainly
developed within the sphere of biomedical ethics (National Institutes of Health, n.d.;
Ogundiran, 2004). No wonder some people might think biomedical ethics when they
hear research ethics.
142 J. B. R. Gaie
A working definition of research ethics is that it is a philosophical discipline that

studies right and wrong in research. We can borrow a leaf from Edmond Pellegrino,
who in examining the history of medical ethics has pointed out:
Physicians and other health workers must become familiar with shifts in contemporary moral
philosophy if they are to maintain a hand in restructuring the ethics of their profession. A
continuing dialogue with moral philosophers is requisite to assure that clinicians do not lose
the benefits of a rigorous and critical analysis of their ethical decisions. (Pellegrino, 1993)
Likewise, research ethicists must not only be at ease with ethical theory but also with
philosophy (Savulescu, 2015), not only with bioethics but also with ethics upon
which their bioethics is based or makes assumptions of. It goes without saying that
they should most importantly also be familiar with African bioethics (Behrens,
2015) as well as African ethics and African philosophy in general.
Research ethics raises, among others, questions about what it means to say that
certain actions in research are morally/ethically wrong or right; what qualifies as
ethical research, whether researchers ought to obey regulations governing research
and if there ought to be such regulations, what they should be and why they ought to
be; and whether teaching impacts on the ethical conduct of research.
Research ethics is a subdiscipline of Applied Ethics; as such it employs the moral
philosophical/ethical theories and concepts in research questions. This implies
research ethics is not confined to any discipline but includes all those that do
research. In other words, research ethics is relevant to science, humanities, engi-
neering, tourism, and so on. It regulates and can be used to analyze research in all
these areas. Any researcher irrespective of their discipline ought to know research
ethics and is therefore bound by the principles of research ethics. From the question,
is it ethical to do research at all, to whether or not it is ethical to do certain types of
research, whether a particular research project is ethical to do and what is the right
way ethically to do different types of research and different particular research
projects as well as what it all means to say these are ethical activities are all part
of research ethics as a subject.
Within research ethics, we can have concentrations on responsible conduct of
research (RCR) generally which includes all research and research on human sub-
jects that just looks at the ethical relationships between human beings in the context
of research. Views such as the ones expressed below help clarify the subject.
The ethics of scientific research is somewhat unique in professional ethics in the sense that
good science requires the ethical practice of science. [. . .] A course in research ethics, [. . .]
must be a course which teaches the tools for making ethical decisions relative to matters of
research. (Stern & Elliot, 1996: 25)
Another helpful perspective is that:
Research ethics and the responsible conduct of research (RCR) are terms that are often used
interchangeably, but these are not synonymous concepts. While research ethics considers the
application of research findings as well as the process of research, RCR focuses on the way
the research is carried out. A related notion, research integrity, contains within it the concept
of RCR; “(T)he responsible conduct of research is not distinct from research; on the contrary,
competency in research encompasses the responsible conduct of that research and the
capacity for ethical decision-making.” (Bird, 2006: 411)
This is very important to understand because it is not only “good science” that
presupposes ethical practice but also other disciplines as well. This is because, for
example, ethics requires competence in research – any researcher whose research
design is poor potentially behaves immorally because competence in one’s area of
specialization is an ethical requirement. So, a moral philosopher who is ignorant of
ethical theories that they ought to know is behaving unethically when they are unable
to do so. Likewise, an anthropologist who fails to fully apply anthropological know-
how in their research is behaving unethically just like an archaeologist who is
incompetent in carrying out archaeological research, but that is not the whole of
research ethics.
The statement below clarifies this issue:
Ethics is concerned with moral values, ideals, attitudes and actions of human beings. It
analyses what is good/right for individuals and society, and provides an insight into the
moral problems of daily and professional life. Ethics also prescribes what ought to be or how
we ought to do things. In this sense, the knowledge of moral values, theories of ethics and
ethical principles can provide rational and objective guidance to practicing ethically and
analysing ethical problems. (Dinç, 2008: 4)
This is consistent with the view that:
Ethics has been variously defined as a system of moral principles, rules of conduct
recognised in respect of a particular class of human behaviour, values relating to human
conduct, the rightness and wrongness of certain actions, and ‘just’ or ‘right’ standards of
behaviour between parties in a situation. Translating the concept of ethics into a research
procedure, the authors subscribe to the definition of ethics as the rightness and wrongness of
certain actions by the parties involved. Doing the right thing, therefore, may be equated to
behaving in an ethical manner. It does not mean doing what is legal; rather it transcends legal
conduct and requires behaviour which is morally correct. (Fisher et al., 2002: 334)
This means a distinction between research ethics and responsible conduct of

research is a detail that explains different parts of a subject called ethics. What is
good (responsible conduct) is the subject of ethics and this becomes specified in
research. It is also clear from the above quotation that research ethics is much more
than the regulations that researchers must obey. “Research ethics are the guiding
principles, based on values that esteem people and the growth of social structures,
that promote and safeguard the integrity of all persons involved in the research
(Vallance, 2004: 4).” Ethics according to Stanley Reiser (1993: 87) is “a founda-
tional discipline” that scientists have to use in understanding the problems associated
with their subject. Ethics is all about the study of “generic issues about doing the
right thing, preventing harms, seeking benefits, and understanding the right-making
and the wrong-making characteristics of actions” (Reiser, 1993: 86).
144 J. B. R. Gaie
To conclude this section, we can say ethics is the philosophical study of right and
wrong. Research ethics is when the philosophical study of right and wrong is applied
to research. In short, ethical questions and discussions are raised about research.
Doing right and wrong; preventing harm and promoting benefits are some of the
important issues in research ethics.
It is clear that research ethics consists of two words (research and ethics). The
word “research” can also be subjected to philosophical analysis so that one can, for
example, ask what research is and what it is not; whether collection of data is
research; whether the reason for data collection is morally relevant in defining
research and whether research can only be done by certain people and not others.
Research is a process through which new knowledge is discovered. A theory, such as a

theory of motivation, or development, or learning, for example, helps us to organize this new
information into a coherent body, a set of related ideas that explain events that have occurred
and predict events that may happen. (Salkind, 2012: 3)
Salkind goes on to portray high-quality research as being: based on others’ work,

replicable, generalizable, based on logic and theory, doable, generative of new
questions, incremental, apolitical and should be undertaken for the betterment of
society (Salkind, 2012: 3). This definition gives an idea of the controversy or at least
the complexity of defining the term because one can raise a few issues with it. For
example, research is not necessarily for new knowledge for if S does research and I
repeat that, I would have done research and in this instance, it would be confirmatory
rather than yielding new knowledge. Another issue is the suggestion that high-
quality research is apolitical. If political party P carries out research to find out
what the electorate wants for it to be elected it does not mean the research is not high
quality, in fact if it is high quality it would yield the desired results for political gain.
Research is good quality research technically when it is done correctly. That is,
when all the requirements of research are met such as good sampling methods,
proper data collection procedures, appropriate tools of analysis, and correct gener-
alization based on proper statistical methods and so on without necessarily benefit-
ting society. It is when the question of why such a research should be funded and
carried out when it does not benefit society that we are talking about research ethics.
This suggests that technical research is not necessarily morally good research even
though it is good quality in the technical sense.
In another context, there can be debates as to whether an activity is research or not
such as when a teacher asks students certain questions which enable them to write a
position paper or when medical practitioner collects information in the course of
their work with patients and then later see that they can write a hypothesis or theory
based on the data.
However research is defined, certain ethical questions may arise or be raised with
regard to the activity called research. Such questions are evident in the following
quote on the importance of research ethics training:
Training in research ethics can provide future investigators a framework for addressing
ethical questions raised in their work. This requires attaining knowledge about the rules and
norms governing research; sensitivity to ethical implications of actions; and skills in ethics
problem solving. Ethics problem-solving skills, or “ethics thinking skills,” include the
abilities to identify ethical conflicts, reason about various alternatives, and resolve conflicts
through an ethically adequate process. (Chen, 2003: 112)
Having said the above we can now turn to African research ethics below.
African Research Ethics
To ask whether there is African research ethics, when it is clear or taken for granted
that one can talk of research ethics in general is failure to understand the contextual
nature of not only philosophy but also the whole epistemological enterprise. If for
example, “research ethics is the most developed aspect of bioethics in Africa. Most
African countries have set up Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) to provide guide-
lines for research and to comply with international norms (Azetsop, 2011: 4),” then it
is confusing as to what research ethics means in this context. To clarify, let us
understand bioethics to be the study of ethics in relation to biological organisms. If
this is acceptable, it cannot easily be the case that research ethics is an aspect of
bioethics. This is because we can rightly discuss research ethics in the context of
physical and metaphysical reality, thus, without any reference to biology. Whilst
setting up institutional review boards or research ethics committees is based on
research ethics, it is not research ethics itself.
Whilst there is a way in which
bioethics has not been responsive to local needs and values in the rest of the continent. A
new direction is needed in African bioethics. This new direction promotes the development
of a locally-grounded bioethics, shaped by a dynamic understanding of local cultures and
informed by structural and institutional problems that impact the public’s health, as well as
cognizant of the salient contribution of social sciences and social epidemiology which can
bring a lasting impact on African local communities. In today’s post-Structural Adjustment
Africa, where healthcare has been liberalized and its cost increased, a bioethics agenda that
focuses essentially on disease management and clinical work remains blind in the face of a
structural marginalization of the masses of poor. Instead, the multidimensional public health
crisis, with which most African countries are confronted, calls for a bioethics agenda that
focuses primarily, but not exclusively, on health promotion and advocacy. Such an approach
to bioethics reckons with the macro-determinants of health and well-being and places
clinical and research ethics in the broader context of population’s health. The same approach
underscores the need to become political, not only by addressing health policymaking
processes and procedures, but also by becoming an advocacy forum that includes other
constituencies equipped with the potentialities to impact the population’s health. (Azetsop,
2011: 4)
We still need to define research ethics in a comprehensive way, including African

research ethics. The following quotation is instructive:
146 J. B. R. Gaie
Research ethics is typically common and established in most African countries [19, 24] as
there is abundant funding from the United States (NIH) and Europe (EDCTP) to establish
RECs so that clinical trials funded by these organisations may be reviewed in Africa.
Healthcare and clinical ethics are not prioritised by funders whose interest lies more with
research than healthcare despite the two disciplines intersecting inextricably in multiple
ways. It may be argued that a disproportionate amount of funding is allocated to establishing
RECs in Africa and that at least some of that funding ought to be diverted to clinical ethics.
Likewise training curricula ought to include bioethics more broadly and not just research
ethics. (Moodley et al., 2020)
The above quotation is largely talking about research ethics with reference to
committees that are trained to assess research proposals for ethical compliance. It
does not relate to the subject “African research ethics,” which we should be able to
define below even though it is clear from what has been said already what this will
entail. A book entitled “Research Ethics in Africa: A Resource for Research Ethics
Committees” (Kruger et al., 2014) was published recently offering promise not only
of defining African research ethics but also offering a philosophically robust treat-
ment of the subject. It turns out that it does not define the subject but dwells on the
ethical issues that arise in research in Africa, which is part of the subject but not the
whole subject. The book is a good resource but does not help define the theoretical
aspect of African research ethics.
From the definition of philosophy, which is not easy to do, and that of ethics and
applied ethics including research ethics, we should be able to derive the definition of
African research ethics. Without raising much controversy, let us just say that
philosophy is largely aesthetics, ethics, epistemology, logic and metaphysics,
which are generic in the sense that they are applicable universally. There is, however,
a context within which they can be seen such as in the case of applied or contextual
aspects. In this case, African research ethics is research ethics generally within a
specific context of Africa. This is in recognition of the fact that contexts differ in a
morally significant way. This will become clearer as we deal with the issues below
the first of which is classification.
Classification of Some Research in African Studies
Joseph Gaie wanted to do a research on “the ethics of divination and theft in

Botswana” (Gaie, 2015). He wanted to find out if traditional doctors can, using
their divination methods, diagnose theft, help to catch the thief/thieves and make
them return what they have stolen. On applying for a research permit (as per the
requirement of research ethics), he approached the Ministry of Youth, Sport and
Culture given that matters of divination and traditional beliefs/religion are under
their ambit only to be sent away on the grounds that the research deals with research
on human subjects and should be considered by the Ministry of Health. The latter
rejected him on the grounds that the research had nothing to do with health. He
landed at the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration where he was assisted and
granted a research permit after refusing to be sent to another ministry.
One might ask what connection this has to African research ethics. It is a good
example of how difficult it can be for researchers to be compliant with research
ethics requirements in this part of the world. It indicates the kind of problems that
researchers face, as well as the confusing state officers find themselves in when they
do not understand the subject. It reflects not only disparity in understanding matters
but also inadequacy in dealing with ethics in research. Let us go into the major
practical ethical issues that are important for African research ethics, one of which is
risk assessment.
Risk Assessment and Correct Understanding of Concepts in African

Research Ethics
Risk assessment in African research ethics is tricky if one does not understand the
context. In the case of traditional medicine, for example, there is need to closely look
at it (Kaptue et al., 2014: 109). Let us consider the research quoted above that Joseph
Gaie undertook. When it came to risk assessment, it was passed as being of minimal
risk. After all, what is the risk in a diviner throwing bones and saying rightly or
wrongly that somebody has stolen something? The contention here is that one needs
to understand the context in order for them to properly assess the risks involved in
this research. First and foremost, divination is risky in that when the traditional
doctor says that somebody is the thief, there is always a risk of the person being
attacked (Gewald, 2002). The risk is higher if the society has been terrorized by theft.
This is the case whether or not the accused person is indeed guilty. But of course it is
morally worse if the accused person is innocent of the accusation. This risk is
probably one that many would determine. There is also risk of antagonizing the
society resulting from accusations of theft.
Most research ethics committee members either do not believe that traditional
doctors can hurt thieves through their medicine or they do not have the means of
determining that beliefs about traditional doctors’ powers are correct or incorrect.
So, they are not able to determine the risk this poses for the parties concerned in the
quoted research. There are risks at various levels and to various parties. For example,
a ninety-year-old traditional doctor threatened to kill the thieves that were “detected”
in the research. The researchers had told him the purpose of their visit – a research to
find out if traditional doctors could diagnose/detect theft, to catch the thief or make
them return what they had stolen. The researchers had a bag that contained things
that were stolen. On divining, the old man said that “two small boys” (understand
him to mean youth) were responsible. On being asked what he could do to make
them return the things he said that he did not want them caught, but his solution was
to kill them. The researchers pleaded with him not to kill the thieves, arguing that
they would not achieve their goal of knowing that the doctor was correct in his
diagnosis as well as being able to help catch the thieves. The doctor was visibly
angered by the researchers whom he accused of working with thieves to terrorize the
population. “The only remedy to theft is to kill the thieves even if they have stolen a
cent” he said. Clearly there is a risk here if the doctor can kill the thieves. The
capacity of traditional doctors to kill through their craft is not something that has
been proven to be false or true; as such it is unscientific to assume either way.
148 J. B. R. Gaie
It would therefore be unethical to dismiss this doctor’s claim. The ethical require-
ment for the researcher to protect their research participants must be met by their
awareness that the research poses this risk. If the researcher took the proposal to a
European or Western institution for ethical assessment, they might not appreciate
this risk.
In the same Gaie research, there was diagnosis, medication, and waiting for
results. They would ask a doctor to diagnose if theft took place. They would then
determine if the thieves could be caught because of the “doctoring.” After diagnos-
ing theft, the doctor can either doctor the things that are associated with the theft or
give the researchers medicine to administer where theft took place. They would then
be given a time frame within which the results would be seen. One traditional doctor
explained that it was wrong for doctors to give the researcher (the patient/complain-
ant) medicine to apply to scenes of theft because when the thief experiences the
effects of the doctoring, they can revenge by countering the doctoring through their
own doctors. When this happens, the researcher or research assistant would be
affected. This poses a risk to the researchers (just in case it is true), which the
Western-type research ethics committee will not project when they assess the
research protocol.
According to the traditional doctors in the Gaie research, when thieves are made
to return their loot it is not a benign experience. The effects are so serious that the
thieves would have no option but to return the stolen things. Sometimes, it is not
practical for them to do so well in time, and sometimes they are unable to locate the
owners of the stolen property, which results in death according to them. Whether or
not this is true, we are unable to determine at this juncture, but the point is that there
is a risk which might result in injury to the research participants. In the case of stolen
livestock, the repercussions could affect all those who ate the meat, including the
innocent (when all those who eat the stolen meat suffer from the doctoring).
The above demonstrates how an apparently low-risk research in Western research
ethics review could turn out to be high risk if traditional doctors are capable of doing
what they claim they can do and what people believe about them. In this context, a
reviewing committee would be interested in knowing how the researcher would
mitigate against the risks that have been mentioned thereby being more robust in
their assessment of risk and their willingness to protect research subjects whilst
allowing researchers to do their work without unnecessary hindrance.
Another matter that needs our consideration is what has been expressed in the
following statement:
The assessment of risk and benefit of a research project is the core duty of the REC, and is
particularly challenging in terms of TM (traditional medicine) research. Herbal medicines
have often come into use by means of a process of ‘trial and error’ over many years. (Kaptue
et al., 2014: 113)
After rightly indicating the challenge of assessing risk in traditional medicine research,
the authors go on to make a controversial, or at least an uninformed claim about the
development of herbal medicine. This is controversial because either the authors
dismiss what traditional medicine doctors do or they are ignorant of it. Whilst in
Western medicine drugs are measured, quantified, universalized, and standardized, in
traditional medicine that does not necessarily happen at least in the same shape or
form. A traditional doctor firstly diagnoses through their divining instruments. They
do not use a thermometer, glucometer, or a test kit (Covid-19, HIV, or pregnancy).
After diagnosis, they determine if treatment is possible. This is done by divining to
find out if a certain drug/herb(s) could be administered, in what way, in what quantity,
and under what conditions. So the difficulty here is not that the herbs and drugs are not
measured but that the method of measuring is not consistent with Western type of
epistemology. Our authors rightly pointed this out when they said:
TMs (traditional medicines) are often individualized for each patient, and used, or admin-
istered, in many different forms and dosages, often in combination with other herbal
products. Thus, determining a dose and formulation for a particular study may, in addition
to being challenging, also mean that both a positive or negative outcome may not accurately
reflect the actual conditions and outcome of usage in a real-life context. Second, the
diagnostic criteria that are used in a TM context may not easily translate or transfer into a
biomedical context, thus making the evaluation of efficacy challenging. (14) An example of
the above is provided by Kaptchuk, who notes that, if American cardiologists wanted to use
a Chinese herbal medicine in the context of cardiac failure, they would most likely use the
New York Heart Association criteria for the staging of heart failure to measure efficacy.
However, Chinese traditional practitioners would view such a situation within the context of
a deficiency or excess of ‘heart yang chi’, which is a notion that would make little sense to
American physicians. (Kaptue et al., 2014: 113)
“Many peoples of the world rely on traditional medicine. Africa is among those
places where traditional medicine is still in use. As much as 90% of use in some
cases (Ellerby, 2006: 14).” This is important in research ethics because when
assessing risk it is not just risk as perceived by the researcher but it should include
risk as perceived by the participant. It is therefore important not to dismiss percep-
tions and beliefs of the people as unfounded. Let us take an example; in the case of
doing research in HIV and AIDS and traditional medicine, there is need to be aware
of potential risks arising from beliefs. On being asked what they use to protect
themselves against infection with HIV, one participant, Healer 3 answered “I use
muti that I know will protect me from being infected. I do not use things such as
gloves as I prefer to use the muti” (Mufamadi, 2009: 31). It is clear that we are unable
to determine the validity of the participant’s claim in this case but it is important to be
aware of the risks associated with such a belief so that when we assess a study
involving participants like this one we are able to gauge the possible risks and devise
mitigating strategies.
The concept of vulnerability is important in research ethics, which is relevant to
what we have just said above. In fact,
Examples of characteristics or behaviour that could lead to stigmatisation, particularly in

Africa, include albinism, infertility, the practice of homosexuality and the practice of
‘witchcraft’ or divination (emphasis added). [. . .]Thus, for research that particularly targets
150 J. B. R. Gaie
these types of individuals, there is a need to ensure that the researchers have devised ways of
minimising the negative effects of the research on those concerned. (Horn et al., 2014: 87)
Such beliefs are evident in the following report on HIV and traditional doctors:
Patient 6: “Well, the last time I consulted a healer was just before I was tested. I
decided to stop because this healer told me that my blood was not healthy, that I
had a problem in my blood. However, he told me that I was bewitched, that
someone contaminated my blood. (Mufamadi, 2009: 29)
On the other hand, another view was that: Patient 1: “Traditional healers cannot
help because they do not have the machines to test, and they cannot tell you that your
blood count is low, and they cannot test your blood (Mufamadi, 2009: 29).” Here
both patients and traditional doctors are vulnerable as participants in this research. It
is important therefore to be aware of not only the prevalence of such beliefs but the
possible stigmatization that can result from a study of such phenomena. It is clear
that for us to understand the phenomena and to be guided by proper research not
sentiment or bias; we need to study these groups in spite of their vulnerability in
order to avoid what has been expressed by the following sentiments: “moral neoco-
lonialism is a real problem for bioethics, and that it merits continuing investigation as
part of developing bioethics in African contexts (Bamford, 2019: 43).”
Further:
The marginalisation of African values in African education has resulted in the general
Westernisation of education theory and practice in Africa, and educational research has
not escaped this process. Dominant research epistemologies have developed methods of
initiating and assessing research in Africa where researchers fail to acknowledge the cultural
preferences and practices of African people. Instead, research epistemologies and methods
are located within the cultural preferences and practices of the Western world. Such practices
have perpetuated an ideology of cultural superiority that precludes the development of
power-sharing processes and the legitimisation of diverse cultural epistemologies and
cosmologies. (Higgs, 2011: 1)
In their contribution to the ethical review of studies in traditional medicine,

Kaptue and others say among other things, “RECs should assess whether the
following elements are in place: The research team should have a team member
with clinical medicine and toxicology competence. Community indigenous knowl-
edge and intellectual property rights should be preserved (Kaptue et al., 2014:
111–112).” This is instructive in that they do not see any need for a specialist in
traditional medicine and divination, which is a problem because the team in my view
seeks to study something that they do not fully understand. It is like a panel of
English judges watching a French play and assessing the performance of characters
in the play without the judges understanding a word of French. With experience and
giftedness, they might make good judgements, but they are not going to be as
accurate as if they knew the language. This is because traditional medicine is
much more than physical and biological. It is “unscientific” to dismiss the existence
of phenomena simply because the current scientific paradigm does not include them.
This is not to suggest that these beliefs should be accepted as truth because it would
equally be acceptable to do so.
Secondly, indigenous knowledge is bundled together with intellectual property
rights. One might think that intellectual property means the same thing in the
Western tradition as it does in African traditions. But:
African Knower thinks in, for and through his/her society. Via one’s participation in the
social context, one knows. In this respect, knowledge comes as a given via tradition,
ancestors and heritage. Here, the acquisition of knowledge becomes a ‘we’ enterprise
(Hamminga, 2005, 58). In the western system on the other hand, knowledge is predomi-
nantly an individual quest. The individual sets oneself apart and analyzes objects indepen-
dently. (Ani, 2013: 304)
And:
magezi muliro, bwegukuggwako, ogunona wa munno (Knowledge is like firewood in the

hearth, if you have none you fetch it from your neighbour). Ndi mugezi nga muburile (I am
wise, only if others have informed you). Magezi gomu, galesa Magambo ku kubo (Belief in
his intellectual self-sufficiency resulted in Magambo’s failure to reach home. Magambo, a
blind man, failed to reach home because of his arrogance and unwillingness to consult
others). (Wamala, 2004: 437–438)
This means there is a way in which my knowledge and intellectual property is not
just mine but ours. All have a share in what I know since they make me what I am, in
which case it is not easy for me to arrogate myself benefit at the expense and
exclusion of my society. It must be made clear that African traditional religions
and cultures are not averse to individual, family and exclusive secrets. Traditional
doctors are specialists who hold secrets of their trade (Mgbeoji, 2007: 86); but it is
within a different context to that of the Western world.
The other issue that arises from the idea of Community indigenous knowledge
and intellectual property preservation is that it must be done from a position of
knowledge; how can that be possible if the ethics committee or research team is not
knowledgeable, when there is no requirement for specialization in them?
If we take the example given above of Patient 6, we find that they decided to stop
consulting the traditional doctor for the treatment of AIDS because of what appeared
to be mambo jumbo. The traditional doctor’s diagnosis: (1) Unhealthy blood
(2) Problem in the blood (3) Blood contamination (bewitchment). Depending on
context and understanding the traditional doctor might appear to be off the mark, but
is he? The first turn off is the concept of witchcraft. People have the picture of a
nefarious broom-riding, mysterious, ghastly figure that inflicts pain and suffering
through magic and extraordinary powers. Such a character would not fit the person
who “bewitched” Patient 6. But if you consider that in some cultures being a witch
can mean a person who behaves in ways that are morally wrong including irrespon-
sible behaviour that could result in the death of another person, it would be a
different story. In Setswana, for example, go lowa (to bewitch) could mean a)
fortification against witchcraft – this can be done by a traditional doctor; b) use of
152 J. B. R. Gaie
special powers to hurt another person; c) to behave immorally including doing

hurtful things that can kill other people. Patient 6 was bewitched in the sense that
their partner must have known that they could infect them with a deadly disease. In
this sense, they were bewitched! It is “witchcraft” (ke boloi) to engage sexually
without protection, especially when one either does not know their HIV status or
they know/suspect it to be positive.
Patient 6 did have their blood contaminated with HIV; therefore, the blood was
unhealthy and problematic. This is consistent with the Western perspective which
tells us that HIV is in the blood.
This is like what Gaie found in his research with traditional doctors. A team of
three doctors consisting of the master/teacher and his two initiates diagnosed that
goats were stolen from the owner’s place. They insisted that they would ensure that
the thieves would be caught “in two weeks.” After 2 weeks without getting any news
of the goats, the researcher and owner of the stollen goats went back to the doctors
who told them that the thieves were caught. “Look at this man,” said the doctor, “he
has been caught and cannot escape. Go back and wait, you will hear.” As it turned
out, it would take more than 2 years for the thieves to be caught and arrested. The
doctors had got certain other details correct such as who the thieves were, how many
they were, and the fact that they were people with whom the owner was familiar.
This incident seems to suggest that the doctors and the researchers did not mean the
same thing with reference to time (2 weeks) and being caught.
Another example is the male circumcision campaign undertaken by the Ministry
of Health and Wellness in Botswana. In an effort to “indigenize” circumcision, the
ministry thought it wise to use a traditional concept whereby young men were
circumcised at the initiation ceremony. The term “go rupa” (transition from one
stage of development to the next) was used to mean circumcision. The hope was that
parents would embrace the practice in big numbers on the basis that it is a modern-
ized traditional practice. We do not have evidence of the success of the campaign.
What is clear though is that inadequate understanding of the local tradition led to the
wrong assumption and improper naming of a practice that is so different from the
traditional rite of passage called go rupa. Instead of attracting parents, the naming
turned them off because there were many important differences between the tradi-
tional practice and the medical practice. The former could not be done by women,
young men, and ordinary people. It required a specialist traditional doctor and it was
done in the context of ritual. The foreskins of the circumcised would not be
incinerated in the traditional practice (taboo) as it happens in modern clinics.
This last point leads us to the important idea of different understanding of
phenomena from African and western perspectives, which follows below.
Scientific Validity, Varied Understanding of Human Tissue

and Medicine
If one were to find a bone (skull) in the main mall, there would not be much of a
problem if it was established that the bone belonged to a cow (unless of course one
belonged to extremist animal lovers group that believes animals have equal moral
status with human beings). It would not cause must consternation if the bone was
thrown into the rubbish bin. If the bone belonged to a human being, both Westerners
and Africans would probably agree that the bone cannot just be thrown away. They
would be happy if the bone were interred in a special way. But if we were to find a
toe, finger, hair, nail, or a portion of a human skin, the Westerners would probably be
content with incinerating it whilst the traditional Africans would not. This is caused
by the way these people look at the human body, a matter that needs to be understood
when dealing with African research ethics.
It is instructive that currently there is no scientific instrument that we can use to
determine that a piece of human hair should be treated in a certain way – it should not
be easy to access because witches can use it to hurt the subject. To say this is not to
suggest that the African is not telling the truth let alone that the Westerner is right in
rejecting the claim. It is ethically problematic to assume one way or another without
“evidence.” What is clear though is that for example:
Empirical studies have also suggested that, whereas most communities across the continent
appreciate the benefits that they derive from participating in research activities, there is the
perception that their blood or tissue is stolen from them. For example, Fairhead and Leach
report that Gambian participants view the Medical Research Council (MRC) as an institution
that ‘offers good, free medication to participants, but also steals blood’. (23) Molyneux et al.
have also highlighted a range of concerns expressed by local communities in coastal Kenya
about blood taking, including ‘not understanding what the blood is for and concerns that the
blood will be used in “other things.” (Tindana & Wasunna, 2014: 128)
In fact, one must understand that blood is an important thing in a human being from
an African point of view; so any storage, use, and interaction with it is bound to raise
suspicion. For example, a chicken’s blood is used after somebody has died as well as
at the initiation of a boy among the Chewa of Malawi (Schoffeleers, 2000: 30).
Consider a proposal by a Biologist and his colleagues. They have been doing
research among a group of Africans on indigenous plant material. Ngaka, a reputable
traditional doctor claims that he can cure one of the incurable diseases which modern
medicine can only manage without curing it. His product called Molemo is very easy
to administer. It is cheap and can be taken with the modern medicines to manage the
incurable disease. Ngaka has a lot of patients who have been taking modern drugs
and his claim is that the management drugs are reinforced, fortified, and completed
by molemo. The people get “cured.” The Biologist and his colleagues think there is
something to investigate here given anecdotal suggestions of success with molemo.
The Biologist agrees with Ngaka that they want to verify his claims by subjecting
molemo to a scientific experimentation. They will do this by recruiting Ngaka’s
patients. After carrying out the necessary steps for recruiting subjects, the Biologist
and colleagues would test them to verify they have the disease. They will draw blood
and subject it to tests and so on. After taking molemo for some time, they would test
the participants to determine if it has worked.
There are several questions that arise based on research ethics requirements from
the Western perspective. Firstly, molemo is not a registered drug. It must be
154 J. B. R. Gaie
registered before it can be used as an experimental drug. Note that this becomes an
issue now when molemo must be subjected to research. Ordinarily as traditional
medicine there has not been any need for it to be registered. In fact, people (patients)
have been taking it and there has not been any report of adverse effects. Most
significantly, Ngaka can attest to its efficacy and nontoxicity. The question then
becomes, on what bases can the drug be allowed without being subjected to the
requirements of an experimental drug? Why should it be licensed when it is already
in use? If you ask Ngaka, he will say that his divining skill and herbal knowledge
guarantee that the drug is safe. This, he can argue is verifiable by any reputable
diviner and herbalist. The ethics committee does not have the know-how to deal
with this.
May be the solution is to go ahead and have a medical specialist look at its
toxicity in preparation of licensing it as an experimental drug. If the drug is not toxic,
then a license could be issued for molemo to be used in the experiment. If it is judged
to be toxic molemo would then fail to qualify as an experimental drug. That would
raise an objection based on the nature of traditional medicine. A plant can be used to
cure a certain ailment when ingested but it can be “dangerous” when sprinkled on a
patient to remove witchcraft. Ngaka can argue that he knows what he does for
molemo to work in curing this disease. It is not just a matter of drinking a solution
but a combination of ritual and herbs for:
native healing is not necessary (necessarily) limited to or about the so-called “bio-active
ingredients” of a plant or mixture of plants. The art and science of native healing often
embraces a holistic approach to well being that transcends the chemical composition of the
concoction or herbal decoction. Most times, herbs are prayed upon, praised as if they were
living entities, sacrifices are made, et cetera. In traditional healing with biological resources
such as plants, healers often maintain a monopoly of their knowledge by “tying” their
biological remedies to requirements for physical objects, which the inventor can monopolize
“or elaborate procedures that are hard to copy without initiation. (Mgbeoji, 2007: 86)
The next question is whether Ngaka is part of the research team or not. To be a
part of the research team, one must have required educational qualifications. Ngaka
has barely completed primary school. The Biologist and colleagues think that they
should not include Ngaka in their research team. They rather call him a “collabora-
tor.” The problem is that even though Ngaka has undergone traditional medicine
training and other traditional doctors can attest to that fact, the validity of such a
training for qualification to be a research team member is not clear. The ethical
question then becomes, why somebody can be excluded from a research that deals
with his product when he can contribute perspectives that other people in the
research team cannot. As a traditional doctor, has he not done research for him to
be in this position? Could it be true that, “as the Crucible Group recently observed,
‘farmer’s fields and forests are laboratories. Farmers and healers are researchers.
Every season is an experiment.’” (Mgbeoji, 2007: 86)?
The Biologist and colleagues insist that their research is an observational study.
All they do is observe Ngaka’s patients and record the effects of molemo. The other
perspective is that the uptake of molemo is an intervention, in which case the
protocol must have all the elements of an intervention/experimental study. Firstly,

drawing blood and testing before the consumption of molemo to verify that the
patients have the incurable disease as well as testing after taking molemo is some-
thing that the researchers are introducing, which is not part of Ngaka’s original
activity. All the activities and molemo consist in the intervention – it is molemo that
is supposed to make a difference in the patients’ health. In that case, there ought to be
another arm to the research, namely, the control group. The suggestion then would be
that the research does not meet the requirements of an intervention study. For this
drug to be tested, it must have been tested on animals and then it would go through
the phases 1,2,3 (Dunn & Chadwick, 2002: 220–221).
If the study takes place, its report or publication’s authorship must be determined.
Is Ngaka an author, given that he can narrate events surrounding the study even
though he is unable to explain the chemistry involved in the process of curing or
otherwise of molemo. He will not be part of the discussion when issues of sampling
et cetera arise. On the other hand, he will be part of the debate when issues of dosage
arise, but he will not be able to determine the chemistry involved in the toxicity of
molemo. He will be the sole specialist when it comes to divining, incanting, and
aligning the medication to the demands of ancestors and so on. Why should or
should not that be part of the report? The next question that arises is that of benefits
sharing from the research to which we turn below.
Sharing Research Benefits
In discussing this matter, Paulina Tindana and colleague (Tindana & Wasunna, 2014:
129) have said something meriting comment. Firstly, they rightly point out the
difficulty of determining benefits to be shared and fairness in sharing them. They
then call for nonexploitative behaviours in Africa as well as equitable distribution of
benefits, attention being paid to “assessing the relevance of the research to the local
population, as well as the benefits of the proposed research, the potential patent
rights, and whether the data will be shared with for-profit companies.”
Consider the case of Ngaka and the Biologist referred to above. Molemo has
the potential to be a solution to an incurable disease that has caused devastation in
the world. If it cures the disease in the form that it has been presented by Ngaka, the
Biologist and friends would not be inventing as much as Ngaka and those who
taught him would have if their research confirms its benefits. Even though Ngaka has
the secret to molemo now, there is no guarantee that other traditional doctors do not
know it. It is clear though that Ngaka’s community benefits from molemo (if it is
potent) and Ngaka will not monopolize the benefit and prohibit others from using it if
they discovered its potency, which a patent would do. In view of this, the question
arises as to the justification of allowing somebody who would patent molemo and
exclude everybody else from benefiting from its manufacture and sale (in the case of
pills, etc.).
The important question that helps answer the benefit distribution one is owner-
ship – who owns the molemo knowledge? Clearly Ngaka is one of them, but it is not
156 J. B. R. Gaie
as clear as we want because we are unable to determine the extent to which other
traditional doctors, including Ngaka’s teachers, have a share in the knowledge. In the
context of the traditional value system, the community including the living dead
(ancestors) have a stake in molemo. It is therefore important to consider actions that
will acknowledge the traditional value system of Ngaka’s community.
Given the complexity and exploitative nature of the current patent system, the
Biologist and friends’ position to patent the resultant drug and medicine should the
research yield anything of note would be bordering on the unethical side even if they
included Ngaka as a shareholder in their enterprise. This is so because it would raise
the same ethical issues that arose in the patents of neem and turmeric (Mgbeoji,
2007: 87) as well as hoodia (Kaya, 2007: 17) and devil’s claw where community
knowledge was patented and exploited for the benefit of those who Mgbeoji calls
“bio-prospectors.” In the case of devil’s claw, for example, a plant used for millennia
by Africans and patented by some “enterprising” business persons:
When the retail value of Devil’s Claw preparations in Northern markets is calculated on a
dry-weight equivalent basis, prices range from US$ 300 to US$ 700 per kilogram of dry
tubers. The bottom line is that Namibia captures at most 1% of the value of the trade in
Devil’s Claw extracts, and harvesters no more than 0.5%. Even when the retail mark-ups and
packaging, marketing and processing costs are taken into account, it seems obvious that the
processors and formulators are making outrageous profits at the expense of extremely poor
people. Crushed tubers intended for use in herbal teas sell for about 20 times their import
price (40 times what harvesters get) in German pharmacies. (Cole, 2003: 21)
These are not the only ethical issues that arise in African research ethics. Informed
consent, subject selection, payment or non-payment of research subjects, carrying
out research and clinical trials in Africa, and sharing of risks and benefits of research
among others are very important matters that some scholars have talked about. It
might be insufficient in some cases, but they can be discussed in other works.
Conclusion
Research ethics is a new area that has historically developed from ethical concerns
about wrong actions done in biomedical research. This historical fact might lead to
the confusion, or identification of research ethics with rules and guidelines made for
researchers for the protection of research subjects. This is sometimes called respon-
sible conduct of research. This chapter however argues that research ethics is a
subdiscipline of ethics. The latter is a branch of philosophy. So research ethics is the
study of right and wrong in research. There might be a debate on the definition of
research, but simply put, it is the systematic collection of data for the provision of
new perspectives. African Research ethics then is the study of right and wrong in
research in the context of Africa. This is because there are certain things in Africa
that merit special ethical attention when research is undertaken.
A major consideration in ensuring that African research ethics is carried out
effectively and properly is the understanding of African traditional cultures and
epistemologies. The chapter started off with an example whereby it was not easy
for implementers of research ethics to classify the kind of research that needed to be
undertaken, which showed the difficulty researchers in Africa faced and the level of
ethical understanding the community talked about is at.
An important example of ethical issues arising from African research ethics is the
risk/benefit analysis. Research ethics committees assessing protocols studying tradi-
tional African phenomena do not have the capacity to do so because they fail to
appreciate African beliefs and epistemologies. In the case of the Gaie study on tradi-
tional doctors and theft, the dismissal of traditional doctors’ ability to cause harm, or
lack of knowledge about that could lead to assessors assuming that the research was low
risk when in fact it is high risk in the sense that findings or beliefs expressed in certain
ways could cause riots and violence, or at least perpetuate biases against groups of
people. The Gaie research example shows the disparity of beliefs when it comes to
traditional medicine. Traditional doctors are believed to hurt people using their “pow-
ers” but the Western type skeptics dismiss this lightly. This chapter argued that since the
power of traditional doctors is not something that has been disproved scientifically, it is
risky to assume that they do not have the power that they are supposed to have.
African epistemologies are often dismissed resulting in lack of proper consider-
ation in assessing research on traditional beliefs. One instance is when authors
suggest that African traditional herbal medicines are a result of trial and error thereby
dismissing the intense and technical know-how that the herbalists would have
employed in identifying the herbs. Divination is important in that herbs are not
simply given without the doctor first diagnosing the ailment et cetera, which is
different from the Western tradition where drugs are quantified and every tablet is
supposed to be standardized for use by everyone.
The chapter showed that there are vulnerabilities that African researchers and
research participants face because of their beliefs. That creates a special way in
which African research ethics ought to be looked at. Scholars in the Western tradition
believe that every research must have specialists in order for it to meet ethical
requirements but they do not require specialists in African epistemologies or cultures
when a research in African culture is carried out. This chapter has argued that such a
proposition is untenable.
The example of molemo in the study by the Biologist and friends was used to
demonstrate the problems that arise. Firstly the licensing of a herb that is in use raised
problems that did not arise before the herb was not a candidate for a successful drug.
Issues of specialization also arose when the traditional doctor is not included in the
research team because the understanding of specialist in Western epistemologies
excluded him. Classification of the study also became topical as to whether it was
observational or intervention. When research succeeds and there is a patentable product,
there is an issue of justice that arises as exemplified in the Biologist study since patents
exclude a lot of stakeholders and yet the product or herb might be community’s
knowledge who do not benefit much in the end and yet the knowledge generated to
have the patentable product was gathered from them who before then were benefiting
from the product. The chapter gave examples of products which were patented resulting
in benefits to a few at the exclusion of the communities that generated the knowledge.
This chapter acknowledges the many ethical issues that still need to be considered in the
study of African research ethics. It has just scratched the surface.
158 J. B. R. Gaie
References
Ani, N. C. (2013). Appraisal of African epistemology in the global system. Alternation, 20(1),
295–320.
Azetsop, J. (2011, April). New directions in African bioethics: Ways of including public health
concerns in the bioethics agenda. Developing World Bioethics, 11(1), 4–15.
Bamford, R. (2019). Decolonizing bioethics via African philosophy moral neocolonialism as a
bioethical problem. In G. Hull (Ed.), Debating African philosophy: Perspectives on identity,
decolonial ethics, and comparative philosophy (pp. 43–59). Routledge Taylor & Francis.
Behrens, K. (2015). Towards an Indigenous African bioethics. African Traditional Herbal Research
Clinic, 10(2), 80–85.
Bird, S. J. (2006). Research ethics, research integrity and the responsible conduct of research.
Science and Engineering Ethics, 12, 411–412.
Chen, D. T. (2003). Curricular approaches to research ethics training for psychiatric investigators.
Psychopharmacology, 171, 112–119.
Cole, D. (2003). The impact of certification on the sustainable use of devil’s claw (Harpagophytum
procumbens) in Namibia. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations,
Non-Wood Forest Products Programme. FAO.
Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) in collaboration with the
World Health Organization (WHO). (2002). International ethical guidelines for biomedical
research involving human subjects. CIOMS.
Dinç, L. (2008). Ethics education and academic misconduct. Nursing Ethics, 15(1), 1–5.
Dunn, M. C., & Chadwick, G. L. (2002). Protecting study volunteers in research: A manual for
investigative sites. Thomson Center Watch.
Eisen, A., & Parker, K. P. (2004). A model for teaching research ethics. Science and Engineering
Ethics, 10(4), 693–704.
Ellerby, J. (2006). Indigenous integrative phenomenology: Integrating Indigenous epistemologies
in traditional healing research. Graduate Theological Foundation.
Fisher, J., Woodbine, G., & Fullerton, S. (2002). A cross-cultural assessment of attitudes regarding
perceived breaches of ethical conduct by both parties in the business-consumer dyad. Journal of
Consumer Behaviour, 2(4), 333–353.
Gaie, J. (2015). The ethics of divination and theft in Botswana. Unpublished.
Gewald, J.-B. (2002). El Negro, el Nino, witchcraft and the absence of rain. Pu/a Botswana Journal
of African Studies, 16(1), 37–51.
Higgs, P. (2011). African philosophy and the decolonisation of education in Africa: Some critical
reflections. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 44, 1–19.
Holm, S., & Williams-Jones, B. (2006). Global bioethics- myth or reality? BMC Medical Ethics,
7(10).
Horn, L., Sleem, H., & Ndebele, P. (2014). Research vulnerability. In M. Kruger, P. Ndebele, &
L. Horn (Eds.), Research ethics in Africa: A resource for research ethics committees
(pp. 81–90). Sun Press.
Hountondji, P. J. (1983). African philosophy: Myth and reality. Indiana University Press.
Irele, A. (1983). Introduction. In P. J. Hountondji (Ed.), African philosophy: Myth and reality
(pp. 7–30). Indiana University Press.
Kaptue, L., Ngounoue, M. D., & Fokunang, C. (2014). Traditional medicine research: Ethical
implications in the conduct of African Traditional Medicine Research. In M. Kruger, P. Ndebele,
& L. Horn (Eds.), Research ethics in Africa: A resource for research ethics committees
(pp. 109–116). Sun Press.
Kaya, H. O. (2007). Promotion of public health care using African indigenous knowledge systems
and implications for IPRs: Experiences from Southern and Eastern Africa. African Technology
Policy Studies Network (ATPS).
Kruger, M., Ndebele, P., & Horn, L. (2014). Research ethics in Africa: A resource for research
ethics committees. Sun Press.
Langlais, P. J. (2016). Ethics for the next generation. The Chronicle Review, 52(19), B11.
McGee, R., Almquist, J., Keller, J. L., & Jacobsen, S. J. (2008). Teaching and learning responsible
research conduct: Influences of prior experiences on acceptance of new ideas. Accountability in
Research, 15, 30–62.
Mgbeoji, I. (2007). African Indigenous knowledge systems and patents: Is the patent system
relevant to the native healers of southern Nigeria? In E. K. Boon & L. Hens (Eds.), Indigenous
knowledge systems and sustainable development: Relevance for Africa (Vol. 1, pp. 77–92).
Kamla-Raj Enterprises.
Moodley, K., Kabanda, S. M., Soldaat, L., Kleinsmidt, A., Obasa, A. E., & Kling, S. (2020).
Clinical ethics committees in Africa: Lost in the shadow of RECs/IRBs? BMC Medical Ethics,
21(115), 1.
Mufamadi, J. (2009). Cross cultural dilemmas in the management of HIV/AIDS: The role of
African traditional. Indilinga – African Journal of Indigenous Knowledge Systems, 8(1), 24–35.
National Institutes of Health. (n.d.). http://bioethics.od.nih.gov/academic.html#centers. Retrieved
13 Dec 2021.
Ogundiran, T. O. (2004). Enhancing the African bioethics initiative. BMC Medical Education,
4(21).
Pellegrino, E. D. (1993). The metamorphosis of medical ethics: A 30 year retrospective. JAMA,
269(9), 1158–1162.
Reiser, S. J. (1993). Overlooking ethics in the search for objectivity and misconduct in science.
Academic Medicine, 68(9), 84–87.
Research, N. C. (1978). The Belmont report: Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of
human subjects of research. The Commission.
Salkind, N. J. (2012). Exploring research. Pearson.
Savulescu, J. (2015). Bioethics: Why philosophy is essential for progress. Journal of Medical
Ethics, 41, 28–33.
Schoffeleers, M. (2000). Religion and the dramatisation of life: Spirit beliefs and rituals in southern
central of Malawi. Christian Literature Association in Malawi.
Stern, J. E., & Elliot, D. (1996). Curriculum and faculty development for the teaching of academic
research ethics. Dartmouth College.
Tindana, P., & Wasunna, C. (2014). Evaluating genetic and genomic research proposals in Africa.
In M. Kruger, P. Ndebele, & L. Horn (Eds.), Research ethics in Africa: A resource for research
ethics committees (pp. 125–135). Sun Press.
Vallance, R. (2004). Formation in research ethics: Developing a teaching approach for the social
sciences. AARE Conference.
Wamala, E. (2004). Government by consensus: An analysis of a traditional form of democracy.
In K. Wiredu (Ed.), A companion to African philosophy (pp. 435–442). Blackwell Publishing.
Ubuntu and Bioethics
Nancy S. Jecker
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
African Ubuntu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Western Bioethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Juxtaposing Ubuntu and Bioethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Contributions of Ubuntu Ethics to Bioethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Personhood and Moral Standing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Human Dignity and Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Environmental Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Abstract
This chapter draws on the sub-Saharan African concept of ubuntu (humanness) to
identify salient features within African ethics that can shed important light on
central topics in contemporary bioethics. It describes three specific areas where
ubuntu is well positioned to make transformative and lasting changes. First, an
ubuntu-informed conception of what it means to be a person in the moral sense
can enhance standard bioethical understandings of who qualifies as a subject of
moral concern and who can be a strong claimant of moral rights. This carries
implications for bioethics topics such as abortion and the treatment of newly
deceased patients. Second, ubuntu can reinvigorate debates about respect for
human dignity. This has both theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically,
an ubuntu-informed understanding of human dignity can contribute insights to
capability approaches to justice; practically, it can enhance bioethics in both
N. S. Jecker (*)
University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
e-mail: nsjecker@uw.edu

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_6
162 N. S. Jecker
pediatric and geriatric settings. Finally, an ubuntu-guided environmental philos-

ophy can help address urgent issues in global bioethics, such as those related to
emerging infectious diseases and climate change.
Keywords
Ubuntu · African bioethics · Western bioethics · Personhood · Abortion ·
Informed consent · Human dignity · Death and dying · Ancestors · Capabilities ·
Environmental ethics · Resource allocation
Introduction
This chapter is about ubuntu and bioethics. Since ubuntu is an African philosophy
and contemporary bioethics is predominantly a Western field of inquiry, it should
come as no surprise that this chapter is not just about ubuntu and bioethics, but also
about the broader approaches to ethics in Africa and the West. To lay the ground-
work, it will be helpful to review some central features of each approach. This
orientation is not intended to be comprehensive, but rather to orient readers unfa-
miliar with the broad outlines of either approach, as well as those who have not
thought explicitly about the similarities and differences between them. In the
sections that follow, these ideas will be explored in greater depth, and more nuances
and distinctions will be introduced as the chapter develops.
Throughout, the chapter refers to certain views as “African” and others as
“Western” as shorthand for views that are frequently espoused by people living in
those regions. The point here is not to suggest that all people living in those regions
hold the views in question, nor to suggest that no one outside those areas holds them.
Africa and the West display a remarkable diversity in their philosophies and cultures,
making any account of “African” or “Western” philosophy vulnerable to the charge
that it groups diverse views together in ways that gloss over salient differences. This
chapter will no doubt fall prey to this objection. Yet, despite this, a broad-brush view
serves important purposes. It can introduce people to ideas and insights that they are
unfamiliar with or unaware of. It can reveal unstated assumptions in their own way
of thinking. It can challenge long-standing paradigms by calling attention to advan-
tages associated with alternative paradigms. This chapter aims to inspire Western
bioethicists who might be unfamiliar with African philosophy to pay attention to the
ideas and insights of ubuntu. It opens the door to questioning and inquiring further
about the advantages and disadvantages of another way of thinking. Likewise, some
African philosophers have limited knowledge of Western bioethics, and the chapter
serves an important purpose for them if it motivates learning more about this field of
scholarly inquiry and how it might be helpful or unhelpful in the settings where
healthcare is practiced in their societies. Finally, the chapter aims to showcase the
insights of African ethics for people everywhere, especially people engaged in
bioethics.
Ubuntu and Bioethics 163
African Ubuntu
Ubuntu is an ethic recurrently espoused among sub-Saharan black people. Buthelezi

traces its roots to a precolonial era in which an ethic emphasizing community and
harmonious relationships reigned, noting that
Long before Europeans settled in South Africa a little more than three centuries ago,
indigenous African peoples had well-developed philosophical views about the worth of
human beings and about desirable community relationships. A spirit of humanism – called
ubuntu (humanness) in the Zulu language and botho in the Sotho language – shaped the
thoughts and daily lives of our peoples. Humanism and communal traditions together
encouraged harmonious social relations (Buthelezi, 1984: 2).
Reference to ubuntu first appeared in written form in 1846, when the term was
used to indicate a positive human quality (Hare et al., 1846). Tracing the history of
ubuntu in written discourse, Gade notes that at first, ubuntu was described as “an
excellent African quality,” “the admirable qualities of the Bantu,” and more broadly
as “goodness of nature,” “greatness of soul,” and “a good moral disposition” (Gade,
2011: 308). It was during the second half of the twentieth century that a shift
occurred and ubuntu ceased referring to qualities of character and instead was
used to indicate a more general philosophy, ethic, African humanism, or a worldview
(Gade, 2011). Eventually, during the 1990s, ubuntu became associated with the
Nguni proverb, “a person is a person through other persons” (umuntu ngumuntu
ngabantu), taking on its distinctive modern flavor as both a philosophy and ethic.
Metz characterizes a traditional ubuntu way of life as exhibiting seven interwoven
features:
• Small-scale communities: people tend to know each other;

• Oral traditions: values are transmitted by storytelling rather than by a corpus of
written work;
• Ritualistic practices: community membership is marked by initiation and
tradition;
• Agricultural economies: people’s livelihood is agricultural and/or they are hunter-
gatherers without the use of sophisticated science or technology;
• Extended families: people live in extended families that emphasize a duty to wed
and procreate and faith in the continued existence of and interaction with ances-
tors and forebears of a given people;
• Consensus-driven: the community is governed by methods of conflict manage-
ment that appeal to the majority or to the majority of appointed elders; and
• Reconciliation-based enforcement: values are enforced by reconciliation rather
than retribution when infractions take place (Metz, 2012a: 22–23).
Some scholars argue that ubuntu’s emphasis on relational features of persons and
an ethic of caring for and about others has affinities with a care-focused feminist
ethics (Harding, 1987; Gouws & van Zyl, 2015). According to Harding, both
164 N. S. Jecker
African ethics and care-focused feminist ethics originated within systems of domi-
nation where people were subordinated; both can be thought of as challenging a
dominant standpoint and moral orientation: “when we look at these racial and gender
domination projects together, we will notice that it is the same group of white,
European, bourgeois men who have legitimated and brought into being for the rest of
us life worlds different from theirs. In this sense, it is one contrast scheme we have
before us, not two” (Harding, 1987: 366). Among the similarities, Harding cites are a
metaphysical (ontological) view of the self as constituted by its roles and relation-
ships within a community and the world of nature; an epistemological view that
regards the self as gaining knowledge through shared activities and projects with
others; and an ethical view which holds that duties to others arise in the givenness of
social community life, rather than being consented to by autonomous individuals
apart from a community.
However, Metz claims that despite family resemblances, care ethics and ubuntu
ethics differ in key respects: “African moralists tend to value not merely caring for
others’ quality of life, but also sharing a way of life with others” (Metz, 2013: 85).
According to Metz, there is no parallel injunction within care-focused feminist ethics
to share a life with others. A further difference between care ethics and ubuntu ethics
is that ubuntu is invoked to explain or give support to a potentially wider range of
outcomes, such as how people keep peace, enable reconciliation, and prevent
revolution (Mwipikeni, 2018).
With its strong emphasis on community, some scholars challenge ubuntu’s
contemporary relevance to modern societies (Matolino & Kwindingwi, 2013) or
view it as amounting to an onerous “black tax” (Mhlongo, 2019). Others recommend
ubuntu as potentially furnishing part of the ethical underpinnings for contemporary
conceptions of personhood (Tangwa, 2000; Molefe, 2019; Jecker, 2020a); human
dignity (Metz, 2012b; Jecker, 2020b); and justice (Jecker & Atuire, 2021, 2022;
Jecker et al., 2022). Without settling such debates, this chapter proceeds on the
assumption that ubuntu offers important insights to bioethics. Its continued rele-
vance turns on showing concrete ways in which it can contribute to current bioeth-
ical concerns. This chapter’s dual aim is to show the contributions of ubuntu to
contemporary bioethics and, in so doing, to demonstrate its enduring value for
contemporary societies.
Western Bioethics
While ubuntu is rooted in a pre-colonial period in which small-scale communities

thrived, contemporary bioethics as a field of scholarly inquiry arose in the aftermath
of the Second World War, when atrocities came to light involving egregious viola-
tions of civilians and prisoners of war in occupied countries who were experimented
on without their knowledge or consent. Following World War II, physicians and
administrators were accused of “crimes against humanity” in the infamous Doctors’
Trial, which commenced in 1946. At the Trial’s conclusion, judges set forth guide-
lines for permissible clinical experiments with human subjects, which became
known as “The Nuremburg Code.” The Code, which consists of ten ethical princi-
ples, stressed as its very first principle that, “The voluntary consent of the human
subject is absolutely essential” (Nuremberg Code, 1947: 1448).
Against this backdrop, contemporary bioethics emerged. Reflecting its origins,
the field placed heavy emphasis on respecting individual autonomy and honoring the
practice of informed consent. As Offer notes, “[e]ven though the [Nuremburg] Code
refers specifically to human experimentation, its ten principles constitute a kind of
‘Ten Commandments’ of medical ethics” (Offer, 2018: S172).
As others have noted (Behrens, 2017), the principle of respect for individual
autonomy has since come to dominate contemporary bioethics. Jennings, a political
scientist and long-time contributor to the field, puts the point this way: “[n]o single
concept has been more important in the contemporary development of bioethics [. . .]
and none better reflects both the philosophical and the political currents shaping the
field” (Jennings, 2009: 72). An emphasis on individual autonomy is apparent in the
three domains of bioethics discussed below: personhood and moral standing; human
dignity and capabilities; and global bioethics and the environment. In each of these
domains, an ethic emphasizing individual autonomy calls attention to features of
individuals, such as sentience and rationality, that are viewed as intrinsic qualities of
human beings, and sees these as having a superlative value that merits respect and
that furnishes the basis for moral rights and duties.
Juxtaposing Ubuntu and Bioethics
As bioethics has faced new challenges, such as globalization, aging societies,

climate change, and emerging infectious diseases, it has become increasingly appar-
ent that the field’s heavy emphasis on the principle of respect for individual auton-
omy is insufficient to address some central bioethical problems societies are facing.
While respect for individual autonomy was a fitting response in the aftermath of the
Second World War and continues to be an abiding ethical concern, the conditions in
which people live have shifted in ways that make a central focus on autonomy
inadequate. To remain relevant, the field of bioethics must articulate values that are
fitting for the moment we are now in. As bioethics becomes increasingly global, its
heavy emphasis on individual autonomy puts it at odds with collectivist leaning
societies in many other parts of the world, such as Africa, Latin America, and Asia,
which place greater weight on values of human solidarity, family, and community.
This creates difficulties not only when bioethicists attempt to use their tools to help
with concerns of global significance, but also when patients and/or providers come
from diverse cultures and backgrounds.
African approaches to philosophy and ethics can contribute to bioethics by
providing insights about what it means to be a person, what it means to have
human dignity and to have one’s dignity respected, and what the place of human
beings is in nature and the environment. Rather than replacing Western bioethics
with African bioethics, what is ultimately needed is bioethics that is global in scope
and incorporates insights from diverse traditions that span the globe. Just as an
166 N. S. Jecker
excessive focus on individual autonomy falls short, an exclusive focus on commu-

nity and relationships would fall short too. Ultimately, some balance must be struck
among divergent approaches, which preserves an inherent tension. Below, this
strategy is illustrated by examining the contributions of ubuntu to bioethics in
three areas: moral personhood, human dignity, and environmental philosophy.
Contributions of Ubuntu Ethics to Bioethics
Personhood and Moral Standing
An ubuntu ethic holds that to be a person in the moral sense (hereafter “person”)
requires exhibiting or having certain relational capacities, such as compassion,
generosity, caring, and sociality, that arise within communities. While being a person
is not a necessary condition for being an object of moral concern, being a person is
linked with a conception of dignity and regarded as the highest moral status
attainable (Jecker, 2020b). According to Akan ethics (the philosophy associated
with the Akan people of Ghana), for example, the source of human beings’ super-
lative value is their activity or capacity for relating with others in morally excellent
ways. The Akan people compare the human being to gleaming gold and discern,
“The human being is more beautiful than gold” (Onipa ye fe sen sika). The Akan go
on to contrast the value of persons with the value of objects, using pithy maxims,
such as “It is the human being that counts: I call upon gold, it answers not; I call upon
cloth, it answers not; it is the human being that counts (Onipa ne asem: mefre sika a,
sika nnye so, mefre ntama a, ntama nnye so; onipa ne asem)” (Gyekye, 2011: n.p.).
In this juxtaposition, while gold has intrinsic qualities that we value, it lacks the
responsiveness to human calling, which is the hallmark of being a person in the
African sense.
An ubuntu-informed account of personhood is often understood as including first,
a normative component, which holds that people should live a life of mutual
concern, being integrated into the lives of others and being willing to integrate
them within their own. This normative component directs people to live a harmoni-
ous life, with minimal friction. Second, an ubuntu approach to personhood includes
an ontological component, which expresses the belief that the defining features of
persons are relational features that arise within the context of living interdependently
with others; in an important sense, individuals cannot exist as persons outside of
these constitutive relationships and the community framework in which such rela-
tionships arise. These normative and ontological strands comprise a philosophical
position (as opposed to a summary of communal practices or aspirations people
hold) within the broader philosophical landscape of personhood. They are “African”
in the sense that they display salient features from the African tradition, including an
association with the African ethic of ubuntu.
One example of how this conceptual framing of personhood plays out in a
practical way is in the account of informed consent itself. If we ask, who is
authorized to give informed consent or refusal to medical care, the answers are
strikingly different depending on whether one asks the question from the perspective
of Western bioethics, with its emphasis on respect for individual autonomy or
sub-Saharan African ethics, with its emphasis on a relational self and an ethic of
living in a community with others. Whereas standard bioethical accounts underscore
an individual’s informed consent or refusal and seek to determine the benefits and
harms of alternative treatment for the individual, traditional African approaches
stress consensus decision-making by families and communities, and strive to pre-
serve harmony and relationships within a community. Using a Western bioethics
lens, a decision to undergo a medical procedure would require demonstrating that a
patient with decision-making capacity is making an informed, voluntary choice and
understands basic facts about their situation, such as their diagnosis and prognosis,
the risks and benefits of a proposed treatment, and alternative treatments and their
associated risks and benefits. Although the patient may and often will consult with
loved ones in the process of reaching a decision, their personal medical information
is considered private and the decision ultimately rests with them, not with their
family members or others in their community. By contrast, an ubuntu ontology and
ethics tend to spotlight the patient in the context of their group, extended family, and
community and to consider medical decisions about accepting or refusing treatment
as involving multiple stakeholders, such as immediate and extended family mem-
bers, neighbors, caregivers, and a wider community.
A second example, also related to medical decision-making, concerns the ethical
standards used for making medical decisions on behalf of people who lack decision-
making capacity. Western bioethical analyses of surrogate decision-making typically
stress protecting autonomy and extending such protections both to infants and
children who lack autonomy due to immaturity and to older people who have
diminished capacity due to intellectual impairments, such as dementia. In the case
of children, the child’s best interest is often understood as requiring safeguarding the
child’s right to an “open future,” i.e., their right to have their future choices left open
for their future autonomous self (Feinberg, 1980). In the case of older adults, the
standard applied is substitute judgment, which appeals to prior autonomous choices
and values as the decisive factor in making decisions for a presently incapacitated
adult (Davis, 2002). In both instances, respect for autonomy is extended beyond the
point when an individual has autonomous decision-making capacity.
In contrast to a Western bioethical approach, an ubuntu ethic stresses social and
community responsibility for people who lack decision-making capacity. For exam-
ple, ubuntu highlights ways in which individuals and communities are entwined and,
especially in sickness, individuals rely on the support and services others provide.
Illustrating this, Jecker and Atuire argue against the attempt to introduce Western-
style informed consent to solve the problem of maltreatment of people with mental
illness in Ghana who are shackled when they are considered a threat to their
community; they observe that in a Ghanaian context, sawing off chains without
providing safe alternatives, or shunning healers rather than joining forces with them
to better serve people with mental illness, does little to improve the plight of people
who suffer mental illness (Jecker & Atuire, 2021). Such measures fall far short of
reintegrating people with mental illness into the community and helping them find
168 N. S. Jecker
the community services they must have to function and live a life of dignity. Even
when removing chains honors the informed consent of patients or their surrogates, it
misses essential features of the ethical situation. In contrast to Western-style
approaches, which emphasize past and future autonomy, an ubuntu-inspired African
analysis accentuates responsibility for vulnerable people and acting in ways that
preserve a patient’s place within a web of relationships.
A third example that shows the distinctive features of an ubuntu-guided African
approach is found in bioethical debates about allocating scarce lifesaving resources
between young and old age groups. In trade-off situations, where a choice is forced,
African accounts tend to give relatively more weight to older than younger people.
According to Menkiti, the reason for this is not that age itself marks a moral
difference between persons; instead, it is because the experience of living enables
people to acquire certain moral capacities: “the reason [that] age has tended to count
so heavily in African thought is because of its link to the acquisition of moral
function [.] [I]t is being around for a very long time as a particular kind of human
agent that counts, not being around for a very long time, simpliciter.” (Menkiti,
2004: 329).
Consider, for example, a situation where there is only enough lifesaving medicine
to provide it to one person; if a choice is forced between giving the medicine to an
older adult or an infant, the older adult might be assigned priority on the ground that
they have greater moral capacities or on the ground that they are more interwoven
into the lives of others, making their removal from the community potentially more
damaging (Kilner, 1984). Underlying this view is the idea that moral personhood is a
matter of degree and that degree of moral standing depends on the individual’s
capacity for relationships (Jecker, 2020a, 2021). On one interpretation of African
ethics, called moral relationism, the degree of moral standing a person has depends
on the individual’s capacity to relate to others and the extent to which the individual
exercises that capacity and achieves morally excellent relationships. Menkiti
expresses this view when he refers to the “processual” nature of personhood
(Menkiti, 1984: 172). According to Menkiti, persons become persons only after a
process of being incorporated into a particular community. Without incorporation,
“individuals are considered to be mere danglers to whom the description of ‘person’
does not fully apply” (Menkiti, 1984: 172). Menkiti explains that “full personhood is
not perceived as simply given at the very beginning of one’s life but is attained after
one is well along in society”; in particular, “the older an individual gets, the more of a
person he becomes” (Menkiti, 1984: 173).
A different approach to personhood and to allocating scarce resources between
age groups is evident in Western bioethics. According to some analyses, the relative
strength of an individual’s claim depends on whether the total number of years they
have lived represents a “natural lifespan” (Callahan, 1987) or a “fair innings”
(Williams, 1997). Callahan appeals to a natural lifespan when he writes that
“Death at the end of a long and full life is not an evil. [T]here is something fitting
and orderly about it”; for this reason, he says, death in old age is “a sad, but
nonetheless relatively acceptable event” (Callahan, 1987: 65–66). Williams invokes
the concept of “fair innings” when he states that death during childhood is tragic
because the child, unlike the older adult, misses out on years and life stages that they
should have had. According to Williams: “If what we wish to equalize is lifetime
experience of health, then [...] those who have had a ‘fair innings’ [...] should not
expect to have as much spent on a health improvement for them as would be spent to
generate the same benefit for someone who is unlikely ever to attain what we have
already enjoyed”; this requires “self-restraint” by older adults, especially “by those
of us who have flourished in health terms throughout [their] lives” (Williams, 1997:
129).
A fourth area in which a sub-Saharan African view of personhood can contribute
to bioethical concerns is in the decision to terminate a pregnancy. From an African
perspective, in situations where abortion involves a trade-off between the interests of
the pregnant person and the interests attributed to the developing fetus, the moral
status of a younger human being (the fetus) would be less than that of the older
human being (the pregnant person) due to differences in the extent to which each
being is integrated into a community. In the case of pregnancy termination, appeal-
ing to ubuntu could lend support to two distinct claims. First, whenever trade-offs
must be made between saving the life of the fetus or saving the life of the
pregnant person, or between saving the life of the fetus or protecting the health of
the pregnant person, priority should go to the pregnant person. The reason is that the
pregnant person is relatively more interwoven in a web of relationships with others;
for example, they may have extant children to care for and responsibilities within the
wider community. Second, outside of trade-off scenarios, the fetus may have lower
moral standing. The reason is that many (Singer, 2009; Tooley, 1983), but not all
(Kittay, 2005), Western bioethics analyses tend to privilege inherent qualities of a
developing human being, such as their ability for consciousness, self-consciousness,
and subjective states such as pain and pleasure; these qualities are linked to a fetus’s
developing brain and may not have emerged. An African approach, by contrast,
would potentially allow a developing fetus to count as a subject of increasing moral
concern from the moment of conception by virtue of standing in relationships that
grow more significant over time as it develops, e.g., as a son or daughter, sibling, or
grandchild. While this would not imply that the fetus has full moral standing, or
qualifies as a present person, it might suggest that a fetus differs from other living
cells and is on the path that can lead to personhood. Menkiti put this point the
following way, “personhood is something which has to be achieved, and is not given
simply because one is born of human seed” (Menkiti, 1984: 172); he adds that
full personhood is not perceived as simply given at the very beginning of one's life, but is
attained after one is well along in society, [...] the older an individual gets the more of a
person he becomes. As an Igbo proverb has it, ‘What an old man sees sitting down, a young
man cannot see standing up.’ The proverb applies [...] not just to the incremental growth of
wisdom as one ages; it also applies to the ingathering of the other excellences considered to
be definitive of full personhood. (Menkiti, 1984, 173)
A fifth area in which an African view of personhood sheds important light is

bioethical understanding of respect for the newly dead in healthcare and caregiving
170 N. S. Jecker
settings. According to an African relational account, social relationships do not end

abruptly at biological death, even though the body ceases functioning. Immediately
after death, the newly dead continue to stand in certain kinds of relationships with the
living, who have one-directional duties left to fulfill toward them. As Mbiti notes,
“the departed, whether parents, brothers, sisters or children, form part of the family,
and must therefore be kept in touch with their surviving relatives” (Mbiti, 2006: 9).
Certain duties, such as the offering of libations and the giving of food, are tokens of
fellowship, hospitality, and respect, although they are sometimes disparagingly
called “ancestor worship” (Mbiti, 2006). Instead, they reflect an understanding of
shifting moral status, which Menkiti characterizes as an ontological progression of
personhood, which starts at infancy and ends at some point after death. According to
Menkiti, the newly dead are referred to in traditional African thought as “ancestors”
during the period when they are remembered by name and the living can form a
community with them; following this, when no one remembers them, the dead
become “nameless dead” who have lost their names and become dis-incorporated
“its” (Menkiti, 1984: 175). Menkiti observes that the bookends of human life,
pre-birth and death, are marked by “the absence of incorporation” in the sense that
“contact with the human community is totally severed” (Menkiti, 1984: 175–176).
However, rather than a sudden shift, the shift from ancestor to nameless dead is
incremental; thus, “the person, once arrived, can only depart slowly, yielding
incrementally his or her achieved status. Only when the stage of the nameless
dead is joined does the person once again become an ‘it,’ going out of the world
the same way the journey first began. Thus the movement is a movement from an it
to an it” (Menkiti, 2004: 327).
The moral standing of someone who is now deceased has practical significance
for bioethics when questions arise about the treatment of newly dead human beings.
Some Western bioethicists, influenced by views such as utilitarianism, tend to regard
the newly dead as having only instrumental value. Iserson, for example, defends an
instrumentalist stance, arguing that using human remains to practice minimally
invasive procedures, such as endotracheal intubation, is ethically permissible when
it furthers the ends of living human beings (Iserson, 1993). Iserson defends this view
by arguing that deceased individuals can no longer be harmed and that they can
create important benefits for patients by helping trainees hone lifesaving skills. In
contrast to the instrumentalist view of human remains that Iserson espouses, African
philosophy (as Menkiti characterizes it) suggests that the newly dead are not mere
tools to be used by the living. Instead, if they continue to be remembered, they can
stand in relationships with the living and these relationships merit respect.
The notion of duties to the newly dead is not entirely at odds with Western
bioethics since the field reflects many traditions other than utilitarianism. For
example, a Kantian ethic of respect for persons could form the basis for arguing
that a person’s prior wishes about the disposal of their body after death should be
honored and that this is a form of direct duty to the once living human being. This
idea is apparent in the laws of some Western countries which forbid, for example,
posthumous reproduction without explicit prior consent from the now deceased
person. Some Western countries also require informed consent for organ
transplantation, which can be expressed either by “presumed consent” that people

can opt out of, or by “required request” which involves a requirement to ask people
to give their informed consent to organ donation. These laws and practices reflect a
sense of duty to the newly dead that is more in synch with African conceptions of
duties to the newly dead; however, they spring from a different philosophical source.
The convergence of Kantian and African ethics in the case of duties to the newly
dead thus illustrates how divergent philosophical traditions can sometimes arrive at
similar practical recommendations, enabling a practical consensus to be reached that
stays faithful to diverse ethical commitments and world views.
In summary, African ethics and especially, the ontology and ethics associated
with ubuntu spotlight features of moral situations that uphold relationships and
community. Generally speaking, African ethics gives pride of place to duties to
others, putting duties to others before individual rights in ethical guidance. When
making medical decisions for oneself or others, and when allocating scarce
healthcare resources between young and old, this leads to emphasizing social
responsibility and duties to the community over upholding personal preferences
and individual rights. Gyekye usefully characterizes African ethics as an ethics of
duty, not rights. He explains that African ethics is duty-oriented in the sense that it
“requires each individual to demonstrate concern for the interests of others. The
ethical values of compassion, solidarity, reciprocity, cooperation, interdependence,
and social well-being [. . .] primarily impose duties on the individual with respect to
the community and its members” (Gyekye, 2011: n.p.). According to African ethics,
“people fulfill – and ought to fulfill – duties to others not because of the rights of
these others, but because of their needs and welfare” (Gyekye, 2011: n.p.). While
African philosophical approaches are not devoid of individualistic values and a
conception of rights, individual rights are not a dominant theme in African ethics
as they are in many Western approaches to bioethics.
Human Dignity and Capabilities
Given the conception of moral personhood described above, it is not surprising that
communal and relational features of individuals figure prominently in any account of
what gives human beings the superlative value we associate with human dignity.
A second important contribution of African ethics and ubuntu to bioethics is the view
of human dignity it sets forth, which focuses on our communal and social nature.
At first blush, it might appear that emphasizing human communal and social
nature would lead to an account of human dignity that excludes many people. The
concern here might be that individuals who are socially outcast, displaced, or in
some other way isolated from a network of relationships will be thought of as
non-persons or be considered to have lesser dignity. For example, we might ask,
does a hermit lack dignity, does an exiled person have less dignity than someone who
is not living in exile.
Metz finds a way through this morass by developing an African conception of
human dignity that shifts the focus away from actual relationships in which people
172 N. S. Jecker
stand toward their capacity to stand in relationships. Calling this account “modal
relationism,” Metz explains that according to this view, an individual has dignity
only insofar as they have the capacity for communal relationships with others and
they have the capacity to care about and stand in solidarity with others. Referring to
the first element (the capacity to commune), Metz explains that “[d]eeming our
dignity to inhere in our capacity for communal or friendly relationships means that
according human rights is to treat this capacity of others with respect and, corre-
spondingly, that violating human rights is to severely degrade this capacity” (Metz,
2012a: 27). Referring to the second element (the capacity to care about others), Metz
tells us that exhibiting solidarity with others involves engaging in helping others and
giving mutual aid and it involves having a stance of “being positively oriented
toward others” (Metz, 2012a: 26).
Metz’s account dovetails with the normative and ontological strands of African
personhoods described previously. Just as the ontological conception of persons
underscores interdependence between persons, the capacity to commune involves a
capacity to identify with others and see oneself as part of the same group – a “we.”
Just as the normative conception of personhood highlights pro-social virtues toward
others, the capacity for solidarity implies a certain stance and disposition to act in
ways that are other-regarding and benefit other people.
In contrast to Metz’s approach and African ethics more generally, Western
bioethics emphasizes individual autonomy as an overarching value and tends to
think of the capacity for individual autonomy and associated cognitive capacities as
necessary and/or sufficient conditions for possessing human dignity. Since Kant, and
since the enlightenment era more broadly, much of the history of moral philosophy
in the West proceeds without direct consideration of the interests of those who are
not autonomous. Macklin, for instance, has argued that “[d]ignity is a useless
concept in medical ethics and can be eliminated without any loss of content,”
because it is essentially redundant with autonomy, i.e., it “seems to be nothing
other than respect for autonomy” (Macklin, 2003: 1420 and 1419).
A promising way to combine African and Western approaches to human dignity
is to appeal to human capabilities. A capabilities approach conceives of dignity as
referring to the central things that we can do and be as human beings. These might
include both human capacities to be autonomous, to think and plan a life, as well as
human capacities to affiliate with others and express a range of human emotions. A
more complete list of capabilities might be the following, adapted from Nussbaum
(Nussbaum, 2011) and defended at greater length elsewhere (Jecker, 2020b):
Central Human Capabilities:
1. Life: having an unfolding story or narrative of one’s life;

2. Health: being able to have all or a cluster of the central capabilities at a threshold
level;
3. Bodily integrity: being able to use one’s body to realize one’s goals;
4. Senses, imagination, and thought: being able to imagine, think, and use the
senses;
5. Emotions: being able to feel and express a range of human emotions;

6. Practical reason: being able to reflect on and choose a plan of life;
7. Affiliation: being able to live for and in relation to others;
8. Nature: being able to live in relation to nature and other species;
9. Play: being able to laugh, play, and recreate; and,
10. Environment: being able to regulate the immediate physical environment.
So understood, a capabilities approach is compatible with an African relational

view, provided it meets what Jecker calls a “balance condition.” The balance
condition specifies that “a capability list should be reasonably balanced between
individual and relational capabilities and between cognitive and noncognitive capa-
bilities” (Jecker, 2020b: 49). This avoids granting exclusive weight to individuals or
to community and it rules out allowing the focus to be solely on intellectual qualities
like rationality, or solely on moral emotions, such as caring about and empathizing
with others. According to Jecker, a human being has dignity if they have “some
(at least one) of the central human capabilities” listed above at a threshold level
(Jecker, 2020b: 60).
While a balanced capabilities approach offers a way to combine diverse moral
orientations, it sets limits in the sense that it rules out approaches that are exclusively
individualistic or exclusively relational. Thus, the balance condition would not be
met by an individualistic approach that regards human dignity as requiring intellec-
tual capacities for reason and excludes people with lifelong intellectual impairments.
This concern is apparent in the writing of Kittay, who argues that someone with
intellectual limitations who lacks the capacity to make a rational plan for their life, or
to have a sense of their life as an unfolding narrative, may nonetheless have a life of
human dignity (Kittay, 2019). Kittay gives the example of their daughter, Sesha, who
“is capable of great joy and great love” and who appreciates music, shows sensitivity
to others and stands in social relationships (Kittay, 2005: 127–129). A balanced
capability list would count Sesha as having human dignity because Sesha has
threshold human capacities such as affiliating with others; expressing a range of
human emotions; and exercising senses, imagination, and thought.
The balance condition also excludes relational approaches that regard all central
human capabilities in relational terms. For example, Masolo can be interpreted as
suggesting this when he writes that “Almost all human capacities, including those
that are vital to sheer physical survival, require some form of input from other
members of the species” (Masolo, 2010: 142). Even the capacity to think, Masolo
argues, is intimately tied to communication and learning a language, which depends
on contact with other human beings. By contrast, Western conceptions tend to regard
thinking as emanating from an individual mind of “a self-sufficient and independent
agent,” except in cases of defect or illness (Masolo, 2020: 159). The proposed
account is compatible with views, such as Metz’s, which hold that an account of
human dignity implies that “[a]n act is wrong (at least in part) because it degrades the
individual’s dignity that she has in virtue of her capacity to engage in harmonious
relationships” (Metz, 2010: 94). It adds to this that an act can also be wrong when it
174 N. S. Jecker
degrades the individual dignity that a person has in virtue of her capacity to think,
reason, and compose a narrative or plan for life that reflects their values and
preferences.
Within bioethics, a capabilities approach is invoked to argue for making reason-
able efforts to support a minimal threshold of each of the central human capabilities
and doing this in a way that is life stage informed (Jecker, 2020b). The requirement
to support capability thresholds at various life stages holds that capabilities should be
specified in ways that are reasonably related to what people can do and be across the
lifespan. For example, in pediatrics, this involves viewing the child not just as a
future adult with autonomy, but as a child now with a life that has intrinsic childhood
goods, such as childhood friendship, play, health, and imagining; it would also
require supporting a child’s life stage-related capacities for literacy, numeracy, and
the ability to imagine, think, and use the senses. Respecting childhood dignity might
call for providing children with nurturing care, to foster trusting relationships and
basic education, to support their capacities to think and reason about their lives.
In geriatrics, supporting capability thresholds might involve helping older adults
keep their threshold capacities intact in the face of heightened risks of disease and
disability associated with later life. This means for example, supporting an older
person’s capacities to be healthy, well nourished, move from place to place, affiliate
with others, and recreate in ways that older adults do. So understood, respecting
dignity of older persons hinges on making reasonable efforts to help them in all the
areas where their capabilities are at risk.
Environmental Philosophy
Given ubuntu’s emphasis on harmonious relationships, it is a fair question to ask,

who are the “others” which we should seek to have harmonious relationships. One
way of answering this question is anthropocentric and holds that the objects of
harmonious relationships should be human beings. Anthropocentric views treat
nature as separate from human beings, something human beings act on or are
affected by. Another way of answering the question is what Behrens dubs, “African
relational environmentalism” (Behrens, 2010). It holds that “[a]ll living things are
part of a single web or fabric of life. They are all mutually interdependent” and this
mutual interdependence gives rise to the view that “nonhuman natural objects are
morally considerable” (Behrens, 2014: 55). Ubuntu’s emphasis on relational features
is arguably more amenable than an individualist-focused Western philosophy is to
Behrens’ account of the environment, because an individualist philosophy holds that
individuals value springs from their intrinsic qualities, such as sentience and ratio-
nality. Since many natural objects lack the kinds of intrinsic qualities that are usually
put forth as a basis for moral standing, they presumably lack independent moral
worth and dignity.
For example, Kantian ethics holds that rational agents are the only thing that has
value for its own sake. For Kant, the type of rationality that matters is moral
reasoning and a rational agent’s ability to serve as a source of moral law. Beings
without such a capacity possess what Kant considered indirect value. Thus, for Kant,
“we have duties towards [...] animals because thus we cultivate the corresponding
duties toward human beings”; for example, “if a man shoots his dog because the
animal is no longer of service, he does not fail in his duty to the dog, for the dog
cannot judge, but his act is inhuman and damages in himself that humanity which it
is his duty to show towards mankind” (Kant, ~1775–1780: 240). Importantly, Kant
does not regard human beings as inherently superior by virtue of their species
membership, but only by virtue of their capacity for rational agency. To the extent
that members of other species possess the relevant rational capacities, they too would
qualify as having an inherent worth and to the extent that human beings lack such a
capacity, they would lack an inherent dignity and worth.
African environmental philosophy also contrasts with a Western bioethical view
like Tooley’s. Tooley allows for the possibility that members of other species could
be moral persons, yet requires that individuals with moral standing at some point in
their life have a concept of themselves as continuing over time and preferred to
continue: “An individual cannot have a right to continued existence unless there is at
least one time at which it possesses the concept of a continuing self or mental
substances” (Tooley, 1983: 121). Applying this idea to abortion and infanticide,
Tooley reasons that both are ethically permissible because the developing human
brain apparently lacks any cognitive awareness of a self that continues to exist across
time until early toddlerhood (although Tooley says his view about this is open to
change if knowledge of neurodevelopment changes).
Other major Western traditions, such as utilitarianism, aim to maximize pleasure
or well-being and minimize pain or suffering for everyone affected by an act or
practice. Utilitarian ethics tends to regard any being that is sentient and capable of
experiencing pleasure or pain as morally considerable (Singer, 2009). Utilitarian
views play a prominent role in advocacy for nonhuman animals because they have a
more expansive notion of what counts as a person compared to other Western
bioethical views, such as Kantian ethics. Still, utilitarian ethics is less
all-embracing than the African relational bioethics that Behrens advocates, because
utilitarianism regards non-sentient natural objects (e.g., oceans, forests, and sky) as
having purely instrumental value, and as counting morally only if they affect sentient
human beings or sentient nonhuman animals.
African relational environmentalism carries practical implications not only for
issues such as abortion and infanticide, but also for issues of rising importance, such
as climate change and emerging infectious diseases. Both issues highlight the
interconnection between human beings and planetary conditions that impact health.
In the area of climate change, bioethical issues arise not just due to the direct hazards
to human health created by a changing climate, but also due to the different and
unequal ways in which these risks impact human populations and communities (Ebi,
2020). For example, people with chronic illness, older age groups, indigenous
populations, people with mobility challenges, and certain occupational groups face
greater health risks from climate change than their counterparts who are healthy,
176 N. S. Jecker
young, able bodied and work in jobs that are less impacted by climate. People living
in certain geographic regions, such as coastal zones, artic regions, and areas prone to
drought or floods, suffer more from climate change than people in other regions do.
African relational environmentalism can make sense of the ways in which human
health and human survival itself is not separate from, but intricately connected with,
caring for the environment and ensuring habitable planetary conditions. According
to this view, it is not simply the case that the climate affects human beings, and thus,
human beings have instrumental reasons to care about it; instead, as Behrens
characterizes it, there is a continuous connection between the sky, the sea, nonhuman
animals, and us. Behrens summarizes,
although we may not ordinarily think of an ocean current as something to which we can owe
a direct moral duty, we must take into account the devastating repercussions on global
climate of significant changes in the flow of, say, the Gulf Stream. Thus, it seems that
conceiving of such entities as morally considerable might be attractive on the pragmatic
grounds that if they were treated as being morally considerable, it might turn out to be for the
good of many other organisms, including humans (Behrens, 2014: 78).
Like Behrens, Tangwa points out that the African traditional world view he was
taught (the Nso’ of Cameroon) “does not suppose that human beings have any
mandate or special privilege, God-given or otherwise, to subdue, dominate, and
exploit the rest of creation” (Tangwa, 2004: 389–390). Capturing this idea, Mbeki
unpacks it in terms of the notion of gratitude for all that the earth has given us: “I owe
my being to the hills and the valleys, the mountains and the glades, the rivers, the
deserts, the trees, the flowers, the seas and the ever-changing seasons that define the
face of our native land” (Mbeki, 2005: 17).
Conceiving of inanimate objects as if they are morally considerable is at odds
with many standard views in Western philosophy and bioethics, including views
that press for equal consideration of nonhuman animals, such as Singer’s view.
Suppositional reasoning that prescribes acting “as if” inanimate natural objects
were morally considerable, relies on a form of moral reasoning that is hypothetical
and/or counterfactual. With hypothetical reasoning, the antecedent of a conditional
if/then statement is uncertain, while with counterfactual reasoning, the antecedent
is false. Behrens defends suppositional reasoning about inanimate natural objects
by arguing that it can lead to a more respectful attitude toward nature, which is
needed.
African relational environmentalism can also be defended on broader pragmatic
grounds; namely, it furnishes the most helpful way of tackling global health
concerns like climate change and environmental degradation. As Tangwa notes,
“[w]ithin the African traditional outlook, human beings tend to be more cosmically
humble and therefore not only more respectful of other people but also more
cautious in their attitude to plants, animals, and inanimate things” (Tangwa,
2004: 389). Such a stance can benefit human beings and the planet by curbing
any tendency people might have to exploit nature or treat it as a mere means to
serve human purposes.
Another defense of African environmentalism that Behrens offers holds that some
natural inanimate entitles play a highly significant role in sustaining the life of many
other entities and thereby function as “quasi-organisms” (Behrens, 2014: 78).
Behrens gives the example of a severely polluted river, which can do enormous
damage to many kinds of organisms and species. Extending Behrens’ account, it
could be argued that inanimate natural objects, like rivers, are not mere means to some
outside end, but instead what Korsgaard calls, “conditionally valuable,” meaning that
they are objectively valuable parts of some further thing that has value, and their value
is conditional on that further thing existing (Korsgaard, 1983: 179). Applied to
inanimate objects in nature, we might say that rivers have conditional value, because
they are parts of a valuable whole that includes many living beings and organisms,
including human beings. The notion of conditional value is apparent in the environ-
mental philosophy known as “deep ecology.” Deep ecology rejects human-centered
environmentalism to emphasize instead forming intrinsically valuable relationships
with natural objects in which the objects are not mere tools for human purposes, but
constituents of valuable relationships (Næss, 1973). According to deep ecology, seeing
natural objects as parts of valuable wholes invites us to look beyond human needs and
cultivate a respectful stance toward nature.
African relational environmentalism can also be defended by appealing to meta-
physical animism, which is the view that everything is alive or has a life force or
energy within it. Some African philosophies hold that objects in nature are animated
by an ancestor spirit or hold a version of totemism, which associates a specific
animal with a tribe or its people and forbid harming a totemic animal (Behrens,
2014). According to Tangwa, within the African traditional outlook, “the distinction
between plants, animals, and inanimate things, between the sacred and the profane,
matter and spirit, the communal and the individual, is a slim and flexible one”
(Tangwa, 2004: 389).
Our attitudes toward nonhuman animals and inanimate natural objects have
significant implications for bioethics, especially in the area of emerging infectious
diseases. For example, when we try to put in place systems for preventing future
pandemic disease outbreaks, this implicates non-human species and the environ-
ment, due to the rising risk of zoonotic viruses infecting people (Dobson et al.,
2020). The root causes of pandemics include the loss of habitat which brings wild
animals into closer contact with human beings and wildlife markets and farms that
contribute to zoonotic spillover. As with climate change, although all human
beings share risk to human life and health, certain groups shoulder a greater risk
of infection, such as individuals living in high-density urban areas, congregate
settings, or working in certain occupations; others are at greater risk of severe
disease or death if they become infected due to weakened immunity from aging or
chronic disease.
Since an ubuntu ethic emphasizes not only the ontological unity of human beings,
but cooperating with others and standing together in solidarity, Jecker and Atuire
argue that an ubuntu ethic lends support to global solidarity between nations to
address emerging infectious diseases, such as the coronavirus 2019 disease
178 N. S. Jecker
(COVID-19) pandemic. They argue that we are all connected through a microscopic
world of germs and particles that knows no borders and this interconnection forms
the basis for a collective “we” (Jecker & Atuire, 2021: 6). Invoking the Adinkra
symbol of conjoined crocodiles with two heads and a common stomach, they write
that “[g]lobally interconnected nations instantiate the ontological dimension of
solidarity conveyed in the Adinkra symbol of conjoined crocodiles,” but add that
solidarity expresses not just interconnection, but coming together to cooperate for a
common good: “relationships qualify as solidaristic only if they include an ethical
dimension, which is cooperative, rather than competitive, and symbiotic, rather than
predatory” (Jecker & Atuire, 2021: 32). Solidarity in the African sense emphasizes
the language of common humanity and underscores the symmetry and equality
associated with shared humanness (Jecker & Atuire, 2022).
In summary, the African ethic of ubuntu contributes important insights to bioeth-
ical analyses of global bioethics, especially climate change and emerging infectious
diseases. It furnishes a normative and ontological framework that stresses the
interrelationship between human beings, nonhuman animals, and the environment.
It helps us to see global health crises as problems requiring all the nations of the
world to come together in a solidaristic fashion to address. The ontology of ubuntu
helps us to entertain the possibility that inanimate objects in nature, like the sky,
rivers, and seas, are not merely tools or instruments for serving human ends, but
instead, parts of a valuable whole that includes human beings and all living organ-
isms. The ethics of ubuntu invites solidarity with other nations and respectfulness
toward nature.
Conclusion
This chapter has presented the African ethic of ubuntu and showed with three areas
of bioethics where it is making important contributions: moral personhood, human
dignity, and environmental philosophy. Each of these three areas is critically
important in contemporary bioethics. African personhood carries significant prac-
tical implications for bioethics topics such as informed consent, surrogate
decision-making, allocating scarce resources between young and old, pregnancy
termination, and treatment of the newly dead in healthcare and caregiving settings.
An African account of human dignity linked with a capabilities approach offers
practical insights for addressing bioethics issues within pediatrics and geriatrics,
focusing on supporting threshold capabilities for people across the lifespan.
Finally, African environmental philosophy has important lessons related to how
we should treat nonhuman animals and inanimate natural objects. It also has
implications for how nations should act in unison to address bioethical challenges
that affect people everywhere, such as emerging infectious disease and climate
change. Incorporating African philosophy into predominantly Western bioethics is
a first step towards more global bioethics that welcomes insights and contributions
from societies everywhere.
References
Behrens, K. G. (2010). Exploring African holism with respect to the environment. Environmental
Values, 19, 465–484.
Behrens, K. G. (2014). Toward an African relational environmentalism. In E. Imafidon & J. A.
I. Bewaji (Eds.), Ontologized ethics. New essays in African meta-ethics (pp. 55–72). Rowman
and Littlefield.
Behrens, K. G. (2017). A critique of the principle of ‘respect for autonomy’, grounded in African
thought. Developing World Bioethics, 18, 126–134.
Buthelezi, G. M. (1984). The legacy of African history. Natural History, 12.
Callahan, D. (1987). Setting limits: Medical goals in an aging society. Simon and Schuster.
Davis, J. K. (2002). The concept of precedent autonomy. Bioethics, 16(2), 114–133.
Dobson, A. P., Pimm, S. L., Hannah, L., et al. (2020). Ecology and economics for pandemic
prevention. Science, 369(6502), 379–381. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abc3189
Ebi, K. L. (2020). Mechanisms, policies, and tools to promote health equity and effective gover-
nance of the health risks of climate change. Journal of Public Health Policy, 41, 11–13.
Feinberg, J. (1980). The Child’s right to an open future. In W. Aiken & H. LaFollette (Eds.), Whose
child? Children’s rights, parental authority and state power (pp. 76–97). Rowman and
Littlefield.
Gade, C. B. N. (2011). The historical development of the written discourses on Ubuntu.
Gouws, A., & van Zyl, M. (2015). Towards a feminist ethics of Ubuntu: Bridging rights and
Ubuntu. In D. Engster & M. Hamington (Eds.), Care ethics and political theory (pp. 165–186).
Gyekye, K. (2011). African ethics. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. https://
plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/african-ethics/
Harding, S. (1987). The curious coincidence of feminine and African moralities. In E. C. Eze (Ed.),
African philosophy: An anthology (pp. 360–372). Blackwell Publishers.
Hare, H. H., et al. (1846). I-Testamente Entsha yenkosi yetu Ka-Yesu Kristu, Gowka-maxoosa.
E-Newton Dale. Cited in Gade CBN, 2011. The historical development of the written discourses
on Ubuntu. South African Journal of Philosophy, 30(3), 303–329.
Iserson, K. V. (1993). Post-mortem procedures in the emergency department. Journal of Medical
Ethics, 19(2), 92–98.
Jecker, N. S. (2020a). African conceptions of age-based moral standing. The Hastings Center
Report, 50(2), 35–43.
Jecker, N. S. (2020b). Ending midlife bias. Oxford University Press.
Jecker, N. S. (2021). Intergenerational ethics in Africa: Duties to older adults in skipped generation
households. Developing World Bioethics, 22, 152. https://doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12325
Jecker, N. S., & Atuire, C. A. (2021). Out of Africa: A solidarity based approach to vaccine
allocation. Hastings Center Report, 51(2), 27. https://doi.org/10.1002/hast
Jecker, N. S., & Atuire, C. A. (2022). Bioethics in Africa: A contextually enlightened analysis of
three cases. Developing World Bioethics, 22, 112–122. https://doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12324
Jecker, N. S., Atuire, C. A., & Kenworthy, N. (2022). Realizing Ubuntu in global health: An African
approach to global health justice. Public Health Ethics, 15, 256. https://doi.org/10.1093/phe/
phac022
Jennings, B. (2009). Autonomy. In B. Steinbock (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of bioethics. Oxford
University Press.
Kant, I. (1775–1780). Duties towards animals and spirits. In L. W. Beck (Ed.) Trans. L. Infield,
1980. Immanuel Kant, lectures on ethics. Hackett Publishing Company: 240–241.
Kilner, J. (1984). Who should be saved? The Hastings Center Report, 14(3), 18–22.
Kittay, E. F. (2005). At the margins of moral personhood. Ethics, 116(1), 100–131.
Kittay, E. F. (2019). Love’s labor (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Korsgaard, C. (1983). Two distinctions in goodness. Philosophical Review, 92(2), 169–195.
180 N. S. Jecker
Macklin, R. (2003). Dignity is a useless concept. BMJ Clinical Research, 327, 1419–1420.
Masolo, D. A. (2020). Understanding personhood: An African philosophical anthropology.
In Masolo DA, Self and Community in a Changing World. Indiana University Press: 135–181.
Matolino, B., & Kwindingwi, W. (2013). The end of Ubuntu. South African Journal of Philosophy,
32(2), 197–205.
Mbeki, T. (2005). I am an African. The Journal of Corporate Citizenship, 18, 17–17. Available at
http://www.jstor.org/stable/jcorpciti.18.17
Mbiti, J. S. (2006). African religions and philosophy (2nd ed.). Heinemann Educational Publishers.
African philosophy: An introduction (3rd ed., pp. 171–181). University Press of America.
Menkiti, I. A. (2004). On the normative conception of a person. In K. Wiredu (Ed.), A companion to
African philosophy. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Metz, T. (2010). Human dignity, capital punishment, and an African moral theory. Journal of
Human Rights, 9, 81–99.
Metz, T. (2012a). African conceptions of human dignity. Human Rights Review, 13, 19–37.
Metz, T. (2012b). An African theory of moral status. A relational alternative to individualism and
holism, ethical theory moral. Practice, 15(3), 387–402.
Metz, T. (2013). The Western ethics of care or an afro-communitarian ethics. Journal of Global
Ethics, 9(1), 77–92.
Mhlongo, N. (2019). Black Tax: Burden or Ubuntu? Jonathan Ball Publishers.
Molefe, M. (2019). Solving the conundrum of African philosophy through personhood: The
individual or community? The Journal of Value Inquiry, 54, 41–57.
Mwipikeni, P. (2018). Ubuntu and the modern society. South African Journal of Philosophy, 37(3),
322–334.
Næss, A. (1973). The shallow and the deep, long-range ecology movement. Inquiry, 16(1), 95–100.
Nuremberg Code. (1947). In BMJ, 1996. The Nuremberg Code, 313(7070), 1448.
Nussbaum, M. (2011). Creating capabilities. Harvard University Press.
Offer, M. (2018). Jewish medical ethics during the holocaust: The unwritten ethical Code.
In Müller M, Weindling P, Czech H, et al., Medical ethics in the 70 years after the Nuremburg
Code: 1947 to the present. Central European Journal of Medicine, 130, S172–S176.
Singer, P. (2009). Animal liberation. Harper Collins Publishers.
Tangwa, G. B. (2000). The traditional African perception of a person some implications for
bioethics. The Hastings Center Report, 30(5), 39–43.
Tangwa, G. B. (2004). Some African reflections on biomedical and environmental ethics.
In K. Wiredu (Ed.), A companion to African philosophy (pp. 387–395). Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Tooley, M. (1983). Abortion and infanticide. Oxford University Press.
Williams, A. (1997). Intergenerational equity. Health Economics, 6(2), 117–132.
Personal Autonomy and Shared-Value
in Bioethics: An African Communal Ethics
Outlook
Samuel J. Ujewe
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
African Communal Values and Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Communal and Processual Personhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
African Values and Ethics Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Theories of Autonomy in Bioethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
The Nature of Value and Value of Personal Autonomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
The Value of Personal Autonomy in African Socio-cultural Contexts of Healthcare . . . . . . . . . 191
Ought-onomy as the Alternative Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Abstract
Although the principle of “respect for personal autonomy” is largely conceptual-
ized against the background of values of societies that espouse individual liberty,
not all societies in the world place a high premium on the place of the individual
person. This chapter examines the value of autonomy in bioethics and determines
whether other values, such as “communal responsibility” dominant in African
settings, are equally valuable in the context of healthcare and health research. It
uses elderly care, as a case example, to explore the subtleties of personal
autonomy and determine its valuableness in African contexts. In African settings,
the care of elderly persons is binding on families and considered a responsibility
of their communities. Elderly persons enjoy the privilege of being cared for, and
families and communities are responsible for providing care. While some indi-
vidual persons may choose not to provide the care and some elderly persons may
reject care offered, the question remains whether the refusal is morally acceptable
or if rejection removes the moral responsibility to provide similar care to others.
S. J. Ujewe (*)
Global Emerging Pathogens Treatment Consortium, Lagos, Nigeria
e-mail: ujewes@mcmaster.ca

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_7
182 S. J. Ujewe
This chapter will examine the value and place of autonomy in African socio-
cultural contexts, barring its already presumed universal value in bioethics.
Keywords
Autonomy · Value · Personhood · Communal responsibility · Shared-value ·
Individual liberty · Bioethics · Informed consent
Introduction
This chapter examines the value of “respect for personal autonomy” in bioethics and
the extent to which other values, such as “communal responsibility” dominant in
African settings, may be equally valuable in the context of healthcare and health
research. It uses elderly care, as a case example, to explore the subtleties of personal
autonomy and its value in African socio-cultural contexts. In African settings,
generally speaking, the care of elderly persons is binding on families and considered
a responsibility of their communities (Mbiti, 1990; Gyekye, 1996; Ujewe, 2012a).
Elderly persons enjoy the privilege of being cared for, and families and communities
are responsible for providing that care. While some individual persons may choose
not to provide the care and some elderly persons may reject care offered, the question
remains whether the refusal is morally acceptable or if rejection removes the moral
responsibility to provide similar care to others. This chapter will examine the value
and place of autonomy in African socio-cultural contexts, barring its already pre-
sumed universal value in bioethics.
The traditional conception of autonomy in bioethics that espouses the sover-
eignty of individual persons represents the ideal referred to in ethical requirements
like informed consent in healthcare and health research. Respect for personal
autonomy is considered a key principle in bioethics (Beauchamp & Childress,
2009). The wide subscription to its main attribute, informed consent, presents the
principle of autonomy as universally valuable, a priori. Yet, the conceptual ideals
of personal autonomy present recognizable conflict with other values, like com-
munal or family-oriented values in African settings, especially communal respon-
sibility. A cross-cultural qualitative study shows that informed consent is difficult
to apply in African contexts because it derives from a Western conception of
libertarian rights-based autonomy, while affirming the predominance of commu-
nalism, customary beliefs, spirituality, and relational autonomy in most African
communities (Akpa-Inyang & Chima, 2021). Yet, informed consent is adopted in
healthcare and health research globally to address issues with inherent social and
cultural significance, despite being underpinned by the ideals of individual liberty.
Social and cultural values, like the communal responsibility exemplified in family
decision-making, which appear to conflict with autonomy, are often regarded as
secondary. This seems to suggest that one cannot act otherwise than autonomously
in the context of healthcare or health research, and that personal autonomy must be
upheld at all cost.
Personal Autonomy and Shared-Value in Bioethics: An African. . . 183
The principle of “respect for personal autonomy” is largely conceptualized

against the background of values of most Western societies that emphasize the
sovereignty of individual persons. Yet not all societies in the world place a high
premium on the place of the individual person. The theoretical weight of personal
autonomy leans on the conception of persons as sole individuals. However, in
communitarian societies around the world, individuals are conceived in terms of
their networks of relationships. On what ground then does the bioethical theory of
personal autonomy assume its presumed universal value? This chapter explores and
presents an African ethical outlook to determine the place and value of personal
autonomy in African contexts of healthcare and health research. It tests the concep-
tual valuableness of personal autonomy in communal contexts of healthcare and
health research in Africa.
The chapter provides an overview of African socio-cultural contexts and deter-
mines how these bear on the understanding of health and healthcare, while outlining
corresponding key African communal values and ethical principles. The theory and
principles of personal autonomy in bioethics are explored against this background,
representing the first test for the conceptual conflict and value differentials. To better
understand the place and value of personal autonomy in African socio-cultural
contexts, the chapter also explores the meaning and nature of value to provide
grounding for a critical analysis. In a summative analysis, the chapter proffers an
alternative principle, ought-onomy, which subsumes personal autonomy and com-
munal responsibility in African socio-cultural contexts of healthcare and health
research.
African Communal Values and Ethics
Communal and Processual Personhood
African communal values and ethics are inherently tied to the conception of person-
in-community and a dynamic personhood. African socio-cultural contexts remain
largely communal, as relationships are considered crucial in a person’s self-
understanding and existence (Ujewe, 2018; Tangwa, 2019). One’s relationships
with family and other essential social networks are a fundamental part of what
defines one’s personhood. This communal understanding of personhood shapes
African socio-cultural contexts in which healthcare and health research challenges
evolve. The notion of personhood is central to the assignment of meaning in African
ethics. It is linked to the African moral worldview that emphasizes harmony between
three worlds – natural environment, human beings, and the supernatural world – with
the human person as the focal point (Mbiti, 1990; Gyekye, 1996; Tangwa, 2010).
In African socio-cultural contexts, personhood is acquired through the life pro-
cess of person-in-community. The African personhood is a dynamic, gradual, and
persistent process (Kaphagawani, 2003), rather than the static conscious self-
determination constituting the dominant Western notion. Personhood is not given
simply because one is born of the human seed, but through incorporation into a
184 S. J. Ujewe
community without which individuals are mere danglers to whom the description of
a person does not fully apply (Menkiti, 1984). The Dogon of Mali, for instance,
acknowledge that one does not come into the world bearing all his or her potentials
in full measure: being only a potential person at birth, one must be given his or her
own sexual, social, and spiritual identity by the human community into which they
are born (Ray, 2000). An individual is thus a person-in-process, rather than a self-
subsistent, self-determined entity; a being that never is, but always becoming. This is
reflected in the three-dimensional nature of the African communal system, consisting
of the living, the dead, and the not-yet born (Bujo, 2005). The community and the
individuals constituting it are in constant vital flux, transiting from the not-yet born
to the living, to the dead.
Thus, processual personhood extends beyond individual persons to their net-
works of relationships. The self-subsistent individuals may view their personhood in
terms of “cogito ergo sum: I think, therefore, I am” (Descartes, 1996). However,
processual personhood postulates the individual as always a dialectical “I.” Here, the
question, “who am I?”, cannot be answered in any meaningful way unless the
relationship in question is known, since “I” is not only one relationship, but
numerous relationships (p’Bitek, 1998). Hence, individuals view their personhood
in terms of “cognatus sum, ergo sumus: because I am related to others, not only I, but
also we, together, exist” (Bujo, 2005: 425). The “I” is always at the same time a
“we”; the individual person is always several other people:
Only in terms of other people does the individual become conscious of his own being, his
own duties, his privileges, and responsibilities towards himself and towards other people.
When he suffers, he does not suffer alone but with the corporate group; when he rejoices, he
rejoices not alone but with his kinsmen, his neighbours, and his relatives whether dead or
living. . . The individual can only say: ‘I am because we are; and since we are, therefore I
am.’ (Mbiti, 1990: 108)
Personhood as such does not connote a passive process of being simply a member
of the community. It involves vital participation with others in community:
The individual becomes a person only through active participation in the life of the
community. It is not membership in a community as such that constitutes the identity:
only common action makes the person a human person and keeps him from an unfettered
ego. (Bujo, 2001: 87)
I only become fully human to the extent that I am included in relationship with others. So
I must see myself as a process of becoming a person. It is not just that I change and grow. I
am being built up, constructed. (Shutte, 2009: 92)
Given this outlook of personhood in African communal contexts, elderly persons

are regarded as custodians of culture, morality, and tradition. They are responsible
for the life of the community, and their personhood is tied to this responsibility.
Whatever is committed to the care of elderly persons is considered a commitment to
the community’s overall well-being. Accordingly, young and adult members of the
community are obliged to participate in the care of elderly persons bearing in mind
the preservation of life, dignity of the human person, and sustenance of family and
community as primal values. Elderly persons, on their part, recognize their
privileged stage in the personhood process, accepting their frailty and enjoying the
generous care that the community affords them. The question of personal autonomy,
either for the elderly person or for those providing the care, does not thereby arise.
Elderly care constitutes a vital-force-in-participation for the entire community
(Ujewe, 2012a).
African Values and Ethics Principles
In African ethics, communal responsibility takes center stage, as the moral frame of
reference is founded on the network of communal relationships (Gyekye, 2011). The
ethic of communal responsibility emphasizes a preoccupation with the well-being of
whole communities or societies; not simply of individuals constituting them. It
motivates individual members to seek the good of the community or society as a
whole, in virtue of which they also seek their own good and build a firm basis for a
sustained well-being (Gyekye, 1996: 62). The four pillars constituting this ethic
include: Ubuntu, as the social context; personhood, as the mode of meaningful
engagement; vital participation, as the conceptual frame of reference; and harmony,
as the essence of the dialogic process (Ujewe, 2016).
The idea of Ubuntu situates every individual person within a community or
society as inevitably existing in relationship with others around them. The main
thesis remains: a person is a person through other persons – where the individual
person is inevitably involved in varied social and moral duties and commitments that
focus on the well-being of others around them (Munyaka & Motlhabi, 2009). This
relational coexistence derives from the African communitarian structure that empha-
sizes imperatives for social relationship and vital interdependencies (Gyekye, 1996:
35ff). The ethic, thus, emphasizes reciprocal or dual responsibility (Gyekye, 1997),
where individuals are drawn by shared obligations toward each other and the
communities to which they belong.
In light of communal ethic, the individual person is viewed as always caught up in a
web of process, which mainly involves (a) building up social relationships and
(b) developing one’s moral character. Among the Akan of Ghana, as with many
other African cultures, moral judgments or evaluations of individuals are made in
reference to their character, and how they have developed it over time or its inherent
progressive development: one may be judged as being a “bad person” in view of
his/her bad character; and on this basis be considered as “not a person” (Gyekye,
2011). Similarly, among the Nso tribe in Cameroon, personhood represents the
ascription of moral worth in an interconnected universe, as opposed to the freestanding
singularity of the Western individual (Tangwa, 2010). To be considered not-a-person
does not literally mean that the individual does not exist. Rather it emphasizes that the
ascription of personhood is always at the same time a statement of one’s moral worth,
and to be referred to as not-a-person is a reference to a lack of moral worth.
186 S. J. Ujewe
In Nigeria for instance, one frequently hears the Pidgin English expression, “you
no be person sef” – which simply translates as, you are not a person – mostly used
when someone has been offended by another. The statement expresses the offended
person’s withdrawal of moral worth from the offender. It is an indication that no
reasonable social relationship can be built with that person. The quality of an
individual’s character is weighed against his or her social relationships, and the
requirements may vary depending on their status within their various communities.
The process of becoming a person has moral implications, given the consider-
ation of character or virtue against which personhood is granted. It “implies that the
pursuit or practice of moral virtue is intrinsic to the conception of person held in
African thought” (Gyekye, 1997: 50). The African notion of personhood is appro-
priately understood in terms of the ascription of moral worth, and applying to the
human being in all its possible conditions, it differs from the Western perception
defined in terms of self-consciousness, rationality, freedom, and self-determination
(Tangwa, 2000). Therefore, it can be said that “a person is his character, or more
definitively she is her practice-in-relationship as a result of her character” (Mkhize,
2008: 39). In view of this moral dimension, personhood is not simply given to an
individual for being a physically existing entity; rather, it is developed through
consistent and conscious effort or practice in relationship with others-in-community
(Menkiti, 1984), as if to re-echo Aristotle’s claim:
Moral virtue, like the arts, is acquired by repetition of the corresponding acts. . . none of the
moral virtues arise in us by nature; for nothing that exists by nature can form a habit contrary
to its nature. (Aristotle, 2009: 23)
One’s possession of personal dignity is largely determined by the belongingness

one accomplishes through various commitments to other members and/or to the
community. Such belongingness may not be specific to a geographically locatable
group, transcending geographical boundaries, especially given rapid urbanization
and migration in contemporary times (Ujewe, 2016: 125). Hence, we refer to a
“cultural community” which permeates geographical boundaries, and essentially
involves the sense of belonging that individuals may have to a particular group.
The existence of sustained harmony in the cultural community maintains a favorable
atmosphere for its members to attain full personhood. Communal harmony means
that individuals within a community have an identifiable sense of belonging with
each other; they are united by a kind of social relationship by which they accept
shared obligations toward each other and to the whole community (Ujewe, 2012b:
84ff). Where such shared obligations exist, emphasis is on shared-value (Ujewe,
2016: 126ff). Here, meaning is created not simply by individuals, but by individuals
who belong with others in a community; meaning is held in common as shared-
value.
Since, in African contexts, meaning is derived in terms of the socio-cultural
relevance underpinning an event, Healthcare, for instance, would only be considered
meaningful or valuable if the ultimate outcome potentially sustains vital relation-
ships within a community, i.e., if it leads to a sustenance or restoration of the
community’s well-being. Given the socio-cultural and communal ethics outlook, it is

difficult to see how personal autonomy in bioethics, as conceived in terms of
individual liberty, would be applied in addressing healthcare challenges. Having
explored the foundational elements of personhood in African ethics, we now turn to
the outlook of personal autonomy in bioethics to explore the inherent conflict with
African contexts.
Theories of Autonomy in Bioethics
Personal autonomy is a broad concept and has been widely explored in bioethics.
The dominant view defines it in terms of self-determination and personal indepen-
dence. Four postulations of personal autonomy include: self-rule, where the indi-
vidual determines his/her own course of action in accordance with a plan he chooses
for himself (Katz, 2002); acting freely without coercion or manipulation, or acting
intentionally with understanding and without controlling influences that determines
one’s actions (Beauchamp & Childress, 2009); having minimum rationality and
adequate options in regard to the range of choices available to a person (Raz,
1986); and second-order capacity to critically reflect on one’s first-order preferences
or desires, and the ability to either identify with or change them in light of the higher-
order preference or value (Dworkin, 1988).
The autonomous person is in part the author of his own life, controlling to some
degree his own destiny and fashioning it through successive personal decisions (Raz,
1986: 369). Although some effort is made to explore autonomy in relational terms,
personal autonomy in bioethics remains largely subsumed in substantive self-
determination. The discourses in bioethics are largely founded on the conception
of liberty, which affirms that:
. . .the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering
with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for
which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against
his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient
warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forebear because it will be better for him
to do so. . .In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute.
Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign. (Mill, 1996: 13)
Autonomy in bioethics has also been variously conceived, as: self-rule, free will,
rational agency, and in relational terms.
The concept of autonomy as self-rule derives from the Greek etymology: autos
meaning self and nomos meaning rule, governance, or law – the underlying meaning
being self-rule, self-governance, or self-law (Beauchamp & Childress, 2009). In
these terms, personal autonomy means self-rule, where a person is free of controlling
interferences and certain limitations to individual choices, where a person deter-
mines his or her own actions with a plan chosen by himself or herself (Katz, 2002).
The autonomous person is in part the author of his own life, controlling to some
188 S. J. Ujewe
degree his own destiny and fashioning it through successive personal decisions (Raz,
1986).
In terms of free will, personal autonomy is founded on the right to self-
determination, where individuals make their own decisions without interference,
coercion, or manipulation by others (Katz, 2002). The free will conception focuses
on an inner process of decision-making, and the conditions present. This means that
the original decision must emerge from within the person without coercion or
manipulation, as coercion diminishes a person’s options of choice and manipulation
distorts the way a person reaches decisions, forms preferences, or adopts goals,
constituting an invasion of autonomy (Raz, 1986). In the absence of coercion or
manipulation, one has the ability to have acted otherwise, and free will is implied
when one could have acted otherwise (Ayer, 1972).
The rational agency view of personal autonomy claims that autonomous action is
one emanating from endorsement through critical self-reflection, involving a per-
son’s sense of engagement or identification with his or her preferences or desires
(Stoljar, 2007). Underlying this is one’s capacity to reflect upon one’s motivational
structure and to make changes or alter one’s preferences, and make them effective in
action (Dworkin, 1988). This means that the individual has the capacity to reflect,
choose, and act with an awareness of the internal and external influences and reasons
that they would wish to accept (Katz, 2002). Simply put, a person should make
choices based on personal reflection about the variety of reasons for or against a
decision, especially reasons he or she would empathize with, if he or she chooses to
act otherwise (Ujewe, 2018).
Finally, the relational view of personal autonomy stresses the need for an auton-
omous person to be a free and self-governing agent; one who is also socially
constituted in the sense that his or her basic value commitments are defined by
interpersonal relations and mutual dependencies (Christman, 2004). This view of
autonomy recognizes the significance of social bonds, but at the same time insists on
the individual being free and self-governing:
Only by recognizing a social view of morality, where the individual is seen as functioning
within relationships, might we appreciate the insufficiency of atomistic autonomy to serve as
the governing principle for healthcare. On the other hand, autonomy must be recognized for
what it is in our culture, a prime value of authenticity and self-fulfilment. Perhaps paradox-
ically, I suggest that we use a relational ethic to achieve an individualistic ideal. (Tauber,
2005: 123)
From the four conceptions of autonomy in bioethics outlined, only the relational
view considers the places of social relationships as important in defining what should
constitute personal autonomy. Relational autonomy appears to be favorable in
communitarian societies, such as one would find across Africa with value commit-
ments to communal belonging (Ujewe, 2018). The difference, however, is that social
interactions are not always the same in different socio-cultural contexts. For exam-
ple, the kind of social networks found among British people would be different from
those of South African people. A South African in Johannesburg would view
community differently from a Briton in Newcastle. Also, the relational autonomy so

described is tilted toward the final aim of achieving individual liberty. In these terms,
relational autonomy may be more appreciable in contexts where individuals are
considered capable of controlling the extent to which they may wish to engage with
others in community. This may be more applicable to most European or North
American social contexts, but would face significant challenges in African socio-
cultural contexts, where communal belonging is not optional, but an essential part of
one’s existence (Ujewe, 2018).
Summarily, personal autonomy in bioethics is understood as individual self-
determination encapsulated in the liberty of choice and action. For instance, personal
autonomy in elderly care would imply self-determination and independence of
elderly persons in making all decisions relating to their health. Where such control
is hampered by physical conditions, other means of personal control are initiated.
The impending question remains whether personal autonomy, as described so far, is
essentially valuable in elderly care as to warrant outright insistence on personal
independence. A further question would be how this would play out in a socio-
cultural context where value is placed on a family’s capacity to provide or care for
their elderly members. To address these questions, it is important to first explore the
nature and meaning of value, and then determine what kind of value bioethical
autonomy should have.
The Nature of Value and Value of Personal Autonomy
Personal autonomy, as self-determination or independence, tends to be accorded a

priori value and is often postulated as a universal attribute for healthcare. To merit
this universality claim, personal autonomy’s value must impel across socio-cultural
boundaries. Since the self-determination concept is tied to particular societies’
customs, traditions, and values, as is the nature of ethics concepts in general (Elliott,
2014), to insist on personal autonomy’s universal valuableness ignores the fact that
moral experiences are shaped variously by particular socio-cultural environments.
To qualify as universally valuable in healthcare, autonomy must be postulated as
intrinsically valuable, or as appealing across socio-cultural boundaries.
It is important to understand the term “value” as used in this context, to clarify
what is meant by the value/valuableness of personal autonomy. Value is broadly
described as the quality or fact of being excellent, useful, or desirable. If a book has
value, for instance, it must be worth having. It is important to ask: excellent in whose
perspective; useful to whom; and desirable according to whose standards? To
address these questions, some note that value is characterized by a particular vision
of the good life or how life ought to be lived, thereby reflecting a rationalization of
aspects of a way of life, which may indicate defense, recommendation, justification,
or critique of that which is valuable (Rescher, 1982). From this, it would follow that
the value of personal autonomy in healthcare represents a particular vision of good
health and the process of achieving it. For instance, there are claims to the effect that
190 S. J. Ujewe
being competent, autonomous, and appreciated constitutes the experience of the

good life for older people (Higgs et al., 1992; Nyström & Segesten, 1994; Oleson
et al., 1994). Hence, good health would refer to one that also includes these
attributes.
If personal autonomy is valuable, is its value intrinsic, so that it automatically
applies in elderly care universally? To answer this question, two senses of value are
conceptualized: as beliefs about desirable modes of conduct or end-states of exis-
tence, denoting the former as instrumental and the latter as terminal value – terminal
value as synonymous to intrinsic value (Rokeach, 1973):
There are some things which we consider good or desirable only for their results – for what
they lead to. There are other things which we consider good not because of what they lead to
but because of what they are in themselves. . . The first kind of good is called instrumental
good because the. . . worthwhileness of these things lies in their being instruments toward the
attainment of other things. . . The second kind of good is called intrinsic good because we
value these things not because of what they lead to but for what they are. (Hospers, 1972:
104–5)
A thing has instrumental value if its value is ascribed by external attributes based
on which it is useful or fulfills certain desired tasks; it has intrinsic value if it is by
itself desirable as an end-state of existence. For instance, medications are valuable
because they help to restore health; their value is thereby only instrumental. On the
other hand, life is valuable for its own sake; hence, life is intrinsically valuable. If the
good life only constitutes personal self-determination and independence, personal
autonomy would be intrinsically valuable and universally desirable in the care of
elderly persons. However, self-determination and personal independence are per-
ceived variously in different societies with differences imminent between commu-
nitarian and individualistic societies. Personal autonomy cannot thereby be
intrinsically valuable, since its value does not transcend socio-cultural boundaries.
Any conception of autonomy that insists upon substantive independence is not
one that has claim to our respect as an ideal, as it is inconsistent with other values we
hold, such as loyalty, objectivity, commitment, benevolence, and love; and such
conception of autonomy has no legitimate claim to supreme value and hence of
being generally desirable (Dworkin, 1988). Since personal autonomy in bioethics is
largely based on claims to substantive independence, it may not be postulated as
essentially desirable in elderly care. Individuals’ personal values are shaped by their
background cultures. Although some elderly people may wish to make their own
choices, there is no universal ground to insist on personal autonomy in healthcare for
elderly persons.
On the contrary, studies show that the desire for control over healthcare decisions
is lower among elderly people as compared to younger adults (LeSage et al., 1989).
This also has socio-cultural underpinnings. For instance, in parts of South Asia, a
duty-based approach is emphasized in healthcare, rather than autonomy: the tran-
scendental character of human life; the duty to preserve and guard individual and
communal health; and the duty to rectify imbalances in the process of nature and to
correct and repair states that threaten life and well-being, both of human and
nonhumans (Coward, 2007). Japanese people, for instance, are generally sensitive or
even subconsciously reluctant to accept personal autonomy, self-determination, and
individualistic freedom in decision-making, especially in healthcare (Hoshino,
1997). Furthermore, patients in Southern European societies are generally less
concerned with matters related to informed consent and respect for autonomy than
with trust in their physician (Macklin, 1999).
The Value of Personal Autonomy in African Socio-cultural

Contexts of Healthcare
Since personal autonomy is accorded a central place in healthcare decision-making,

it is important to understand what makes it sufficiently valuable to assume a
universal character. It is crucial to determine whether its value is intrinsic or
instrumental. One way of determining this is by situating personal autonomy within
African socio-cultural contexts of healthcare. This will not only test its valuableness
context, but also determine what relevant alternatives could be employed. Testing
the value of autonomy in African elderly care may shed some light on the issue.
General care and healthcare for the elderly may differ, are referred to interchange-
ably – but not synonymously – in the following discussion.
In African settings, there is generally a greater appeal to communal co-existence
than individual self-determination. Since personal autonomy is established against
the backdrop of individual self-determination, it would follow that its value (if any)
would not be as compelling in African healthcare, especially for elderly persons. To
help us appreciate the place of personal autonomy in elderly care in African
communitarian settings, it is important to understand their pre-eminent status within
the community, as captured in key features of the African worldview, namely:
processual personhood, the vital force principle, and the communal principle of
Ubuntu.
As noted earlier, African personhood is not static but a process. In African
contexts, elderly persons are regarded as custodians of culture, morality, and tradi-
tion. They are responsible for the life of the community, and their personhood is tied
to this responsibility. Whatever is committed to the care of the elderly is regarded as
a commitment to the community’s overall well-being. Thus, young and adult
members of the community are obliged to participate in the care of elderly persons,
in which the preservation of life, dignity of the human person, and sustenance of
family and community are prized as higher values. Those who abstain or fail to
provide such care bear the social scar of individuality and lack of vision for the
community. Elderly persons, on their part, recognize their privileged stage in the
communal process, which requires the family’s or community’s support. They
accept their frailty and enjoy the generous care that the community offers. The
question of autonomy, either for the elderly person or for those providing care, is
therefore not high on the value scale. Vital-force-in-participation stems from a
composite element of personhood in African thought, referred to as the vital force,
which is the life force or creative force sustaining the community and personhood of
192 S. J. Ujewe
its individual members (Tempels, 1959). In light of vital-force-in-participation, a

person’s self-understanding is bound in constant interaction with others. This
informs the various expressions of the humanity of African persons in communal
co-existence. Consequently, dependency is not an issue in African societies, espe-
cially for elderly persons. A person freely depends on others in times of need, and in
retrospect others can freely depend on him or her. This is exemplified in the moral
obligation to care for elderly members of one’s immediate family, and the provision
of adequate care reflects the vitality of that family or community. The elderly’s
personhood is not threatened by their dependence on others for care; rather, it is
sustained – that they can freely depend is an affirmation of their co-existence within
their families and communities:
The imperative. . . is born of an acute sense of an essential dependency in the human

condition. Dependency is, therefore, also a component of the [African] concept of person.
[For as the Akan proverb affirms], a human being is not a palm tree so as to be self-sufficient.
(Wiredu, 1992: 88–89)
This does not imply that elderly persons can simply choose to completely depend
on others or become pathetically entitled to the support that the family or community
provides. While there are instances of over-dependence, which is problematic, the
dependency principle does not oblige any support than is possible or necessary. The
underlying principle is that elderly persons should be free to depend on family and/or
communal support as their conditions may necessitate, and only to the extent that the
family or community is capable of providing such support. Hence, in providing care
for elderly persons, the question of personal autonomy, as established in bioethics,
does not constitute a significant issue. What is considered valuable is the sustenance
of personhood for the elderly person and life of the family and/or community to
which both the elderly and those caring for them belong.
The principle of Ubuntu encapsulates processual personhood and vital-force-in-
participation, given its ascription that one’s personhood is incomplete without the
others to whom one relates. Accordingly, in principle, people should celebrate
other’s successes as though they were their own personal successes; and a difficult
experience should similarly reflect a shared feeling of pain or sadness. Everyone is
constantly bound to these networks of relationships, as the Igbo proverb affirms:
when a mad man walks naked, it is his/her kinsmen who feel shame, not him/herself.
It would be problematic then to insist on a primal value for personal autonomy in
elderly care in African contexts, in the sense described in bioethics, as its value does
not resonate with the African conception of person subsumed in Ubuntu. Elderly
care is a mutually inclusive process; one cannot simply dissociate oneself from
others, as the autonomy-caring would imply. The preservation of life and respect
for the dignity of the human person are paramount, not personal autonomy. We may
have to look beyond personal autonomy to other more compelling values to deter-
mine the baseline for elderly care in African contexts. There is need to turn to an
alternative principle, like ought-onomy.
Ought-onomy as the Alternative Principle
The limitations of personal autonomy in African healthcare contexts arise from the
conflict with fundamental African moral values, such as solidarity, sharing, reci-
procity, respect, harmony, responsibility, and duty. The established presence of these
values means that persons understand themselves in terms of shared-value and
identity with others; and hence, the necessity for vital-participation in healthcare,
as exemplified in the obligation to care for the elderly. Through Ubuntu, other
persons are necessarily involved in the healthcare decision-making process for an
individual, for instance, which would contradict the prospects for personal
autonomy.
In order to better grasp the concept and value of ought-onomy, it is worthwhile to
trace its roots derived from Kant’s moral law:
All imperatives command either hypothetically or categorically. . . If the action would be

good solely as a means to something else, the imperative is hypothetical; if the action is
represented as good in itself and therefore as necessary, in virtue of its principle. . . then the
imperative is categorical. (Kant, 1993: 89)
The moral imperative, Kant notes, is expressed by an ought, which could be

conceived as the reservoir of objective laws of reason and determinant of the good
will. The ought is a categorical imperative, which impels us to act on the good will
as the only inherently desirable thing. In the ought, the dignity of humanity itself
functions as an inflexible precept of the will motivating our choices and actions
(Kant, 2002). The relation of the ought to the awareness of one’s choices and actions
constitutes ought-onomy.
The underpinning attribute of ought-onomy is that one should be free to depend
on or support others in difficult times, and the community should likewise depend on
or support individual members to overcome difficult challenges. Thus, unlike the
self-determined, consciousness-based personhood, African personhood does not ask
questions of personal autonomy, but rather, of ought-onomy: what should I do to
enhance the life of the community as a whole. To freely depend or to respond in
retrospect is to be ought-onomous. In light of ought-onomy, one has the prerogative
to depend on another and to help when necessary and if capable.
Accordingly, personal ought-onomy would consist in making healthcare deci-
sions as one should, cognizant of the subjective emotional and socio-cultural factors
informing one’s life experiences. To the extent that I choose or act within this
framework, I am ought-onomous. In African healthcare contexts for the elderly,
therefore, value would be placed on the ought-onomous outlook of providing care,
rather than on personal autonomy. Furthermore, in other parts of the world where
society is structured on communal relationships, the ought for an individual would
consist in being, choosing or acting in ways that fulfill his or her position or role in
the communal network. The ought, although determined by underlying socio-
cultural values, represents a morally desirable option for people in those contexts.
194 S. J. Ujewe
It is not important whether persons make decisions by themselves, or others decide

on their behalf, healthcare decisions are ought-onomous insofar as they are informed
by the good will as expressed in the socio-cultural context. Therefore, we can rely on
ought-autonomy as the relevant alternative principle of action in healthcare for
elderly persons in African contexts.
Conclusion
While personal autonomy may be applicable as a principle of action in parts of the

world, there are underlying conflicts in applying it in other parts of the world. Other
values may need to be adopted in parts of the world where communal co-existence is
accorded higher value. Reference to the principle of ought-onomy in these contexts
would resonate with the socio-cultural realities and moral value placed on communal
co-existence. African societies strongly adhere to family and communal values,
while most Western societies adopt varying forms of individualism. Questions,
however, remain on the value personal autonomy in elderly care. Personal autonomy
may be meaningful in societies that accept self-subsistent individuality, and hence
emphasized in elderly care for those contexts; a dependency-approach to care may
be resisted. In African contexts, however, individual persons are conceived in the
plural form, always as “we”; the “I” exists in a dialectical plurality, never as an
independent, self-determined individual. Therefore, elderly persons are seen as
constituent components of the plural individual persons in their various families;
their care is imperative on all. Therefore, priority is given to the preservation of life
and dignity of the elderly person. Personal autonomy is not a primal value in this
communal caring process.
References
Akpa-Inyang, F., & Chima, S. C. (2021). South African traditional values and beliefs regarding
informed consent and limitations of the principle of respect for autonomy in African commu-
nities: A cross-cultural qualitative study. BMC Medical Ethics, 22(1), 111. https://doi.org/10.
1186/s12910-021-00678-4
Aristotle. (2009). The Nicomachean Ethics (D. Ross, Trans.). Oxford University Press. Available at:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-nicomachean-ethics-9780199213610?cc¼us&
lang¼en&#. Accessed 23 Jan, 2020.
Ayer, A. J. (1972). Freedom and necessity. In Philosophical essays (pp. 271–284). Springer.
Beauchamp, T. L., & Childress, J. F. (2009). Principles of biomedical ethics. Oxford University
Press.
Bujo, B. (2001). Foundations of an African ethic: Beyond the universal claims of western morality.
Crossroad Pub.
Bujo, B. (2005). Differentiations in African ethics. In W. Schweiker (Ed.), The Blackwell compan-
ion to religious ethics (pp. 423–437). Blackwell Bublishing.
Christman, J. (2004). Relational autonomy, liberal individualism, and the social constitution of
selves. Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradi-
tion, 117(1/2), 143–164.
Coward, H. (2007). South Asian approaches to health care ethics. In R. E. Ashcroft et al. (Eds.),
Principles of health care ethics (pp. 134–142). Wiley.
Descartes, R. (1996). Descartes: Meditations on first philosophy: With selections from the objec-
tions and replies. Cambridge University Press.
Dworkin, G. (1988). The theory and practice of autonomy. Cambridge University Press.
Elliott, C. (2014). A philosophical disease: Bioethics, culture, and identity. Routledge.
Gyekye, K. (1996). African cultural values: An introduction. Sankofa Publishing Company.
Gyekye, K. (2011). African ethics. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy.
Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/african-ethics/. Accessed 23 Jan, 2020.
Higgs, P., MacDonald, L., & Ward, M. (1992). Responses to the institution among elderly patients
in hospital long-stay care. Social Science & Medicine, 35(3), 287–293.
Hoshino, K. (1997). Bioethics in the light of Japanese sentiments. In Japanese and western
bioethics (pp. 13–23). Springer.
Hospers, J. (1972). Human conduct: Problems of ethics. Harcourt, Brace and World.
Kant, I. (1993). Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals. Translated by H.J. Paton. Routledge.
Kant, I. (2002). Critique of practical reason. Hackett Publishing.
Kaphagawani, D. N. (2003). African conceptions of personhood and intellectual identities. In P. H.
Coetzee & A. P. J. Roux (Eds.), The African philosophical reader (2nd ed., pp. 169–176).
Routledge.
Katz, J. (2002). The silent world of doctor and patient. JHU Press.
LeSage, J., et al. (1989). Learned helplessness. Journal of Gerontological Nursing, 15(5), 8–9.
Macklin, R. (1999). Against relativism: Cultural diversity and the search for ethical universals in
medicine. Oxford University Press.
Mbiti, J. S. (1990). African religions & philosophy. Heinemann.
African philosophy: An introduction (pp. 171–182).
Mill, J. S. (1996). On liberty & the subjection of women. Wordsworth Editions Ltd.
Mkhize, N. (2008). Ubuntu and harmony: An African approach to morality and ethics. In N. Ronald
(Ed.), Persons in community: African ethics in a global culture. University of KwaZulu-Natal
Press.
Munyaka, M., & Motlhabi, M. (2009). Ubuntu and its socio-moral significance. In M. F. Murove
(Ed.), African ethics: An anthology of comparative and applied ethics (pp. 63–84). University of
KwaZulu-Natal Press.
Nyström, A. E., & Segesten, K. M. (1994). On sources of powerlessness in nursing home life.
Journal of Advanced Nursing, 19(1), 124–133.
Oleson, M., et al. (1994). Quality of life in long-stay institutions in England: Nurse and resident
perceptions. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 20(1), 23–32.
p’Bitek, O. (1998). The sociality of self. In E. C. Eze (Ed.), African philosophy: An anthology
(pp. 73–74). Blackwell Publishers.
Ray, B. C. (2000). African religions: Symbol, ritual, and community. Prentice Hall.
Raz, J. (1986). The morality of freedom. Clarendon Press.
Rescher, N. (1982). Introduction to value theory. University Press of America.
Rokeach, M. (1973). The nature of human values. Free press.
Shutte, A. (2009). Ubuntu as the African ethical vision. In A. Murove (Ed.), African ethics: An
anthology of comparative and applied ethics. University of Kwazulu-Natal Press.
Stoljar, N. (2007). Theories of autonomy. In R. E. Ashcroft et al. (Eds.), Principles of health care
ethics. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Tangwa, G. B. (2000). The traditional African perception of a person: Some implications for
bioethics. Hastings Center Report, 30(5), 39–43.
Tangwa, G. B. (2010). Elements of African bioethics in a western frame. African Books Collective.
196 S. J. Ujewe
Tangwa, G. B. (2019). African perspectives on some contemporary bioethics problems. Cambridge

Scholars Publishing.
Tauber, A. I. (2005). Patient autonomy and the ethics of responsibility. The MIT Press.
Ujewe, S. J. (2012a). Guest editorial: The place of elderly persons and our responsibility for care
(Vol. 37, pp. 3–4).
Ujewe, S. J. (2012b). Ought-onomy and African health care: Beyond the universal claims of
autonomy in bioethics. University of Otago.
Ujewe, S. J. (2016). Just health care in Nigeria–the foundations for an African ethical framework.
University of Central Lancashire.
Ujewe, S. J. (2018). Ought-onomy and mental health ethics: From“ respect for personal autonomy”
to“ preservation of person-in-community” in African ethics. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psy-
chology, 25(4), E-45.
Wiredu, K. (1992). The moral foundations of an African culture. In H. E. Flack & E. D. Pellegrino
(Eds.), African-American perspectives on biomedical ethics. Georgetown University Press.
Part IV
Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Logic
African Epistemology: Past, Present, and
Future
Peter Aloysius Ikhane
Contents
Introductory Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
African Epistemology and the Senses of the Past, Present, and Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
African Epistemology: Past Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
African Epistemology: Present Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
African Epistemology: Future Concerns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Abstract
The chapter explores African epistemology by taking a historical approach to
examining its nature and character. By doing so, it seeks to explain some
distinctive features of African epistemology, such as the focus on cultural beliefs
and practices in the attempt to describe the nature of African epistemology and the
need to debate the question of method in African epistemology. To be sure, while
the former is traced to attempts to respond to colonial subjugation of the African’s
capacity for rational deliberation, the latter arises from the task of authentically
construing what passes as ‘African’ in relation to epistemology. Aside from its
explanatory engagement, the chapter elucidates pertinent future concerns for
scholars of the discipline. Worthy of note is the task of construing African
epistemology in the light of philosophy (and by extension, epistemology) as a
normative discipline. The chapter, therefore, notes that epistemic normativity is a
key challenge if African epistemology is to take its place in the global discourse
of knowledge in epistemology.
P. A. Ikhane (*)
Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria
African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, University of Johannesburg,
Johannesburg, South Africa
e-mail: pa.ikhane@ui.edu.ng

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_11
200 P. A. Ikhane
Keywords
African epistemology · Epistemic justification · The question of method ·
Coloniality of knowledge · Epistemic normativity
Introductory Remarks
On the obvious reading from the title of this chapter that my approach is historical, I
begin by paying significant attention to clarifying certain assumptions that drive my
analysis. One such assumption is that the discourse of African epistemology has
considerably developed enough that it is possible to talk about its history. To be sure,
to talk of a history of African epistemology is to grant that there is that that can be
described as African epistemology; that is, there is the body of work that is accepted to
constitute African epistemology. But not to take anything for granted, it is expedient to
begin by asking what African epistemology is. This is even more important given that
there are some researchers who refute the existence of African epistemology
(Airoboman & Asekhauno, 2012) and others who, though not immediately challenging
the existence of African epistemology, query the reference to a unique African mode or
way of knowing (Olu-Owolabi, 1993). In light of these, the first of the clarifications
made is to explicate the understanding of what African epistemology is. There is,
however, no presumption that what is said passes as an unquestionable standard view of
African epistemology; rather, extant and dominant views on the subject matter are
relied on to construct what is presented in the chapter as African epistemology. After
explicating how African epistemology is understood, the next clarifications made
would be to spell out the senses in which the past, present, and future in relation to
African epistemology are construed. This will serve to address the assumption that
African epistemology has developed enough content to make for its history by engag-
ing with different concerns and literature that have addressed such concerns in the
various periods of the history of African epistemology in the way it has been alluded to.
Before attending to the clarifications regarding how African epistemology is
understood and the senses in which the past, present, and future are understood, it
is pertinent to note that in spelling out these supposed aspects of the history of
African epistemology, there is no pretence to the claim that their occurrences were in
strict successions of the ideas that constitute their understandings. That is, in taking
the historical approach in reflecting on African epistemology, there is no assumption
that this history, though short as it may seem, is linear. If, at all, there is an
assumption of a direction about the history of African epistemology, it would be
closer to being helix, than linear. As such, it is taken that there are overlaps of ideas,
issues, debates, themes, and problems in the emergence of the different periods of the
history, such that while, say, Hallen published his work on Yoruba moral epistemol-
ogy in 2004, Airoboman and Asekhauno queried the existence of African episte-
mology in a work published in 2012.
African Epistemology: Past, Present, and Future 201
The point here is that if, in concrete terms, the history of African epistemology
was one of strict succession of the past, present, and future, it would have been
thought that works such as that of Hallen (2004) would have been sufficient to
defray, at least, any doubts about the existence of African epistemology. To be sure,
in a linear understanding of the historical developments of these aspects of African
epistemology, it would have been expected that the meta-issue of the existence of
African epistemology (as read in Airoboman and Ashekauno) should first have been
settled before attempts to portray instances of African epistemology (as seen in
Hallen). But as it is with many issues in the history of ideas, there are usually no
clear-cut demarcations between when the conceptual understanding and debates
about the existence of a said issue are settled from when portrayals of instances of
the concrete existence of such issues are made. Indeed, many would argue that the
very ability to attempt a portrayal of an issue in question is enough demonstration of
its existence, even though from an opposing camp, it could be retorted that such a
strategy amounts to begging the question.
One reason that may be adduced for nonlinearity in the discussions of ideas as
regards their existence and concrete expression in the history of ideas is that
oftentimes in researching and writing, scholars (working independently most of
the time) develop supposedly accepted arguments to portray a certain idea or issue,
while others working on similar subject matters (but also independently) may not
have reached such a conclusion or may see things differently when such arguments
developed by others become available to them. Put differently, how things are
perceived significantly accounts for how they are judged to be the case or other-
wise. But in all, it seems cogent to say that debates over the existence or conceptual
understanding and the concrete manifestation of an idea or issue can become
intertwined that it is not straightforward to separate them in terms of how they
are examined. For instance, it could be seen that Hallen’s work on Yoruba moral
epistemology implied the existence of African (Yoruba) epistemology, though its
main focus was on the substantial explication of a subject matter of African
epistemology. It could therefore be said that the intertwined relations of the
existence or conceptual understanding and the concrete manifestation of an idea
are often provided for by assumptions writers make without always or necessarily
explicitly examining them in relation to the issues or ideas such authors are
engaged with.
From the foregoing, it would therefore be appropriate to suppose overlaps in
terms of the concerns that are found in each periods of the history of African
epistemology as I have conceived them in the chapter. To this end, the subject
matters that are taken to make for the overlaps in the history of African epistemology
are presented after examining those taken to constitute the concern in the ‘Past’ of
African epistemology. Before this, however, attention will be turned on the task of
clarifying how African epistemology is conceived and also explicating the senses in
which the past, present, and future of African epistemology are conceived in the
section that follows the present one.
202 P. A. Ikhane
African Epistemology and the Senses of the Past, Present,

and Future
As stated immediately above, my goal in this section is to articulate the view of

African epistemology that undergirds my analyses of its past, present, and future. It
is also to clarify the senses in which reference is made to the past, present, and future
with respect to African epistemology. This section will begin with the former and
then turn to the latter.
To begin, in presenting the view of African epistemology that helps my analyses
in the present chapter, allusion is made to two non-isolated currents that are
considered useful. One is the theoretical current that concerns the rather abstract
and generalist perspective of epistemology, while the other – the practical – bothers
on the real-world configurations of what constitutes an epistemology (or how
knowledge as the subject matter of epistemology manifest within a given context)
and forms aspects of what is conceived in the theoretical. Put differently, these would
amount to analytic and descriptive views of what is passed as epistemology. Relat-
edly, however, both currents constitute the discourse of epistemology. In relation to
my view of African epistemology, while the analytic (/generalist or abstract) view
conceives African epistemology in the light of the universal characteristics of the
discourse of knowledge, the descriptive (/contextual or practical or real-world) view
comprehends African epistemology by investigating cultural particulars relating to
knowledge practices. Works such as Ikuenobe (1998), Ogungbure (2014), and Jimoh
(2017) take the generalist approach to reflecting on African epistemology, while
others such as Ani (2013) and Martin (2010) take the contextual approach. It is
pertinent to note that reference to contexts of epistemological practices is not only to
cultural enclaves but also with respect to such expressions as internet epistemology,
epistemology of the new media, and so on. In this vein, African epistemology,
theoretically, refers to abstract(ed) features of knowledge that denote the practice
of knowledge within various contiguous African cultural contexts, and in practical
terms – where the expression, “knowledges,” can be made use of – it denotes ways of
knowing and conceptualizing what is known also in relation to particular African
cultural contexts. Thus, in the discourse of African epistemology, there is the
universally informed approach to describing knowledge, as well as the particularized
way of recounting how the nature and character of knowledge, as well as how
knowledge is acquired according to the sociocultural contexts within which knowl-
edge claims are formulated and articulated. It is, indeed, from such considerations
that one can sensibly talk of an African articulation and formulation of knowledge
and hence of an African epistemology (Kaphagawani & Malherbe, 1998: 259).
Although this claim seems to restrict African epistemology to ways of knowing,
the enterprise of African epistemology acknowledges that epistemology, as a dis-
course, includes the character, the source, the scope, and the value of knowledge, and
that these aspects of the discourse of epistemology are not mutually exclusive from
the understanding of African epistemology here stipulated.
Though the foregoing point made, it seems pertinent to ask whether this subfield
of African philosophy should be named African epistemology or African
epistemologies. To be sure, the question arises from the observation that it appears to
be taken for granted in many writings about African philosophy or African episte-
mology that it is acceptable to say African epistemology in the singular form, rather
than African epistemologies in the plural, though there is the manifest diversity of
cultural practices in the geographical region that makes up the continent of Africa.
The worry in raising this question, among others, is whether it would not amount to
overgeneralizing, essentializing, and illegitimately reducing the many into one when
the appellation “African epistemology” is used instead of “African epistemologies,”
considering how culturally diverse Africa is. Would this not also become a way of
marginalizing different voices on, and approaches to, knowledge within the African
context? seems to be the question asked. In attempting a response here, let me state
that the grounds for which reference is made to “African philosophy” rather than
“African philosophies” suffice for describing the subfield “African epistemology”
rather than “African epistemologies.” For clarity, one of such grounds is that though
there are cultural differences and diverse concerns, there are traits, beliefs, and
practices that could be picked out in individual cultural settings that are found in
Africa to warrant such generalized appellations as African philosophy and African
epistemology. For example, the belief in a hierarchical universe made of gods,
ancestors, humans, and the yet unborn is typical of cultures, at least, Africa South
of the Sahara. It is interesting to note that even with the presence and practice of
other (foreign) religions, such as Christianity and Islam, the belief in a hierarchical
world of gods, ancestors, humans, and the unborn is widely held among Africans and
is associated with the practice of African traditional religion (ATR).
The foregoing, notwithstanding, a critical note that ensues from the assertion that
there are universal traits, beliefs, and practices that warrants nomenclatures as
African philosophy and African epistemology, irrespective of the particular differ-
ences that marks off individual cultures, is whether such traits, beliefs, and practices
would still count as African if they are found in other non-African cultures? In
response to this, it is instructive to note that the reference to a trait, belief, or practice
as “African” is not an exclusive one that implies that such trait or belief or practice
does not occur elsewhere. Rather, it is a reference that supposes that such trait or
belief or practice widely occurs in cultures found in Africa over an extended period
of time. As such, the necessary (though not essentially sufficient) requirements, so to
say, for a trait or belief or practice to count as African is that it is found to have
occurred in (a) culture(s) in Africa over an extended period of time (see Metz, 2022).
Having said this, let me state that the question of whether the subfield should be
described as African epistemology or African epistemologies indicates a promising
area of discourse, perhaps a futuristic one, that scholars may begin to engage with.
From the foregoing, African epistemology is taken to denote reflections about
knowledge and knowledge practice, both in relation to African beliefs and customs.
As such, in one sense – the theorized sense – African epistemology is the written
work of trained scholars who philosophically engage African beliefs and customs
with the intent to put forward its epistemology. In another sense – the lived-
experience sense – African epistemology describes the autochthonous practices of
Africans in relation to these beliefs and customs that can be described as
204 P. A. Ikhane
epistemological. While these senses are not exclusive, it can be said that African
epistemology is embedded within African traditional belief systems and practices
and becomes manifest in the academic activities of integrating concrete experiences
of African traditional belief systems in the analyses of concepts and ideals relating to
knowledge. It is instructive to, however, note that this position does not capture those
of the generality of (African) philosophers. For instance, V. Y. Mudimbe’s (1985)
supposes that, strictly speaking, African philosophy can be taken to apply to the
traditional thoughts of Africans only in a metaphorical or historicist sense. The
position espoused here, however, takes African philosophy (and epistemology) to
reside within, and derive from an analysis of, the autochthonous knowledge prac-
tices of Africans. It is useful to also note that the phrase, “African epistemology,” is
used in “the generic sense in which the term ‘African philosophy’ is normally used,
which does not deny that there are significant variations among the many cultures in
Africa” (see Kaphagawani & Malherbe, 1998: 259).
To further appreciate this characteristic nature of African epistemology, it is
pertinent to take into consideration what is assumed to have spurred its emergence
in the twentieth century. For clarity, the beginnings of African epistemology (in the
twentieth century) are generally ascribed to the reactionary writing of Africans
(Senghor, Onyewuenyi, and other early defenders of the capacity for rationality by
the African) who sort to correct the inexact descriptions of the African and her
cultures by non-African researchers who had reported that she (the African) was
devoid of the capacity for rationality and reason (see Hegel and Kant). In the attempt
to respond to such inexact descriptions of the African and her culture, Senghor, for
instance, contended that Africans’ perception and ratiocination about the world were
different from that of the West; hence, the sometimes (though oftentimes intended)
mistaken assumption by Western scholars that Africans lacked the capacity to
reason. The mistaken assumption in this regard was that since the perceptual
disposition of the African about the world was unlike that of the West, it was quickly
dismissed by the colonialist attitude of Western scholars, who sort to unjustifiably
project their views as the view about the world. Given that Senghor was about the
earliest African scholar who defended the African way of knowing, it is taken that
African epistemology (in the modern times) first materialized in Leopold Sedan
Senghor’s (1964) arguments for the existence of a distinctively African mode of
knowing. The defense of the possession of the capacity for rationality by Senghor
was later backed, though with different proposals and justifications, by Innocent
Onyewuenyi (1978) and Kane C. Anyanwu (1983).
One point concerning the basis on which the view of African epistemology that
Senghor defended needs to be made clearer here. This point is that Senghor’s view,
and other such similar views, of (African) epistemology, is grounded on the inter-
pretation of the universe as both sacred and secular, seen and unseen, timed and
timeless, finite and infinite, among many other such formulations (Asante &
Nwadiora, 2007; Gyekye, 1995, 1996; Magesa, 1997; Zahan, 1979). In this vein,
many indigenous epistemological persuasions perceive existence as a whole domi-
nated by various forces – such as ashe among the Yoruba, Ntu among the Bantu, da
among the Fon, and nyama among Bamana – believed to empower both nature and
humans (Asante & Nwadiora, 2007). These forces are often identified with nature
and are revered. The point in this is that such view about the universe may be taken
to largely account for the differences in what is conceived as African epistemology
from that of, particularly, the Western. Indeed, Nkulu N’Sengha’s description of
African epistemology is that “[t]here is no duality of matter and spirit or of faith and
knowledge, and of no opposition of science and religion” (Nkulu-N’Sengha, 2005:
43). As such, though the challenge that African epistemology faces in being
grounded on such ontology has to do with how to justify an epistemology inclusive
of phenomena that transcend cognition through the five senses, it (African episte-
mology) incorporates the reality that exists beyond the five senses.
Before turning to the senses of past, present, and future with respect to African
epistemology, there is need to make some remarks regarding the context of “Afri-
can” in the expression “African epistemology.” This has become a prominent
practice when writing about Africa, because the history and existential realities of
Africa make it evident that there are different contexts to which “Africa” refers. For
instance, there is the Africa of precolonial subjugation and there is postindependence
Africa. While their occurrences are historically linear, they presently inflect the
existential reality of the African as they currently configure the African perception
of the world. Marked distinctions in both Africas are discernible in the values,
norms, and beliefs about, say, lifestyles, child-rearing, and religious practices. To
be sure, the identity of the African resulting from these is a convoluted one that
oscillates between these Africas.
From the foregoing, though there are some who suggest that there is no sense in
calling something “African” since it can invariably be found in other parts of the
world other than Africa (see Horsthemke & Enslin, 2005), others, such as Metz
(2022), opine that what makes the label, “African,” apt a description, say, in “African
epistemology,” is that it refers to beliefs that have been part of the worldviews of a
great many peoples indigenous to the African continent south of the Sahara for a
long time, unlike many other parts of the world. Metz geographically takes “Afri-
can” to include features that have been prominent in a locale over a substantial
amount of time in a way that they have not been elsewhere. He identifies such a
locale as Africa south of the Sahara (see Metz, 2022). In a similar vein, Kwame
Gyekye holds that “in many areas of thought we can discern features of the
traditional life and thought of African peoples sufficiently common to constitute a
legitimate and reasonable basis for the construction (or reconstruction) of a philo-
sophical system that may properly be called African” (Gyekye, 1995: 191). From
this, therefore, the grounds for African in the expression, “African epistemology,”
are that there are discernible aspects of the lived-experiences of Africans that inflect
on knowledge in ways that are distinct and specific, to the extent that such ways
broaden the generalist/universalist understanding of the concept of knowledge.
Pertinent to note here is that there are some who, taking to a strong universalist
line of thought, deny that there are any distinctive cognitive features belonging only
to a group of people. Their claim is that knowledge cannot radically differ from one
206 P. A. Ikhane
group of people to another. As such, if a claim is referred to as “knowledge,” then it

is so for all peoples, irrespective of the group to which they belong. After all, say the
universalists, are not the criteria by which the truth or falsity of a claim is decided the
same across all cultural contexts? If they are, then the epistemological character and
structure of all cultures is essentially the same. Furthermore, they seem to assert that
there may well be ways in which communities differ with regard to the institution of
knowledge, but they refer to these as not epistemologically important. As such, for
them, epistemology, wherever it is practiced, is the same. For them, just as one does
not get a distinctively Chinese or American or African mathematics, so too there is
no such thing as a distinctively African epistemology, except it might be reflections
on the nature of the universalist understanding of knowledge carried out on, say, the
African continent. It may, however, be replied here that those who argue, as the
universalists do, by referring to the nonexistence of such as African mathematics or
African physics, aside other limitations, fail to appreciate the distinction between
disciplines described as the humanities (such as those relating to language, history,
culture, and religion) and those referred to as the sciences particularly the natural
sciences and/or mathematics. The point in this is that while it does seem incorrect to
talk of African or American or Chinese Mathematics or physics, the same cannot be
said of philosophy, history, or language. It is, however, important to make the point
that in clarifying the sense of “Africa” in African epistemology, it should be noted
that the ascription of “Africa” to, say, an idea or concept does not in any way assume
that such idea or concept is uniquely African, and hence, does not occur in any other
part of the world.
Even more important is that when asked what is meant when an African makes an
allusion to the possession of knowledge in the traditional context, the response is that
reference is made to how such assertion about the possession of certain beliefs sits
within a view of the world that goes beyond the commonplace physicalist under-
standing or view of the world. As such, an analysis of specific aspects of African
culture, including language and social conventions, reveals the distinct view of
knowledge that has come to be described as African epistemology. What is implied
here is that aspects of language include the meanings of philosophically important
words, sentence structures, and linguistic habits like proverbs and adages, while
aspects of social convention include traditional ways of settling conflicts, educating
the young, and finding out about the world, using that knowledge. It is so described
for the reason that it derives from the African view of the world, which is the view
that emphasizes a relation between knowledge and being in ways that have not been
characteristically conceived in the broader discourse of knowledge in other
non-African contexts.
To begin with clarifying the senses of past, present, and future as used in relation
to African epistemology, “past” is deployed in relation to African epistemology to
capture what has been identified as the beginnings of the approach to the discourse of
knowledge in postcolonial Africa. So, the past of African epistemology does not as
much as designate a content that is pervasive as it indicates the originating influence
of African epistemology, as well as explains its extant nature and character. For
emphasis, the beginnings of the modern approach to the discourse of African

epistemology are connected to its provoked task of defending the capacity of the
African for rational thought. As noted earlier, this was variedly actualized in the
works of such as Senghor (1964), Onyewuenyi (1978), and Anyanwu (1983). As
such, my conception of the past of African epistemology, in the chapter, is connected
to Africa’s colonial experience, particularly its epistemic colonial experience. To be
sure, Africa’s epistemic colonial experience may be expediently described by refer-
ence to the coloniality of knowledge. A quote from Veli MItova (2020) is apt to
portray this reality about Africa’s epistemic experience. She says:
We live in an epistemically colonial world; . . . . Although the Global North physically left as
colonial ‘master’ long ago, it still gets to tell the Global South what counts as genuine
knowledge, rational thought, and real science. After all, as this epistemic master has
vouched, his ideas about knowledge and other epistemically good things are objective and
universal. They are not tainted by the contingencies of place or time. This is what puts them
in a unique position to reflect the world as it really is. This is what legitimates their continued
sovereignty over the South’s thoughts and epistemic practices. This, we are promised, is how
we would all think if we would just think clearly for a moment, instead of letting ourselves
be saddled by our cultural quirks, historical wounds, and other vagaries of our social
identities. When it comes to such things, knowledge is apparently even blinder than love
(Mitova, 2020: 191).
From the above, the “coloniality of knowledge” is the view that knowledge is
presented from a single (West’s) perspective to the domination and exclusion of all
others, in the guise that the single perspective is the universal and objective/correct
view of knowledge that all should espouse irrespective of the contingencies that
mark the distinctiveness of their place and time.
As regards reference to the “present” in African epistemology, the concern is to
show what African epistemology is. That is, if the discourse of epistemology is
broadly conceived to be the investigation of the nature of knowledge, its limits,
source(s), and justification, the “present” in relation to African epistemology is to
portray how the foregoing concerns of epistemology have been conceived within
African epistemology. In the same vein, given the originating influence of African
epistemology, reflections about topics such as conceptual/epistemic decolonization
(Wiredu, 2002; Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2018; Mitova, 2020), epistemic injustice (Masaka,
2017), and the de-superiorization of knowledge (Freter 2023) have become main-
stays in African epistemology. In the extant literature, however, the dominant
discussion focuses on the nature of African epistemology with the apparent consen-
sus being that African epistemology is the discourse of knowledge in terms of how it
relates to being (what is) (Ikhane, 2018; Jimoh & Thomas, 2015). Other less
emphasized discussions include justification and epistemic certitude (Ogungbure,
2014; Jimoh & Thomas 2015) and the question of method in Africa epistemology
(Ikhane 2017; Irikefe, 2021). These are less emphasized subject matter of African
epistemology as there are sparse publications examining them. For instance, one can
find only a handful of published works on epistemic justification in African episte-
mology (see Ogungbure, 2014; Jimoh & Thomas 2015). Aside the more conceptual-
208 P. A. Ikhane
focused discussion, there are discussions that have engaged a number of subject
matters in epistemology from the purview of cultural contexts. One such subject
matter so examined is the concept of truth (see Ukpokolo, 2023).
There is, however, an aspect of the development of African epistemology that, for
want of a better expression, would be described as epistemic interface. This is the
notion that what is presented in this work in relation to the past and present of
African epistemology intersect. This intersection has to do with the debate on the
existence of African epistemology. Though in what is taken to be “the present” of
African epistemology, there are still questions about the legitimacy of expressions
such as “African epistemology” and “African way(s) of knowing,” the question of
the existence of African epistemology is considered to present an “epistemic inter-
face” of the past and present of African epistemology, because it continues to string
concerns in the past of African epistemology with those of the present. This, for
instance, is evident in the present discourse of the de-superiorization of knowledge
where a core concern is to challenge the cogency of describing Western forms of
epistemic discourse as superior to other non-Western discourse of knowledge on the
basis that non-Western philosophical traditions barely had what could pass as
epistemology. A response to this has seen the call for the de-superiorize of such
postures to knowledge.
Having noted the foregoing, the “Future” context of African epistemology con-
cerns aspects that (i) require further elucidations and (ii) hold prospects for the
further development of the discipline. In the former instance, it is pertinent to note
that discussions regarding the dominant description of African epistemology as the
discourse of knowledge in relation to being is not conclusive but still in need of
critical reflections and further explication. For instance, what account of knowledge
emerges from such a conception of the nature of epistemology? And, by extension,
what theory (or theories) of epistemic justification provide(s) for grounding such an
account of knowledge? There is also the concern to examine the broad concern of the
place of African epistemology within the global discourse of epistemology, domi-
nated by the assumptions and views in mainstream (Western) epistemology. In
addition to this, there is the specific challenge of successfully making African
epistemology – expounded on the assumptions of the African ontological worldview
that takes seriously the connection of the material and immaterial – accessible to
noninitiates of such ontological worldview. Another interesting subject matter
that may engage the time of scholars interested in African epistemology is the
discourse on method. This is on the basis that it speaks to the originating influence
of African epistemology, as seen in the works of Senghor. The point here is that
given the assumption that knowledge in African epistemology is conceived in terms
of its relation to what is believed about the nature of ‘what is’, the task of method in
African epistemology concerns how to conceptualise such an account of knowledge
This is still much of a matter for future engagements.
For the much that has been said about the assumptions that drive the analysis in
the chapter, it is supposed that the reader is able to engage with what follows in the
remaining parts of the chapter. In lieu of this, the rest of the chapter will examine
some concrete attempts to address what has been alluded to as inclusive of the
various historical aspects of African epistemology.
African Epistemology: Past Discourse
The idea of “past” here refers essentially to the beginnings of African epistemology,
and not because the content of the discourse of the past of African epistemology is
obsolete or no longer has connections with what the present focus is. The past is
characterized by the defense of the capacity of Africans for rational thought. This
was variedly actualized in the works of such as Senghor, Anyanwu, and
Onyewuenyi. And so, the past discourse of African epistemology is connected to
Africa’s colonial past. To be sure, the varied analyses of these champions of the
African’s possession of the capacity for rationality speak to conditions of the origin
of the discourse of African epistemology. Put simply, this condition is that of the
subjugation of the life form and worldviews of Africans through colonization and the
coloniality of knowledge. And so, in the discourse of African epistemology, aside
the concern with such traditional issues as the nature of knowledge, justification,
truth, rationality, and so on, such other concerns as epistemic decolonization,
epistemic injustice, and epistemic de-superiorization are encountered.
Viewing the history of the past of African epistemology beyond the way I have
earlier conceived it, there are written texts and oral traditions that have taken to provide
early sources for African epistemology (see Nkulu-N’Sengha, 2005). With respect to
the early texts, the Instructions of Ptahhotep, which is thought to have been created
around the twenty-fifth century B.C.E., and that of Nebmare-Nakt, in the Papyrus
Lansing, believed to have been produced around the twelfth century B.C.E., are
among the earliest written documents that offer some insights into the concerns of
African epistemology (Nkulu-N’Sengha, 2005: 40). The Instructions of Ptahhotep, for
instance, maybe so considered because, among others, it contains instructions of how
the young were to live flourishing lives according to Maat. Though Maat represents
the moral principle all Egyptian citizens were enjoined to adhere to, it also indicated
the conceptual understanding of such as truth. In the same vein, that these texts were
written with the insights of elders is another telling character of African epistemology
that emphasizes the insights of elders as a source of knowledge on the basis of
epistemic testimony. Aside from these early texts, subsequent works like Zera Yacob’s
Hatata, the Bwino epistemology of Bantu philosophy, and the Ofamfa-Matemasie
epistemology of the Akan, among others, describe the essential African path to
knowing. Aside from these early texts, oral tradition is also taken to provide insight
into the nature of knowledge in Africa as well as the African way of knowing (Nkulu-
N’Sengha, 2005: 40). According to Nkulu-N’Sengha, this tradition includes a variety
of “creation myths, folktales, and proverbs; the way of seeking truth in social, political,
and religious institutions; the work of healers; the avenues for finding guilty parties in
traditional justice systems; and the ways of solving family disputes and other social
conflicts” (Nkulu-N’Sengha, 2005: 40).
210 P. A. Ikhane
Beyond these early and latter texts, it is insightful to recall by restating that
Senghor’s tests in response to the inexact description of the African as devoid of the
capacity to reason is seen to provide the defined outline of African epistemology.
Interesting to note is that Senghor’s characterization of African epistemology devel-
oped alongside the negritude project, which was primarily an African political
emancipatory ideology intended to rebuff the racial denigration and oppression
that Africans had been subjected to. This is because Senghor and his associates
saw negritude as an ideology that upheld the integrity of African identity and all of
the cultural ideals shared by Africans south of the Sahara. As Senghor puts it,
“Negritude is simply the recognition of being Negro and the acceptance of the fact
of our destiny as Negroes, of our history and our culture” (Senghor, 1971: 6).
Senghor views negritude as epistemology in addition to a politically emancipatory
philosophy. As an epistemology, it embodies the African viewpoint on knowledge,
which is based on the awareness that knowledge is susceptible to moral assessment
and that humans share existence (what is) with other existents. The ontological and
ethical perspective that holds that all things in the cosmos are unified in a network of
existence serves as the foundation for this understanding of negritude as an episte-
mology. Humans are involved in a web of relationships with other organisms,
including animals, plants, inanimate objects, and even the environment, in this
one, unitary perspective of “what is.” As such, there is no subject/object dichotomy
in the knowing process in the epistemology that derives from negritude. This is
because the knower knows by participating and communing with the known. This
makes the negritude approach to knowing one of “participation and communion”
(Senghor, 1961: 98).
In his approach, Senghor leans toward emotion since as he supposes that this
largely describes how Africans perceive the world. In contrast to widely held
criticism against Senghor’s analysis regarding the role of emotion in the African’s
perception of things, he can be read to go beyond an exclusive leaning on emotion in
expounding on the African way of knowing by alluding to an interacting of emotion
and reason in the African’s perception of the world. In this vein, Senghor contends
that while the epistemological heritage of the West shows a clear preference for
reason, the African perspective augments reason with passion (Senghor, 1961: 98).
As such, Senghor’s analysis of the African way of knowing, which emphasizes
emotion, does not exclude the use of reason in the African’s view of reality. Rather,
what is evident is that Senghor wants to underscore how reason is mediated by
empathy and other humane emotions. Senghor’s negritude as an epistemology can
therefore be characterized as inclusive since it springs from an understanding of how
reason and emotion interact when it comes to how Africans understand the world. It
can, as such, be seen from the foregoing that Senghor’s proposal seeks to show the
cultural and methodological distinction between the African and (Western) European
systems or modes of perceptual understanding.
In order to bolster Senghor’s analysis of knowledge and knowing in Africa,
Innocent Onyewuenyi refers to a component of the understanding of knowledge in
African epistemology. In the African context of the belief in the immaterial, this
component addresses the undetectable/imperceptible aspect of knowledge. In this

vein, Onyewuenyi asserts that a person’s level of perceived proximity to divine
wisdom determines how much they are considered to know or possess knowledge.
For him, one approaches deific wisdom “when one’s body becomes less fleshy, that
is, the older a person becomes, the more wisdom he possesses” (Onyewuenyi, 1976:
525). Importantly, for him, deific wisdom is not to be confused with common sense.
Furthermore, Onyewuenyi distinguishes between two types of human intelligence:
habitual and practical intelligence. Practical intelligence, on the one hand, refers to
cleverness and artfulness in engaging with the contingent and physical facets of
reality, while habitual intelligence, on the other hand, is active knowledge of the
nature of forces and their relationship, which includes how man, the being with
intelligence, makes use of things and activates the forces asleep in such things
(Onyewuenyi, 1976: 525).
In support of the foregoing perspectives of knowledge, with particular reference
to Senghor’s analysis of the African conception of knowledge, Anyanwu developed
what has been referred to as epistemological relativity. He argues that just as people’s
experiences are different, so are their conceptions and understandings of reality;
evidence of this is seen in the differences between cultures. He notes that culture is a
“human response to experience as well as the beliefs and ideas which enable human
beings to live meaningful lives” (Anyanwu, 1984: 82). As such, for Anyanwu, it is
difficult to look for the one undeniable conception about the meaning of life, truth,
and knowledge in any one culture, as a result of the plurality of cultures and diverse
analyses of human experience. Rather, the history of culture shows that human
experience can be understood in different ways in terms of different principles or
standards of interpretation (Anyanwu, 1983: 104). For Anyanwu, then, everything
that stems from culture is relative. In this sense, philosophy, which is developed from
culture, is relative just like culture. The theories of knowledge and about knowing
would differ as a result, since ways of knowing, for instance, are the by-products of
culture, and culture differs from place to place and from epoch to epoch. In fact,
Anyanwu’s assertion raised, among others, the notion that every civilization has its
own philosophy as well as that cultures with similar characteristics tend to have
similar philosophies. As a result, since African culture is distinct from other cultures,
so too is African epistemology distinct from the epistemology from other cultural
traditions. One justification for this is that the presumptions upon which the various
epistemological traditions are founded exhibit major conceptual, logical, and
methodological differences.
Furthermore, and similar to Senghor, Anyanwu argues that there are differences
between African and Western conceptions of knowledge that should allow us speak
about various modes of knowing. According to him, the African heritage favours a
combination of experience and intuition in attaining knowledge, whereas the West-
ern perspective, particularly the Anglo-Saxon tradition, favours the analytic
approach. He takes it that both are central to the bias for intuitive knowledge in
traditional Africa. One reason that may be offered for why Anyanwu supposes that
212 P. A. Ikhane
the African perspective favours intuitive knowledge is that it (intuitive method)

offers immediacy and has a natural predisposition toward concreteness, both of
which the analytical approach lacks (Anyanwu, 1983: 103). The intuitive
(or native) method affords the knower a direct connection and the genuine sensation
of the known because the knower shares in the being of the known. This, for
Anyanwu, improves the African’s grasp of the outside world and of life in general.
Additionally, it directs the knower and keeps her from interfering negatively with the
rest of nature.
Having mentioned some of the first insights into the nature and concerns of
African epistemology, attention would be turned to examining the focus of African
epistemology in the present. Before doing this, however, some space would be
spared for what was earlier described as the discourse of African epistemology at
the interface of the past and present in relation to African epistemology. An issue to
be examined in this vein is the question about the existence of a unique mode of
knowing, considered to be superior to that of the West and available to only Africans.
By definition, the question is whether there is an exclusively African method of
knowing. In response, there is a disagreement between those who assert that there is
an exclusively African mode of knowing, which is superior to that of the West and
available only to Africans, and detractors of this claim, who contend that this mode
of knowing does not exist because what is claimed to be the distinctively African
mode of knowing is merely a copying of what is taken to be the case in Western
philosophy. Early proponents of the existence of a distinct African mode of knowing
(including Senghor, 1964; Onyewuenyi, 1978; Anyanwu, 1983) essentially argue
that an African mode of knowing exists that can be identified by the monism of
interaction between the subject and the object of knowledge in African belief
systems as opposed to the dualism of both in Western epistemology. For clarity,
the detractors who rebut the claim of a unique African mode of knowing are in two
categories: an initial response championed by Kolawole Olu-Owolabi (1993) and a
more recent response led by Felix A. Airoboman and Anthony A. Asekhauno
(2012). In brief, whereas Olu-Owolabi (1993)) refers to early assertions of an
exclusive African mode of knowing made by Leopold S. Senghor (1964) and upheld
by Onyewuenyi (1978) and Anyanwu (1983) as a myth, Airoboman and Asekhauno
(2012) challenged the existence of African epistemology as conceived in the works
of both early and later proponents, including Andrew Uduigwomen (1995). In both
criticisms, the core of the charges is that current African epistemological descriptions
and conceptions of knowledge are copies of Western epistemology.
It is pertinent to state here that the debate over the existence of a unique African
mode of knowing is considered to present an epistemic interfaceof the past and
present because the question sorts of echoes the concerns in the past and present of
African epistemology as they have been conceived. As regards the past, the
responses to the claim of the existence of a unique African mode of knowing that
describes it as a myth and a reproduction of Western conception of the process of
acquiring knowledge echoes colonial denials of the capacity for rationality by the
African. In the same vein, claims to the existence of a unique African mode of
knowing, which emerges in response to incorrect colonial assertions about the
capacity for rationality by the African, are attempts to construe instances of what
African epistemology is. And this indicates the concern of African epistemology in
the present. Having said a bit about the interface of the past and present in relation to
African epistemology, let us now turn to examine some contents of the “present” of
African epistemology.
African Epistemology: Present Focus
The “present” of African epistemology is characterized by the attempt to examine

constituent aspects of African epistemology. In effect, it includes reflections on how
the discipline is conceived in terms of its nature, knowledge, justification, and
sources of knowledge. It also includes debates about these topics. To be sure,
these topics have been examined from the empirical/contextual perspective and the
theoretical/abstract approach.
In terms of its nature, African epistemology as a discourse of knowledge is taken
to proceed from an emphasis on the relation of knowledge to being (what is) (Ikhane,
2018; Jimoh, 2017; Kaphagawani & Malherbe, 1998; Mawere, 2011). In a rather
disparaging conception of its nature, Kwasi Wiredu describes African epistemology
as epistemically authoritarian. When it comes to demonstrating how authoritarian-
ism played a significant role in African traditions, Kwasi Wiredu and Kwame
Anthony Appiah have been at the forefront. They hope to demonstrate how many
of Africa’s traditional beliefs – which serve as the foundation for knowledge claims,
practices, and ways of life – are not held on the basis of sufficient evidence but on the
authority of elders, who are revered as source-authorities of knowledge. For
instance, in describing the African way of knowing as authoritarian in his classic,
Philosophy and an African Culture, Wiredu, while noting that no orderly society is
possible without some sort of constituted authority which can override a refractory
individual will, adds that authoritarianism refers to “the unjustified overriding of an
individual’s will . . . [to the extent that] a society would be seen to be revoltingly
authoritarian in as much as a person’s will would usually be the result of the
manipulations by others” (Wiredu, 1980: 2). In the light of this, Wiredu’s analysis
suggests that epistemic authoritarianism refers to the imposition of a position on
knowledge about what is real, the truth, and so forth that society persuades or
induces its members to hold without question to the point where it unjustifiably
supersedes the individual’s preferences to do otherwise. The point here is that the
groveling deference that is shown to tradition and elders may, in some cases, suggest
a dogmatic, unthinking acceptance of their authorities, as well as their rules and
ideologies. Didier Kaphagawani holds a comparable opinion. He argues that while
this kind of authoritarianism may be necessary for African communalism, it is
epistemically harmful (Kaphagawani, 1988). He contends that in African cultures,
elders were revered as the ultimate arbiters of all traditional ideas and knowledge.
Elders were given a great deal of power and authority, and they held a position where
their dictates and will are accepted as representing both the community’s and the
supernatural deities’ wills (Kaphagawani, 1988: 9–10).
214 P. A. Ikhane
Polycarp Ikuenobe (2006) has, however, objected to these readings of African

(traditional) epistemic attitude as being authoritarian. Although African traditions
supported authoritarianism, he argues that this authoritarianism is objectively justi-
fiable. He makes a distinction between irrational and rational authoritarianism and
claims that critics like Wiredu, Appiah, and Kaphagawani erred by failing to
recognize the rational version of authoritarianism. He asserts that the concept of
epistemic defense and the social, contextual, and pragmatic aspects of knowledge
and justification constitute the foundation of the rational form of authoritarianism.
As such, epistemic or logical authoritarianism is neither harmful nor pernicious in
African civilizations. Ikuenobe continues by saying that the main reason why the
ideals, principles, and practices of traditions were not questioned in traditional Africa
was that, apparently, Africans did not feel the need to question their beliefs,
particularly the fundamental beliefs that accorded their traditions and elders the
status of epistemic authority. Additionally, they did not query these ideals and beliefs
because of the community’s epistemic norms, procedures, and supporting data,
which funds the notion that their justification and inquiry were communal, social,
intersubjective, and contextual in nature (Ikuenobe, 2006: 209).
In a similar spirit, Helen Lauer (2003) argues that the authoritarian mindset
purported to be associated with African epistemology is not unique to African
traditional societies or traditional civilizations in general. Rather, it is characteristic
of individuals’ daily lives, even in modern society. According to Lauer, it is widely
acknowledged that certain aspects of traditional upbringing prevent people and
groups from developing their own values and achieving their own set objectives.
For instance, it is well known that in many traditional societies, individuals and
groups often had their capacity to freely express themselves restricted; this was also
the case with independent thought and curiosity (Lauer, 2003: 18–19). In all, it is
expedient to say that the charge of epistemic authoritarianism on African epistemol-
ogy sort of misses the point of how knowledge is arrived at, particularly through the
testimony of others. In effect, then, it can be taken that elderhood and tradition pass
for evidential testimony as the ground on which the counsel elders give and the
dictates of tradition rests, respectively.
As regards sources of knowledge, Nkulu-N’Sengha states that African episte-
mology includes four fundamental modes of knowing that may be divided into three
groups: the supernatural, the natural, and the extrasensory. For him, the supernatural
path to knowledge refers to how humans can acquire knowledge with the aid of
paranormal abilities. This cognitive pathway also incorporates revelation and divi-
nation. These are distinguished by the involvement of supernatural beings, such as
ghosts, ancestors, deceased family members, gods, and goddesses, who either
directly share knowledge with humans through dreams and/or visions or indirectly
do so through mediums, diviners, animals, unusual life events, or natural phenomena
that call for a particular kind of interpretation. The natural cognitive mode is another
route to knowledge. According to him, persons acquire knowledge by making use of
their innate qualities or skills. A natural inquiry of reality using the human capacity
for logical thought processes is what characterizes intuition, which combines the
activity of the human heart (i.e., feeling and insight), and reason, as a natural skill or
ability. In forming beliefs, however, there are assumptions that inform what things
are usually accepted as rational. In this vein, the term “African rationality” is
understood to imply particular characteristic assumptions that are not part of
non-African understandings of what makes a thing rational. It is on the basis of
such assumptions that a thing (event, practice, and belief) is taken to be worthy of
rational acceptation. Yet another mode of acquiring knowledge in Africa is through
extrasensory perception (ESP), which includes modalities such as clairvoyance and
telepathy and stands between the two poles of the natural and supernatural ways of
knowing in African epistemology (see Nkulu-N’Sengha, 2005: 40–41).
In terms of the discourse of epistemic justification in African epistemology, two
major theories can be distinguished, according to Adebayo O. Ogungbure (2014).
These are the externalist and internalist theories of justification (see Ogungbure,
2014). While Aigbodioh (1997), Jimoh (1999), Njoku (2000), and Udefi (2009),
among others, have advanced the externalist idea of justification, internalists on
justification in relation to African epistemology include Ogungbure (2014).
Externalists contend that an epistemic agent does not always need to have access
to the basis for her knowledge claims in order for such claims to be justified, whereas
internalists generally hold that an epistemic agent does need to have access to the
basis for her knowledge claims in order for them to be justified. In his critique of the
externalist view of epistemic justification in African epistemology, Adebayo
Ogungbure claims that they take the metaphysical approach to knowledge in African
philosophy for granted. This is on the basis that they suppose that human cognition
may either be explained from the contextualist or neo-positivist viewpoints
(Ogungbure, 2014: 42). While the contextualist viewpoint of externalist justification
maintains that knowledge claims are situated within social contexts and that knowl-
edge, truth, and rational certainty should not be thought of in non-concrete terms, the
neo-positivist perspective claims that knowledge is fundamentally dependent on
empirical facts. The difficulty with the externalist orientation of justification in
African epistemology, in Ogungbure’s opinion, is that it, among other things, fails
to take into account aspects of the African worldview expressed in oral traditions and
existential relationships and, as a result, does not provide a complete picture of how
Africans generally perceive reality (Ogungbure, 2014: 43).
For Ogungbure, who advocates the internalist approach, all that is required to
support a knowledge claim is proof that the subject who asserts to know has
cognitive access to this belief and that the factors supporting this belief are
situated within the subject’s cognition (Ogungbure, 2014: 43). Using the Yoruba
belief system to support his claims regarding internalism in African epistemol-
ogy, he points out that although the Yorubas do not adhere to any positivist
criteria for justification, they strongly hold the beliefs in the afterlife and that
one’s success or failure in life has a lot to do with one’s destiny, both of which are
drawn from Olodumare. Because these ideas are tied to their cultural roots,
people rarely question their exactitude, even though the motivations behind
them frequently have a religious bent. For Ogungbure, the basis for considering
such beliefs as constituting knowledge is consistent with the internalist justifica-
tion standard, which states that an epistemic agent must have some justifiable
216 P. A. Ikhane
grounds for considering his or her beliefs to be true and thereby constitute
knowledge and that such knowledge (acquired through intuition or reflection)
must be cognitively accessible to the knower. He contends that because the
Yoruba lack the status of first-hand empirical verification, it would be useless
to try to persuade them to embrace the neo-positivist position that such beliefs are
not knowledge. Thus, for him, knowledge, for the Yoruba (and other similar
African cultures), cannot be limited to the physical world; it transcends the
physical world to include the comprehension of nonphysical reality. He corrob-
orates this view by drawing on Washington’s claim that “in traditional African
worldview one’s vision is not necessarily limited to the range of one’s physical
eyesight. Human beings can be endowed with spiritual vision. What the Yoruba
refer to as ori-inu (inner eyes) and what others call the third eye is the source of
spiritual vision” (Washington 2010: 6).
African Epistemology: Future Concerns
The future concern of African epistemology refers to fundamental aspects of the

discipline that require further and extensive philosophical reflections. This is because
such fundamental aspects concern key issues that are germane to (an) epistemology.
Among such issues include concerns about how knowledge is conceptualized, the
limit and scope of knowledge, how knowledge is justified (or a theory of epistemic
justification in relation to how knowledge is conceptualized in African epistemol-
ogy), the question of method, and the sources of knowledge. Though nearly all of
these aspects have received substantial attention in the discourse of African episte-
mology as can be seen from earlier parts of this chapter, there are others that require
further reflections as a result of the place they hold in terms of expounding the
discipline of African epistemology. One such area is an account of knowledge;
another is the question of method. To be sure, the task of theorizing an account of
knowledge and addressing the question of method in African epistemology are
linked. Put differently, in the bid to address the question of method, which concerns
the task of what approach to employ in investigating the nature of knowledge, some
assumption(s) regarding what construal of knowledge typically depicts how African
epistemology is conceived is implied. This is further grounded on the assumption
that African epistemology, by character, is a variant of culture philosophy, where the
specifics of a culture are drawn upon to conceptualize a philosophy, thus giving
grounds for talking about how such distinct philosophies should be conceptualized.
As such, though the question of what method to capture the lived reality of how
knowledge has been examined, it is expedient to further explore the pertinent issues
that question of method raises. Taken as such, it is pertinent to both examine the
question of method for doing African epistemology and the nature of knowledge
with the intent to advance an account of knowledge that, perhaps, builds on the
understanding that African epistemology is a variant of culture philosophy. With the
foregoing noted, let us, however, briefly highlight some of what has been so far said
about the question of method in relation to African epistemology.
To begin, the discussion over the issue of method in African epistemology has
begun to elicit new critical insights in recent writings. Though it was initially
examined by K. C. Anyanwu, it has begun to receive attention from more recent
writers such as Peter Ikhane (2018) and Paul Irikefe (2021). For Anyanwu, an
appropriate method for African epistemology requires us to think and write in
ways that do not reproduce the subjugation of African cultural worldviews to the
assumptions, concepts, theories, and worldview suggested by Western culture and
developed by Western thinkers (Anyanwu, 1984: 77). This subjugation, to be sure,
involves employing Western conceptual scheme in presenting African epistemology.
The key idea here is that Western epistemic categories and conceptions are somehow
imposed on Africa when they are employed to describe and interpret African reality.
Additionally, an epistemology produced in this manner is alien to the perspective of
African culture. Anyanwu believes that in order to arrive at knowledge from an
African perspective, African epistemology should be the explanation and interpre-
tation of reality using concepts, conceptual frameworks, and epistemic categories
developed within and from the African experience.
In his stead, Irikheife contends that the method of wide reflective equilibrium
holds more promise than the two currently dominant approaches, namely the method
of ethno-epistemology and the method of particularistic studies. What appears to
drive Irikheife’s analysis is his allusion to what he refers to as contemporary African
epistemology. In this vein, Irikheife argues that the method of wide reflective
equilibrium articulates a healthy balance between philosophy and culture, a balance
that is missing in the other existing methods of ethno-epistemology and pluralistic
studies. He favors the wide reflective equilibrium technique because it provides a
theory of knowing with a variety of normative sources. This is in contrast to Ikhane,
who advocates for a method that is essentially retrieval when discussing the question
of method for doing African epistemology. For him, the retrieval method (which is
based on similar premises as that of the method of ethno-epistemology) entails the
presentation of indigenous Africans’ belief systems and cultural practices through
critical dialogue and conversation. This is on the basis that Ikhane assumes that the
retrieval method is to elucidate the patterns of epistemic reasoning and logic that
underlie African belief systems and practices. In this sense, he asserts that under-
pinning native African cultural practices and belief systems are presumptions and
assertions about knowing and what it is to know, which pass for philosophy when
viewed as a critical and reflective discipline.
Aside from the issues of the question of method and an account of knowledge in
African epistemology, another issue of future interest is the question of how African
epistemology fits in the larger/global discourse of a normative understanding of
knowledge. Emmanuel Ani (2013) has provided some insights as to how this may be
reflected upon. He notes that despite the limits of traditional scientific epistemology,
indigenous knowledge systems continue to have a tremendous impact on the lives of
local people. He asserts that African knowledge systems continue to have a signif-
icant impact on the lives, behaviours, and thought processes of people of African
heritage. He goes on to say that the results of the investigation of African indigenous
systems merit consideration in the current educational system and epistemological
218 P. A. Ikhane
discourses. As a result, Ani believes that any attempt to see knowledge solely
through the prism of Western-oriented epistemology is a “procrustean reductionism”
(see Ani, 2013). He, however, worries that though various indigenous knowledge
systems have assisted people and cultural groups in making sense of their daily lives,
these have mostly not featured as part of the discourse of mainstream epistemology.
In response, one reason that may, perhaps, be adduced for this is that much of what is
presented as African epistemology is descriptive rather than prescriptive. Though
Ani’s response seems to be his call for the decolonization of the continent through
the transformation of Africans’ mindsets in light of the global context of the
discourse of knowledge in epistemology, his call may serve to only halt the tactics
of deploying Western concepts, notions, and models to theorize Africa, a practice
which has continued to prevent the developmental of concepts, notions, and frame-
works that reflect the African experience. If this is the case, an all-important future
task is to go beyond decolonizing (African) epistemology to positing African
epistemology as a normative discourse.
Concluding Remarks
In making these concluding remarks, it may be appropriate to reiterate that African

epistemology is a systematic articulation of the African cultural worldview that
relates to the subject matter of knowledge. It is the explanation of how Africans
cognitively apprehend reality and interpret their lived experiences in ways that are
consistent with the broad characterization of epistemology as the discourse of the
nature of human knowledge, its sources, limits, and the problems that emanate from
the process of knowing. In a similar vein, it is important to recall that two funda-
mental assumptions regarding “Africa” are central to what was presented as African
epistemology: (i) that “Africa” as conceived in “African epistemology” represents
what was/is autochthonous (indigenous) to Africa and (ii) that beyond the different
and varied perceptions and worldviews of Africans, it is valid to talk of “an African”
in the context of African epistemology.
In beginning this chapter by examining the debate over the existence of African
epistemology, to reviewing questions pose about the nature and character of African
epistemology, to examining concerns that have to do with how knowledge is
acquired and how it is justified, it can be stated that the extant discourse in African
epistemology may be seen to come under two broad headings: (i) discourse about the
legitimacy of African epistemology and (ii) discourse regarding aspects of African
epistemology as consistent with the broader characterization of the discipline of
epistemology. While the former has been the dominant focus in African epistemol-
ogy, it was noted that the latter has also found some space in the writings of African
scholars. What becomes evident as the overarching questions that have guided past
discourses on African epistemology include whether African epistemology exists,
and if it exists, what is its nature and character. In brief, this could be stated as the
question of the rationale for African epistemology. In highlighting what constitutes
the present concern of the discourse of African epistemology, the chapter identified
the growing literature around topics such as the nature, sources, and justification, of
knowledge in relation to African epistemology. It also emphasized the discourse of
method in relation to African epistemology. With respect to these, it was noted that
there are writings that are context-focused, while others are concept-focused.
In turning to the future of African epistemology, a central issue raised concerned
the need for scholars on African epistemology to begin to engage the question of the
place of African epistemology in the global discourse of knowledge in epistemology.
A key challenge noted in this regard is that the discourse is still quite
context-focused, as the explication of cultural beliefs and practices in the bid to
denote the nature and character of African epistemology remains the dominant
approach. This, to a significant extent, makes the discourse more descriptive than
prescriptive. The challenge here is that epistemology, for the most part, is a norma-
tive discipline as it reflects on, say, how knowledge ought to be conceived rather than
on how knowledge is conceived. But most works in African epistemology have
presented it in the light of the latter. This, as it appears, represents a challenge that
scholars of the discipline need to engage with so as to situate the discipline in the
global context of epistemology. To be sure, this goes beyond analyses of the
decolonial turn in philosophy with particular reference to calls to decolonize the
curriculum by, perhaps, expanding it to include the discourse of knowledge from
other non-Western traditions. In some regard, it requires presenting African episte-
mology as capable of elucidating some of the challenges, questions and debates that
the mainstream conception of epistemology has grappled with.
References
Aigbodioh, J. (1997). Imperatives of human knowledge illustrated with epistemological concep-
tions in African thought. Ibadan Journal of Humanistic Studies, 7, 17–34.
Airoboman, F. A., & Asekhauno, A. A. (2012). Is there an ‘African’ epistemology? Journal of
Research in National Development (JORIND), 10(3), 13–17. ISSN 1596-8308. www.
transcampus.org/journals,www.ajol.info/journls/jorind
295–320. ISSN 1023-1757.
Anyanwu, K. C. (1983). The African experience in the American marketplace: A searing indictment
of western scholars and their distortion of African culture. Exposition Press.
Anyanwu, K. C. (1984). The African worldview and theory of knowledge. In E. A. Ruch & K. C.
Anyanwu (Eds.), African philosophy: An introduction to the main philosophical trends in
contemporary Africa (pp. 77–100). Catholic Book Agency.
Asante, M. K., & Nwadiora, E. (2007). Spear masters: An introduction to African religion.
University Press of America.
Freter, B. (2023). Onto-normative Monism in the (hāteta) of Zera Yaqob: Insights into
Ethiopian epistemology and lessons for the problem of superiorism. In P. A. Ikhane & I. E.
Ukpokolo (Eds.), African epistemology: Essays on being and knowledge (pp. 145–158).
Routledge.
Gyekye, K. (1995). An essay on African philosophical thought (rev ed.). Temple University Press.
Gyekye, K. (1996). African cultural values. Sankofa Publishing Company.
Hallen, B. (2004). Yoruba Moral Epistemology. In K. Wiredu (Ed.), A companion to African
220 P. A. Ikhane
Horsthemke, K., & Enslin, P. (2005). Is there a distinctly and uniquely African philosophy of
education? In Y. Waghid et al. (Eds.), African(a) philosophy of education: Reconstructions and
deconstructions (pp. 54–75). Department of Education Policy Studies, Stellenbosch University.
Ikhane, P. A. (2017). Epistemic insight from an african way of knowing. In: Themes, Issues and
Problems in African Philosophy, Ukpokolo, IE (ed). UK: Palgrave McMillan: 137–144. https://
doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40796-8_9
Ikhane, P. A. (2018). How not to do African epistemology. Synthesis Philosophica: Journal of the
Croatian Philosophical Society (Special Issue on African Philosophy and Fractured Epistemol-
ogy), 33(1), 225–236. https://doi.org/10.21464/sp33114
Ikuenobe, P. (1998). A defense of epistemic authoritarianism in traditional african cultures. Journal
of Philosophical Research, 23, 417–440.
Irikefe, P. O. (2021). The prospects of the method of wide reflective equilibrium in contemporary
African epistemology. South African Journal of Philosophy, 40(1), 64–74. https://doi.org/10.
1080/02580136.2021.1891801
Jimoh, A. K. (1999). Context-dependency of human knowledge: Justification of an African
epistemology. West African Journals of Philosophical Studies, 2, 18–37.
Jimoh, A. K. (2017). An African theory of knowledge. In I. E. Ukpokolo (Ed.), Themes, issues and
problems of African philosophy (pp. 121–135). Palgrave Macmillan.
Jimoh, A. K., & Thomas, J. (2015). An African epistemological approach to epistemic certitude and
scepticism. Research on Humanities and Social Sciences, 5(11), 54.
Kaphagawani, D. N. (1988) On African communalism: a philosophic perspective. Paper presented at
the First International Regional Conference in Philosophy, 23–27 May, 1988, Mombasa/Kenya.
Kaphagawani, D. N., & Malherbe, J. G. (1998). African epistemology. In P. H. Coetzee &
A. P. J. Roux (Eds.), The African philosophy reader. Routledge.
Lauer, H. (2003). Tradition versus modernity: Reappraising a false dichotomy. Hope Publications.
Magesa, L. (1997). African religion: The moral traditions of abundant life. Orbis.
Martin, D. (2010). An application of dogon epistemology. Journal of Black Studies, 40(6), 1153–
1167. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934708325376
Masaka, D. (2017). Global justice and the suppressed epistemologies of the indigenous people of
Africa. Philosophical Papers, 46(1), 59–84. https://doi.org/10.1080/05568641.2017.1295624
Mawere, M. (2011). Possibilities for cultivating African indigenous knowledge systems (IKSs):
Lessons from selected cases of witchcraft in Zimbabwe. Journal of Gender and Peace Devel-
opment, 1, 91–100.
University Press.
Mitova, V. (2020). Decolonising knowledge here and now. Philosophical Papers, 49(2), 191–212.
https://doi.org/10.1080/05568641.2020.1779606
Mudimbe, V. Y. (1985). African gnosis philosophy and the order of knowledge: An introduction.
African Studies Review, 28(2/3), 149–233.
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2018). Epistemic freedom in africa: Deprovincialization and Decoloniza-
tion. London: Routledge.
Njoku, F. (2000). Rorty on post-philosophical culture: Shaping our culture without thoughts. West
African Journal of Philosophical Studies, 3(1), 88–110.
Nkulu-N’Sengha, M. (2005). African epistemology. In M. K. Asante & A. Mazam (Eds.), Ency-
clopaedia of black studies (pp. 39–44). Sage.
Ogungbure, A. O. (2014). Towards an internalist conception of justification in African epistemol-
ogy. Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya (PAK) New
Series, 6(2), 39–54.
Olu-Owolabi, K. (1993). On the myth called ‘Negro-African Mode’ of knowing. Bodija Journal: A
Philosophico-Theological Journal, 5, 38–60.
Onyewuenyi, I. C. (1976). Is there an African philosophy? Journal of African Studies, 3(4), 513–528.
Onyewuenyi, I. C. (1978). Towards an African philosophy. In O. U. Kalu (Ed.), Readings in African

humanities. African cultural development. University of Nigeria.
Senghor, L. S. (1961). Nationhood and the African road to socialism. Presence Africaine.
Senghor, L. S. (1964). On African socialism (C. Mercier, Trans.). London: Paul Mall Press.
Senghor, L. (1971). The foundations of Africanity or negritude or Arabity. Presence Africaine.
Udefi, A. (2009). Rorty’s neo-pragmatism and the imperative of the discourse of African episte-
mology. Human Affairs, 19, 78–86.
Uduigwomen, F. A. (1995/2009). Philosophy and the place of African philosophy. In A. F.
Uduigwomen (Ed.), From footmarks to landmarks on African philosophy (2nd ed.). O. O. P.
Ukpokolo, I. E. (2023). Truth in an African (Esan) epistemology. In P. A. Ikhane & I. E. Ukpokolo
(Eds.), African epistemology: Essays on being and knowledge. Routledge. (in press).
Washington, T. N. (2010). Nickels in the nation sack: Continuity in Africana spiritual technologies.
The Journal of Pan African Studies, 3(5):5–28
Wiredu, K. (2002). Conceptual decolonization as an imperative in contemporary African philosophy:
Some personal reflections. Rue Descartes, 36, 53–64. https://doi.org/10.3917/rdes.036.0053
Zahan, D. (1979). The religion, spirituality, and thought of traditional Africa (K. E. Martin & L. M.
Martin, Trans.). University of Chicago Press.
Knowledge and Testimony in African
Communitarian Epistemology
Anselm Kole Jimoh
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
The Idea of an African Epistemology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
The Idea of a Communitarian Epistemology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
The Meaning and Nature of African Communitarian Epistemology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Knowledge in African Communitarian Epistemology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Testimony, Oral Tradition, and Knowledge Acquisition in ACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Abstract
This chapter is a critical analysis of knowledge and testimony in African com-
munitarian epistemology (ACE). The aim is to explicate the meaning and nature
of knowledge and argue that the testimony of elders is a genuine source of
knowledge and justification in ACE. The African knowledge system is grounded
on African ontology. ACE is the study of the indigenous ways of knowing
representative of the sub-Sahara African. It studies the specific ways and means
by which Africans arrive at, and justify their understanding of reality. Essentially,
it is a social and communitarian epistemological system in which the community
is the primary bearer and justifier of knowledge. To this end, it emphasizes the
socio-cultural factors in knowledge practice, which makes it different from the
traditional western individualistic epistemological system. In its context as a
communitarian epistemic system, testimony as indicative say-so is considered a
basic source of knowledge and justification. This chapter begins by establishing
the legitimacy of African epistemology as a genuine indigenous field of epistemic
inquiry. Thereafter, it addresses pertinent issues like, what constitutes knowledge
A. K. Jimoh (*)
Department of Philosophy, SS. Peter and Paul Major Seminary, Ibadan, Nigeria
e-mail: jimohanselm@ssppibadan.edu.ng

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_15
224 A. K. Jimoh
for the African and how the African distinguishes between knowledge and belief.
Also, it discusses emerging themes, like the nature of knowledge, the sources and
transmission of knowledge.
Keywords
African · African communitarian epistemology · Knowledge · Indigenous ·
Testimony
Introduction
The idea of a communitarian epistemology that is specifically African is predicated

on the ontological communalism that is characteristic of sub-Sahara Africa. It
explores indigenous ways of knowing that are particular to the traditional African
of the sub-Sahara, whose primary thrust is the specific ways and means by which
Africans arrive at, and justify their understanding of reality. This chapter explicates
knowledge in African Communitarian Epistemology (ACE), and argues that testi-
mony is a generative source of knowledge and justification in ACE. As a source of
knowledge, testimony is the intentional exchange of information between the testi-
fier and the receiver that generates knowledge for the latter. It is a form of commu-
nication wherein beliefs are acquired, justified, retained, and transmitted. The
chapter emphasizes the idea of a communitarian epistemology that is not exclusive
to African indigenous ways of knowing, some works in Western social epistemology
have also posited the idea. What this chapter is about to do, however, is to explain
what is peculiar in the way communitarianism applies to African epistemology. That
is, what makes ACE different from how Western social epistemology conceives
epistemic communitarianism. To this end, the chapter employs the phenomenolog-
ical, hermeneutic, and dialectical methods to discuss: (i) issues about the suitability
of the phrase, African epistemology, to describe inquiries on African epistemic
practices. (ii) It presents a critical analysis of ACE, investigates what constitutes
knowledge for the African, and how the African distinguishes between knowledge
and mere collective belief. And (iii) it discusses emerging themes in African
epistemology, like the nature of knowledge, the sources and transmission of
knowledge.
The Idea of an African Epistemology
Until recently, much of the theorization in African epistemology has been on how to
legitimize it as a genuine and credible field of inquiry (Chemhuru, 2019: 2). The
crucial question has been whether we can rightly talk about an indigenous African
knowledge system, which implies a distinctive African epistemic identity. Some
scholars situate the problem within the context of Africa’s colonial legacy, which
Knowledge and Testimony in African Communitarian Epistemology 225
confronts African philosophy with the task of establishing a unique order of knowl-
edge that is both African and philosophical (Higgs, 2010: 2414). Thus, researchers in
the field focus on how to establish specific ways of knowing as distinctively African,
and which differ from the Western system of knowledge which presents itself as
universal.
The question about the appropriateness of the term ‘African epistemology’ to
designate African epistemic practices is associated with one of the earliest debates in
African philosophy, namely, whether there is African philosophy or not? Even
though the question whether there is African philosophy can still be raised, it is
not much worry to many African philosophers today because it seems to have lost
plausible justification. Instead, African philosophers have developed, and are still
developing the literature on African philosophy, addressing various issues of impor-
tance in the African space. One of such issues is the question about the distinctive
character of African philosophy that makes it different from other philosophical
traditions. In other words, what constitutes the Africanness or ‘African’ in African
philosophy? Jack Aigbodioh rhetorically reformulates this question when he asked,
“but how would one expect an African philosophy to be patterned on western model
and still retain its distinctive character of being African?” (2004: 76). What he
implies is that if we are to understand the Africanness of African philosophy, we
need to first understand what it means to be African.
Philip Higgs’ “Towards an Indigenous African Epistemology of Community in
Education Research” (2010) delineates the debate on the notion of Africanness as
swinging between the geographical criterion and the cultural criterion. The likes of
Valentin-Yves Mudimbe and Paulin Hountondji adopt the geographical criterion to
define the African in African Philosophy as the intellectual product, produced or
promoted, by Africans (see Higgs, 2010: 2415). Such an understanding is superficial
and lacking in ontological depth because it limits Africanness to the person, and not
the content of the work in question. To accept this criterion means that a non-African
cannot do African philosophy, simply by the very fact that the non-African is not a
native or indigenous African. Aware that the notion of indigenous is contentious, its
use in this essay is clarified below. If this is applied to Western philosophy, it means
too that Africans cannot do Western philosophy because they are not Europeans or
Americans.
The cultural criterion, on the other hand, is the view that the ‘African’ in African
philosophy refers to philosophical postulations that are theoretically and culturally
predicated on an African ontological worldview. This view is premised on the claims
of scholars like Kwame Gyekye who argues that “philosophy is a cultural phenom-
enon in that philosophical thought is grounded in cultural experience” (1987: 72).
For Ikechuchwu Kanu, every culture contributes to the universal themes of philos-
ophy from its own experience. “Each culture traces the unity of these [universal]
themes, synthesizes and organizes them into a totality, based on each culture’s
concept of life, namely, the relationships between objects and persons and between
persons and person themselves” (2012: 53). Kanu’s claim implies that the contribu-
tions of cultures to the process of philosophizing provide the particularization
element in philosophy, which allows a philosophy to be described as European,
226 A. K. Jimoh
Indian, Chinese, or African. Consequently, he argues that the Africanity of African

philosophy consists of what provides the ingredients that define it as African, namely
the culture within which it is done.
Suppose that the cultural criterion resolves the limitation of the geographical
criterion, does it, by itself alone define Africanness? According to Maurice
Makumba, the cultural criterion alone does not suffice in the definition of the
Africanness or Africanity of African philosophy (2007: 35). In addition to this
criterion, the person doing philosophy is also very important. While the African
culture speaks to the problems and situations that African philosophy must address,
the person doing the philosophy must either be African by birth – living within
Africa or in the diaspora, or a non-African who is living in Africa and/or involved in
the life and culture of Africans. Therefore, the Africanness of African philosophy is
to be defined by geography, culture, history, and sociological factors (Makumba,
2007: 34–35). Higgs supports this view with the argument that the cultural criterion
alone does not define Africanness, he thinks that it is not an either/or between the
geographical and cultural criterion, but that a combination of both criteria provides
the fundamentals of being African (2010: 2415).
Based on the foregoing analysis, Aigbodioh’s claim that African philosophy
belongs to, and is possessed or owned by Africans because it pertains to Africans
and the African continent (2004: 77) is plausible. So, we can argue that African
philosophy is different from other philosophies, like Western or Eastern philosophy,
insofar as it is not modeled after the philosophical traditions of the West or the East.
The criticism against the existence of African philosophy may be summarized
thusly:
(i) Traditional African cultures are predominantly oral traditions that lack written
documentation and therefore cannot be philosophical.
(ii) Traditional African philosophical thought is associated with folk wisdom/
sagacity and therefore lacks the criticality and rigor of inquiry associated with
philosophy.
(iii) Philosophical concerns are universal and cannot be specific or particularized to
a culture or location (Brown, 2004: v).
(iv) This triumvirate of criticism implies that African philosophy lacks the scientific
appeal of authentic academic inquiry to qualify it as philosophy. The plausibility
of this view has been refuted by African philosophers. Lee Brown, for instance,
argues that just as other philosophical traditions are tied to locations and
populations, African philosophy is also a reflection of the philosophical concerns
exhibited in African conceptual languages. According to him, “African cultures
were concerned with epistemological and metaphysical issues before the infusion
of Judaic, Islamic, and Christian religious perspectives and before being
influenced by Greek and Western ideologies in wider ways” (2004: vi).
Chukwudum Okolo who argues in the same vein as Brown asserts that the
African philosopher is a critic who is practically engaged with the problems of
everyday experience of being-in-the-African-world. He describes the activity of the

African philosopher as a critical and evaluative inquiry about the information and
beliefs of common experience, everyday views, myths, stories, folklores, etc. about
the African world. In this way, African philosophy develops a “general, systematic,
coherent and consistent picture of all that the African knows, hopes, or thinks about
his world, his role and prospects in it” (2004: 93).
In a response to Hountondji (1967) that ethno-philosophy cannot be called
philosophy because it is not written, Kanu argues that Hountondji’s criticism is not
sustainable because first of all, “[p]hilosophy is not philosophy because it has been
written down; it is philosophy because it is first an idea. [Secondly] [w]riting is not
the only way of transmitting information, oral tradition is one” (2014: 67). Kanu
sustains his argument further by leveraging on J. Jahn’s position that, the African
did not need an alphabet to convey information; instead they developed the drum language,
which is superior to writing for that purpose. It is quicker than any mounted messenger and it
can convey its message to a greater number of people at one time than telegraph or telephone
(1958: 187).
In addition, Kanu claims that writing is primarily to communicate, and when it

comes to communicating ideas, the spoken “word is more powerful, permanent and
mightier in Africa than any writing that can be lost” (2014: 67). This should not be
interpreted to imply that oral tradition is better than written documentation, rather,
the thrust here is on the fact that “African philosophy expressed in oral culture is
philosophy” (Kanu, 2014: 67). According to Kanu, the era of oral tradition is a stage
of development in the history of African philosophy, which in modern times has
given way to the written tradition which might provide better opportunities in the
transmission and preservation of philosophical ideas, but does not impact the quality
of philosophical ideas per se.
If Aigbodioh, Brown, Okolo, and Kanu are correct, we can justifiedly infer that
although philosophy and philosophizing are universal, the methodology and per-
spectives of approach are contextualized. Therefore, we can talk about Western
philosophy, Eastern, Asian or Oriental philosophy, and African philosophy. It is
reasonable then to opine that the debate on whether there is or there should be
African philosophy, and the initial question about its proper definition can be put to
rest. What this implies is that the appropriateness of African epistemology to
describe inquiries on indigenous ways of knowing in Africa, which is a branch of
African philosophy, is no longer contentious.
The fact that knowledge, truth, and rationality are universal concepts means that
they are not the prerogative of any culture. The meaningfulness of these concepts is
premised on the linguistic-cultural schemes and the ontology of the individual.
Hence, Brown argues that,
Philosophy begins with experience, and at some point, our experiences and emergent
concepts become influenced by our dispositions and by our beliefs about what is real,
what is necessary, what is possible, and what is true. Our conceptual language provides
228 A. K. Jimoh
the format that structures how and what we come to understand as real, as necessary, as
possible, and as true (2004: 5).
This view had earlier been expressed by Kwasi Wiredu who argued that each culture
has a right to conceive the world within the framework of its own categories (1980:
60). Kwame Gyekye agrees with Wiredu by arguing that human rationality is essen-
tially a cultural reflection of people’s experiences and background (1987: 25). Gyekye
does not mean that knowledge or truth means different things in different cultures, but
that the way each culture derives knowledge and the truths of reality may, and does
differ. Every culture can develop its own intellectual framework within which it
understands and grasps the meaning and truths of reality. If Wiredu, Gyekye, and
Brown are correct, as it is assumed in this essay, we are justified to talk about African
epistemology as a distinctive African epistemic system in which the African uses her
African categories and concepts, provided by her African cultural experience, to
understand and interpret knowledge, truth, and rationality. Therefore, there is nothing
inappropriate with using the title, African epistemology, to describe the inquiry into the
epistemic practices among indigenous Africans.
African epistemology is an indigenous way of knowing that is social and com-
munitarian in character. Even though the notion of ‘indigenous’ is slightly slippery,
and more so in reference to Africa because it is a continent that consists of several
indigenous people, with varied cultures, and without a common ancestry, it is
nonetheless, hardly contestable that ‘indigenous’ denotes natural belongingness.
Anwar Osman aptly describes it as referring to “a specific group of people occupying
a certain geographical area for many generations” (2009: 1.1). These people are
distinguished from others by the same factors that constitute their epistemic practice,
namely their linguistic schemes, belief systems and means of livelihood. Thus, we
can understand that African epistemology as an indigenous way of knowing refers to
“the totality of that which is meaningful, which provides the rational basis that
undergirds the life of the natives of a particular place” (Jimoh, 2018: 8). In an earlier
essay, Amaechi Udefi described African epistemology as the idea that knowledge
and its related concepts can be interpreted using African categories and concepts,
outside conceptual frameworks foreign to the African worldview (2014: 108). This
makes African epistemology an abstraction of the collective worldview of Africans
as embedded in African myths, folklores, proverbs, folk wisdom, etc.
Udefi’s description of African epistemology is a cautious attempt to be faithful to
the historical trajectory in the development of inquiry into African epistemic prac-
tice. He divides the discourse into two phases: (i) the early beginnings and (ii) later
attempts. According to him, the early beginnings were dominated by theologians and
poets. These include scholars like, Placide Tempels (1959), Bolaji Idowu William
Abraham, J. B. Danquah, John Mbiti, and others, who argue that African epistemol-
ogy is an upshot of African ontology. They tried to refute the dominant ideology of
the colonial master that “ascribe[s] a pre-logical mental frame to the Africans and
other non-Western peoples during the hay day of colonialism” (Udefi, 2014: 108). In
trying to establish that prior to the advent of Europeans in the continent, Africans had
an idea of God, they invariably insinuate that Africans have the mental capacity to
understand and interpret reality in a logical fashion, and thus, tried to establish that.
The latter, on the other hand, is characterized by two dominant approaches. The
first approach consists of scholars like Robin Horton, Anthony Appiah, Kwasi
Wiredu, J. T. Bedo-Addo, Barry Hallen and J. O. Sodipo, and others. They
interpreted the African experience using Western concepts and categories, they sorted
and grafted African equivalents of Western concepts into the African experience. Based
on this, they argue that Africans are capable of vigorous, critical, and rational thought. In
other words, they adopted the African culture, concepts, and categories to delineate the
African epistemic system. This second approach is further bifurcated into the tradition-
alist and universalist perspectives. The traditionalists argue that there is an African
mindset, which is uniquely different from the Western mindset, and therefore, that
there is a way of knowing that is uniquely African. On the other hand, the universalists
passively deny African epistemology with the argument that philosophy as a rational
and critical inquiry cannot be particularized to a cultural environment (Udefi, 2014:
110). After trying to present a specimen of Igbo epistemology using the methodology of
the traditionalist, Udefi claims that African epistemology is not unique but universal
“since there is no radical difference between knowledge apprehension and epistemo-
logical canons across-cultures [sic!]” (2014: 116). Udefi’s claim that African epistemol-
ogy is not unique contradicts his use of the traditionalist approach, which advocates a
unique African epistemic system, to present a specimen of Igbo epistemology.
Even though we may consider Udefi’s effort, a lucid articulation of the historical
trajectory in the development of the discourse on African epistemology, his conclu-
sion that African epistemology is not a unique epistemic system is unacceptable. The
idea of ‘unique’ here should not be misconstrued for ‘superior’ or ‘the valid’
standard for epistemic appraisal. To do so would be to essentialize African episte-
mology, which would be the same as falling into the error of universalizing Western
epistemic system. On the contrary, the idea of a unique African epistemological
system would “liberate African indigenous epistemology from the subsuming meth-
odologies of foreign systems of knowledge that tend to monopolize and dictate
models of inquiry. Specifically, it is orientating African minds to understand and
appreciate their indigenous knowledge practice by decolonising them from Western
objectifications and universalisation” (Jimoh, 2018: 20). African epistemology,
understood in this way, is indigenous, social, and communitarian. It theorizes a
cultural and situated notion of knowledge, firmly grounded on the African ontolog-
ical notion of a continuum (Jimoh, 2018: 14).
It is important to note that the idea of a communitarian epistemology is not
entirely particular to African knowledge system. Developments in contemporary
social Western epistemology indicate that some Western scholars advocate the
notion of communitarianism in epistemology, although in a sense different from
ACE. For instance, the project of Martin Kusch on Knowledge by Agreement: The
Program of Communitarian Epistemology (2002).
230 A. K. Jimoh
The Idea of a Communitarian Epistemology
Kusch employed the idea of a communitarian epistemology as a way of understand-

ing epistemic practices from a particular perspective, he did not intend as a system of
knowledge. For him, it designates any epistemology that is committed to two claims:
(i) That knowledge and its cognates like, ‘know’ and ‘knower’ mark a social status
granted by communities. This implies that knowledge depends on the existing
community that grants it. For a community to grant knowledge means that the
knower knows because the community says so. (ii) That the social status of knowl-
edge is typically granted to, or attributed to groups of people and not individuals. The
emphasis on ‘typically’ is to indicate that it is not ‘always so’ but applies only to
representative and central cases of knowledge (Kusch, 2002: 1–3). In this sense,
communitarian epistemology as a socialized orientation of knowledge is in contrast
to the Western individualistic conception of knowledge, where the individual is the
primary possessor of knowledge.
Kusch’s idea of communitarian epistemology differs from the mainstream notion
of social epistemology. According to him, social epistemology refers to two different
programs: (i) science policy program, and (ii) complementary program. While (i) is a
change agenda that seeks to make “science more democratic and accountable to the
public,” (ii) is an attempt “to remedy the shortcomings of traditional individualistic
epistemology,” like the distinction between the individual and social aspects of
knowledge (Kusch, 2002: 2). Although communitarian epistemology shares the
science policy program idea that epistemology and politics are closely connected,
like mainstream social epistemology, it is aimed at understanding and not changing
epistemic communities. Hence, an understanding of the epistemic community is a
prerequisite to understanding knowledge in communitarian epistemology.
Contrary to the complementary program, communitarian epistemology is a more
radical view that traditional epistemology neglects the social aspects of knowledge,
and that there is no individual isolated knower (Kusch, 2002: 2–3). The primary
motive of Kusch’s project is “to show that individualistic (and otherwise ‘anti-
communitarian’) views are incoherent and fail by their own standards; that they
have unwanted consequences; that they contradict our everyday experience; or that
they cannot be made out to cohere with other well-entrenched views” (Kusch, 2002:
4). The emphasis of Kusch is that it is mistaken for traditional and contemporary
individualistic epistemology to assume that “a stylized picture of certain epistemic
contexts” can pass for a general epistemological account (Henderson, 2003). This
mistake does not enable us to understand alternative epistemic contexts. Epistemic
context is the framework in which an information is considered to be true or factual,
where ‘factual’ implies that a belief is supported with some degree of certainty, for
example, concrete shreds of evidence that justify the belief in the understanding of the
knower. Therefore, an epistemic context is an alternative to another when the
conditions by which it grants knowledge status to a belief are different from the
conditions by which the other grants knowledge status to a belief. Since the context
within which an empirical belief is granted the status of knowledge is that it is shared
with others, empirical beliefs presuppose social institutions (see Kusch, 2002).
To the extent that Kusch’s notion of communitarian epistemology considers

knowledge as a collective enterprise in which the community, rather than the
individual is the bearer of knowledge (Kusch, 2002: 335), it is similar to ACE.
The difference between both lies in the analysis of how the community is the bearer
of knowledge. That means the context in which they confer the status of knowledge
to beliefs differs. For Kusch, an empirical belief is knowledge when it is shared by
the epistemic community. In ACE, a belief qualifies as knowledge, not just because it
is shared by the epistemic community, but because the epistemic community plays
an essential role in the formation of the belief. Thus, a true belief qualifies as
knowledge in ACE when it is a collective understanding inferred from the synthesis
of individual contributions, through the rationalization of the community. It is within
this context that we understand the meaning and nature of ACE.
The Meaning and Nature of African Communitarian Epistemology
Whereas knowledge understood as how we comprehend states of affairs is universal,

the way we acquire knowledge differs among societies because of the different
socio-cultural contexts in different societies. Epistemic beliefs and claims are for-
mulated and articulated within these socio-cultural contexts. Therefore, the idea of
communitarianism in epistemology is germane. An epistemology is communitarian
if it conceives knowledge acquisition within social and cultural contexts just as
African epistemology does.
Traditional African thought pattern unifies togetherness and social responsibility
(Ovens & Prinsloo, 2010: 21). Hence, Willem De Liefde argues that in African
thought, nature and culture belong together in a mutually supportive interrelation-
ship where they also preserve each other (2003: 52). If this is the case, contrary to the
individualistic approach of Western epistemology, epistemic practice is approached
from the collective standpoint in ACE. Such a collective standpoint consists of
individual contributions that are premised on the thinking that ‘because we are, I
am’ (Nasseem, 2002: 261). To be communitarian epistemologically is to centralize
the role of society in epistemic practice. This emphasizes the connection between the
individual and the community and how the community shapes the individual’s
understanding and influences her formulation of beliefs. This is the case because
African epistemology is premised on ontological concerns and commitment.
According to Lee Brown, ontological concerns are the furniture of the universe
that enables us to distinguish what is real from what is not real or imaginary (2004:
18). And ontological commitment is the disposition and willingness that enables us
to accept and use specific conceptual idioms or characterizations of reality to
describe the truth of the world we live in.
The nature of ACE is predicated on the African understanding of the human
person, which permeates African thought. The human person is not defined in terms
of physical or psychological characteristics, rather, it is closely linked with the
environing community because the community is the cornerstone in African thought
(Menkiti, 1984: 174). For the African, the human person is a communal being,
232 A. K. Jimoh
hence, the African perceives, interprets, and makes meaning out of interactions
among being and reality (Jimoh, 2017: 41). The African conceives reality as a
unitive whole where the experiential, rational, religious, intuitive, symbolic, myth-
ical, and emotional, interconnect to provide an inclusive understanding of
phenomena.
Therefore, ACE has an understanding of reality beyond experiences that may not
be empirically verifiable but are warranted nonetheless. According to Brown, tradi-
tional African culture acknowledges that reality goes beyond the realm of experience
and therefore, appeals to experiences whose characterizations are not empirically
confirmable. The warrantability of non-empirically confirmable experiences is pre-
mised on two deep-rooted African ontological beliefs: (i) The felt sense that there are
spiritual components to nature that influence experiences and perceptions. (ii) The
belief that those phenomena are not readily explainable through empirical means can
best be explained by appealing to the causal efficacy of the spiritual components of
nature. These are incorporeal elements that have consciousness (just as humans
have) by virtue of their awareness of nature, and they possess the capacity to respond
to this awareness (Brown, 2004: 159–175). Within this context, we understand why
the Yoruba of Western Nigeria argue that there is a connection between the cry of the
witch last night and the death of the child this morning, even when there is no
verifiable causal link between the cry of the witch and the death of the child.
Knowledge acquisition varies according to ontological worldviews. Human
beings have a natural inclination toward understanding and interpreting phenomena
according to how their perceptive faculties have been shaped by their backgrounds.
In this regard, Ndubuisi Ani explains that “people have a predilection to consider or
interpret things in different ways according to their cultural, religious, emotional,
educational and epochal background” (2013: 301). The implication here is that it is
possible for people of different backgrounds to infer different conclusions when
confronted with similar issues. This sounds correct, given that the complexity of the
universe makes it practically impossible to explain reality from an absolute and
universal paradigm.
If cultural, religious, emotional, educational, and historical influences constitute
backgrounds, then it is plausible to say that rationality is invariably cultural because
rationality reflects the cultural experiences and background of a people. In which
case, Kwame Gyekye is correct to say that we cannot separate epistemic practices
from the current ideas among the people within a given era (1987: 25). Therefore, it
is also correct to argue that human reasoning, understanding, and comprehension is
conditioned by socio-cultural milieu. This claim is buttressed by Chemhuru who
argues that “the community plays a very central epistemological and moral role in
inculcating what responsibility is, and how it ought to be understood and evaluated
in community” (2019: 2). According to him, the community is responsible for the
knowledge of what individuals do because the community makes what the
individual is.
The underlying communality of African cultures, in which the self (cognitive
agent) and the material (cognized object) are interwoven in a human correlativity by
custom and tradition, undergirds the mechanism of cognition in ACE. The cognitive
agent comprehends reality in connection with her culture and environment, there-
fore, the knower thinks and knows in and through society (Jimoh, 2018: 15). Bert
Hamminga expresses this fact when he describes ACE as a we (collective) enterprise
because it is a synthesis of individual understanding and contributions, which makes
it necessarily social (2005: 57–58). This does not mean that individual rationality is
subjugated, instead, it emphasizes the socio-cultural dimensions of knowledge.
According to Itibari Zulu, ACE is the production of collective understanding,
grounded on the rationalization of the community, through the synthesis of individ-
ual contributions (2006: 32–49).
The conception of African philosophy as a communal idea is often misconceived
as lacking the criticality that defines philosophy, compared to individualistic philos-
ophizing. Contrary to this, Gyekye (1997) argues that African collective philosophy
is a product of individual wise men, particular ideas generated by individual minds
crystallize into collective thought when they gain general acceptance and become
paradigmatic. It is therefore mistaken to assume that African philosophy is a
collective thought because it is the intellectual product of a whole collectivity,
there is no such thing as collective thought in this sense. A collective thought is
actually individual ideas that form the pool of communal thought in which the
differences among the ideas are obliterated.
ACE places emphasis on the dialectics, cooperation, and togetherness, involved
in knowledge practice. Knowledge here is a chain relationship wherein the cognition
of any aspect of reality is interwoven with knowledge of the other aspects of reality
(Jimoh, 2018: 16). Therefore, it differs from Western epistemology, in the sense that,
whereas ACE understands reality as an integrative whole and takes a holistic
approach toward the understanding of reality, Western epistemology dichotomizes
reality between the material and immaterial, and so, fragments knowledge into the
empirical, rational, and mystical. The holistic approach to knowledge by ACE
provides the knower with an integrative grasp of reality, the entire universe is
understood as a single whole where all aspects of reality are interdependent (Ani,
2013: 305).
Knowledge in African Communitarian Epistemology
Knowing is a human activity by which the mind gains awareness and understanding
of the truths of reality. It exists as the property of the knower because it is the knower
who acquires an understanding of reality through the process of knowing. In the
explication of this process of knowing, ACE emphasizes how socio-cultural factors
determine the formulation and justification of true beliefs.
In the intercourse between the agent and the object of cognition, the agent gets to
understand, believe, and justify the object of cognition. If we take philosophical
realism as a standpoint toward a particular subject matter, traditionally, Africans are
realists who approach the world as a mind-independent reality. They believe in the
independent existence of a contingent world, which they come to know through the
mind’s association with the objects in the world. The latter impose themselves,
234 A. K. Jimoh
through the windows of the human senses, upon the human mind. The mind
assimilates, frames, conceptualizes, and interprets these objects in accordance with
its own categories. These categories are informed by the subjective factors of culture,
environment, experience, etc. Although this cognitive process seems similar to
Kant’s (1998) notion of transcendental idealism, there is a fundamental difference
between both. The difference lies in the nature of the categories that constitute the
basis of understanding and interpretation of the objects that impose themselves upon
the mind. Whereas, Kant grounds human understanding and interpretation on
transcendental (a priori) categories like quality, quantity, relation, and modality,
ACE grounds human understanding and interpretation on empirical (a posteriori)
categories like culture, environment, and experience. Thus, while Kant’s epistemol-
ogy is a form of idealism, ACE is a realist theory.
Given the framework of understanding, the African interprets and makes meaning
of phenomena in relation to her being-in-harmony with reality. The notion of a
‘being-in-harmony with reality’ describes the principal African communitarian view
of reality, which according to Molefi Asante (2000) is often difficult to understand by
those educated and influenced by the linearity in the Western notion of reality. The
latter is caught in a fixed and rigorous distinction between the rational and empirical.
Contrary to the mind/body and self/others distinctions in Western thought, the
human person in African thought is a concrete consubstantiation of body and spirit.
Hence, Asante further claims that “the ego is real and materiality is concrete but
managed under the influence of custom and tradition based upon human mutuality”
(2000: 1). Accordingly, he explains that this ontological conception expresses the
“commonality in the ways humans have approached the universe, environment,
society, and the divine” (2000: 1) despite the multiculturalism of the African
continent. It also provides the basis for the communitarian epistemic notion of
reality.
When an African makes an epistemic claim, she affirms that she understands,
believes, and accepts as justified the claim to be the case. Understanding is an
essential element of knowing that begins with the awareness of what is known.
Awareness is a responsive consciousness that involves a symbiotic imposition of:
(i) the object of awareness upon consciousness and (ii) consciousness upon the
object of awareness. In this way, there is a mutual interaction between the knower
and what is known, wherein the knower acquires a holistic knowledge of the known.
The claim that understanding begins with awareness should not be mistaken to
imply that understanding and awareness are co-referential. Awareness does not
imply understanding, and understanding involves much more than mere awareness.
Awareness is a path toward understanding, as we cannot understand what we are not
aware of. To be aware of a phenomenon implies either (or both) an empirical or (and)
rational perception that the phenomenon is real or not real. The understanding of
what we are aware of enables us to situate what we are aware of within the scheme of
reality. This is where the African ontological communality plays an important role.
The understanding of a phenomenon requires that it is placed in its proper place
within the comity of being, of which the cognitive agent herself is a part. Even
though knowledge and understanding are often used as if they are co-referential, it is
important to state here that they do not mean exactly the same thing. Whereas
knowledge is inclusive of the information and awareness about a given subject
matter, understanding refers to a realization of the intended meaning or cause of a
given phenomenon. Even though both concepts are closely related, and it is almost
practically impossible to separate them, knowledge is, however, greater than under-
standing. Nonetheless, both knowledge and understanding are incomplete without
the other.
It is impossible to separate the human person from nature in African ontology. To
attempt such a separation is to close the doors against human knowledge of reality
because knowledge arises from the connection between the interaction and cohesion
of things in the African understanding of reality (Ani, 2013: 306, see also, Tempels,
1959: 48, and Ochieng’-Odhiambo, 2010). Inclusive and beyond the visible, empir-
ically verifiable, and rational retrospection, the traditional African mind is able to
acquire and justify the knowledge of reality. This is possible because the African
mind is imbued with the practicality of wholism, prevalence of polyconsciousness,
inclusiveness, unity of worlds, and personal relationships (Asante, 2000: 2). Conse-
quently, knowledge is a holistic and integrative understanding of the phenomena in
which the agent’s true beliefs enforce within her the justification of her claims.
The holistic and integrative nature of knowledge entails the intuitive, religious,
and mythological (Ani, 2013: 309). It is intuitive because as E. A. Ruch and K. C.
Anyanwu argue, it is an immediate, unmediated contact with reality that involves the
entirety of the human faculties without “follow[ing] the fragmenting activity of
abstractive knowledge” (1984: 46). In other words, all human faculties; intellect,
senses, and emotions cooperate to provide the agent an embracive grasp of the object
of cognition. It is religious because among Africans, religion consists in the belief in
an invisible world, that is though distinct from, but not separated from the visible
world. Hence, the epistemic experience of the agent accommodates the idea of a
transcendental being who sheds light on material existence and human experiences.
In this way, Africans make sense of existence via religious prism (Ellis & ter Haar,
2007: 387). The African strives to understand phenomena from both the physical and
non-physical (spiritual) aspects of reality because she believes in the intrinsic
relationship between the material and the spiritual. As Ani puts it, she believes
that “divine beings are actively engaged in the epistemic experience of humans as
they directly or indirectly reveal things to human beings in their experiences (dreams
and life experiences)” (2013: 309). Knowledge entails the mythological for the
African because she tries deal with life questions such as the origin and destiny of
the human person, evil, providence, life, and death, by way of mythical conscious-
ness (see Ruch & Anyanwu, 1984: 35). Myths are tools by which we can express
profound issues that are beyond the comprehension of the human mind (Gyekye,
1987: 15). They are verbal and gestural signs that individuals employ to explain
fundamental problems (Ruch & Anyanwu, 1984: 27). Citing Gyekye (1987), Ani
states that “[m]yths symbolically express deep issues that lie beyond the compre-
hension of human minds” (2013: 311). To that extent, myths constitute a part of
African knowledge practices as tools by which the agent acquires knowledge of
reality.
236 A. K. Jimoh
Regardless of the knowledge culture under consideration, one important aspect of

knowledge inquiry that would always require clarification is the relationship
between knowledge and belief. It is a contentious issue in Western epistemology
because both concepts are inextricably linked. The traditional Western definition of
knowledge as justified true belief makes belief a necessary conjunct of knowledge.
In other words, belief is a logical feature of knowledge, and “a monolithic state
capable of comprising a multitude of propositions as objects” (Jimoh, 2004:
73, Moser et al., 1998: 41). Consequently, belief is differentiated from knowledge,
and restricted to a level lower than knowledge.
The interconnectedness between knowledge and belief that makes them presup-
positions of each other is easily noticeable (Jimoh, 2004: 75). That they presuppose
each other should not be misinterpreted that they are co-referential, as some authors
have done (Airoboman & Asekhauno, 2012: 15). For something X to presuppose
another Y, it means we need X for us to have Y. This does not mean that X and Y are
the same thing, and therefore, one can be used to refer to the other or interchange-
ably. To say that X and Y are interconnected means they are closely and perhaps
inseparably related. Therefore, to say that X and Y are interconnected and presup-
pose each other means that we cannot know and believe Y we must first know and
believe X.
In ACE, the cognitive agent is not distracted by the semantic distinction between
knowledge and belief. According to Godwin Sogolo, the problem associated with
“knowing and believing the same thing at the same time” (1998: 224) is not an
apparent one for the African knower because for her, what is imperative is the truth
of what is known and believed. If what is known is true, she knows what she
believes, and believes what she knows.
The theorization about truth in African philosophy is an interesting one. As an
attribute of beliefs, opinions, statements, doctrines, and theories, ACE does not
debate truth in grandiose abstract theories that make it enigmatic, as it is in Western
epistemology. Rather, it considers truth as “the property of human experience”
(Orangun, 2001: 71) that establishes the link between the thought of a cognitive
agent and the reality of the state of affairs the agent describes as true.
Most African linguistic schemes allude to a common and similar understanding of
truth as that which agrees with the state of affairs to which it is predicated. For
example, truth is ezi-okwu (Igbo), otito (Yoruba), and gaskiya (Hausa), in the three
dominate cultures in Nigeria. These words, imply “it is so” or “it is the case”
simpliciter. To interpret this to mean that truth is mere consensus or communal
agreement would mean to commit an error of reductionism, and a cognitive aberra-
tion. Although truth as that which “is the case” includes some form of consensus, it is
more inclusive than that. It implies the experiential since we cannot know that a
phenomenon “is so” or “it is the case” when we have not experienced it to be the case
or learnt from a reliable agent, who has experienced it to be the case, that it is the
case. If truth is that which “is the case” and it is an essential property of knowledge,
the question that arises is: how does ACE establish that which is the case? That is:
how do we determine what is true?
Truth does not qualify itself, it is always in reference to something other than
itself. Just as knowledge is the property of the knower, truth is always in relation to
states of affairs. If a belief or claim is true, it is true in relation to the state of affairs –
the truth-maker, to which it is predicated. States of affairs do not exist independently,
they exist within given contexts, which determine the truth of the claim predicated
on them. Does this suggest that truth is relative? If to be relative means that all beliefs
or belief systems are equally true because there are no standards of evaluation, it
would be erroneous to say, in this sense, that truth is relative. To say that the context
determines the truth of a claim is not the same as saying that there are no standards of
evaluation for what is true and what is not true. Instead, it means that standards of
evaluation vary from one context to another and that a truth-claim within one context
cannot be justifiedly evaluated with the standards of another context where the claim
has not been made (Annis, 1978; DeRose, 1995; Aigbodioh, 1997). Truth in ACE
implies consistency and correspondence with states of affairs. In other words, a
proposition is true if and only if it agrees with a set of beliefs and/or accepted facts.
To agree here means to be consistent with, and to correspond to a set of beliefs and/or
accepted facts.
Two possible ways to determine whether a claim agrees with a set of beliefs
and/or accepted facts are: (i) by demonstration and (ii) through the confirmatory
testimony of elders. To demonstrate that a claim is true, and therefore, it is knowl-
edge involves providing evidential proof(s) of agreement between a proposition and
what it purports. Demonstration does not define knowledge, it is about resolving the
question of whether S knows that p. If this question is affirmatively resolved, we can,
ipso facto, infer what it means to know by analyzing how S knows that p. Therefore,
demonstration validates the truth or falsity of a claim, and thereby, affirm or negate
that the agent knows or does not know. The foregoing indicates that demonstration
serves two purposes: (i) it proves the truth of a claim, and (ii) by the fact of (i), it
confirms that the agent who makes the claim knows. It is in this sense that we can
claim that knowledge is demonstrative.
The demonstrativeness of knowledge implies that it is teleological. To say a claim is
teleological means that it is directed toward a given purpose, namely, to affirm or to
negate that a state of affairs is the case or it is not the case. The suggestion here is that
we can understand and explain knowledge in relation to its purpose – from the
perspective of its telos. In other words, a proposition is knowledge to the extent:
(i) its content can be demonstrated to agree with its lexical semantics and (ii) the claim
fulfills its purpose. About (i), if an Onisegun (the Yoruba term for someone who uses
herbs from plants to cure sick persons) claims that a particular agbo (mixture of herbs
and roots) cures a particular sickness like malaria, to demonstrate that the agbo malaria
would require that it is used for someone with malaria. If the person is cured of the
ailment, then we can claim, based on the demonstration, that it is true that the agbo
cures malaria. For (ii), if the aim of using the agbo for the person with malaria it is
claimed to cure is to cure the malaria, and the use of the agbo cures the person’s
malaria, then it means the use of the agbo achieves the aim for which it is used.
Therefore, based on the latter, we can justifiedly claim that the agbo cures malaria.
238 A. K. Jimoh
The teleological notion of knowledge as presented here is hewed out of the notion
that epistemic claims are directed toward particular ends (purposes). This purpose is
in two forms: (i) The general purpose of knowledge, which is to be informed about
the subject matter of the knowledge claim. And (ii) the specific purpose of knowl-
edge, which is connected with what one does with the information provided by the
knowledge claim, in relation to what the claim purports. For instance, an Onisegun
claims or testifies, and tells Bankole that a particular agbo cures malaria. Based on
the Onisegun’s testimony, Bankole purports to have knowledge of the agbo that
cures malaria and he prescribes the agbo for Adebisi who has malaria. If barring all
other circumstances that would make the agbo ineffective, Adebisi takes the agbo
and he is not cured of his malaria, it means that the agbo does not cure malaria as
claimed by the Onisegun. It also means that Bankole’s purported knowledge based
on the testimony of the Onisegun is mistaken, and that neither the Onisegun nor
Bankole knows that the agbo cures malaria. And that the Onisegun’s testimony is
false.
Kwasi Wiredu claims that knowledge is necessary for action, and action is
necessary for survival (2000: 181), which means that knowledge provides the
requisite information we need to act appropriately in order to survive by properly
navigating the complexities of our world. Any claim or information purported to be
knowledge that turns out not to be true based on the demonstration of the claim
cannot be said to be knowledge. The basis for this judgment is the teleological failure
of the claim. Teleological failure here describes the lack of success of the purported
claim to agree the facts that it purports. Suppose, we argue that the aim of the testifier
is to mislead the receiver of the claim, therefore, if the receiver did not get the
expected result, the aim of the testifier is achieved nonetheless. This argument is
irrelevant to the conclusion that the claim is false and not knowledge because the aim
referred to in the argument is that of the testifier and not the telos of the claim in
question. Also, the argument fails, in this case of deliberate deception, on the
grounds that when, in the first instance, the Onisegun claims that the particular
agbo in question cures malaria, he knows that the agbo does not cure malaria.
Therefore, it is not true, and not knowledge that the agbo cures malaria as demon-
strated in its failure to cure Adebisi of his malaria.
Even though the argument that the deceptive intent of a testifier who deliberately
transmits a false claim to a receiver fails the justificational paradigm of the teleo-
logical notion of knowledge, it raises an important question about the status of
testimony. Namely, whether testimony should be accorded the status of a reliable and
generative source of knowledge in ACE. This explains the need to elucidate the role
of testimony in ACE.
Testimony, Oral Tradition, and Knowledge Acquisition in ACE
We cannot discuss testimony without mentioning the issue of oral tradition in ACE.
For this reason, this section discusses both notions alongside each other. Testimony,
as employed here, is a communication between persons that involves exchange
of information between the testifier and the receiver. It is considered as a medium of

knowledge transfer wherein the testifier transmits knowledge, through some form of
communication (mostly verbal, linguistic, and propositional), to the receiver. The
latter acquires knowledge about the state of affairs described in the testimony of the
former. In ACE, the testimony of elders is regarded as a source of knowledge and
justification. Contrary to Peter Bodunrin’s logical positivist approach to African
epistemology, Andrew Uduigwomen claims that “[i]n African traditional setting,
experimentation is not resorted to if a disagreement arises between two parties
regarding what one claims to observe. Rather, the testimony of a third party is
sought to settle the difference” (1995: 37). The third-party testimony here refers to
reliable elders who are co-custodians and “repositories of knowledge, values, and
traditions,” with the community head/leader (Ikuenobe, 2018: 32).
Polycarp Ikuenobe presents an impressive analysis to argue that the testimony of
reliable elders constitutes an epistemic source as well as justificational grounds for
knowledge. This paper agrees with him and copiously represents his view here. With
reference to Ebiegberi Alagoa (1966: 408), Ikuenobe argues:
It is usually by a body of knowledge that the core identity and cultural legacy of a group or
community are perpetuated and passed down from generation to generation partly by
reliance on elders. Elders in a community play multiple roles in the informal process of
archiving and transmitting knowledge. On the one hand, elders are the custodians, sources,
and repositories of the knowledge, history, beliefs, and values in African cultures by
overseeing the transmission of the traditions. [. . .] On the other hand, elders have the
communal responsibilities of providing justifications for, upholding, and ensuring the
maintenance and adherence to cultural beliefs and traditions for communal well-being and
harmony, as well as helping to impart relevant values and knowledge on children, to help
them attain moral personhood (2018: 28–29).
Eldership is not just a matter of old age. “An elder is a ‘grown-up’ who has proven
himself in the community based on his actions, and he is socially recognized as a
responsible person of moral repute and demonstrated wisdom and knowledge of
the culture and traditions” (Ikuenobe, 2018: 29). To be ‘grown-up’ is different
from ‘growing-old.’ Whereas the latter indicates chronological age, the former
implies that one has acquired a sound epistemic and moral status portrayed in
one’s deeds, words, and ability to justify beliefs, values, and practices. To be an
elder requires a wealth of knowledge, experience, good judgment, and robust
moral sensibility. Hence, Ikuenobe avers that “moral and epistemological author-
ity resides in the combination of age, experience, good judgement, character, and
practical wisdom” (2018: 30). He further claims that elders should be responsible
teachers and repositories of knowledge whose epistemic testimonies accredit and
justify the individual cognitive abilities of members of the epistemic community
(2018: 33).
Ikuenobe’s analysis of testimonial knowledge and justification in the African
space, and the communal reliance on elders for epistemic authority is based on
the principle of epistemic dependence. According to this principle, A can depend on
the authority of B, if B has evidence to justify a belief, which means that A can use
240 A. K. Jimoh
the authority of B as well as B’s evidence to justify his own belief despite the fact that
A himself, lacks the evidence. Consequently, Ikuenobe claims that,
The reliance on elders involves the epistemic principle that individuals could justify their
beliefs based on the authority of, or place their trust on, the wisdom of elders as repositories
of knowledge. Such reliance involves the reasonableness of the principles of epistemic
dependence, epistemic trust or reliabilism, and epistemic deference (2018: 34).
The implication here is that reliable elders are reliable sources of knowledge, and
their testimonies are reliable methods of transmitting knowledge. An epistemic
source or process is reliable if it is truth-conducive and adequate to justify beliefs.
According to Ikuenobe, elders are “paternalistic custodians and conveyors of knowl-
edge” (Ikuenobe, 2018: 34). This, along with the “trust and extended family and
neighborhood connections that engendered communal fellowship and the informal
communal methods of upbringing and the processes of acquiring and justifying
beliefs in traditional African cultures” (Ikuenobe, 2018: 34), make it plausible for us
to depend on their authority as epistemic sources.
The reasonability of epistemic dependence is grounded on our natural human
cognitive limitations. There are requisite relevant infinite amounts of information for
an adequate act of justification which our individual cognitive abilities cannot
independently process and understand. Therefore, an individual cannot, on his
own, entirely understand and evaluate adequately these requisite relevant infinite
amounts of information. Given the infinite number of beliefs that constitute the
complexity of justifications for our putatively simple beliefs, individuals cannot
independently comprehend and ascertain the justificatory status of these beliefs.
So, there is the need for epistemic dependence on experts who can do this in the
justificatory process of epistemic claims (Ikuenobe, 2018: 35–36). Ikuenobe calls
this epistemic communalism, which he describes as “the idea of communal inquiry –
where there is an epistemic division of labor, sharing of evidence, and reliance on the
inter-subjective agreement as a basis for the adequacy of a justification” (2018: 36).
The aim of epistemic communalism and epistemic dependence is to attain
communal agreement through the sharing of cognitive and epistemic responsibili-
ties. Communal agreement is not a merely reductive notion of similarity among
opinions, it is “the idea that various individuals’ beliefs about facts are in agreement
among themselves, and that the agreement also corresponds to or are supported by
the facts or experiences” (Ikuenobe, 2018: 37). It implies a notion of knowledge that
is holistic and integrative, bringing within its purview, different knowledge back-
grounds, multiple perspectives, and the expertise of experience. Therefore, contrary
to the views of the analytic tradition in African philosophy, to rely on the testimony
of elders is not tantamount to the subjugation of the phenomenal character expressed
in individual knowing. In other words, to claim that epistemic dependence and
communalism imply that individuals lack cognitive autonomy and creative imagi-
nation is to misunderstand and misrepresent epistemic communalism and depen-
dence. Epistemic communalism and dependence emphasize the dialectics,
cooperation, and togetherness, in knowledge acquisition, making knowledge
derivation a chain relationship that brings about the holistic and more integrative
nature of knowledge in ACE.
Conclusion
As part of its aim to present a lucid explication of the meaning and nature of
knowledge in ACE, this chapter clarifies how and why testimony is a basic source
and justification of knowledge in ACE. The chapter emphasized the legitimacy of
African epistemology on the basis that even though knowledge is a universal
phenomenon, the way individuals acquire, justify, retain, and transmit knowledge,
is premised, among others, on their cultural and environmental experiences. Against
the Western paradigm of communitarian epistemology where knowledge is a product
of the shared belief of an epistemic community, the chapter also argued that African
epistemology is communitarian because its very foundation presupposes being,
therefore, it is based on African ontology. This implies that knowledge is not just a
matter of shared belief, but that the very formation of belief itself is the product of
community rationalization and the synthesis of individual contributions. It provides
the basis upon which we understand knowledge as the product of the intercourse
between reality and the epistemic agent. Thus, making knowledge a holistic and
integrative understanding of the object of cognition attained and justified through the
testimony of reliable elders who are custodians and repositories of knowledge in
traditional African cultures.
References
Aigbodioh, J. A. (1997). Imperatives of human knowledge illustrated with epistemological con-
ception in African thought. Ibadan Journal of Humanistic Studies, 7, 17–34.
Aigbodioh, J. A. (2004). African philosophical experience and the problem of its periodisation. In
F. Ogunmodede (Ed.), African philosophy down the ages: 10,000BC to the present (pp. 75–89).
Hope Publications.
Airoboman, F. A., & Asekhauno, A. A. (2012). Is there an ‘African’ epistemology? JORIND,
10(13), 13–17.
Alagoa, E. J. (1966). Oral tradition among the Ijo of Niger Delta. The Journal of African History,
7(3), 405–419.
Ani, N. (2013). Appraisal of African epistemology in the global system. Alternation, 20(1),
295–319.
Annis, D. B. (1978). A contestualist theory of justification. American Philosophical Quarterly,
15(3), 213–219.
Asante, M. K. (2000). The Egyptian philosophers: Ancient African voices from Imhotep to
Akhenaten. African American Images.
Brown, L. M. (2004). African philosophy: New and traditional perspectives. Oxford.
Chemhuru, M. (2019). An African communitarian view of epistemic responsibility. Politikon, 2–11.
https://doi.org/10.1080/02589346.2019/1571290
De Liefde, W. (2003). Lekgotla: The art of leadership through dialogue. Jacana.
DeRose, K. (1995). Solving the sceptical problem. The Philosophical Review, 104(1), 1–52.
242 A. K. Jimoh
Ellis, S., & ter Haar, G. (2007). Religion and politics: Taking African epistemology seriously.
Journal of Modern African Studies, 45(3), 385–401. https://doi.org/10.1017/
S0022278x07002674
Cambridge University Press.
Gyekye, K. (1997). Person and community: In defense of moderate communitarianism. In Tradition
and modernity: Philosophical reflections on the African experience. Oxford Academic. https://
doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195112252.003.0002
Hamminga, B. (2005). Epistemology from the African point of view. In B. Hamminga (Ed.),
Knowledge cultures: Comparative Western and African epistemology (pp. 57–84). Rodopi.
Henderson, D. (2003). Review of “Kusch, Martin, Knowledge by agreement: The program of
communitarian epistemology”. In Notre dame philosophical review. www.ndpr.nd.edu
Higgs, P. (2010). Towards an indigenous African epistemology of community in education
research. Procedia: Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2, 2414–2421.
Hountundji, P. (1967). African philosophy: Myth and reality. Indiana University Press.
Ikuenobe, P. (2018). Oral tradition, epistemic dependence, and knowledge in African cultures.
Synthesis Philosophica, 33(1), 23–40. https://doi.org/10.21464/sp33102
Jahn, J. (1958). Muntu: An outline of the new African culture. Grove Press.
Jimoh, A. (2004). Knowledge and truth in African epistemology. Ekpoma Review, 1, 66–81.
Jimoh, A. (2017). Ubuntu, Ibuanyindanda: Harnessing African philosophy of personhood for
peaceful co-existence in Nigeria. Ewanlen: A Journal of Philosophical Inquiry, 1(1), 40–49.
Jimoh, A. (2018). Reconstructing a fractured indigenous knowledge system. Synthesis
Philosophica, 33(1), 5–22. https://doi.org/10.21464/sp33101
Kant, I. (1998). Critique of pure reason 1781 and 1787 editions. Trans. and Ed. Paul Guyer and
Allen W. Wood. Cambridge University Press.
Kanu, I. A. (2012). The Africanity and philosophicality of African philosophy. Internet Afrrev: An
International Online Multi-Disciplinary Journal, 1(2), 42–54.
Kanu, I. A. (2014). African philosophy and the problem of methodology. International Journal of
Scientific Research, 3(7), 66–68.
Kusch, M. (2002). Knowledge by agreement: The program of communitarian epistemology. Oxford
University Press.
Makumba, M. M. (2007). Introduction to African philosophy. Paulines Publications Africa.
Moser, P. K., Mulder, D. H., & Trout, J. D. (1998). The theory of knowledge: A thematic
introduction. Oxford University Press.
Nasseem, S. B. (2002). African heritage and contemporary life. In P. H. Coetzee & A. P. J. Roux
(Eds.), Philosophy from Africa: A text with readings (pp. 59–271). Oxford University Press.
Odhiambo, F. O. (2010). Trends and issues in African philosophy. Peter Lang.
Okolo, C. (2004). From philosophy to African philosophy: The history of an idea. In
F. Ogunmodede (Ed.), African philosophy down the ages: 10,000BC to the present
(pp. 90–103). Hope Publications.
Orangun, A. (2001). Epistemological relativism: An enquiry into the possibility of universal
knowledge. African Odyssey Publisher.
Osman, A. (2009). Indigenous knowledge in Africa: Challenges and opportunities. Inaugural Lecture
at the Centre for African Studies. https://www.ufs.ac.za/docs/librariesprovider20/centre-for-africa-
studies-documents/all-documents/osman-lecture-1788-eng.pdf?sfvrsn. Accessed 11 May 2018.
Ovens, M., & Prinsloo, J. (2010). The significance of ‘Africanness’ for the development of
contemporary criminological propositions: A multidisciplinary approach. Phronimon, 11(2),
19–33.
Ruch, E. A., & Anyanwu, K. C. (1984). African philosophy: An introduction to the main philo-
sophical trends in contemporary Africa. Catholic Book Agency.
Sogolo, G. (1998). Logic and rationality. In P. H. Coetzee & A. P. J. Roux (Eds.), The African
philosophy reader (pp. 217–233). Routledge.
Udefi, A. (2014). The rationale for an African epistemology: A critical examination of the Igbo
views on knowledge, belief, and justification. Canadian Social Science, 10(3), 108–117. https://
doi.org/10.3968/4445
Uduigwomen, A. F. (1995). Footmarks on African philosophy. Obaroh and Ogbinaka
Publishers Ltd.
Wiredu, K. (2000). Our problem of knowledge: Brief reflections on knowledge and development in
Africa. In I. Karp & D. A. Masolo (Eds.), African philosophy as cultural inquiry (pp. 181–186).
Indiana University Press.
Zulu, I. M. (2006). Critical indigenous African education and knowledge. Journal of Pan African
Studies, 1(3), 32–49.
Exploring Ignorance and Injustice in African
Epistemology
Kenneth Uyi Abudu
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Enlightenment Period, Eurocentrism, and Epistemological Tyranny . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Epistemic Injustice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
Testimonial Injustice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Hermeneutical Injustice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Epistemic Injustice and the Prejudicial Marginalization of the African Knower . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Epistemology of Ignorance and the Altering of African Epistemic Traditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Overcoming Epistemic Injustice and Epistemology of Ignorance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Abstract
This chapter will explore two major themes in the African epistemology: the
question of epistemic injustice and the question of the epistemology of ignorance.
By epistemic injustice in an African context, I mean the moral wrong or injustice
that has been done to the African knower by denying him of, or downplaying on
his or her capacity to know. And by epistemology of ignorance in the African
thought, I am referring to the role deliberate and non-deliberate ignorance has
played and continues to play in the African knowledge experience and production
process. Concerning the former, this chapter shows that a great injustice has been
done to the African indigenous knowledge production and processing systems,
one that needs to be remedied. Concerning the latter, I argue as well that
ignorance is often ignored in the discourse of epistemology, and it has continued
to play important roles in the altering of African epistemic traditions and struc-
tures. Thus, there is need to remedy this situation. This chapter concludes by
K. U. Abudu (*)
Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Edo State, Nigeria
e-mail: Kenneth.abudu@aauekpoma.edu.ng

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_14
246 K. U. Abudu
holding that the African epistemology has important functions to play in liberat-
ing the African knowledge systems from attempts to undermine it.
Keywords
Epistemic injustice · Epistemology of ignorance · Age of enlightenment ·
Epistemological tyranny · Epistemic resistance
Introduction
One of the basic features of the traditional tasks of epistemology within and across
spaces is its normativity, that is, the sole task of establishing foundations upon which
knowledge acquisition can thrive. Ever since the inception of philosophy as evident
during the ancient period, philosophers have made several attempts to propound
theories upon which our knowledge claims can be justified, and some of these
theories are still relevant till date. These theories are regarded as universal, even
when it is obvious that epistemic relativism cannot be overemphasized in epistemo-
logical discourse. To put this in the right perspective, knowledge acquisition is
universal; the mode of acquiring it is what differs from society to society.
In the historical development of epistemology, reference is often made to the
Western models in the attempt to situate the knowledge production, making other
forms of knowledge that are non-Western illegitimate fields of inquiry. This was the
case during the modern period of philosophy when thinkers such as Francis Bacon,
Rene Descartes, Isaac Newton, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, and so on, argued that
knowledge production, acquisition, and justification ought to conform to some
universal, objective and foundational standards. For instance, Descartes’ epistemol-
ogy sought to establish immutable foundations upon which human knowledge will
grounded and free from error and also challenge the philosophical problem of
skepticism; “Locke’s epistemology was an attempt to understand the operations of
human understanding; Kant’s epistemology was an attempt to understand the con-
ditions of the possibility of human understanding, and Russell’s epistemology was
an attempt to how modern science could be justified by appeal to sensory experi-
ence” (Steup & Neta, 2005). The dominance of Western-oriented theories of knowl-
edge continued till the twentieth century with the psychological and social
approaches to knowledge acquisition as championed by W.V.O. Quine and Alvin
Goldman, respectively. With these obvious Western-oriented models in epistemol-
ogy, there began an erroneous idea that knowledge acquisition must conform to these
theories or rather be suppressed or inferiorized. This is the case with the African
epistemology, which has been described as inferior on the basis that Africans do not
reckon with only reductionist approach to knowledge production, but different
approaches.
The attempt to universalize the conditions which determine how knowledge is to
be acquired, and by implication, to inferiorize the African epistemology cannot be
understood in isolation of the Age of Enlightenment which sees knowledge
Exploring Ignorance and Injustice in African Epistemology 247
acquisition as a scientific and an objective enterprise. This led to the perpetuation of

Eurocentrism which places Western ideals and values as superior and the closest to
objective truth. By this, Enlightenment thinkers upheld that Africans cannot be
granted rationality and humanity. Munyadrazi Mawere asserts that: “there is monu-
mental literature by philosophers like David Hume, George W.F. Hegel, Immanuel
Kant, Lucien Levy-Bruhl, and Diedrich Westermann that describe Africans as
‘tabula rasa’, a people with no reason/rationality; hence without a history and
worse still philosophy” (2011: 1). The assertion made by Mawere can be contextu-
alized epistemologically in the sense that these radical Eurocentric philosophers and
anthropologists saw their supremacist tendencies incorporated in their theories of
knowledge. Thus, the epistemological implications white supremacy has for the
African epistemology are numerous.
My goal in this chapter is not to propound any theory of knowledge or justifica-
tion, but to examine two of the implications the white supremacist idea has for the
African epistemology: epistemic injustice and epistemology of ignorance. The
former is an epistemic concept which suggests a type of harm or wrong that is
done to an individual on the basis of his ability to make meaningful contributions or
benefit from a body of knowledge. Epistemic injustice manifests in three ways. In the
opinion of Anita Ho, the manifestations of epistemic injustice are as follows:
As both a moral concept as well as an epistemic concept, epistemic injustice is a type of

wrong and harm that is done to individuals or social groups regarding their ability to
contribute to and benefit from knowledge creation. This form of injustice can occur in at
least three interrelated types of scenarios. First, epistemic injustice can happen in the form of
unequal distribution of hermeneutical resources such as conceptual understanding and
articulative ability that would be necessary to achieve or contribute to knowledge creation.
Second, epistemic injustice can occur when certain people’s capacity as knowers or collab-
orative learners is unfairly dismissed. Third, epistemic injustice can happen when there is
inter-method hierarchy, that is, certain methods of inquiry or research are uncritically
dismissed while other methods are categorically presumed to be superior. (2014: 1038)
Epistemic injustice reflects in the radical Eurocentric philosophers’ arguments

that Africans are not capable of rationality. Thus, anything that comes from Africa,
be it a body of knowledge or any other intellectual tradition, is vehemently
suppressed. The twin implication of the Eurocentric supremacist idea is epistemol-
ogy of ignorance which plays out in the intersection of racism and knowledge
acquisition. In other words, epistemology of ignorance “represents an examination
of the complex phenomena of ignorance by identifying different and varied forms of
ignorance, examining how they are produced and sustained, and determining what
role they play in knowledge practices” (Sullivan & Tuana, 2007: 1). We cannot
overemphasize ignorance has an instrumental value in not only perpetuating white
supremacy, but also the racial oppression of people that are non-Europeans. In other
words, while ignorance may connote something negative, it has practical application
to discourses such as race, white privilege, and racism.
With the brief exposition as background, I begin this chapter by examining the
roles of the Age of Enlightenment and Eurocentrism in perpetuating white
248 K. U. Abudu
supremacist ideals, especially in their attempts to universalize the rudiments of

knowledge production and acquisition. This is important as Eurocentrism is often
construed as one of the legacies of Enlightenment thinkers. In furtherance to this, I
shall argue here that the attempts by Enlightenment thinkers to universalize knowl-
edge production gave room to epistemological tyranny and coloniality of knowl-
edge. Consequently, I shall examine the contents of epistemic injustice and
epistemology of ignorance. All this is followed by an examination of the instrumen-
tal value epistemic resistance has for African epistemologists in the attempt to
showcase African epistemology as an authentic field of inquiry and also to free
African epistemology from the radical Eurocentric philosophers’ attempts to
undermine it.
Enlightenment Period, Eurocentrism, and Epistemological

Tyranny
Perhaps, it is worthwhile to begin this section with an excerpt from Björn Freter’s
article, “White Supremacy in Eurocentric Epistemology: On the West Responsibility
for its Philosophical Heritage.” In this article, Freter points out one of the damaging
effects of the Age of Enlightenment especially as it relates to the radical argument
that the white race is superior than the other races in the world, and the subsequent
philosophical edifices built on this radical idea. Freter poignantly states that:
By reading some of the important so-called enlightened and enlightening philosophers, such
as the exemplars Voltaire, David Hume and Immanuel Kant, one can find blatant white
supremacist racism. Consequently, it is very likely that their racism affected the construction
of their philosophical edifices. However, it seems Western scholarship has demonstrated
little interest to address this problem. (2018: 238)
The Age of Enlightenment, no doubt, is regarded as one of the most significant

epochs in the history of philosophy. The reason for this is because there was a
deliberate and radical shift from the dogmatism and authoritarianism that character-
ized the medieval period of philosophy to a more enlightened way, which saw the
individual subject as the determinant of philosophical disquisitions, and also the
enthronement of reason. Enlightenment here is used to mean the period in philoso-
phy where individuals were admonished to think for themselves without appealing
to religious authorities. Immanuel Kant defines Enlightenment as:
Enlightenment is mankind’s exit from its self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inabil-
ity to make use of one’s own understanding without the guidance of another. Self-incurred is
this inability if its cause lies not in the lack of understanding but rather in the lack of the
resolution and the courage to use it without the guidance of another. Sapere aude! Have the
courage to use your own understanding! is thus the motto of enlightenment. (1996: 58)
Thus, Enlightenment can be conceived from two perspectives. On the one hand, it
was an attempt to jettison the philosophical disquisitions inherited by Enlightenment
philosophers, and on the other hand, it was an attempt to establish universal,

immutable, and fundamental grounds which would be used as justification when
discourses arise in language, science, morality, truth, knowledge, and so
on. Regarding knowledge, for instance, thinkers such as Rene Descartes, John
Locke, and Baruch Spinoza attempted to universalize the conditions of knowledge.
This made rationalism and empiricism prominent during this period. During the Age
of Enlightenment, Eurocentrism also held sway. In the words of Tung Yi, Eurocen-
trism prevails when the supposed virtues of “Western civilization” (which in the
conceit of the Eurocentric popular consciousness . . . is often thought synonymous
with “civilization”) are not examined, but instead merely assumed worthy of their
designation as the ultimate fate of all humanity (Tung-Yi 2009: 127).
Evidently, one will not be surprised as to why radical Eurocentric thinkers such as
Voltaire, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel raised the bar of racism and
white superiority by asserting at various times that the Europeans are superior to
other races. The implication of this is that there were disparaging assertions on other
races as they were described as irrational. During this period, Africa had their fair
share. In particular, Kant states that: “Humanity is in its greatest perfection in the
race of whites. The yellow Indians are already of lower talent; the Negroes are much
lower and at the lowest there are parts of the American people” (Kant as cited in
Freter, 2018: 241).
The Age of Enlightenment did not only witness the argument that the European
race is superior to other races; it also, from an epistemological standpoint, witnessed
the enthronement of Western models in knowledge acquisition above other models.
This is why Angela Roothan captures the project of Age of Enlightenment with
regard to knowledge production as follows: “their method soon became the para-
digm for trustworthy knowledge” (2019: 44). The implication of this is that attempts
were made to supplant the African epistemology with their scientific methods of
acquiring knowledge and to show that the African indigenous knowledge should not
be considered as a worthy field of inquiry. This leads to epistemological tyranny. My
use of epistemological tyranny in this chapter suggests the dominance of Eurocentric
traditions in knowledge production without recourse to indigenous knowledge
systems. According to Semali and Kincheloe:
Western epistemological tyranny decrees that reality constructed by Cartesian-Newtonian

ways of seeing the only reality worth discussing in academic settings. Knowledge in this
context becomes centralized and the power to produce knowledge is concentrated in the
hands of a limited power bloc. . . The knowledge Western science produced became the
benchmark by which the production of non-Western civilizations was measured. (1999: 31)
Epistemological tyranny is further buttressed by coloniality of knowledge which

means “a complex process of deployment of global imperial technologies of sub-
jectivation taking the form of translating and re-writing other cultures, other knowl-
edge and other ways of being, and presuming commensurability through Western
rationality” (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2003: 33). The reason why some radical Eurocentric
philosophers thought it was “necessary” to supplant the African epistemology with
250 K. U. Abudu
the Western model is not farfetched as it was part of the Enlightenment legacies that
knowledge production must conform to universal and objective standards.
According to them, the African mind is a “tabula rasa” which needed the
Europeans to leave imprints in it. Thus, since Africans are not considered as humans,
any discourse on their indigenous epistemologies should be rejected.
Situating coloniality of knowledge within the context of African epistemological
discourse, there grew a disturbing epistemic injustice in terms of how Africans
acquire knowledge. This was made possible by the Eurocentric hegemony that any
condition which must be met in respect to knowledge acquisition must conform to
Western models of reductionism and objectivity. Consequently, thinkers such as
Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Walter Mignolo, Linda Martin Alcoff, and Charles Mills
argued that the universal condition put forward by radical Eurocentric philosophers
is an attempt to jettison indigenous epistemologies, especially that of Africans. As
Alcoff puts it: Modern European philosophy emerged from a context of epistemic
injustice toward non-European societies, and this injustice is perpetuated by legiti-
mating ideas about intellectual superiority of European – American philosophy
(Alcoff, 2017: 400). Ndlovu-Gatsheni corroborates Alcoff as he opines that:
Since the time of the European Renaissance and Enlightenment, agents of Euro-American
modernity and hegemony such as classical philosophers, adventures, missionaries, colonial-
ists, traders and anthropologists worked tirelessly to make their knowledge the only truthful
and universal knowledge, ceaselessly spreading it through Christianity and other means
across the world, in the process appropriating and displacing existing African knowledges.
Western knowledge and imperial power worked together to inscribe coloniality across the
African continent and other parts of the non-Western world. This way, Western domination
and Eurocentrism assumed universality. (2003: 33)
With the obvious trajectories as expounded by Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Martin-

Alcoff, it is important to state, by way of retrospect, that the Age of Enlightenment
gave rise to coloniality of knowledge, and by implication, the African epistemology
was relegated to the background. This makes tenable the argument that epistemic
injustice and epistemology of ignorance are some of the key themes in African
epistemology. Thus, our next point of discourse will be to attempt an exposition of
epistemic injustice and epistemology of ignorance in the African epistemological
context. This becomes necessary as there is ample evidence that the Eurocentric
misconception of African epistemology is a form of injustice, not in a political sense,
but in an epistemological sense. Also, epistemology of ignorance will set the tune in
examining the roles of ignorance in the injustice that is being meted out on Africans
from an epistemological perspective.
Epistemic Injustice
Epistemic injustice is a term which combines three branches of philosophy: episte-

mology, ethics, and political philosophy, and “to consider how epistemic practices
and institutions may be deployed and structured in ways that are simultaneously
infelicitous toward certain epistemic values (such as truth, aptness, and understand-
ing) and unjust with regard to particular knowers” (Gaile Pohlhaus, 2017: 13). In
other words, since justice is an important concept in political philosophy, the concept
of epistemic injustice suggests a distributive unfairness in terms of epistemic goods
such as truth, knowledge, information, and education.
Testimonial Injustice
In Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, Miranda Fricker states that
epistemic injustice is a kind of injustice that is done to an individual or individuals as
regard their “capacity as knowers.” The testimonial type of injustice has to do with
the bias against a speaker’s credibility on the basis of his gender, race, or identity.
Here, the credibility of the individual as the knower is often examined from a
prejudicial point of view. Fricker describes testimonial injustice by stating that:
testimonial injustice occurs when prejudice causes a hearer to give a deflated level
of credibility to a speaker’s word” (2007: 1).
Before delving proper into what testimonial injustice entails, it is important to ask
this question: how is an injustice said to be epistemic? The answer to this question
can be examined from three perspectives. First, an injustice becomes epistemic when
a wrong is done to an individual on the basis of his capacity as a knower. This can
happen by suppressing the knower’s testimony. Second, they impede responsible
and effective inquiry, stultify critical thought/reasoning, and, as a result, distort
shared meanings/understandings, all of which are integral to the appropriate and
inclusively attuned recognition and stress-testing of knowledge claims at the heart of
knowledge acquisition, production, and sharing” (Gerry, 2020: 697). In the third
perspective, the harm that is done to the individual or individuals is often perpetuated
through some damaging epistemic practices which manifest in both institutional and
structural level. Evident, for instance, in fields such as history, philosophy, educa-
tion, there are evidences that a particular intellectual tradition is ignored or
discredited. It is important to note that epistemic injustice may sometime be subtle
and take time to manifest even within homogenous groups.
As stated earlier, testimonial injustice occurs when an individual’s credibility is
suppressed as a potential knower. While this is the case, it is important to note that
discrediting the individual’s capacity to know is not directly proportionate to his
testimony. In other words, the bias against the individual’s capacity to know may be
simply based on the individual’s point of clarification, opinion, question, critique,
and relevant responsibility. This leads to an epistemic vice which is based on a
prejudgment of an individual on the basis of his race, gender, ethnicity, and other
manifestations of difference; according to Fricker, this prejudgment “displays some
(typically, epistemically culpable) resistance to counter-evidence, owing to some
affective investment on the part of the subject” (Fricker, 2007: 35). This implies that
the stereotyped conception of the speaker by the hearer is a type of close-mindedness
which occurs in the speaker’s inability to grant credibility to the hearer.
252 K. U. Abudu
In Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, Fricker gives an

example of how testimonial injustice manifests in racial prejudice. Fricker cites a
case of rape in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Fricker’s example points to a
black man named Tom Robinson who has been accused of raping a white girl
Mayella Ewell, “whose family’s rundown house he passes every day on his way to
work, situated as it is on the outskirts of town in the borderlands that divide where
whites and blacks live” (Fricker, 2007: 23). According to Fricker, Tom Robinson is
innocent of the crime, as all evidence alludes to this fact. However, by virtue of Tom
Robinson being a black man, the jury which consists of all whites, stuck to their
prejudicial conception of . . . blacks as people who are incapable of making mean-
ingful inputs in epistemic issues. Consequent upon this, Tom Robinson’s credibility
is at stake here. It turns out to be that the utterances of Tom Robinson were discarded
and he was found guilty. According to Fricker:
When they do deliver the guilty verdict, this attests to their failure in their duty to make the
proper testimonial judgement, in the light of the evidence. They fail, as Atticus Finch feared,
precisely in their duty to believe Tom Robinson. Given the evidence put before them, their
immovably prejudiced social perception of Robinson as a speaker leads at once to a gross
epistemic failure and an appalling ethical failure of grave practical consequence. (2007: 26)
Testimonial injustice, according to Fricker, can also be systemic, and an example

of a systemic testimonial injustice is the case of Tom Robinson. Systemic testimonial
injustice manifests not by “prejudice simpliciter,” but by those biases that relay the
subject’s social activities which can come in form of his racial, economical, political,
professional, and religious background.
According to Fricker, the central case of testimonial injustice is identity-prejudi-
cial credibility deficit, and this comes to play if and only if there is a credibility deficit
owing to the identity construct of the hearer. Put differently, the central case of
testimonial injustice manifests on the basis of the hearer’s prejudicial conception of
the speaker. By this prejudicial conception of the speaker, “different injustices”
abound. However, Fricker points out that in credibility deficit, what is of importance
is the suppression of individual’s capacity as a knower. In the words of Fricker:
In cases of credibility deficit, the injustice we are aiming to track down is not to be
characterized as non-receipt of one’s fair share of a good (credibility), as this would fail to
capture the distinctive respect in which the speaker is wronged. The idea is to explore
testimonial injustice as a distinctively epistemic injustice, as a kind of injustice in which
someone is wronged specifically in her capacity as a knower. (2007: 20)
When an individual becomes a victim of testimonial injustice, either from a racial,

sexual, professional, or religious perspective, “they are degraded qua knower, and
symbolically degraded qua human” (2007: 44). A modern-day example of this was
Sojourner Truth, an abolitionist and human rights activist, whom while speaking in
1851, employed a forceful condemnation of the subjugation of Black women, both
as women of color and as knowers, a view, based in part at the time, on mistaken
assumptions concerning their purported inferior cognitive ability and authority. In a
similar vein, Anna Julia Cooper, writing slightly later in 1892, highlighted the
suppression of Black women’s ideas through epistemic violence and interpretive
silencing (May, 2014: 97–98).
At this juncture, it is important to bring to fore, the harms that epistemic injustice
portends. While some harms of epistemic injustice manifest immediately, some
manifest on the long run. There are also all-encompassing harms that spread via
the acceptance of experiences that are left unchallenged; for instance, racial and
gender discrimination experiences. Humans are, using Thomas Aquinas words, by
nature social animals, and by virtue of this fact, our knowledge claims are inextri-
cably linked to others. While this is the case, epistemologists have argued that the
harms of epistemic injustice are as follows:
When you are harmed in your capacity as a knower, you are not treated as fully human. Not
being taken seriously, at its core a form of dehumanization, damages you, not only in your
standing as a knower but also as a human being. Not being listened to or believed eats away
at a person. It marginalizes them; it strips them of their agency; it forces them to incessantly
doubt themselves; to question their self-worth, to distrust the significance and evidential
weight of their lived experience; to doubt the worthiness of their own beliefs or claims to
knowledge. This can lead to the suppression of one’s voice, interpretative capacities, and
correspondingly, one’s standing within collective meaning-making and meaning-sharing
social practices. Testimonial injustice obstructs the optimal circulation and flow of knowl-
edge. It blocks the open-minded, curiosity-driven giving and asking for reasons at the center
of any worthwhile rational inquiry. Equally, it impedes the flow of evidence, doubts, fresh
ideas, the epistemic friction of discordant reasons, and any other epistemic inputs conducive
to knowledge. (Gerry, 2020)
Differently construed, “where the speaker knows that p and the prejudice oper-
ative in the hearer’s credibility judgment prevents her learning that p from the
speaker, other things equal, she thereby stays ignorant of p” (Fricker, 2016: 162).
It is also important to consider two key points here. First is that the harms
associated with testimonial injustice are based on a social cognition of what it
takes to be a knower. The implication of this is that for one to be recognized as the
source of knowledge is important as much as one’s justified true belief. Second,
testimonial injustice is a deliberate act. Though, it is sometimes regarded as an
“essentially contested concept,” it is difficult not to point to any victim in the process
of committing the injustice. In other words, it is not a victimless crime. Third,
the moral blameworthiness of epistemic injustice should be determined not only
by the wrong cases at hand, nor the epistemic arrogance of the hearer, but also the
suppressing, unethical disposition to others on the basis of their capacities as
knowers.
Hermeneutical Injustice
According to Jose Medina, “Miranda Fricker gave explicit formulation to a phe-

nomenon that oppressed subjects had been experiencing and calling attention to for
a long time: the expressive and interpretative side of their oppression, that is,
254 K. U. Abudu
hermeneutical injustice” (2017: 42). Hermeneutical injustice occurs when individual

or group of individuals find it difficult to express their feelings, or find it difficult to
put their experience(s) into words as situated knowers due to a gap in the conceptual
linguistic framework at that particular point in time. To Fricker, hermeneutical
injustice occurs “when a gap in collective interpretive resources puts someone at
an unfair advantage when it comes to making sense of their social experience”
(2007: 1).
The word “hermeneutical” is derived from the Greek word hermes which is
translated as “interpreter” which is applicable as “interpretation.” It is important to
consider a concrete example of hermeneutical injustice. From a historical under-
standing, the use of the word “racism” is seen as recent, but it became widespread
during the 1930s when it denotes in Western world, an ideology of the Nazis which
sees race as an innate political constituent. Now, let us imagine the year before the
1930s before the term was introduced. Consider a black individual who had expe-
rienced discrimination on the basis of his race. It may be difficult for him to put his
experiences into words. By this act, he is ontologically excluded from full partici-
pation in the molding of English language.
The difference between testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice is that
while testimonial injustice places emphasis on subjugating the speaker’s credibility
by the hearer, hermeneutical injustice has to do with injustice that is collectively
oriented. The problem of hermeneutical injustice can be corrected by a persistent and
empirically informed conceptual endeavor. The #BlackLivesMatter movement
comes to mind here. On the level of an individual, hermeneutical injustice manifests
when the social experiences of the individual are unclear. In hermeneutical injustice,
one cannot overemphasize the importance of social power. It has been argued that
the social power a group of individuals possess can bring about epistemic margin-
alization. In furtherance to this, social power has an epistemological implication, and
this is poignantly pointed out by Fricker as follows:
One way of taking the epistemological suggestion that social power has an unfair impact on
collective forms of social understanding is to think of our shared understandings as reflecting
the perspectives of different social groups, and to entertain the idea that relations of unequal
power can skew shared hermeneutical resources so that the powerful tend to have appropri-
ate understandings of their experiences ready to draw on as they make sense of their social
experiences, whereas the powerless are more likely to find themselves having some social
experiences through a glass darkly, with at best ill-fitting meanings to draw on in the effort to
render them intelligible. (2007: 148)
Evidently, if we take a cursory look at Black movements, especially in America,

we will find out that the manner in which consciousness is being raised is a
byproduct of the Black experience being unclear, or sometimes unspeakable. On
the contrary, however, if the Black experience has the requisite resources of social
meaning, no doubt that there will be clarity, communicative facility and cognitive
confidence when it comes to expressing Black experience. This implies that no
matter a group of individuals try, their experiences cannot be understood. Conse-
quent upon this, Fricker asserts that: “hermeneutical lacunas are like holes in the
ozone layer – it’s the people who live under them that get burned” (2007: 161).
Consequently, hermeneutical injustice is not just mere discrimination, but a struc-
tural one at that.
Hermeneutical injustice has a diagnostic process and it can be seen in an instance
“when we recognize that a phenomenon or experience is not talked about or is poorly
understood in a culture, and we think that a group of people is unfairly disadvantaged
as a result, and we label it a hermeneutical injustice” (Medina, 2017: 43). This
diagnostic process can be further understood by asking some pertinent questions:
“exactly by whom and in what way is the phenomenon or experience poorly
expressed/understood?, in what contexts and for what purpose?, what are the
dynamics that contribute to halt any expressive and interpretive progress in
this area?” (Medina, 2017: 43). These questions as posed are capable of gauging
the seemingly intractable issues that reflect in shared and collective responsibilities
as they relate to hermeneutical injustice.
According to Fricker, the primary harm of hermeneutical injustice is “situated
hermeneutical inequality.” This manifests in a situation whereby a “subject is rendered
unable to make communicatively intelligible something which it is particularly in his or
her interests to be able to render intelligible” (2007: 162). This also explains the
inextricability of testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice. While testimonial
injustice means the exclusion of the speaker’s credibility and capacity to know by the
hearer, hermeneutical injustice suggests the prejudicial and social exclusion from the
pool of knowledge in respect to the collective hermeneutical resources. However, “the
wrongs involved in the two sorts of epistemic injustice, then, have a common epistemic
significance running through them – prejudicial exclusion from participation in the
spread of knowledge” (Fricker, 2007: 162). It is important to state here that hermeneu-
tical injustice could be damaging to the extent that it might lead to “hermeneutical
death.” Hermeneutical death occurs when individuals are prevented from lending a
voice, that is, they are stopped from partaking in meaning-making activities. Thus,
hermeneutical injustice is not only destructive on a social level, but it can also lead to an
annihilation of the self. This is why it has been argued that hermeneutical injustice has
an element of willful hermeneutical ignorance, and this can be seen in how the whites
perpetuate racism against non-whites. This racial profiling is geared towards making
the conceptual resources that ought to be used in describing their experiences of
non-white individuals unavailable. Medina gives a befitting example of willful herme-
neutical ignorance by stating that: “think, for example, of white subjects living under
conditions of poverty and being seduced by white ignorance to understand their
situation as resulting from illegal immigration or from non-whites abusing a welfare
system” (2017: 44).
Hermeneutical injustice has two perspectives to understanding it: the semantic
perspective and performative perspective. The former has to do with cases in which
harm is done to an individual on the basis that “a lacuna where the name of a
distinctive social experience should be” (2007: 150–151). The example Fricker
examines is the hindrance that Women’s Movement encountered in the attempt to
address the issues of sexual intimidation. According to Fricker, women activists found
themselves in situations where they had to organize “speak out” rallies to protest
256 K. U. Abudu
sexual harassment. Thus, semantically induced hermeneutical injustice occurs when

words and concepts are not permitted to be used in expressing certain things.
The latter (performative hermeneutical injustice) occurs when harm is done to an
individual on the basis of certain identity traits exhibited. For instance, the individ-
ual’s accent and communicative style; this trait may be perceived to be having
defective intelligibility as the speaker’s utterances may be adjudged not to make
sense in certain areas of experience. This why Fricker states that: “a hermeneutical
gap might equally concern not (or not only) the content but rather the form of what
can be said” (2007: 160).
The debate regarding testimonial and hermeneutical injustice will go on for years
to come, especially as it relates to understand, diagnose, and analyze the concept.
While this will be the case, it is important to point out that how to combat, prevent,
and repair the damages incurred by hermeneutical injustices will be more important
than the attempt to analyze and understand it.
Epistemic Injustice and the Prejudicial Marginalization

of the African Knower
My attempt here is to examine the implications of testimonial and hermeneutical

injustice for the African knower. Put differently, what is the moral and epistemic
wrong that has been done to an African on the basis of his capacity to know or as a
conveyor of knowledge? From my analysis of Fricker’s testimonial and hermeneu-
tical injustice, it is obvious that epistemic injustice has implications for the African
knower. At the individual’s (testimonial) level, an African is considered irrational
and an individual who does not have the capacity to know. At the social (herme-
neutical) level, epistemic injustice reflects in how the African experience, especially
the racial and Eurocentric description of Africa lack hermeneutical resources. Thus,
epistemic injustice does not only produce Africans as “sub-knowers,” there is always
a potential prejudice and epistemic dysfunction towards Africans. Thus, to Fricker,
the central idea is rather that bias of any form will surreptitiously likely inflate or
deflate the credibility afforded the speaker, and sometimes this will be sufficient to
cross the threshold for belief or acceptance so that the hearer’s prejudice causes him
to miss out on a piece of knowledge (2007: 17). Fricker’s submission is important in
understanding the damage that has been done to the African knower, such that there
is a meditate effort by some radical Eurocentric thinkers to produce and sustain the
knowledge system that excludes Africans from the credibility of knowledge produc-
tion. In other words, the capacity of an African knower is discarded, and he is placed
in a position that is unfair and unadvantageous. This makes it difficult for him to
supply consistent instruction about his experiences. Epistemic injustice suggests an
epistemological framework that has implication for the African knower within the
context of knowledge production and acquisition. Knowledge is often regarded to as
an “epistemic good,” and by this, it is important that the principle of justice should be
one of the guiding principles which influence the distribution of knowledge just as it
is being done with other goods. Reverse has been the case with how knowledge is to
be distributed, especially as with the advent of epistemic injustice. Here, the radical
Eurocentric thinkers during the Age of Enlightenment have claimed that “what
counts as knowledge and who is recognized as a knower” (Wylie, 2011: 233) is
determined by their respective theories of knowledge and justification. Epistemic
injustice is further perpetuated against not only the African knower, but also his body
of knowledge known as African epistemology. The implication of epistemic injus-
tice for African epistemology is captured by James O. Ogone:
Epistemic injustice is often associated with cultural forms of oppression such as imperialism
which breeds disparities, leading to unfair power-relations in societies. Within the post-
colonial power-structure, for instance, African of knowledge usually finds itself in a subal-
tern position due to the silencing power of global culture. Since the very essence of
knowledge is “based on acknowledgement”, failure to recognize African epistemologies in
mainstream scholarship amounts to denying the people the opportunity to “know and be
known.” (2017: 18)
In the same vein, Fricker asserts that epistemic injustice portrays a kind of denial of
humanity to individuals. This comes to play in how the radical Eurocentric thinkers
have conceived Africans as those who are not capable of rationality. In fact, Africans
have been stereotyped prejudicially to the extent that their social identity is often
judged as lacking credibility. With epistemic injustice, Africans are by implication
seen as people who are low in reasoning. This explains the reason why Lucien Levy-
Bruhl describes Africans as pre-logical people who ascribe causality to supernatural
causes. Fricker poignantly states that the undermining of someone as a knower is,
conceptually and historically, closely related to their being undermined as a practical
reasoner. The two sorts of insult to their humanity are importantly distinct, however,
relating as they do to two different functions of rationality, and it seems to me that
moral philosophy should concern itself with both (Fricker, 2007: 137).
In the aspect of hermeneutical injustice, one will not be surprised that African voices
have been suppressed. This leads to epistemic oppression which excludes and hinders
one’s contribution to knowledge production (Dotson, 2014). At the highest level, it can
further lead to “epistemic death,” which can annihilate the African self, and by
implication, humanity is not granted to Africans. Fricker argues that: The capacity to
give knowledge to others is one side of the many-sided capacity so significant in human
beings: namely, the capacity for reason . . . No wonder . . . that in contexts of oppression
the powerful will be sure to undermine the powerless in just that capacity, for it provides
a direct route to undermining them in their very humanity (2007: 44). In all, both
testimonial and hermeneutical injustice puts the African knower in a position that
makes it impossible for him to make meaningful contributions to knowledge produc-
tion. Here, it is assumed that an African cannot know and cannot be known.
Epistemology of Ignorance and the Altering of African Epistemic

Traditions
Traditionally, epistemology concerns itself with how we acquire, justify, and validate
our knowledge claims. With this, one would expect that one of the traditional tasks
of epistemology is to eliminate ignorance totally from humans’ attempts to acquire
258 K. U. Abudu
knowledge. This is because ignorance is often construed as a concept which con-

notes something negative. However, some thinkers have argued that ignorance is
“not necessarily evil.” In the words of Robert N. Proctor:
Ignorance in this sense of a primitive or native state is something to be fought or overcome;

we hope and plan for it to disappear over time, as knowledge triumphs over foolish
superstition. Ignorance is not necessarily evil – it can be innocent (as knowledge can be
sin). But it seems to be something we are all supposed to want to grow out of, to put behind
us, in the process of generating (or acquiring) knowledge. (2008: 11)
According to Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana: “given that epistemology is

the study of how one knows and ignorance is a condition of not knowing, episte-
mology would seem to have nothing to do with ignorance” (2007: 1). While Sullivan
and Tuana’s assertion is a point to note, it is important to state that the concept of
ignorance in epistemology has received attention from various thinkers, and by this,
it is often considered as an “epistemic oversight.” Granted that ignorance is seen as
an “epistemic oversight,” what then is epistemology of ignorance? This question is
worth conceptualizing as both epistemology and ignorance are diametrically
opposed to each other. Epistemology of ignorance is defined as the attempt to
examine the roles ignorance plays in knowledge practices.
In the discourse of epistemology of ignorance, two works are regarded as the
most influential, and they are Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana’s Race and
Epistemologies of Ignorance (2007), and Robert N. Proctor and Londa Schiebinger’s
Agnotology: The Making and the Unmaking of Ignorance (2008). However, it is
important to mention Charles Mills’ The Racial Contract, as it is regarded as the
groundbreaking work on epistemology of ignorance.
Linda Martin Alcoff in Epistemologies of Ignorance: Three Types further
explains the epistemology of ignorance by stating that the idea of an epistemology
of ignorance attempts to explain and account for the fact that such substantive
practices of ignorance – willful ignorance, for example, and socially acceptable
but faulty justificatory practices – are structural. This is to say that there are identities
and social locations and modes of belief formation, all produced by structural social
conditions of a variety of sorts, that are in some cases epistemically disadvantaged or
defective (Alcoff, 2007).
To understand our interest in this paper, especially how epistemology of igno-
rance is one of the key themes in African epistemology, it is important to outline the
types of epistemologies of ignorance given by Alcoff. According to Alcoff:
The first is derived from the situatedness of knowers, the second type builds upon the
insights of standpoint epistemology, and the third type of epistemology of ignorance is a
systemic type, according to which knowing(s) and unknowing(s) serve to differentiate the
powerful from the powerless in relation to a specific area of knowledge. Although this third
type overlaps with the previous two types of epistemologies of ignorance, in this case it is
maintained (either actively or passively, or both in concert) by the structures and institutions
of society for a specific reason, which will in turn vary according to the purposes determined
by a society and the dominant and subordinate groups that inhabit it.
The third type of epistemology of ignorance as enunciated by Alcoff forms the

bulk of our discourse in this heading. Since the third type of epistemology of
ignorance has to do with a systemic type, and or willful ignorance in the context
of power relations between Africans and Westerners, it therefore provides us with a
kind of structural and systemic ignorance which helps in perpetuating a stereotypic
representation of individuals in a particular system. This buttresses our earlier
argument that ignorance may not connote something negative in the epistemic
sense, depending on what an individual decides to use it for. This is what Charles
Mills in The Racial Contract does by explaining the willful ignorance behind the
racial conception of blacks by the Europeans which was fashionable among thinkers
such as Voltaire, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, and so on. This is
fashionable till date as radical Europeans still view Africans and people of other
races with uttermost disdain. Charles Mills expresses this position as he states that:
Thus, in effect, on matters related to race, the Racial Contract prescribes for its signatories an
inverted epistemology, an epistemology of ignorance, a particular pattern of localized and
global cognitive dysfunctions (which are psychologically and socially /functional), produc-
ing the ironic outcome that whites will in general be unable to understand the world they
themselves have made. . . [Europeans] thereby emerge as “the lords of human kind,” the
“lords of all the world” with the increasing power to determine the standing of the
non-Europeans who are their subjects. Although no single act literally corresponds to the
drawing up and signing of a contract, there is a series of acts – papal bulls and other
theological pronouncements, European discussions about colonialism, “discovery” and
international law; pacts, treaties, and legal decisions; academic and popular debates about
the humanity of non-whites, etc. (1997: 18–20)
Evidently, the excerpt by Mills does not only suggest the role of willful ignorance
in the radical Europeans’ proclaiming their race as superior, and other races inferior,
but also by implication, the epistemologies of these non-Europeans are also consid-
ered as substandard compared to what is obtainable in the Western world.
From the brief conceptual analysis of epistemology of ignorance, it is important
to examine the implications it has for the African epistemic traditions. It is important
to ask: what role does deliberate, willful, and systematic ignorance plays in the
altering of African epistemic traditions? Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana, while
commenting on ignorance being used as a tool by an oppressor, say thus:
But ignorance is not only a tool of oppression wielded by the powerful. It also can be a
strategy for the survival of the victimized and oppressed, as in the case of black slaves’
feigned ignorance of many details of their white masters’ lives. This survival strategy also
can take the form of the oppressed combating their oppression by unlearning the oppressor’s
knowledge, which has been both passively absorbed and actively forced upon them. . . .
(Sullivan & Tuana, 2007: 2)
In the discourse of epistemology as we have today, credence is often given to

epistemology or theories of knowledge that are Western oriented, without recourse to
African or other indigenous epistemologies. One of the reasons for this idea of
raising the bars of Western epistemology as it reflects in the Cartesian-Lockean-
260 K. U. Abudu
Kantian traditions is no doubt, willful and systematic ignorance. Knowledge as

known is a universal enterprise, but its production and application are relative.
This means that knowledge acquisition is based primarily on what a particular
culture allows. However, with further recourse to willful and systematic ignorance,
the African epistemic traditions are being undermined. Willful and systemic igno-
rance tend to promote a kind of epistemic totalitarianism which sees the Eurocentric
theories of knowledge as above African epistemic traditions. Walter Mignolo cap-
tures this position as he states unequivocally that the question of the totality of
knowledge therefore shows the double face of modernity/coloniality:
(a) consolidation of Eurocentrism as a system of interconnected knowledges (e.g.,
the epistemic domains of CMP: theology, philosophy, science, politics, economics,
culture); (b) the dismissal and disavowal of principles of knowing and created
knowledge in non-European languages and non-European system of belief (2018:
194). With modernity and Eurocentrism, there is an epistemic authoritarianism
which is perpetuated via willful ignorance in the attempt to radically subjugate
non-European (African) epistemic practices. No doubt that one of the profound
theories of knowledge during the modern period was Descartes foundationalism, a
theory of knowledge which attempted to challenge the problem of skepticism in
traditional epistemology. Cartesian epistemology became the court by which other
forms of knowledge were judged, making it a universal theory which cuts across
time and space. This goes for other classical theories of knowledge as fashionable
during the modern period of philosophy.
One concept that comes to play in epistemology of ignorance is the idea of power;
it is power that promotes the ethnocentricity in white ignorance which has made the
radical Eurocentric thinkers argued at various point in time that Western epistemol-
ogy which thrive on science and objectivity is superior to African epistemic tradi-
tions. Ignorance, therefore, is a tool in describing African epistemic traditions as
inferior. Michel Foucault captures a knowledge that is subjugated as follows: . . . “A
whole set of knowledges that have been disqualified as inadequate to their task or
insufficiently elaborated: naive knowledges located low down on the hierarchy,
beneath the required level of cognition or scientificity” (1972: 81–82). It is instruc-
tive to note that there is, in furtherance to Foucault’s idea of subjugated knowledge,
an epistemic violence against the African epistemic traditions which is being per-
petuated by deliberate, willful, and systemic ignorance. Epistemic violence, in the
words of Khatun, has to do with “how power and desire appropriate and condition
the production of knowledge” (Khatun, 1999: 4). Therefore, we cannot rule out
deliberate and systemic ignorance in the efforts made by radical Eurocentric thinkers
to represent African epistemic tradition when compared to that of the West. In
epistemology today, there are varying descriptions of African epistemic tradition
as that which has already been altered and this is being maintained overtime. The
implication of this is that epistemology, especially the traditional one, has been
structured in a way which excludes African epistemic traditions beyond restitution.
This explains why Alcoff argues that “ignorance is a problem relating not just to
justificatory practices, but also to ontologies of truth” (2007: 40). In this sense, the
primary role ignorance plays in the altering of African epistemic traditions is to
showcase the erroneous idea that some people (the whites) are at a vantage point to
know, and their epistemologies are considered authentic; while some people (Afri-
cans) are either marginalized to know or their epistemic traditions are considered
inauthentic and inferior.
Overcoming Epistemic Injustice and Epistemology of Ignorance
How can epistemic injustice and epistemology of ignorance be overcome in African

context? No doubt, both epistemic practices portend a negative signal for knowledge
production and acquisition, especially as they promote an epistemic exclusivism
which sees the African knower and African epistemic traditions as illegitimate. My
aim here is to argue that epistemic injustice and epistemology of ignorance are not
only vices in epistemology that can be overcome, but that both can also be overcome
by what Jose Medina calls “epistemology of resistance.” According to Medina “the
epistemology of resistance I will develop has both an analytic and a normative side:
it tries to elucidate the epistemic aspects of oppression, but it also tries to offer a way
out of the epistemic injustices that accompany oppression” (2013: 3). Thus, Episte-
mology of resistance seeks correct the anomalies of epistemic injustice as meted on
the African knower and the bad epistemic practices that are being perpetuated by
willful, deliberate, and systemic ignorance against African epistemic traditions.
Broadly speaking, most Africans are oblivious of the epistemic exclusivism
inherent in epistemology as a branch of philosophy. Evident, for instance, is the
monolithic idea which is obvious in teaching the course, where an African student in
higher institution is often taught, at the introductory level, Eurocentric theories of
knowledge and justification without recourse to what knowledge acquisition and
justification entail in an African context. This is where the epistemology of resis-
tance comes handy; it will be used in denouncing all forms of epistemic oppression.
Thus, by epistemology of resistance, Medina means “the use of our epistemic
resources and abilities to undermine and change oppressive normative structures
and the complacent cognitive-affective functioning that sustains those structures”
(Medina 2013: 3). Since epistemology of resistance requires us to use our epistemic
resources in combating all forms of tyranny and exclusion from epistemological
framework, it is important to state the ways in which an African knower can restore
not only his dignity and heritage, but also his epistemic traditions which has been
bastardized by the Western ethnocentric view that African epistemology is an
illegitimate filed of inquiry.
Epistemology of resistance will bring to fore, a kind of deconstruction which will
aid African epistemologists in first, exposing the tyranny that characterizes the
Eurocentric tradition in knowledge production, and then contend that knowledge
acquisition cannot be discussed in isolation of social practice. The implication of this
is that there are some factors that are to be considered in the attempt to acquire
knowledge; for instance, language, human nature, custom and tradition, and social
habits. This argument is buttressed by Pompa as follows: knowledge begins with the
ability to justify and since language is public and inter-subjective, all “given”
262 K. U. Abudu
elements which purportedly ground knowledge are simply parts of our over-all
social practice (Pompa, 1981: 364). In the words of D.N. Kaphagawani and
J.G. Melherbe, “the way in which epistemic rationality and its related concepts are
instantiated, ‘filled out’ as it were, the concrete content that they are given in terms of
linguistic descriptions and social customs, varies a great deal from one cultural
context to another” (1998: 207). Since knowledge production as explained by
Pompa, Kaphagawani, and Melherbe cannot be understood in isolation of social
contexts, it therefore means that African epistemologists must strive at all time to
resist the enthronement of Western models of knowledge over that of the Africans.
Epistemology of resistance here can therefore be instrumental in the attempt to
jettison the epistemic injustice and epistemic inferiority being meted on an African
as a potential knower and his epistemic traditions. In this sense, there will be what
Foucault calls “the insurrection of knowledge” (2003: 9) which will encourage
Africans to challenge the normalized and totalized features that surround knowledge
production. This does not mean that the scientific, individualistic, and objective
enterprises that are peculiar to Eurocentric models should be totally rejected out-
rightly, but that it is important to always resist any knowledge production that does
not take into cognizance, African factors. Foucault states further that the method of
genealogy can be used to further entrench epistemic resistance. This method, says
Foucault, will “attempt to desubjugate historical knowledges, to set them free, or in
other words to enable them to oppose and struggle against the coercion of a unitary,
formal, and scientific theoretical discourse” (2003: 10). Medina agreed with Fou-
cault on the instrumental value in combating epistemic injustice and epistemology of
ignorance. According to Medina: “the critical goal of genealogy is to energize a
vibrant and feisty epistemic pluralism so that insurrectionary struggles among
competing power/knowledge frameworks are always underway and contestation
always alive” (2011: 12). The implication of Medina’s assertion is that there will
be an epistemological orientation which will stand in contrast to the Eurocentric
models. This is because we cannot overstate the argument that emphasis on the
superiority of Western models above non-Western models in knowledge production
often leads to epistemic injustice that is being perpetuated by ignorance. In further-
ance to this, with epistemology of resistance, credence will be given to postcolonial
and indigenous perspectives in knowledge production, with reference to the African
epistemic traditions. Thus, the overall aim of epistemic resistance is to critique and
contest the oppressive ways in which the Western hegemonic knowledge subjugates
people that have been racialized and oppressed in a way that their epistemic
traditions are considered inferior.
Conclusion
The thrust of this chapter has been to attempt an exposition of two key themes in
African epistemology: the theme of epistemic injustice and epistemology of igno-
rance. The chapter was emphatic on the argument that epistemic injustice and
epistemology of ignorance are epiphenomenal of the attempt by the Enlightenment
thinkers to streamline the methods of knowledge acquisition with emphasis on some

universal, fundamental, and objective conditions which will cut across cultures of
the world. Aside Eurocentrism that became popular during the Age of Enlighten-
ment, there grew an epistemological tyranny which sees the Western models as
superior to African models. The implication of this is the injustice that is done to the
African knower on the basis of his capacity to know, and also, the instrumental value
of ignorance in altering the epistemic traditions of Africans. While this anomaly
continues, the chapter was able to domesticate that epistemic resistance as seen in the
works of Jose Medina and Michel Foucault, has prospects in resisting Western
hegemony in knowledge production, and by implication, is capable of validating
the African epistemic views. This is the direct consequence of African epistemology
as fashionable in academic discourse today. Regarding how Africans come to know,
for instance, Ruch and Anyanwu write that knowledge, therefore, comes from the
co-operation of all human faculties and experiences. “[The African] sees, feels,
imagines, reasons, or thinks and intuits all at the same time. Only through this
method does he claim to have the knowledge of the other. So, the method through
which the African arrives at trustworthy knowledge of reality . . . is intuitive and
personal experience” (1984: 94).
With the position of Ruch and Anyanwu, it behooves on African philosophers,
especially those within the epistemological traditions, to as a matter of importance,
keep on ensuring that the African knower is not considered as sub-knower and the
African epistemic traditions should avoid being altered. This means that the authen-
ticity of African epistemology has roles to play in the attempt to undermine it.
References
Alcoff, L. M. (2007). Epistemologies of ignorance: Three types. In S. Sullivan & T. Nancy (Eds.),
Race and epistemologies of ignorance. State University of New York Press.
Alcoff, L. M. (2017). Philosophy and philosophical practice: Eurocentrism as an epistemology of
ignorance. In I. J. Kidd, J. Medina, & G. Pohlhaus Jr. (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of
epistemic injustice. Routledge.
Dotson, K. (2014). Conceptualizing epistemic oppression. Social Epistemology, 28(2), 115–138.
Foucault, M. (1972). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, C. Gordon (Ed.),
C. Gordon, et al. (Trans.). Pantheon Books.
Foucault, M. (2003). Society must be defended: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–1976
(D. Macey, Trans.). Picador Press.
Freter, B. (2018). White supremacy in Eurocentric epistemology: On the west responsibility for its
philosophical heritage. Synthesis Philosophica, 65(1), 237–249.
Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing. Oxford University Press.
Fricker, M. (2016). Epistemic injustice and the preservation of ignorance. In R. Peels & M. Blaauw
(Eds.), The epistemic dimensions of ignorance (pp. 160–177). Cambridge University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1017/9780511820076.010
Gerry, D. (2020). Epistemic injustice in education. In M. A. Peters (Ed.), Encyclopaedia of
educational philosophy and theory (pp. 1–7). Singapore: Springer Nature.
Ho, A. (2014). Epistemic injustice. In B. Jennings (Ed.), Encyclopedia of bioethics (4th ed.).
Wadsworth Publishing.
264 K. U. Abudu
Kant, I. (1996). An answer to the question: What is enlightenment? In J. Schmidt (Ed.), What is
enlightenment? Eighteenth-century answers and twentieth-century questions. University of
California Press.
Kaphagawani, D. N., & Malherbe, J. G. (1998). African epistemology. In P. H. Coetzee &
A. P. J. Roux (Eds.), The African philosophy reader (p. 1998). Routledge.
Khatun, S. (1999). A site of subaltern articulation: The ecstatic female body in the contemporary
Bangladeshi novels of Taslima Nasrin. Genders, 30. Retrieved from http://www.genders.org/
g30/g30_khatun.html
Mawere, M. (2011). Epistemological and moral implications of characterization in African litera-
ture: A Critique of Patrick Chakaipa’s ‘Rudo Ibofu’ (Love is Blind). Journal of English and
Literature, 2(1), 1–9.
May, V. M. (2014). “Speaking into the void?”: Intersectionality critiques and epistemic backlash.
Hypatia, 29, 94–112.
Medina, J. (2011). Toward a Foucaultian epistemology of resistance: Counter-memory, epistemic
friction, and guerrilla pluralism. Foucault Studies, 12(October), 9–35.
Medina, J. (2013). The epistemology of resistance: Gender and racial oppression, epistemic
injustice, and resistant imaginations. London: Oxford University Press.
Medina, J. (2017). Varieties of hermeneutical injustice. In I. J. Kidd, J. Medina, & G. Pohlhaus
Jr. (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of epistemic injustice. Routledge.
Mignolo, W. (2018). Eurocentrism and coloniality: The question of totality of knowledge. In
W. Mignolo & C. E. Walsh (Eds.), Decoloniality: Concepts, analytics and praxis. Duke
University Press.
Mills, C. (1997). The racial contract. Cornell University Press.
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2003). Empire, global coloniality, and African subjectivity. Berghahn.
Ogone, J. O. (2017). Epistemic injustice: African knowledge and scholarship in global context. In
A. Barteis et al. (Eds.), Postcolonial justice. Leiden.
Pohlhaus, G., Jr. (2017). Varieties of epistemic injustice. In I. J. Kidd, J. Medina, & G. Pohlhaus
Jr. (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of epistemic injustice. Routledge.
Pompa, L. (1981). Philosophy without epistemology. Inquiry, 24(3), 359–373.
Proctor, R. N. (2008). Agnotology: A missing term to describe the cultural production of ignorance
(and its study). In R. N. Proctor & L. Schiebinger (Eds.), Agnotology: The making and
unmaking of ignorance. Stanford University Press.
Roothan, A. (2019). Indigenous, modern and postcolonial relations to nature: Negotiating the
environment. Routledge.
Ruch, E. A., & Anyanwu, K. C. (1984). African philosophy: An introduction to the main philo-
sophical trends in contemporary Africa. Catholic Book Agency – Offi ciumLibri Catholicum.
Semali, L. M., & Kincheloe, J. L. (1999). What is indigenous knowledge and why do we study it? In
L. M. Semali & J. L. Kincheloe (Eds.), What is indigenous knowledge? Voices from the
academy. Routledge.
Steup, M., & Neta, R. (2005). Epistemology. In E.N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of
philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/epistemology/. Accessed 1 Jul 2020.
Sullivan, S., & Tuana, N. (2007). Race and the epistemologies of ignorance. State University of
New York Press, Albany.
Tung-Yi, K. (2009). Eurocentridm, modernity and postcolonial predicament in East Asia. In R. K.
Kanth (Ed.), The challenge of Eurocentrism: Global perspectives policy and prospects
(pp. 121–146). London: Palgrave-Macmillan.
Wylie, A. (2011). Epistemic injustice, ignorance, and procedural objectivity – Editor’s introduction.
Hypatia, 26, 2.
Trivalent Logic, African Logic, and African
Metaphysics
Edwin Etieyibo
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
Bivalent and Trivalent Logics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Trivalence in Aymará, Janus, and Pierce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
Aymará Logical System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Janus Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Charles Sanders Peirce’s Trivalent Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
Trivalence in African Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
African Logic and African Metaphysics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Abstract
The claim that is examined in this chapter is that, as is bivalent logic, trivalent
logic occupies a place in the field of logic. A trivalent logic is a three-value logical
system, and a bivalent logic is a two-value logical system. As part of advancing
this claim, the chapter uses the examples of trivalent logic in Charles Sanders
Peirce’s thought, the trivalent logic of Janus, the Aymará trivalent logical system,
and African trivalent logic. Using the example of ancestorhood, where charac-
teristically an ancestor, as a living dead, is both a spiritual and physical entity or is
considered neither a spiritual nor physical being, the overarching view or thesis
that is defended and advanced is that African trivalent logic mirrors a trivalent
African metaphysics or ontology.
E. Etieyibo (*)
Department of Philosophy, School of Social Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand,
Johannesburg, South Africa
e-mail: edwin.etieyibo@wits.ac.za

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_19
266 E. Etieyibo
Keywords
African · Ancestor · Aymará · Bivalent · Charles Sanders Peirce · Janus · Logic ·
Trivalent
Introduction
African logic is an established and important branch of the African philosophical

canon. In the last decades or so, a number of significant works have been produced in
this burgeoning area of African philosophy. A snapshot of these works includes:
Sogolo (1993 and 2004), Eboh (1999), Momoh (2000), Ijiomah (2006), Fayemi
(2010), Etieyibo (2016, 2022a), Ogbonnaya (2018), Chimakonam (2019, 2020), and
Mabalane and Etieyibo (2020). Several of these works on African logic deal with
issues around the foundation of an African logical system in the area of truth values
(Ocaya, 2004; Chimakonam, 2019, 2020; and Etieyibo, 2022a).
Discussions of African logic vis-à-vis truth values or truth values and the
foundation of an African logical system are essential for the development of African
philosophical logic. This is because discussions of the nature of African philosoph-
ical logic implicate the language of multiple or plurality of values or valence (many
values, trivalence, etc.), which is a running theme or thread that a number of the
aforementioned authors take up. Of importance in these discussions is the notion of
an African trivalent logical system in contradistinction to a bivalent logical system.
So, for example, in the context of the Acholi language, Victor Ocaya has argued that
with regard to the law of excluded middle, the language vis-à-vis Acholi logic is one
of three values. There is similar train of thought in Jonathan Chimakonam’s Ezumezu
system of logic, which takes the logic as not only dynamic or flexible but also
trivalent.
The discussions of the nature and difference between a trivalent logic and a
bivalent logical system and associating African logic with the former effectively
ground African philosophy on a logical methodology that is, on the one hand,
distinct from “traditional” Western logical system or classical logic and, on the
other hand, similar to the trivalent logics of a number of some other thoughts, or
traditions, or cultural worldviews. It must be pointed out that although the task of
establishing the nature and substance of a trivalent logic is one that must not be taken
for granted, its feasibility is at least enhanced by the presence or possibility of many
values logic or fuzzy logic. To get a sense of some aspects of these sorts of logics in
relation to three-value logics and many-valued logical systems, see Mundici (1989),
Miller and Thornton (2008), Bergmann (2008), and Malinowski (2009).
This chapter will be exploring the nature of trivalent logic as found in a number of
logical thoughts and traditions, but with a focus on African logic. A trivalent logic is
a three-value logical system, and a bivalent logic is a two-value logical system. The
aim and motivation of this exploration is threefold. First, to show the nature of
trivalent logic, for which there are only two values and understands a proposition to
have only one truth value. Second, to examine how trivalent logic is expressed in a
Trivalent Logic, African Logic, and African Metaphysics 267
number of logical thoughts and traditions. Third, to highlight the sense in which
African (trivalent) logic relate to African (trivalent) metaphysics. Using the exam-
ples of the state of sleeping and that of ancestorhood, where characteristically an
ancestor is both a spiritual and physical entity or is considered neither a spiritual nor
physical being, this chapter defends the view that African trivalent logic mirrors a
trivalent African metaphysics or ontology. This discussion elucidates the idea of an
in-between (or third) value, which in the context of the presence or possibility of
different trivalent logical systems ought not to be difficult to understand and
embrace.
This is how the chapter will proceed. It begins by looking at trivalent logic in the
logical thought of Charles Sander Pierce, in Janus logic, and in Aymará and African
logical systems. Following this, the discussion moves to engaging with some reason
for thinking of African logic as trivalent and in the last section discusses the
relationship between an African trivalent logic and an African trivalent metaphysics
or particularly, the sense in which an African trivalent logical system piggybacks or
mirrors a trivalent African metaphysics.
Bivalent and Trivalent Logics
A bivalent logic is a binary logic. It is a logical system that takes a proposition or a

statement or a declarative sentence expressing a proposition to be true or false.
That is, a bivalent logic holds that a proposition only has exactly one truth value,
which is either true or false. In this sense, a bivalent logic is a two-valued logic. If
such a logic is constructed in terms of the traditional truth table, every cell or box
will either be T or F. By contrast, a trivalent logic is not a binary logic; rather, it is a
trinary logic (also called ternary or trilean logic). It is a logical system in which
there are three truth values. In trivalent logic, a proposition is not taken to have
exactly one truth value, which is either true or false; rather, a proposition is said to
indicate true, false, and some other third value (which could be indeterminate or
something else). If such a logic is constructed using something like a truth table,
we will have T or F or X representing every cell or box (where X represents a third
truth value).
Classical sentential or Boolean logic (named after the logician George Boole) are
paradigmatic examples of bivalent logics because they provide only for true and
false values. We find a good example of how this sort of logic is stated in the three
classical principles or laws of thought: the law of identity, the law of non-
contradiction, and the law of excluded middle. The laws of thought although are
understood to have originated or associated with Aristotle (or his systematic formu-
lation of them) have, as the history of philosophy and logic has shown, undergone
different formulations and clarification. In the main, the principles are said to be the
basic axiomatic rules upon which some form of rational discourse is grounded.
These laws will now be briefly discussed.
The law of identity states that each thing or something (if it is a thing) is identical
with itself or that A is A. Metaphysically or ontologically, what this principle says is
268 E. Etieyibo
that everything that exists has a specific nature or simply that every entity that exists
does exists as something in particular or that it has certain characteristics that are part
of what it is or make it that thing. In terms of truth values, the idea is that if a
proposition has been determined or proved to be true, then it is, ipso facto, true. Or
simply stated, this principle holds that what is true is true.
The law or principle of noncontradiction holds that no proposition can be both
true and false or simply that A cannot be both A and not A at the same time. Thus, if
a proposition has been determined or and replace with established to be true, then it
cannot be false at the same time. The idea here for this law is that contradictory
propositions are mutually exclusive in the sense that they cannot both be true in the
same sense at the same time. The point is that if a statement excludes the possibility
of another, then both cannot be claimed to be true simultaneously since they are both
contradictory. So, for example, the two propositions “p is true or the case” and “p is
false or not the case” are contradictory and mutually exclusive, and accordingly,
cannot be said of p at the same time.
The law of excluded middle declares that every proposition is either true or false
or that a proposition is true, or its negation is true or that every truth value is either
true or false. The thought here is that if a proposition is a negation of another
proposition, then either the first or second (negation) is true or the first proposition
is true, and the negation is false or the negation is true and the first is false. Thus, if
p is true, then ~p (not p) is false, and if p (not p) is true, then p is false.
A cursory look will probably help us see how the classical laws of thought
exemplify bivalence or bivalent logic. Take the example of the law of identity. As
we have seen, the law holds that if an entity has a particular identity, it has that
identity and not less or more than that identity. Or simply that if something exists,
then it has a set of characteristics that are consistent with its identity and these set
of characteristics makes A (say, water) A (water), and not B (say, air). Thus, if
something is water, it has to be water, and if something is air, it has to be air;
simply (and in terms of a proposition), what is said of A is that it can only
possibly have one truth value. As for the law of noncontradiction, a proposition
can only have one truth value given that the principle holds that contradictory
propositions are mutually exclusive, namely, no proposition can be both true and
false or given that A cannot both be A and not A (or B) at the same time. It is also
the same with the law of excluded middle; for if every truth value is either true or
false, it follows both that A can only possibly have one truth value and that there
are only two possible expressions of the proposition, namely true and false.
Trivalence in Aymará, Janus, and Pierce
This section will briefly look at three-value logic in some logical thoughts, systems,
or traditions. The focus of this discussion of trivalent logic will be in three areas. The
first is trivalent logic in the Aymará (natural) language, the second, three-value logic
in Janus (artificial) language, and lastly, trivalent logic in the thought of Charles
Sanders Pierce.
Aymará Logical System
Aymará is a language that percolates among the Indians in parts of Bolivia and Peru.
As a language that is related to Quechua, it is mostly spoken on the Altiplano of
Bolivia. The language has been described as having certain particular characteristics
that makes it different from many other languages (see Aymará and Aymará.org, and
Arpasi (2003)). These characteristics include it being a language of extraordinary
flexibility, very adaptable and adequate for the use of abstractions, and as having the
incredible ability to create neologisms.
About the Aymará language, the Italian linguist Umberto Eco notes:
In 1603, the Jesuit Ludovico Bertonio (Arte de la lengua Aymara) described the Aymara
language (still partially spoken by Indians living between Bolivia and Peru) as endowed with
an immense flexibility and capability of accommodating neologisms, particularly adapted to
the expression of abstract concepts, so much so as to raise a suspicion that it was an artificial
invention. (Eco, 1995: 344)
Additionally, Eco has indicated that Aymará logic is a trivalent logic and that
because the language is based on a three-value logical system rather than a Western
two-value logical system, it has the capability of expressing modal subtleties. Eco
writes:
Recent studies have established Aymara is not based on an Aristotelian two-valued logic
(either True or False), but on a three-valued logic it is, therefore, capable of expressing modal
subtleties which other languages can only capture through complex circumlocutions. Thus
there have been proposals to use Aymara to resolve all problems of computer translation.
(Eco, 1996: 351)
Ivan Guzman de Rojas has also observed that Aymará is a trivalent logical
system. Much like other languages, Aymará employs inflections that indicate the
statuses of proportions. In the English language, for example, logical operators like
“not” are taken as a negation operator, which transforms a true proposition to a false
proposition (see also Aymará and Aymará.org, Aymará (n.d.), and Arpasi (2003)).
So, for instance, if I say that “all humans are mortal,” it is true if all humans are
mortal, and the negation of this (or by adding not) transforms this proposition to a
false one, such as “all humans are not mortal.” According to de Rojas, in Aymará, the
inflections of the degree of certitude of its respective assertions play the same role as
“not” in the English language. Now unlike the English language, Aymará does not
just have true assertions (as truth) and its negation (as false). Rather, it uses an
inflection that allows for the possibility of a true proposition being “neither-true-nor-
false.” This, as de Rojas notes, indicates that Aymará is trivalent and employs a third
(truth) value, i.e., neither-true-nor-false, which is used for uncertainty (de Rojas,
1984). Besides his discussion of inflections and assertions in Aymará, de Rojas also
opines that the language and the type of logical system that it supports allow the
Aymará people to derive logical conclusions that are not available to speakers of
languages that employ a binary logical system (de Rojas, 1984).
270 E. Etieyibo
Janus Logic
Janus is an artificial language. In this sense, it is different from Aymará, which, as we

have seen, is a natural language. Like the Aymará logical system, Janus logical
system is trivalent. Having said this, it must be pointed out that there are some
skeptical positions regarding whether or not Aymará is trivalent logical system and
whether natural languages use a particular logic. For some of the discussions around
this issue, see Aymará (nd), “Language and Philosophy.” And on the point about
artificial language and natural language in relation to Janus and Aymará, it should be
kept in mind that whereas Janus logic is said to be completely trivalent, Aymará is
said to be a trivalent modal logic (see Musa or Musa Academy, “Janus Logic”).
The three truth values in Janus logic are: true, false, and wrong. Clearly, we see
that there is a difference between Janus logic and classical logic, which is bivalent
since it has a third value: wrong. As in classical logic, true in Janus logic means the
same, where true denote that which is asserted. However, false in Janus logic is
different from classical logic. In the former, false or A is false means not true, or A is
not the case, but in the latter, A is false means the negation of A is true (see Musa
Academy, “Janus Logic”). As for the third truth value in Janus logic, i.e., wrong, this
means that neither a statement nor the negation of that statement is true.
To understand and appreciate the subtle difference in these truth values, consider
the discussion by the Musa Academy. Suppose someone says: “The King of France
is Japanese.” One might say that the proposition is not true, in which case it will be
false in classical logic. Now consider its negation: “The King of France is not
Japanese.” In classical logic, it is also not true, given that there is no King of France
(not since 1848). It should be noted that the last King of France was Louis Philippe
(October 6, 1773 – August 26, 1850), who ruled from 1830 to 1848. In Janus logical
system, both propositions (“The King of France is Japanese” and “The King of
France is not Japanese”) are wrong, namely, that neither the original proposition nor
its negation is true.
Now, for a bit of clarification, it has to be said that to say that a proposition is
wrong it does not mean that it is not meaningful or that it is meaningless. So let us go
back to the first proposition: “The King of France is Japanese.” We have said that this
proposition, in Janus logic, is wrong. But this does not mean that it is meaningless
like say an utterance such as “Johnny John Joney jumps to a jumpy jumpily jump
jumping.” We do clearly understand what the proposition, “The King of France is
Japanese” asserts, which is that there is someone who is a “King” or precisely, who
can be called the “King of France” and who happens to be “Japanese.” The problem
with the proposition is not that it is not meaningful; rather it is that it is missing a
referent, namely, there just happens not to be a King of France at the moment. What
does this all leave us?
Ultimately, there seem to be some difference when it comes to issues about
meaningless, propositions and referents between what we are presented in Janus
logic and what we typically find in classical logic. Among some classical logicians,
the utterance “The King of France is Japanese” is not a proposition because it does
not have any referent. However, as the Musa Academy has noted, and which I find
persuasive, “not all Wrong propositions lack referents” (Musa Academy, “Janus
Logic”). A good example to use is the one discussed by the Academy and here it
is. “Shakespeare left Alaska by airplane” isn’t missing any referents: both Shake-
speare and Alaska existed, and so do airplanes. But Shakespeare never went to
Alaska, so he could never have left that geographical space by airplane or any other
way. You could say the proposition is false, but it’s a funny kind of false, since its
negation, ‘Shakespeare didn’t leave Alaska by airplane,’ is also false. That’s called
presupposition failure” (Musa Academy, “Janus Logic”).
To underlie the importance of wrong as a truth value in Janus logic and the idea
that wrong propositions lie in the middle between true and false, Musa gives three
examples. The first is the statement, “it’s not really raining, but it’s drizzling.” Here,
it seems wrong to say, “It’s not raining.” The second is the proposition, “zero is a
natural number,” or “i -i (where i represents √-1)” (Musa Academy, “Janus
Logic”). These propositions are neither true nor untrue. The third is the question:
“Did the stock market go up after the Great Crash of 1929?” Musa notes that this
question does not admit of a yes or no since neither seem to be truthful. This is
because although the stock market went up, it first fell and then remained below its
previous levels for many years afterwards. This, one can say, is an example where
one can use wrong in response to the query and it does not matter how a wrong
statement is untrue, as long as its negation is also untrue (Musa Academy, “Janus
Logic”).
Charles Sanders Peirce’s Trivalent Logic
Charles Sanders Peirce straddles many disciplines, and he did leave his mark in
them. From science to philosophy and mathematics to logic, he accomplished quite a
lot. Focusing on logic, which is the primary concern in this section, his contributions
is immense. Francesco Bellucci and Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen puts his contributions
this way:
[His] development of modern logic at the turn of the 20th century were colossal, original and
influential. Formal, or deductive, logic was just one of the branches in which he exercized his
logical and analytical talent. His work developed upon Boole’s algebra of logic and De
Morgan’s logic of relations. He worked on the algebra of relatives (1870–1885), the theory
of quantification (1883–1885), graphical or diagrammatic logic (1896–1911), trivalent logic
(1909), higher-order and modal logics. He also contributed significantly to the theory and
methodology of induction, and discovered a third kind of reasoning, different from both
deduction and induction, which he called abduction or retroduction, and which he identified
with the logic of scientific discovery. (Bellucci & Pietarinen, n.d.)
The part of Peirce’s contribution to logic that is of concern to this chapter is his
work on a semantics for three-valued logic, which he undertook as part of his study
of the conditions for the truth of propositions. Eric Hammer (2010) points out that it
was around 1910 that Peirce, in three unnumbered pages of notes, defined a many-
valued logic system, which he never published. Irving H. Anellis seems to suggest
272 E. Etieyibo
that trivalent logic as presented by Peirce first appeared in his January 1902
manuscript, entitled “The Simplest Mathematics.” This makes Peirce the first
(in the Western logical tradition) to develop trivalent logic, well before (10 years
at least) Emil Post’s dissertation, which is typically cited as the origin of Western
development of three-valued logic. Peirce’s notes show that he experimented with
three symbols representing truth values: “V, L, and F.” Whereas he associates V with
“1” and “T,” which designate truth, and F with “0” and “F,” signifying falsehood, he
associates L with “1/2” and “N,” indicating what might be called an intermediate or
unknown value (Hammer, 2013).
In Pierce’s three-valued logic, it is not the case that all propositions must be either
true or false; he allows for the possibility of boundary-propositions, which he says is
“at the limit between P and not” (Hammer, 2010). Furthermore, Peirce defines a
large number of unary and binary operators on V, L, and F truth values and indicates
their semantics by truth values, which allows him to show that the bar operator yields
falsehood when applied to truth, yields unknown when applied to unknown, and
yields truth when applied to falsehood (Hammer, 2013).
Trivalence in African Logic
As has been indicated in the introduction, one area of African logic that some
African logicians have focused on relate to truth values in African logical system,
in particular the possibility of an African trivalent logic. The following discussion of
a three-value logic in African logical system will focus on two examples: first, logic
in the Acholi language and, second, Ezumezu logic.
Ocaya has indicated that the law of excluded middle is challenged in the Acholi
language (2004: 289). By this, he means that in this language, it is not the case that every
proposition is either true or false or that something either exists or does not exist. Using
the example of a substance (say, water or some other liquid in the Acholi language), he
clarifies what he means. He says that one can say the following about water:
1. “It is hot” or p, which in Acholi is expressed as Piny Iyet.

2. “It is not hot” or ~ p, which is Piny pe Iyet in Acholi.
3. “It is hot and not hot” or p & ~ p, which is expressed in Acholi as Piny Iyet-Iyet.
Ocaya notes that the first two are available to most languages such as the English
language but not the third. The English language tries to capture the third with
expressions such as “It is rather hot,” but this Ocaya says does not do the job given
that Piny Iyet-Iyet is a distinct category of beingness, or a state of being of a
substance, or some thing or stuff that lies somewhere between the two other
categories of Piny Iyet and Piny pe Iyet. And to say that the third category of Piny
Iyet-Iyet is a distinct category of beingness and not captured by the English language
expression “It is rather hot” also suggests that Piny Iyet-Iyet is different from the idea
of being lukewarm, which is more or less used to signify something that could or
should be hot but is only moderately warm, or being tepid, or being indifferent.
One might perhaps add here that the expressions “lukewarm” and “It is rather
hot” are the sorts of subtleties that Eco says Western languages and bivalent logic can
only express by resorting to unwieldy periphrases. In summation then, the Acholi
language presents us an example of logical thinking going against the classical law
of excluded middle but also a positive case of a three-valued logic from an African
place or worldview.
I think Ezumezu logic, as advanced by Chimakonam, supports the possibility of
Piny Iyet-Iyet, as a distinct and third category of beingness. Chimakonam defends
Ezumezu both in a draft manuscript, “Ezumezu as a Methodological Reconstruction
in African Philosophy: Toward Anarchistic (Conversational) Orderliness” and in a
monograph published in 2019, Ezumezu: A System of Logic for African Philosophy
and Studies. Chimakonam’s motivation is to defend Ezumezu as an alternative logic
or logical system. Ezumezu logic, he says, is a dynamic or flexible and three-valued
logical system. The first two values of Ezumezu logic are similar to what we find in
the Acholi language, namely, both a proposition being true and false. Regarding the
third truth value, let us take one context where Ezumezu logic can be understood
much more clearly, the context of the classical laws of thought, particularly the law
of excluded middle. According to Chimakonam, the third value can be expressed as
the law or principle of “Onona-etiti, which simply states: (T) A ^ (T) ~ A or (T) A ^
(F) A.” The rendition simply takes A to be both true and false (see Chimakonam
(draft manuscript: 16) and for his discussion of this principle and other principles in
the context of a broad African logic, see Chaps. 5, 6, and 7 of Chimakonam (2019)).
To recap then the nature of what Ezumezu logic is. We have three distinct categories
of beingness corresponding to three truth values. These are truth, false, and unity (where
unity can be taken to be a complement of truth and false or true and false. Stated
differently, the principle of Onona-etiti law in Ezumezu logic “accounts for the inter-
mediary values (not altogether true and not altogether false) and includes what was
excluded by the classical law of excluded middle” (Chimakonam, draft manuscript: 16).
African Logic and African Metaphysics
This section will look at the relationship between African logic and African metaphysics
by focusing on how African logic mirrors African metaphysics. In particular, it exam-
ines the claim that the trivalence of an African logic is a reflection of a trivalent African
metaphysics or ontology. As part of the discussion, we will be using the African belief in
ancestorhood to illustrate this relationship between logic and metaphysics.
African metaphysics broadly captures the nature of metaphysical thinking in
Africa, and this includes ontology, where metaphysics is concerned with questions
that are after the physical, or simply about the nature of reality and what is ultimately
real, and ontology refers to the study of what there is and concerned with existence,
reality, being, and becoming. Simply put, African metaphysics is concerned with first
principles and questions about the nature of reality, what is ultimately real. Further-
more, it tries or attempts to give answers to fundamental questions of the universe, life,
existence, essence, cause or causality, effect, etc., within an African experience,
274 E. Etieyibo
lifeworld for Africans (Etieyibo, 2022b, c). Crucial to this definition of African
metaphysics is that it implicates religious beliefs relating to the African conception
of God, sprits, the universe, space and time, etc., and their interrelations. On the nature
of African metaphysics, it can be said to be holistic or as Lesiba J. Teffo and A. P. J
Roux have indicated, it is a “closed system [such] that everything hangs together and is
affected by any change in the system” (Teffo & Roux, 1998: 222).
What Teffo and Roux have said about a holistic nature of African metaphysics has
been extended to African ontology, which according to a number of African scholars,
is holistic and communitarian or communalistic. This ontology can be taken to be
non-reductionist and to reject simple binaries (see Bujo, 1998; Sindima, 1990;
Tangwa, 2004; Opoku, 1993; Etieyibo, 2014, 2017, 2022a; Onyewuenyi, 1991;
Murove, 2004; Ijiomah, 2006; Teffo & Roux, 1998). Let us focus on the part of
African ontology being holistic and what it means to say that it eschews binaries.
What it means to say that African ontology is holistic and not binary is that it does
not take reality to be simply a contestation between two beings or substances or
entities, say, for example, an entity is either material (physical) or immaterial
(spiritual). For a non-reductionist and nonbinary discussion of African ontology,
see Etieyibo (2022a). As well, Etieyibo has discussed how to understand the
communitarian or communalistic and holistic African ontology. He notes that:
[I]f we accept that the African communalistic ontology takes the visible and invisible worlds
as not disparate, then humans can be said to belong to both worlds. Humans belong to both
worlds or between two worlds (the invisible world of invisible beings and the visible world
of visible beings). As beings or members of the visible and invisible worlds, humans relate
freely with the beings in the two worlds. They relate to the visible world in their commute
with other beings (humans) of this world. And they relate to the invisible world in their
commute with spirits (ancestors, living dead and nameless dead). It is this way of describing
existence or beingness that warrants the claim that African worldview is communitarian or
communalistic and holistic. (Etieyibo, 2022a: 76–77)
One of the points mentioned at the beginning of this section is that a trivalent African
logic relates to or mirrors a trivalent African metaphysics. This is so just in case
African logic reflects a communalistic and holistic African ontology which is also
holistic. What this means is “that the ontology and logic neither takes values to be
disparate and bivalent but trivalent [or even many values] where all the values are
united in some complementary sense.” (Etieyibo, 2022a: 77). Saying that African
logic mirrors or reflects African ontology should not be surprising given that there
has been growing suggestion that there is a close relationship between African
ontology and other areas of African philosophy and that African ontology which
captures African reality colors or shapes or influences the other aspects of African
philosophy and worldviews (see Ogbonnaya, 2018 and Etieyibo, 2017). So, what
has been done so far by establishing that the nature of African metaphysics/ontology
is communalistic and holistic is to set the stage for the claim that a trivalent African
logic is communalistic and holistic insofar as it follows from or mirrors African
ontology. This has now put us in a position to now demonstrate the sense in which
African ontology is trivalent by using the example of ancestorhood.
In African ontology, ancestors are beings or forces that are part of the hierarchy of
beings. In the hierarchical ladders or hierarchy of beings they come after God and
spirts, and before humans, animals, and nonliving matter or entities. The notion of
ancestors as forces and as occupying some hierarchy is drawn broadly from the
African hierarchy of being and force thesis, which has been articulated by the Belgian
Theologian, Placide Tempels in his presentation of Bantu Philosophy and the theories
of beings and forces (1959). According to Tempels, being is said to be force and force
is being and where a being’s status is determined by the amount of force that such a
being has. Stated differently, the amount of force coming together determines the
nature of a particular being. Ancestors are forces that have the same source of force as
other beings. Ancestors are persons that have effectively contributed to the community
while they were alive. After death, they continue to contribute to the well-being of the
community by interacting with humans through various activities including rituals,
offerings, and sacrifices. Ancestors can be said to be both alive and dead or neither
alive nor dead. This characterization of ancestors is consistent with what Teffo and
Roux have remarked about there being no distinct difference “between the material
and the spiritual” in African philosophy or metaphysical worldview (Teffo & Roux,
1998: 200). On this understanding, ancestors are neither spiritual nor physical entities.
At the same time, they are living spiritual beings and physical living beings.
The notion that ancestors are living spiritual beings and physical living beings
helps one to appreciate why ancestors are called the “living dead.” In speaking of the
relationship between ancestors, as living dead and humans regarding the former’s
performance of duty among amaNdebele Africans, Pathisa Nyathi notes that “there
are times when the living dead are communicated with in order to chastise them
when they have abandoned their protective role” (Nyathi, 2001: 8). It is perhaps for
this reason that Jomo Kenyatta, with reference to discussions as to whether the
relationship with ancestors in Africa can be said to be that of “ancestor worship” or
“ancestor reverence,” notes that among the Gikuyu, the relationship is one of
“communion with ancestors” and not “ancestor worship” (Kenyatta, 1965: 223).
The summary of this is that ancestral existence or the life of an ancestor is a life
that can be described as straddling between physical existence or life and spiritual
existence or life. Consequently, if we are to characterize the trivalence of
ancestorhood or ancestral existence and life in terms of three values in an African
ontology, we would have the following:
(1) An ancestor is a physical or material being ¼ A is Pb.

(2) An ancestor is a spiritual or immaterial being ¼ A is Sb.
(3i) An ancestor is neither a physical nor spiritual being ¼ A is ~Pb and ~ Sb.
Or
(3ii) An ancestor is both a physical and spiritual being ¼ A is Pb and Sb.
A in the formulation above stands for an ancestor, Pb for physical or material

being, and Sb for a spiritual or immaterial being. The characterization of ancestors as
276 E. Etieyibo
illustration of African ontology is one that is comfortably accommodated by a

trivalent African logic or even a polyvalent African logic but one that cannot be
accommodated by a bivalent logic.
One might even stretch the thinking and characterization of ancestors into the
territory of more than three values, that is, the idea of multiple values can be taken to
be one of polyvalence and not bivalence. The point here is that (1) – (3ii) could be
said to suggest not three truth values but at least four truth values, hence a polyvalent
logical system or logic rather than a trivalent logic. This idea is reasonable and such
interpretation is possible if one think of the values at play as follows: an ancestor as
(1) a physical being, (2) a spiritual being, (3) both a physical and spiritual being, and
(4) neither a physical nor spiritual being. Whether we settle for bivalence or
polyvalence the point is that the reality of ancestorhood is one that a bivalent system
of logic would find difficult to make sense of and will consider it illogical and
irrational but not so for a trivalent or polyvalent logic.
Conclusion
What has been done in this chapter is to provide some overview of what a bivalent
and trivalent logic looks like using the examples of Peirce’s trivalence, Janus
trivalence, the ternary logic of Aymará, and African trivalent logic. In the discussion
of trivalence in African logical system, the chapter looked at how one can think of
African trivalent logic as mirroring a trivalent African metaphysics or ontology. As a
way of illustrating a trivalent African metaphysics, the example of ancestorhood was
used, where characteristically an ancestor is both a spiritual and physical entity
or/and is neither a spiritual nor physical being.
In the main, the discussion shows that the idea of an in-between (or third) value,
which in the context of some trivalent logical systems (e.g., as in Peirce’s trivalence)
may be said to be indeterminate or undetermined or unknown, and in some trivalent
logical systems/traditions determinate, as in a distinct third value (such as in Aymará
and African logics or the value of wrong of Janus trivalence). The idea of three or
more than two values (as in classical logic) should not be difficult to embrace.
Quantum mechanics have shown us that the law of excluded middle or the idea of a
bivalent logic is one that is discountable, and trivalent logic is one that can be
embraced. For discussions on quantum mechanics and quantum mechanics and
trivalent logic, see Reichenbach (1975, 1944), Hooker (1975), Bigaj (2001), and
Morin (2010). Let us illustrate this thought of reality and more than two values with
the example of the state of sleeping.
Generally, the state of sleeping is contrasted with the state of being awake. In this
comparison, binary expressions or language are traded on and the two values at play
are: Sleeping (a sleeping state) ¼ Sg and being Awake (or not sleeping) ¼ Aw. But
consider this. There are times when one may be said to be in a sleeping state and not
in a sleeping state at the same time. Suppose that you (X) call a friend (Y) pass
midnight and Y picks up the phone. You can tell from Y’s voice that she is sleepy
having just “woken” up by your phone call. You then ask her “Are you still sleeping
or now awake” and she answers, “I don’t know, I am trying to wake up.” Both of you
then proceed to have a brief conversation. The next day you go back to the
conversation that you had with X, but for some reason X was only able to remember
parts (or half) of what you discussed the previous night when you called. One
conclusion that can be reached from this example is that, lurking here in the
background, there is a third state beside Sg and Aw and that third state is
in-between Sg (sleeping) and Aw (being awake). This state one might call a state
of sleeping and not sleeping or a state of being awake and not being awake.
To avoid all of the above cumbersome periphrases or complex circumlocutions let
us simply call the third state a state of Sleepwake ¼ Se. Sleepwake or Se is perhaps
identical with what in English language is called “sleepy.” At the moment, one is not
completely sure if “sleepy” does capture Se. But this worry can be set aside for now.
How are we to justify this? The justification may proceed along two ways. First, the
very fact that you asked X during your conversation if she is still sleeping or now
awake and the fact that X answered you as follows: “I don’t know, I am trying to
wake up” suggest the appropriateness of calling this a third state and using Se to
denote that state. Two quick comments to be made then. First, this example opens up
the possibility of a recognition of the fact that X was neither awake nor sleeping
during your conversation. Second, given that X only remembers parts or half of what
both of you discussed, it suggests that X was not fully awake and fully asleep, for if
(a) X was fully awake, ceteris paribus, she would have remembered all that you
discussed, and if (b) X was fully asleep, she would not have remembered half of
what you discussed. Finally, the feasibility of the third state of Se is made more
apparent given that falling asleep and waking are not immediate events, which can
be measured in seconds or nanoseconds but processes and states that extend in time,
and which can lead either to Sg or Aw, that is with one being asleep or going back to
sleep or being fully awake.
References
Anellis, I. H. (n.d.). Peirce’s truth-functional analysis and the origin of truth tables. Available at:
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1108/1108.2429.pdf. Accessed 10 Aug 2021.
Arpasi, Jorge Pedraza. (2003). A brief introduction to ternary logic. Available at: https://aymara.
org/ternary/ternary.pdf. Accessed 5 Mar 2023.
Aymará. (n.d.). Language and philosophy. Available at: https://languageandphilosophy.wordpress.
com/2012/01/04/aymara/. Accessed 29 Nov 2021.
Aymará and Aymará.org. Available at: https://aymara.org/webarchives/www2002/biblio/igr/igr3.
html; https://aymara.org/documentos/; and https://aymara.org/biblio/html/igr/igr3.html.
Accessed 29 Nov 2021.
Bellucci, F., & Pietarinen, A.-V. (n.d.). Charles Sanders Peirce: Logic. Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. Available at: https://iep.utm.edu/peir-log/. Accessed 16 Sept 2021.
Bergmann, M. (2008). An introduction to many-valued and fuzzy logic: Semantics, algebras, and
derivation systems. Cambridge University Press.
Bigaj, T. (2001). Three-valued logic, indeterminacy and quantum mechanics. Journal of
Philosophical Logic, 30(2), 97–119. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1017571731461
Bujo, B. (1998). The ethical dimension of community. Paulines Publications.
278 E. Etieyibo
Chimakonam, J. (2019). Ezumezu: A system of logic for African philosophy and studies. Springer
Nature.
Chimakonam, J. (Ed.). (2020). Logic and African philosophy: Seminal essays on African systems of
thought. Vernon Press.
Chimakonam, J. Draft manuscript). Ezumezu as a methodological reconstruction in African
philosophy: Toward anarchistic (conversational) orderliness.
de Rojas, ván Guzmán. (1984). Logical and linguistic problems of social communication with the
Aymará people. International Development Research Centre.
Eboh, M. P. B. (1999). The concept of Igbo logic. Journal of African Philosophy and Studies, 2(3),
31–43.
Eco, U. (1995). The search for the perfect language (J. Fentress, Trans.). Blackwell.
Eco, U. (1996, November 26). The dream of a perfect language, Part IV. This is from a transcription
of the lecture’s series The search of the perfect language given by Umberto Eco at the Casa
Italiana of the Columbia University in November 1996 and at the Italian Academy for Advanced
Studies in America.
Etieyibo, E. (2014, October 25–26). Psychophysical harmony in an African context. Symposium on
the Metabolism of the social brain, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Germany.
Etieyibo, E. (2016). African philosophy and proverbs: The logic in Urhobo proverbs. Philosophia
Africana, 18(1), 21–39. https://doi.org/10.5840/philafricana20161813
Etieyibo, E. (2017). Ubuntu and the environment. In A. Afolayan & T. Falola (Eds.), The Palgrave
handbook of African philosophy (pp. 633–657). Palgrave Macmillan.
Etieyibo, E. (2022a). Logic. In D. M. Meneon (Ed.), Changing theory: Concepts from the global
south (pp. 67–79). Routledge.
Etieyibo, E. (2022b). African metaphysics and disabilities. South African Journal of Philosophy,
41(2), 159–168.
Etieyibo, E. (2022c). Disabilities in an African cultural worldview. Review of Disability Studies: An
International Journal, 18(1 & 2), 1–20.
Fayemi, A. K. (2010). Logic in Yoruba proverbs. Itupale: Online Journal of African Studies, 2,
1–14.
Hammer, E. (2010, Fall). Peirce’s logic. In Edward N. Zalta (Ed.), Stanford encyclopedia of
philosophy (Fall 2010 ed.). URL: Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2010/
entries/peirce-logic/. Accessed 5 July 2021.
Hammer, E. (2013). Peirce’s three-valued logic. In Edward N. Zalta (Ed.), Supplement to Peirce’s
deductive logic, Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. URL: Available at: https://plato.stanford.
edu/entries/peirce-logic/three-valued-logic.html. Accessed 6 July 2021.
Hooker, C. A. (Ed.). (1975). Three-valued logic and the interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Springer.
Ijiomah, C. O. (2006). An excavation of logic in African worldview. African Journal of Religion,
Culture and Society, 1(1), 29–35.
Kenyatta, J. (1965). Facing Mt. Kenya. Vintage Books.
Lane, R. (n.d.). “Triadic logic,” Commens Digital Companion to C. S. Peirce. Available at: http://
www.commens.org/encyclopedia/article/lane-robert-triadic-logic. Accessed 10 Aug 2021.
Mabalane, K. K., & Etieyibo, E. (2020). Universal or particular logic and the question of logic in
Setswana Proverbs. In J. Chimakonam (Ed.), Logic and African philosophy: seminal essays on
African systems of thought (pp. 141–172). Vernon Press.
Malinowski, G. (2009). Many-valued logic and its philosophy. In D. M. Gabbay & J. Woods (Eds.),
Handbook of the history of logic volume 8. The many valued and nonmonotonic turn in logic.
Elsevier.
Miller, D. M., & Thornton, M. A. (2008). Multiple valued logic: Concepts and representations.
In Synthesis lectures on digital circuits and systems. Morgan & Claypool Publishers. Available at:
https://www.morganclaypool.com/doi/abs/10.2200/S00065ED1V01Y200709DCS012. Accessed
3 Apr 2021
Momoh, C. S. (2000). The logic question in African philosophy. In M. CS (Ed.), The substance of
African philosophy (2nd ed., pp. 175–192). African Philosophy Project’s Publication.
Morin, D. (2010). Chapter 10. In Available at: https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/david-morin/files/
waves_quantum.pdf. 21 Oct 2021 (Ed.), Introduction to quantum mechanics.
Mundici, D. (1989). The C*-algebras of three-valued logic. Logic colloquium ‘88, Proceedings of
the Colloquium held in Padova, 61–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0049-237x(08)70262-3.
Murove, M. F. (2004). An African commitment to ecological conservation: the Shona concepts of
Ukama and Ubuntu. Mankind Quarterly, XLV, 195–215.
Musa (or Musa Academy). Janus Logic. Available at: https://www.musa.bet/logic.htm. Accessed
23 Nov 2021.
Nyathi, P. (2001). Traditional ceremonies of AmaNdebele. Mambo Press.
Ocaya, V. (2004). Logic in the acholi language. In K. Wiredu (Ed.), A companion to African
philosophy (pp. 285–294). Blackwell.
Ogbonnaya, L. (2018). Between the ontology and logic criteria of African philosophy.
In E. Etieyibo (Ed.), Method, substance, and the future of African philosophy (pp. 111–133).
Palgrave Macmillan.
Onyewuenyi, I. (1991). Is there an African philosophy? In T. Serequeberhan (Ed.), African
philosophy: The essential readings (pp. 29–46). Paragon.
Opoku, K. A. (1993). African traditional religion: An enduring heritage. In J. Olupona & S. Nyang
(Eds.), Religious plurality in Africa: Essays in honour of John S. Mbiti (pp. 67–82). Mouton de
Gruyter.
Reichenbach, H. (1944). Philosophic foundations of quantum mechanics. Dover Publications.
Reichenbach, H. (1975). The logico-algebraic approach to quantum mechanics. In C. A. Hooker
(Ed.), Three-valued logic and the interpretation of quantum mechanics (pp. 53–97). Springer.
Sindima, H. (1990). Community of life. In C. Birch, W. Eakin, & J. B. McDaniel (Eds.), Liberating
life. Maryknoll.
Sogolo, G. (1993). Logic and rationality. In Foundations of African philosophy: A definitive
analysis of the conceptual issues in African thought. Ibadan University Press.
Sogolo, G. (2004). Logic and rationality. In P. H. Coetzee & A. P. J. Roux (Eds.), Philosophy from
Africa (pp. 244–286). Oxford University Press.
Tangwa, G. B. (2004). Some African reflections on biomedical and environmental ethics.
In K. Wiredu (Ed.), A companion to African philosophy. Blackwell.
Teffo, L. J., & Roux, A. P. J. (1998). Metaphysical thinking in Africa. In P. H. Coetzee & A. P.
J. Roux (Eds.), Philosophy from Africa: A text with readings (pp. 134–148). International
Thomson Publishing Southern Africa.
Tempels, P. (1959). Bantu philosophy (K. Colin, Trans.). Présence Africaine.
Part V
Political Philosophy
African Political Philosophy
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
Defining African Political Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
African Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
African Political Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
African Political Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
Botho/Ubuntu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
African Political Ethics Through Botho/Ubuntu (Botho Politics) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
Consultation/Therisanyo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
Respect for Individuality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
Importance of People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Shared Knowledge Is Important for Harmonious Living . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
Communal Participation and Mutuality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
Abstract
The chapter will define African Political philosophy in general and Political
Ethics as its branch. It will propound the view that Botho is an ethical perspective
that can be applied to political discourse. Debates in African Political philosophy
have been on the nature of African traditional political systems; whether they
conformed to western type of democracy. The modern political African system
has been subjected to scrutiny from the perspective of the west. Questions on
conformity to western standards of democracy and the ability or lack thereof, to
J. B. R. Gaie (*)
Department of Theology and Religious Studies, Faculty of Humanities, University of Botswana,
Gaborone, Botswana
e-mail: gaiejbr@ub.ac.bw

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_38
284 J. B. R. Gaie
transfer power from one regime to another have been raised. African political
ethics is likely to consist of how political players have been failing to conform to
western style democratic principles and practices. In this area, the tools of
analysis are western type of ethical judgment. This chapter will demonstrate
how Botho ethics, an indigenous ethical theory, is comparable to western type
of ethical theorizing in political discourse. It will identify political issues that
warrant ethical discussion and demonstrate why they are deemed to be ethical
matters from a Botho point of view. The question, ‘what is political ethics?’ will
be answered through anchoring debates on the theory of Botho that is founded on
the idea of ‘a person being a person because of, with and through other people.’
This is the foundation of African Ethics from a Setswana (Botswana) perspective.
When extended to politics, it is expressible in the idea that ‘kgosi ke kgosi ka
batho’ (A king is a king with, because of and through the people). This exposition
will stimulate debate on African Political Ethics. It will extend the debate on
African philosophy to the areas of politics and ethics. This is a bold move that a
few scholars have attempted to make. Metz has taken the position that there is an
African ethical theory that can take its place at the altar of philosophizing
alongside western philosophy. This chapter will contribute another angle to
that view.
Keywords
African Philosophy · Political ethics · Botho ethics · Ubuntu ethics
Introduction
The definition of philosophy is important in understanding African Philosophy.

There is consensus about the difficulty of defining philosophy. Once we have defined
philosophy we should be able to define African Philosophy because it is its branch.
At some point there was a debate as to whether there is African philosophy but that
has since been settled because if philosophy is a critical reflection on reality then
Africans can reflect on reality or ask the same questions that have been asked in the
west. Once we have defined African Philosophy we can look at political philosophy
which is a branch of philosophy with specific reference to politics. This leads to the
definition of African political philosophy the foundation of which is botho/ubuntu
philosophy. Botho/ubuntu philosophy is founded on the saying that a person is a
person because of, with and through other people. This is also the foundation of
African political philosophy as expressed through saying a king is a king because of,
with and through the people. This is the same as African Political ethics. Democracy,
consultation, cooperation, and importance of people are elements of political ethics
that can guide action in our present-day politics. They are the elements that have
provided guidance for political life in African societies.
African Political Philosophy 285
Defining African Political Philosophy
In order to properly (relatively) perform the task of defining African Political

Philosophy it is expedient to start with a definition of philosophy. The subject of
philosophy can be classified as having the following branches: Aesthetics, Episte-
mology (Ejike, 2020: 21) (Kaphagawani & Malherbe, 2000: 205), Ethics (Wiredu,
2000b: 306), Logic (Sogolo, 2000: 217), and Metaphysics/Ontology (Ibuot, 2011:
214). The subject of philosophy itself can be defined as among other things, an
analytical, consistent, coherent, comprehensive, critical, questioning, logical, syn-
thetical, honest, rational, intuitive, objective, subjective, impartial, pragmatic, exis-
tential,, and practical study of reality. The above list is meant to represent the core of
wisdom since the word itself is composed of two Greek words: philos (friend),
phileo (I love) and Sophos (a wise person), Sophia (Chemhuru, 2016: 420) (wisdom)
meaning ‘the friend of wisdom’ (Ejike, 2020: 24) or ‘the lover of the wise.’ As an
academic discipline then it becomes the study of wisdom (Chaffee, 2009: 6).
Philosophy is also a way of life (Ogunnaike, 2017: 204) or an attitude. As such it
is a general subject embracing certain theories. Apart from the etymological origins
of the subject it is not easy to come up with a definition that all will accept.
Philosophers of the analytic tradition will not necessarily agree with those of the
pragmatic tradition, or the rationalistic, empiricist or post-modernist and existential-
ist, just to mention a few.
Different scholars have made this point: “the question, what philosophy really is, is
important for everyone. Unfortunately, this is one of the most difficult philosophical
questions. I know of only a few words which have so many meanings as the word
philosophy (Bocheński, 1963: 20).” In short “the question of what is to count as
philosophy is itself a philosophical question (Nsamenang, 2011: 60).” “In the Islamic
world of learning, the concept of philosophy cannot be precisely defined (Rypka,
1968: 425).” “The mere mention of the word philosophy elicits some measures of
anxiety as well as curiosity among people especially non-philosophers. Even among
intellectuals, the subject matter of philosophy is a subject of controversy (Okaneme,
2013: 161).” “Indeed, even in ancient Greece “philosophy” never had a univocal
definition (Davis, 2019: 599).”
Having said the above, philosophy can still be summarily stated as:
the birthbed of all knowledge. It is the mother of all sciences. It is the beginning of all
searching and theorisation. This is premised on the idea that philosophy pursues questions in
every dimension of human life and its techniques apply to problems in any field of study or
endeavour. Basing on this understanding, it is generally accepted that no single definition
expresses in fullness the richness and diversity of philosophy. This implies that philosophy
may be described in many ways. (Mawere & Mubaya, 2016: 1)
Since we have come up with at least a working definition of philosophy, and the
supposition is that African Philosophy is a variety, type, or branch more like
German, Caribbean, European, and Asian Philosophy, Chinese Philosophy (Groves,
286 J. B. R. Gaie
2014), African Philosophy of education (Msila, 2009: 311), just to mention a few, we
can now turn to defining the branch of philosophy that we call African Philosophy.
African Philosophy
From what we said about the definition of philosophy in general above, it is clear that
no single and simple definition of African philosophy will be available. Defining
African Philosophy has also been illusive partly “because the question of the nature
of African philosophy has itself been a major preoccupation of modern African
philosophy,9 it is almost impossible to say anything general about African philoso-
phy without saying something highly controversial” (Hull, 2019: 2). “There were
many in the Western world, who believed that Africans have no philosophy -David
Hume, Georg Hegel, Karl Jaspers (Ibuot, 2011: 212).” See also (Oyeshile, 2018: 4)
who includes Max Muller and Karl Marx in the list.
Instead of defining African Philosophy Agada asked if African Philosophy was
progressing. He went on to answer his question in the negative – very little progress
has been made:
Any attempt at writing the history of African philosophy is doomed to be frustrated by the
glaring absence of originality, individuality, and creativity in the body of works that come
under the heading of African philosophy. In the first place, most of what is called African
philosophy is in fact ethno-philosophy, consisting chiefly of researches into the traditional
worldviews of various African tribes in the light of Western philosophy. (Agada, 2013: 239)
It is beyond dispute that the Europeans have European philosophy while the Americans have
American philosophy. The Indians have Indian philosophy and the Chinese have Chinese
philosophy. Yet any reference to African philosophy brings an expression of amazement to
the faces of non-Africans while Africans look away from their fellow Africans in guilt. This
guilt of the Africans arises from the knowledge that there is very little creativity and
originality in the minds of African philosophical thinkers. We have produced professors
instead of thinkers. (Agada, 2013: 240)
In other words, African philosophy started at some point and got trapped there
without much progress more like being stuck in the primitive stages of development
probably equivalent to pre-Socratic tradition in the west when everybody else has
moved beyond post-colonial and multicultural philosophies or the current techno-
logically and scientifically inspired philosophies of the twenty-first century.
Philosophy in Africa has for more than a decade now been dominated by the discussion of
one compound question, namely, is there an African philosophy, and if there is, what is it?
The first part of the question has generally been unhesitatingly answered in the affirmative.
Dispute has been primarily over the second part of the question as various specimens of
African philosophy presented do not seem to pass muster. Those of us who refuse to accept
certain specimens as philosophy have generally been rather illogically said also to deny an
affirmative answer to the first part of the question. (Bodunrin, 1981: 161)
Bodunrin appears to be saying that they acknowledge the existence of African

philosophy but there has been confusion leading their detractors to think that when
they refuse to accept certain phenomena presented as philosophy, they are denying
the existence of African Philosophy. This supposes that it is one thing to think that
something exists and another to say what that thing is – a confusing situation indeed.
If I say that X exists and Y is not X, it would make sense to show what X is such that
it would be distinguished from Y; to show that what I acknowledge to exist is not the
same thing as that which I dismiss does not seem to make much sense to me. Without
a clear definition of Philosophy, it would remain doubtful as to whether I really
believe in the existence of X (African Philosophy).
Other views are that “African philosophy” also exists in Africa’s political phi-
losophers, for example, Kwame Nkrumah, Leopold S. Senghor, Julius Nyerere, and
Nelson Mandela (Nsamenang, 2011: 59). The problem is that Africa has knowledge
and thinkers but they are more and more alienated from the African continent
because of the undue influence exerted by the West.
What philosophy one does emanates from an understanding of what philosophy is.
A hallmark of philosophy is to take a position, then justify and defend it with rational
arguments. In so doing, one must realize that a consensus may never emerge in debates about
an African philosophy of education because consensus hardly ever occurs in philosophical
debates. (Nsamenang, 2011: 60)
From the above one can surmise that major questions that have pre-occupied
philosophers in the west have been and can still be asked by Africans. Thus, they
have and can philosophize in the same way as their western counterparts. This
includes the way they do Philosophy:
All philosophy is self-conscious about method. The particular focus of African philosophy’s
self-consciousness is, though, a distinguishing trait. Time and again, African philosophers
return to the question of the right relationship between theory construction by contemporary
practitioners and the folk philosophies of African cultures; as they do to the concomitant
question of precisely where in that relationship ‘African philosophy’ is to be located. (Hull,
2019: 4)
Others agree that:
African philosophy is an attempt by philosophers to make the folklores, myth, sooth sayings,
religion, education, socio political organizations and other aspects of the African culture
relevant to African needs not through any dogmatic attachment to standards used in
evaluating the African culture or African culture itself, but through creative critical exam-
ination and logical methodologies which are not peculiar to the Western culture. (Oyeshile,
2008: 63)
We can talk of African philosophy as a philosophy that belongs to Africa. The same
understanding alludes to the question on the content/nature of philosophy in Africa, by
which we mean the study, writing, teaching, and practice of philosophy in Africa. (Mawere
& Mubaya, 2016: 47)
288 J. B. R. Gaie
The equalization scheme in African philosophy is my coinage. Informed by the idea that
Europeans do not think that Africans have any philosophy, this scheme sets out to demon-
strate that Africans have a philosophy (ies) that can be said to stand on a par with the
submissions of Western philosophers. (Ibuot, 2011: 220)
“African Philosophy” means a philosophical discourse from African perspec-

tives. This means the philosopher does not need to be an African.1 Some philoso-
phers think otherwise (Atieyibo, 2016).
African philosophy as I will understand it here, remains an attempt and the contributions by
philosophers (both African and non-African) who would like to assess the contribution that
African ideas about epistemology, ontology, ethics, aesthetics and logic could contribute to
their well-being. (Chemhuru, 2016: 421)
“African philosophy is not a singular thing, but a multiple, a response to different

sets of questions and different activated concepts at once. One’s focal length matters
to one’s place (Janz, 2017: 158).”
Defining anything in philosophy is fraught with difficulties (as we have seen
above). Even the definition of who an African is, often taken for granted, is at least
open to debate. This matter has been raised thus: “Defining the ‘African’ half of
‘African philosophy’ is more tricky – largely because ‘African’ is largely an
arbitrary, imaginary, and originally exogenous demarcation of a landmass
(Ogunnaike, 2017: 203).”
In summary, we can say that African Philosophy is a branch of philosophy. Even
though the latter is difficult to define a probable definition will include the analytical,
consistent, coherent, comprehensive, critical, questioning, logical, synthetical, sys-
tematic, honest, rational, intuitive, objective, subjective, impartial, pragmatic, exis-
tential, and practical study of reality. This will be done from an African perspective.
In other words, African perspectives are used to raise aesthetical, ethical, epistemo-
logical, logical, and metaphysical/ontological questions. This exercise can be done
by anybody competent enough to converse philosophically like an African will. This
leads us to look at political philosophy, which is another variety of philosophy.
Leo Strauss holds that political philosophy is about the pursuit of good life and
the good society. Good society means the political good. He explains that “if men
make it their explicit goal to acquire knowledge of the good life and the good society,
political philosophy emerges. By calling the pursuit political philosophy, we imply
that it forms part of a bigger whole: of philosophy (Strauss, 1957: 343).” The core
questions related to political philosophy are the nature of the state – what is it? Who
should do what in the state? What is the justification for that? What is the relationship
between individuals and the state? What can the state do and what it cannot or should
not do? What is the best way of attaining the good life in the state?
1
One of non-African philosophers who believes in African Philosophy, writes, critiques and leaves
it has pointed out that he has the duty to teach students the truth about African philosophy, critique
it, appraise it and relate it to western philosophical traditions (Jones & Metz, 2015: 540).
Political philosophy can then be said to be the study of politics from a philosoph-
ical point of view. It is raising philosophical questions about politics. These philo-
sophical questions can be along the branches mentioned above. Thus, we can ask
aesthetical, epistemological, ethical, logical, and metaphysical/ontological questions
in relation to politics. Political philosophy can also be divided into many segments or
branches that would include African political philosophy to which we now turn.
African Political Philosophy
The question whether African philosophy exists has been discussed and debated for several
decades in various forums by different scholars. The general trend of thought has been that
there is indeed such a thing as African Philosophy. And since African philosophy encom-
passes all forms and types of philosophising, it therefore follows that it does make sense to
talk of an African epistemology, just as it is sensible to talk of African ethics, aesthetics, and
metaphysics, for instance. (Kaphagawani & Malherbe, 2000: 205)
The above list of African philosophizing includes African political philosophy

whereby the general exercise of engaging in discourses regarding the good life in
society, how and when it is attainable, governance, what it is and how it ought to be
pursued, and so on, involves African experiences, values, cosmologies, and assump-
tions. “African political philosophy is a less explored field of study in comparison to
research areas such a metaphysics, anthropology, theology, sociology and economics
(Kasanda, 2015: 30).” Kasanda explains that some people identify African political
philosophy with philosophers or political leaders like J. Nyerere. Others simply:
reduce this philosophy to both the vicissitudes and hazards of African politics in considering
it as a chronicle of ups and downs of African nations. These two approaches deform the
nature of this philosophy and they skip over the effort of African people to frame rationally
their social and political organization. (Kasanda, 2015: 30)
African political philosophy he believes is concerned with people’s everyday

lives and their communal experiences. It derives from political philosophy in
general, which is concerned about three things: the good of the people, power, and
the perceived manner of organizing society. In this context African political philos-
ophy is about “the well-being of African citizens, the power, and the suited paradigm
for social and political organization (Kasanda, 2015: 30).” These questions naturally
follow: what is political power and how can it be justified? Who should rule and by
what means? This leads some people to conclude that African political philosophy is
about the choice between capitalism and socialism and the latter becomes attractive
based on the supposed communal nature of African society.
Capitalism does come with liberalism, individualism, and competition for power
through elections couched in the language of democracy. This is what the west
enforces on Africa by pointing out the poverty of traditional thought systems that
people are using in the present-day situations (Lajul, 2020: 179).
290 J. B. R. Gaie
African political philosophy gave birth to African socialism, a combination of

ideas from traditional philosophies and newer communalistic ones such as Marx-
ism. This was a response to the aftermath of slavery, colonialism, and post-
independence social challenges including identity of the African, economic under-
development and crises related to class struggles and differentiation (Oyeshile,
2018: 7). Political philosophy was necessary to deal with these, including the
neo-colonialism manifesting in some African leaders as well as leadership crises
resulting from individualism, tribalism, and capitalist yearnings of the ruling elite.
In this sense, political philosophy was an attempt to correct the situation. This
suggests the ethical basis of political philosophy. At some point, Africa had to deal
with military coups and political dictatorships that led to the impoverishment of the
African masses.
This inevitably raises the question, what is the task of African Political philoso-
phy? The following answers have been proffered:
The most common political theory and good ideological approaches being practiced on the
African soil today are borrowed from outside Africa. Without home grown political theories,
the effort to unite African peoples, politically and economically is an illusion. This is where
the main role of political philosophy in Africa lies. The political thinkers have a task to
identify such a political theory by which political practitioners should live. (Lajul, 2020:
183)
Governance in most Africa nations is replete with ‘democratic’ monarchs, tyrants and
despots, who are also grossly characterized by ethnicism, tribalism, nepotism, and persecu-
tion of rational opponents and intellectuals. This gives credence to the fact that mineral
deposits without philosophic managers cannot translate to real wealth. However, this
situation of poor management is exacerbated by support from western imperial powers,
who take advantage of African leadership mediocrity to enrich their countries. (Emeka &
Chinweuba, n.d.: 96)
The challenge of African philosophy is on the political emancipation of the African

continent mainly from the black leaders and their political collaborators outside Africa.
[. . .] The question then is how philosophy and indeed African philosophy has contributed to
understanding this problematic and how, using some philosophical parameters, we can
proffer solution to this predicament of state, power and leadership in Africa. [. . .] the role
of African philosophy in the socio-political development of Africa, particularly how African
philosophy, through the theories of African philosophers, have come to terms with political
crisis in Africa, especially the postcolonial crisis that resulted from political independence
and the inability of African states to manage political independence for sustainable devel-
opment in Africa. The main import of this paper is to see how African philosophers can help
to resolve political crisis in Africa. (Oyeshile, 2018: 2)
The Africa we know is the Africa of corruption, poverty, conflict, environmental pollution,
religious bigotry, overpopulation, power adventurism, retrogression, and failure. Therefore,
the task of African philosophy is to address the “concrete existential problems” within the
social and cultural circumstances of the modern African so as to reconstruct the Africa we
know towards shaping a progressive Africa of the future (Edet, 2015). Conceptual
Mandelanization is premised on this idea, based on “methodological preconditions for the
development and evolution of a viable indigenous development oriented social ideology” to
address the African condition. (Ibanga, 2018: 129)
The common thread seems to boil down to the concept of philosopher kings who
will make things better for the African. These philosopher kings, or king educators,
must dig deep into African traditional thought systems and come up with “principled
interpretations of sub-Saharan moral thought” robust enough to genuinely rival
“dominant Western theories such as utilitarianism (Mill, 1879), Kantianism, and
contractualism (Metz, 2012: 61).” In other words, African Political philosophy
should lead to ethics; African Political ethics to which we now turn.
African Political Ethics
African Political Ethics is a branch of African Philosophy just like “African envi-
ronmental ethics is still a developing area of African philosophy” (Ibanga, 2018:
124)” and Swahili philosophy (Rettová, 2020: 34) just to mention a few. African
political ethics can simply be defined as the philosophical study of right and wrong
in the context of African Political Philosophy. We have already spent considerable
space on the definition of the latter, so we simply need to expand on the former
which I propose to do below.
In order to deal with African political ethics there is need to start at the core of
African ethics. At this stage there is no point in belabouring the answer to the
question as to whether there is African ethics, which has been adequately dealt
with (Metz, 2007; Ramose, 1999; Jimoh, 2017; Deng, 2004; Taringa, 2020; Teffo,
2004; Prinsloo, 1991; Gaie, 2007) just to mention a few. We must look at what that
core is.
Botho/Ubuntu
It is not claiming too much to state that the core of not only African philosophy, but
African aesthetics, ethics, epistemology, logic, metaphysics/ontology, education,
management and politics (and many other branches) is Botho in Setswana/Sesotho,
also commonly known as Ubuntu, Hunhu (Shona) and in Venda, Swahili, Tsonga,
Shangaan, and Ugandan languages (Van Norren, 2014: 256). That is partly why
“like most fundamental concepts, Ubuntu defies a single definition or characteri-
zation. In most cases it is not clear what Ubuntu means (Taringa, 2020: 393).”
“There is no agreement on what ‘ubuntu’ itself means (Gade, 2012: 487).” “It was
not until the second half of the 1900s that ubuntu began to be defined as a
philosophy, an ethic, African humanism, and as a worldview in written sources
(Gade, 2012: 492).”
Different scholars have expressed this as summarized by Taole:
Ubuntu is multifaceted, dynamic and is perceived differently in different contexts. Ubuntu is

difficult to define and a plethora of definitions exists, each emphasizing different elements of
the concept (Mavobula 2011:39). Lephalala (2012) argues that Ubuntu is complex, elusive
and multifaceted, as it mirrors the multiple and shifting nature of the African society and
292 J. B. R. Gaie
human relationships. Mokgoro (1998:2) asserts that the concept, like many African concepts
is not easily definable. She adds that defining an African notion in a foreign language can be
elusive. Metz (2007: 323) concurs that it is difficult to translate Ubuntu into English because
it has many different connotations associated with it. (Taole, 2016: 68)
This is well captured by the view that “to understand reality in African system of
thought is to have a holistic view of a society structured by harmonious
co-existence between all beings (Ejike, 2020: 27).” Botho/“ubuntu is not just an
abstract concept. It permeates every aspect of African life. It is expressed in
collective singing, pain, dancing, expressions of grief, celebrations, sharing and
compassion (Msengana, 2006: 84).” It is that and much more. It is fullness,
immensity or wholeness. And “this wholeness in constant flux is called, in
Bantu, ubuntu. Ubuntu is a hard-to-translate encompassing word for principle of
harmonious, ever-changing, all-encompassing, and adequately-fitting substance
(Fikentscher, 2006: 317).”
Ubuntu, which has formed the basis of a number of recent engagements with the possibility
of a distinctively African ethics, is both an ethical and a politico-ideological project: this is
because as a moral principle it aims to consider and enhance human well-being, and as a
politico-ideological principle, it guides social and political relationships in healthy, harmo-
nious, directions. (Bamford, 2019: 51)
Ubuntu is as such a traditional African philosophical tenet that expresses and implies
understanding humanity in relation to the rest of the world. This philosophy recognizes
the relationship and link between human beings from which humanity discovers the essence
of human interactions. (Ganyi & Owan, 2016: 36)
After attempting the articulation of botho/ubuntu, a complex reality expressed in

a very short word (botho/ubuntu , etc.), we can continue the endeavour by presenting
another version of the complex reality in the form of African political ethics or botho
politics.
African Political Ethics Through Botho/Ubuntu (Botho Politics)
Ubuntu as expressed in various African cultures is the ability to be compassionate,

reciprocate, dignified, harmonious, kind, patient, and so on in order to build, enforce,
reinforce, and maintain the community. Africa is not harmonious, faces political
turmoil and confusion; lacks imagination, economic development, ethical upright-
ness, and technological knowledge because it has abandoned botho/ubuntu and
embraced alien ideologies and cultures. One must add that the adoption of such
cultures is not done in any systematic or prudent manner, often resulting in a hybrid
of confused and confusing sub-cultures. Ganyi and Owan think that ubuntu is the
answer, hence the need to have Ubuntugogy in place so that it can be the thread that
binds the multicultural communities found in Africa together including those of
other lands. Simply put, Ubuntugogy is teaching botho and in botho.
The starting point of ubuntu ethics is the expression: “Umuntu ngumuntu

ngabantu, which literally means “A person is a person through other persons”
(Okyere-Manu, 2018: 207; Mboti, 2015: 125; Van Norren, 2014: 256). In Setswana
it is “motho ke motho ka batho” (Gaie, 2007: 37). This is more than “no man is an
island.” It means “a person is a person because of, with and through other people.”
Now let us look closely at these expressions.
To make this statement is to express an empirical phenomenon. It is to claim some
truth. Firstly, a person is a person because (causal) of other people in the sense that
they owe their existence to others. In Setswana it is expressed as “ke se ke leng sone
ka lona.” He is what he is because of you – you create, actualize, bring him about.
This is what we can refer to as a causal relationship between people. Every person is
a result of other people, literally. They create the person – consider biology, genetics,
socialization, and importantly, ethics. Other people cause somebody to be either
morally good or bad in the sense that it is because of his reaction to them or any
situation that he becomes good or bad. He cannot be bad or good in the moral sense
unless there is his environment, including other people. In that sense they make/
cause him. Consider a clear example, there is no Nelson Mandela without apartheid;
there is no St. Mother Theresa without the adject poverty in India. These phenomena
are necessary for Mandela and Theresa to be what we have come to know them to be.
The next aspect is that of conjugality (with). There is a partnership between
phenomena, people, and the environment. In other words, once he becomes some-
thing – whatever he is, he needs the continued co-operation of others to continue
being what he is; be it wife, friend, leader, father, or resident. When others cease to
be what they are to him he ceases to be what he is (at least in relation to them).
The last aspect is that of instrumentality (through). This simply means other
people (including things) are instruments of his becoming. He becomes what he is by
using others. For him to be at the top, to be “one who is up there” he needs
instruments, means, and ways of climbing and these are other people and things.
To be educated he needs to learn from his teachers (both formal and informal), use
things that he gets from others such as books, schools, teachers, fellow students, etc.
He cannot learn ‘on his own.’ He needs the environment.
The above statement is not controversial at all. It is simple and straightforward.
The controversy might come in the next stage. If one is what they are because of,
with and through other people, how is that related to ethics and his moral behaviour?
How does that guide his behaviour? Put differently, how does that become ethics?
Can it help the subject to determine morally wrong or right behaviour?
To say that some action is wrong is to mean that the person who is said to be doing
wrong is behaving as if they are NOT what they are because of, with and through
other people. Every encounter is a moment of mutual definition – one makes the
other what they are and the former makes the latter what they are. Moral behaviour is
an acknowledgment of this reality. When one acknowledges the other to be contrib-
uting to be what they are, the latter will behave in a certain way. When one behaves
in a way that fails to acknowledge their mutual definition, they are claiming that they
are not what they are because of, with and through the other. But their very denial is
confirmation of this reality. Now when one denies what they confirm through that
294 J. B. R. Gaie
denial they are involved in a contradiction. They are saying that they are not what
they are, which is a falsehood. Their self-awareness and consciousness derive from
their rational nature. As such they need to pursue truth. This calls for doing the things
that are associated with botho, namely being among other things, compassionate,
reciprocative, dignified, harmonious, kind, courageous, patient, and so on in order to
build, enforce, reinforce, and maintain the community and commodious living.
Let us take an example showing unethical behavior. A thief (T) is behaving
immorally when they steal because in addition to showing lack of concern for others,
creating disharmony and lacking sympathy they are claiming something they should
not – namely that they are not what they are because of, with and through others (the
owner – O in this instance). The presence of the property owner (O) potentially
defines T as either thief or a good person. Failure to understand or acknowledge this
by T makes it appear like O has no relevance to T; which is not true. So, T is denying
the fact that O is important in making him what he is, (either thief or non-thief). T is
further implying that O’s well-being has no relevance to him. But O’s well-being and
ownership of the property are what they are because of, with and through T just as
T’s well-being and becoming is because of, with and through O. To demonstrate this,
O continues to have the property and to be alive because of, through and with T. T
can kill him for example (even if he can get arrested later) so he exists at the pleasure
of T. When he steals O’s property, the latter ceases to be owner. O becomes one
without property or victim of theft through T’s activity. Failure to acknowledge this
mutual definition is falsehood and people should not cling to falsehoods.
Now we can see that what has been suggested here hinges on truth-telling or
acknowledgment. The weakness of this argument is that it derives morality from
truth – ethics from epistemology. This is a problem in Western philosophy. This
weakness is acceptable based on the argument that it is an example of the difference
between western philosophy and botho philosophy. The logic of botho philosophy
values truth to the extent that it is a foundational ethical value. This is well expressed
in the statement “truth-telling is thus a moral principle that consistently helps sustain
the harmony and solidarity of the community and is thereby also a moral principle
that helps sustain persons as persons (Tschaepe, 2013: 55).”
After an exposition of botho ethics generally let us see botho ethics applied to
politics, which we have called botho politics, which is not different from Setswana
and African political ethics. Again, like botho ethics, political ethics is founded on
“probably the most common saying in an African context about good leadership is,
‘A king is a king through his people (Metz, 2018: 42)’.”
Kgosi ke kgosi ka batho (A chief is a chief through the people). It follows from this maxim
that one cannot be a chief without the people. You become a king by consent of the people
and you remain one as long as the consent is not withdrawn. (Teffo, 2004: 446)
Teffo calls this “communocracy,” governance of the people (community) by the

community. Note here the two aspects found in botho ethics, namely causality and
conjugality. This is literally true. No king can install himself. He needs his uncles
(to begin with) and the community (the nation). After deciding and agreeing that he
becomes their king the community installs him (usually, even though it can be her).
He then continues being king at their pleasure. From his point of view, he can only
become king by using other people who are the instruments of his becoming. In this
sense, he can use the wisdom of his uncles and society; the culture of his people to be
a good king. On the other hand, he can use the selfishness of those close to him, their
nepotistic yearnings and despotic tendencies, as well as the murderous and undem-
ocratic postures of the powerful in his community to oppress his people.
The question then becomes, what is the political ethics of botho that is based on
kgosi ke kgosi ka batho (king is king because of, with and through the people)? It
must be clear from what has been said above that a good king is one who does not
only understand that he is king because of, with and through the people but also
behaves in a way that reflects this. This raises the question, what kind of political
ethics are we dealing with here? Before dealing with the kind of political ethics that
botho politics is, let us briefly browse through the current perspective on African
political philosophy and by extension African political ethics.
We are dealing with a situation where thinking about African political ethics is
nothing but condemnation exemplified by statements like “after about six decades of
political independence, more than seventy-five percent (75%) of African countries
are still wallowing in abject poverty and crisis of development of various forms
(Oyeshile, 2018: 1–2).” Such a situation partly results from usurpation of traditional
thought systems to maintain advantage of the powerful in society. This is the case in
Iswatini where the king wants to marry even younger virgin girls below the age of
consent and suppresses democracy desired by the youth and progressive members of
the nation, at the expense of national economic development; when elections are
rigged in Zimbabwe and elsewhere (Blank, 2020) in Africa to concoct a majoritarian
institution that uses numerical parliamentary strength to pass repressive laws
favouring the ruling elite (Mbaku, 2020); when capitalist schemes are used to
‘legally’ arrogate the right to the continent’s riches to the elite, we have tyranny
(Doan, 2010: 635) and cruel economic hardship. In Nigeria for example, there are
economic, political, and religious problems (Jimoh, 2017: 44–45).
The above is also captured in the statement:
Wangari Maathai, once said, ‘there is a lot of poverty in Africa, but Africa is not a poor
continent.’ Indeed, that is the case. Africa is a rich continent; rich in terms of not only natural
resources but also human resources. [. . .] Yet, despite an abundance of natural resources and
human resources, the most recent news out of most of Africa remains the same; poverty;
starvation; violent conflict, and social, economic and political underdevelopment.
(de Arimateia da Cruz, 2011: 305)
It is clear that “after almost three centuries of employing Western educational

approaches, many African societies are still characterized by low literacy rates (based
on Western standards), civil conflicts, and underdevelopment (Bandura, 2017: 90).” In
other words, poverty, political instability, conflict (Ani, 2013: 314), mental coloniza-
tion, dependency on the west both materially and mentally, intellectual and cultural
alienation, “injustice, oppression, exploitation, marginalization, and suppression of
296 J. B. R. Gaie
critical and dissenting voices (Ejike, 2020: 36)” are present in Africa. As a result the
hope of redressing this though education is extinguished as it creates disintegrated
“many African schizophrenics” (Ani, 2013: 315) who are grappling with the task of
reconciling their political and economic experiences, education and their traditional
cultures.
One of the most important questions is that of the relationship between politics
and chieftainship in the modern society. The argument could be that political leaders
are democratically elected representatives of the people whereas kings are not
elected. The latter would or should therefore not be part of the modern-day political
state. Put another way, how can traditional political authorities (kings and chiefs) be
incorporated into the present governance system, which is (supposedly) democratic
when chieftainship is not? or should they? Why/why not?
One answer is that African political and cultural traditions such as chieftainship
should not be part of the modern-day society. This is aptly put in the following
example where chieftaincy is seen as:
Significantly, it also contradicts the powerful urban nouveau bourgeoisie that constitute the
core of the ANC now that it is in power. For them, chiefship is an anomaly, an embarrass-
ment, obsolete and an obstacle to their plans for centralized state control of modernization.
(Thornton, 2003: 131)
So, the institution cannot be incorporated into the modern state let alone being
twigged to adapt to prevailing conditions. Any suggestion to accommodate chief-
taincy and other African traditional ideas in the modern state and economy is
impracticable, or bluntly put, utopian.
African political ethics in this context then is the attempt to deal with these issues.
It is asking questions about how African politics can become good. It is dealing with
questions such as why is Africa so poor politically and in other areas. What is needed
for the good of African societies? What should be done to ensure democracy in
Africa? Was traditional African politics democratic? Can we use traditional African
ideas to improve people of the continent and the rest of the world today? For those
who believe these things, African traditional thought systems have a lot to contribute
to the world today. A few concepts are enough to demonstrate possible contribution
of botho politics in our modern-day community.
Consultation/Therisanyo
In Setswana a king is king because of, with and through the people. In recognition of
this reality, a king has to behave in certain ways. One of the most important concepts
is that of consultation. In being king because of, with and through his or her people,
the king must consult. The king used to have a system whereby men of all social
statuses would gather to discuss matters of the state and be consulted by the king.
The central place for such gathering was and is still called the kgotla. This is where
everybody has the right and duty to say what they believe. Thus, the saying mafoko a
kgotla a mantle otlhe (the words of the kgotla, meaning those said at the kgotla, are
all good). This means everybody is allowed to speak at the kgotla. Nobody can be
prevented from speaking for whatever reason. You cannot say that somebody is not
saying anything important and therefore should not speak. When people speak at the
kgotla they cannot be punished for their views either.
Talking about the abuse of the Setswana traditional kgotla, Mahmood Mamdani is
quoted as having said that ‘this public assembly was turned into a forum where
decisions were announced but not debated’ (Makgala & Mogalakwe, 2021: 3).
Consultation in Setswana is “therisanyo.” Traditional Batswana want this rather
than go bolelelwa (to be told – an announcement). The kgotla was not that kind of
thing as observed by the following:
Ørnulf Gulbrandsen says the Tswana lived their lives in courts and argues that this strength-
ened the ‘counter-hegemonic forces of the Tswana kgotla in a colonial context’.30 ‘All
Bechuana [Tswana]’, wrote High Commissioner Lord Harlech in 1941, ‘are blessed and safe
guarded by the kgotla system of quasi democratic control [. . .]. [Dikgosi] like Tshekedi and
Bathoen by personal pre-eminence may appear to have great power, but in Bechuanaland not
even Tshekedi can decide or commit his people without long and patient persuasion in
kgotla’. (Makgala & Mogalakwe, 2021: 7)
Makgala and Mogalakwe give another example of the need to consult in

Setswana traditions. In 1937 the Bangwato overruled their king Tshekedi when he
supported the colonial governors in their attempt to introduce the tribunal system in
place of the kgotla. In 1938 the tribe prevented the colonial powers from introducing
a bicycle tax. To buttress this point Makgala and Mogalakwe explain that “whenever
the colonial administration in Botswana chose not to consult the people, as in
preparing post-Second World War development plans, such tasks invariably faltered
(Makgala & Mogalakwe, 2021: 8).”
Batswana also hold that mmua lebe o bua la gagwe gore mona le ntle a le tswe
(one who speaks a bad word speaks his own so that one who has a better one can
speak it). Here we can clearly see the argument advanced by the British utilitarian
philosopher John Stuart Mill (1859: 136) when he argued that everybody should be
allowed to speak for the sake of truth – so that when their idea is not good, or not
true, people can have the opportunity to learn from it, and when it is true they can
benefit from the truth. This belief in freedom of speech is important in doing away
with epistemic injustice, which is the suppression of truth and knowledge resulting
in the subjugation and stigmatization of a thinker so that they appear like they have
no epistemic value or they have no contribution to make (Wareham, 2017: 8). This
epistemic injustice is not different from tyranny that:
refers to the exercise of power which is cruelly or harshly administered; it usually involves
some form of oppression by those wielding power over the less powerful. John Stuart Mill
(1869) warned about the tyranny of the majority since the sheer weight of numbers can never
be sufficient to make an unjust act any more just. History gets written by those who claim
victory, and the winners wield the economic power and social influence that enable them to
establish the standards for acceptable political and social behaviors. When these histories
and standards routinely exclude minority groups, tyranny flourishes. (Doan, 2010: 635)
298 J. B. R. Gaie
This is well expressed by Bandura who advocates that botho/ubuntu has consen-
sus and reconciliation as its basic tenets:
African traditional culture has an almost infinite capacity for the pursuit of consensus and
reconciliation. African style democracy operates in the form of (sometimes extremely
lengthy) discussions. Although there may be a hierarchy of importance among the speakers,
every person gets an equal chance to speak up until some kind of an agreement, consensus,
or group cohesion is reached. This important aim is expressed by words like simunye (“we
are one”: i.e. “unity is strength”) and slogans like “an injury to one is an injury to all.”
(Bandura, 2017: 94)
The pursuit of justice, truth and consensus is a tool that enables the king to be in
touch with his people and the people with him. It is the glue that holds the society
together. That is why it is true that:
the chief is a chief by virtue of his place in a field of influence that is constituted by
consensus, and breach of that consensus can undermine and ultimately destroy his ability
to act as chief. In a very real sense, the role of chief is defined and given power by the very
nature of the ambiguity and unspoken-ness of the verbal consensus that constitutes it. This
same ambiguity and unspoken-ness – that is, the diffusion of influence and the power of
ambiguity on which it rests – is also its weakness with respect to Western systems of law that
attempt to make the ambiguities explicit, and which attempt to routinize influence through
bureaucratization of the office. (Thornton, 2003: 141)
Thaddeus Metz talks of “consensual democracy” whereby:
a leader will aim to ensure that all genuinely share a way of life, which includes sharing the
power to create it together. Sharing a way of life, as explained above, is not merely people
living the same way, which way of life could be imposed from above. Instead, it essentially
includes cooperative participation, prescribing unanimitarian democracy when feasible, not
merely when it comes to (representative) political legislation, but also other major public
spheres of life. (Metz, 2018: 46)
What is being said here is that the African traditional political system is encored
on botho, one of the most important elements of which is consultation. This
consultation is not just expected of intra/inter-family relationships but also the
wider society and especially the king. The next issue that is worthy of consideration
in the enterprise of ruling from a traditional African point of view (botho) is the
importance of individuality and their role in the community. This is usually a source
of confusion because people think that communal societies emphasize the commu-
nity at the expense of the individual. Let us turn to the matter below.
Respect for Individuality
If a person is a person because of, with and through other people, and a king is a king
because of, with and through the people, there is no way a king nor society can fail to
recognize the importance of an individual, for she is one in and through whom
society is manifest – when you see an individual you are not just seeing them
individually, you are at the same time seeing their family, tribe and society. Even
the king is manifest in the individual. That is why in Setswana, mmala wa kgaka o
bonwa dikgakaneng. The guineafowl’s plumage is noticeable in its young.
Somebody’s success is judged by the appearance of their children – your young’s
appearance reflects not just you but also your society. Scholars are right when they
say the following:
Hunhu-Ubuntu is respectful of particularity and individuality and as such it does not promote
oppressive conformity and loyalty to the group. Evidence that Hunhu-Ubuntu is respectful
of individual autonomy is shown by its demand for consensus and its dialogical nature.
(Chidzonga, 2016: 74)
In the case of Igbo communities, and indeed most Africans, individuality is

realizable in, with and through community.
Igbo villages hold power, which maintains the social balance through a system of check(s)
and balances. Even though there is a strong community consciousness, the rights of
individuals and their existence as an entity are not neglected. The system guarantees free
speech, free movement and free action. (Jimoh, 2017: 42)
Botho safeguards the minority and individuals so that their voices can be heard –
authentic respect for individual rights and honest appreciation of differences based
on the realization, appreciation, and knowledge that every human encounter as well
as a non-human one, is a moment of mutual definition. So:
the ubuntu respect for the particularities of the beliefs and practices of others are especially
emphasized by the following striking translation of umuntu ngumentu ngabantu: “A human
being through (the otherness of) other human beings.” Ubuntu dictates that, if we were to be
human, we need to recognize the genuine otherness of our fellow humans. In other words,
we need to acknowledge the diversity of languages, histories, values and customs, all of
which make up a society. (Bandura, 2017: 96)
Bandura goes on to explain that botho notes “ongoing-ness” of the other and
expresses “mutual exposure” when individuals interact. The mutual exposure
records a “historicality” of both agents whereby their mutual “flexibility,” indefi-
niteness, open-endedness, and irreducibility are evident. “This underscores the
concept of ubuntu which denotes both a state of being and one of becoming. As a
process of self-realization through others, it simultaneously enriches the self-
realization of others (Bandura, 2017: 97).”
The above is consistent with the Setswana saying: motho ga a itsewe e se naga
(unlike land, forest or country, a person is unknowable). This is meant to express not
only the fact that a person is free to make a decision as well as change their mind, but
also that they are in the process of becoming so much so that such a becoming is
open to further indefiniteness depending on the becoming of others and the
environment.
300 J. B. R. Gaie
Neither kings nor societies have veto power when it comes to relating to indi-
viduals. “There is a danger of equating Unhu with submissive coalescence. Yet,
munhu is a rational being (Magosvongwe, 2016: 166)” who constantly assesses, is
assessed and determines courses of action depending on situations. This leads to the
next significant issue, namely the importance of people vis-à-vis other things.
Importance of People
Batswana and indeed Africans value people irrespective of who they are, their social
status, and so on. People are valued for no other reason than being human. In
Setswana ga le fete kgomo (lerumo) le tlhaba motho (it (bullet or spear) does not
pass a cow and pierce a person) meaning if a choice must be made between saving a
person and preserving wealth, the former always prevails. Thus:
‘if faced with a choice between wealth and the preservation of life of another human being,
one should choose the life of the other’ (sharing goes above wealth) and ‘no single human
being can be thoroughly and completely useless’ (e.g. the criminal, ill or handicapped are
part of humanity) (Van Norren, 2014: 256)
The above can be expressed in the following way. When one asks what a human
being is, the answer would be that it is not wealth, power, or social status. If an
elephant would have wealth, power and social status it would never be a
person/human being. The same is true of a person who has these things but lacks
good behaviour, they would not be a person. “That which makes a creature merit the
name of human is the quality of his/her behaviour towards others: the readiness to
help, not to oppress others, especially those who are lower than him/herself in social
rank (Rettová, 2020: 39).”
The Yoruba worldview, just like many other worldview, is replete with injunctions that stress
the need for ethical considerations of others. For instance the concepts of ajobi (consan-
guinity) and ajogbe (co-residentship) emphasize what we share together both as blood
relations and non-blood relations. The bottom line is that in Yoruba communal universe,
the need for interdependence and co-existence guide social and political behavior. (Oyeshile,
2018: 34)
“The quality of Ubuntu is manifested in every human act which has community
building as its objective orientation. Any act that destroys the community, any anti-
social behaviour cannot, in any way be described as Ubuntu (Msengana, 2006:
88–89).” This is what has been described as the “we-ness” which is different from
sameness, it is “nested relatedness” (Taringa, 2020: 393). This “we-ness” and nested
relatedness “solidarity is ultimately empowering as in the Ubuntu mind you cannot
exist without the other (Van Norren, 2014: 259).”
One may wonder how the above is relevant to botho politics. “One should
become a real leader, which one can do insofar as one relates communally and
enables others to commune (Metz, 2018: 42).” This is what Metz calls servant
leadership. It is the kind of leadership whereby one presides over a community that
has botho and likewise the community expects the leader to have botho. For
example,
it would be uncharacteristic for an individual who is sufficiently immersed in ubuntu/botho

to contemplate rape or murder because anyone who rapes or murders becomes, as it were,
depersonalized. Elsewhere I have argued that it would be illogical for anyone with
ubuntu/botho to demonstrate concern for others and at the same time have the inclination
to rape, because rape is an affront to, and is inconsistent with ubuntu/botho moral norms and
values. (Letseka, 2013: 340)
Likewise, a leader who has botho wants to preside over the society that has botho
and would behave according to what Letseka has described above. In addition, they
would want a democratic society and democracy is what we now turn to below.
Democracy
“A concept that is closely associated with human rights is that of democracy, which
advocates popular participation in the political, economic, social, and cultural
processes of governance (Deng, 2004: 502).” It is without doubt that African
traditional politics is democratic. The foundation of African traditional political
ethics is botho/ubuntu as averred above. The connection between democracy,
human rights and botho is therefore clear. Justice Mokgoro, a South African judge
has suggested that botho/ubuntu is the grandmother of all rights (Van Norren, 2014:
261) thereby expressing its foundational nature not only to African Philosophy but to
political ethics. In relation to democracy the judge is said to hold that, “Ubuntu is in
line with the founding values of democracy established by the new constitution and
the bill of rights (Van Norren, 2014: 260).
Democracy is important in African traditional society. The king or “Ssabataka
(Kabaka) was primus inter pares, an equal among equals, an arrangement which
(as we shortly show) crucially influenced the political ethos of the times (Wamala,
2004: 436).” That is why
the personal word of the chief was not law. His official word, on the other hand, is the
consensus of his council and it is only in this capacity that it may be law; which is why the
Akans have the saying that there are no bad kings, only bad councillors. (Wiredu, 2000a:
376)
But that is not all. The above might give the impression that the king was a
representative of the people in the sense of the modern-day political set-up where he
could make decisions on behalf of the people without them:
the councillors have to act, and consult the king, or chief, in the best interest of the people.
The councillors’ own interests are not without weight, but have to be downgraded in case of
conflict with the people’s interests.
302 J. B. R. Gaie
Nor is a mandate of individualised nationals, citizens, or tribesmen to be given to the king; or

chief; but the kings and chiefs must act in the interests of the people, together with the
councillors. An example is the protection of collective intellectual property and its value.
The king or chief is not only an executive organ of a peoples’ or councillors’ parliament.
Rather, kings, chiefs, and councillors share in meeting the duty to seek the good life of the
whole, be it tribe or nation. The powers of kings, chief, and councillors form an outer frame
that defines what they can do. Within this frame, there are duties towards the people that
define in detail what kings, chiefs, and councillors should do. This is the classic picture of
trust. (Fikentscher, 2006: 320)
The doctrine/principle of subsidiarity was very evident in the Baganda kingdom.

The king should not interfere with affairs of the lower ranks, including the family
unit. His work was to plead with the spiritual world on behalf of his people as the
chief priest. Local issues were left for the ordinary members of the society to deal
with. In representing the state in the spiritual realm was never a license for the king to
be arrogant or to misrule his people. This is well represented by the saying “ekinene
tekyetwala: Kabaka ayingira owa Kibale (Nobody can be completely above the law;
the king is in the power of Kibale – the official in charge of settling royal disputes)
(Wamala, 2004: 437).”
There was a way in which the country could discipline the king. He had to rule by
consensus. His lieutenants had to be happy otherwise they would gang against him.
Each region could always secede if they felt hard done by the king. The king was
dependent on the community for his leadership. In Setswana a king is given advice
upon his installation. In line with this is a saying that mo laya kgosi o a e itaela (one
who gives a king the law legislates for themselves). This means one who advises the
king to rule in a certain way is setting themselves up to be ruled that way. If they
advise the king to rule kindly, they will eventually be ruled kindly. If they advise the
king to be ruthless, they will be ruled ruthlessly themselves. This shows how the
people participate in the kingship of the leader. It is consistent with the view that:
the crucial fact about leadership in any culture is that it is a complement to subordinateship.
Whatever a naïve literature on leadership may give people to understand, leaders cannot
choose their styles at will; what is feasible depends to a large extent on the cultural
conditioning of a leader’s subordinates. A chief is chosen; he does not choose himself. He
is therefore defined by the view and expectations of his subordinates. (Msengana, 2006:
111–112)
In addition to the above certain things are important for harmonious living as well
as for enabling the king to rule properly with his people. One such matter is
knowledge to which we now turn.
Shared Knowledge Is Important for Harmonious Living
The saying that “magezi muliro, bwegukuggwako, ogunona wa munno (Knowledge

is like firewood in the hearth, if you have none you fetch it from your neighbor)
(Wamala, 2004: 437)” reflects both interdependence and the importance of
knowledge. In the traditional setup fire, water and food were so important that it was
unethical for somebody to be stingy with them. This is borne by the fact that
whenever somebody needed fire they could readily get if from their neighbour
without cost or question. Knowledge is like that as well. We must learn from each
other. This explains why everybody is important – they can teach others.
“Ndi mugezi nga muburile (I am wise, only if others have informed you)
(Wamala, 2004: 437).” Again, this saying explains the importance of mutual depen-
dence. My wisdom depends on you being wise after you have been accorded the
wisdom by others. Thus, we depend on each other for what we are in a way that does
not dispense with the importance of others in our lives.
“Magezi gomu, galesa Magambo ku kubo (Belief in his intellectual self-
sufficiency resulted in Magambo’s failure to reach home. Magambo, a blind man,
failed to reach home because of his arrogance and unwillingness to consult others)
(Wamala, 2004: 438).” This is clearly showing how important knowledge is, and
how others play a role in giving us knowledge. Ignorance kills and when coupled
with arrogance or lack of capacity to learn from others it is even more dangerous.
Phala e senang phalana lesilo in Setswana means an impala that does not have its
young one is (a fool) foolish. A variant of the same saying is botlhale jwa phala bo
tswa phalaneng meaning the impala’s intelligence comes from its young one.
Somebody is advised by their young relatives. People get advised by their young
ones. People may be young, but that does not mean they have nothing to offer by
way of intelligence, wisdom, and knowledge. It is wise to learn from the young.
One may wonder how the above are relevant to political ethics. Firstly, the
sayings reflect the importance of mutual respect and dependability. When people
appreciate each other’s value, they are more likely to be harmonious in their
relationship. Secondly, the society is a context within which political events take
place be it involving the queen or her people. When the queen and her people
understand the importance of everybody regarding knowledge, they are more likely
to act accordingly. Let us look at another aspect of life that enriches political ethics –
social participation.
Communal Participation and Mutuality
The Setswana saying nama re tima mmesi, mong wa thipa re a mo fa (between the
cook and the one whose knife we used to slaughter and cut meat preference is given
to the knife owner) does not only show the importance of owning useful things. It
shows the importance of participation and sharing of resources. Because the knife
owner is so kind to participate in the slaughter and slicing of meat, they are accorded
the benefit of sharing in the feast. This is the value of participation. All people have
to participate in social activity “Ekyalo ddiba lya mbogo: terizingibwa bwomu
(A village is like a buffalo skin; one man cannot roll it up by himself) (Wamala,
2004: 438).”
The concept of Ibuanyidanda can be applied to address the African crises of
economic, social, religious and political turmoil. This concept is equated to
304 J. B. R. Gaie
botho/ubuntu in its claims to mutuality, communality, interdependence, unity,

wholeness, totality, “the actualization of our being is in the mutual complementarity
of our potentialities, in this complementarity our individual personal identity is
defined (Jimoh, 2017: 44–45).” This Igbo concept is derived from: ibu, anyi,
danda. Ibu load or task, anyi not insurmountable for, danda a species of ants.
Ibuanyidanda exemplifies unity of purpose, mutuality, dependence and
interdependence. A task or load is not insurmountable to the danda (ants). Lack of
understanding Ibuanyidanda leads to tension, agitations, and violent conflicts
including lack of concern for each other. Necessity of social relationships, people’s
natural tendency to commune, individual’s inability to leave apart from others,
people as cultural beings and the necessity of community are expressed by the
saying.
On the other hand, the philosophy of igwebuike, which comes from an Igbo word
meaning “number is strength” or “number is power” is important. There are similar
sayings in Setswana: bo ntsi bo bolaya noga (numbers kill a snake — when people
are many they can easily and safely kill a snake). Kgetsi ya tsie e kgonwa ke go
tshwaganelwa (a bag of locusts is lighter when people carry it together). Lenala le le
lengwe ga le rune nta means exactly the same as the proverb kidole kimoja hakivunji
chawa (“one finger does not squish a louse”) (Rettová, 2020: 49). Finally, ditau tse
di seng seboka di palelwa ke nare e tlhotsa (lions that are not a pride cannot bring
down/kill a limping/lame buffalo). Mutual solidarity, communality, harmony,
togetherness, complementarity are foundational to community life. “It is in being-
with the community, in communion with others, that an African attains full human-
ity, self (a) realization. [. . .] Igwebuike philosophy has wide applicability and
usefulness in this contemporary Africa characterized by injustice, oppression,
exploitation, marginalization, and suppression of critical and dissenting voices
(Ejike, 2020: 36).”
Conclusion
This chapter began with the problematic of defining philosophy and going on to
show that a working definition of philosophy will enlighten that of African philos-
ophy, African Political Philosophy and African political Ethics. After agreeing that
the existence of African philosophy is no longer debatable, we went on to say that
African philosophy is based on the theory of botho/Ubuntu. The latter informs
African political ethics, which is based on the concept of kgosi ke kgosi ka batho
which in turn is based on motho ke motho ka batho. This concept is applicable to
political ethics. When we ask how a king ought to rule, we for example answer that
based on botho ethics, he must be democratic, he must respect people, consider their
importance, and not only rule people with botho but also understand his own
position as not just a representative of the people but also one who lives and rules
with them as he shares in their humanity. This theory can be used to deal with current
ethical and political problems of Africa.
References
Agada, A. (2013). Is African philosophy progressing? Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African
Philosophy, Culture and Religion, 239–274.
295–320.
Atieyibo, E. (2016). African Philosophy in the eyes of the West. Phronimon, 17(1), 84–103.
Bamford, R. (2019). Decolonizing bioethics via African philosophy Moral neocolonialism as a
bioethical problem. In I. G. Hull (Ed.), Debating African philosophy: Perspectives on identity,
decolonial ethics, and comparative philosophy (pp. 43–59). Routledge Taylor & Francis.
Bandura, A. K. (2017, November). African-centered internet literacy: An Ubuntugogy metadata
approach. Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies, 10(10), 88–108.
Blank, S. (2020). Russia’s Africa policy who benefits, how and why. In I. C. Zambakari (Ed.),
Courting Africa: Asian powers and the new scramble for the continent (pp. 74–91). The
Zambakari Advisory.
Bocheński, J. (1963). Philosophy an introduction. Springer.
Bodunrin, P. (1981). The question of African philosophy. Philosophy, 56(216), 161–179.
Chaffee, J. (2009). The Philosopher’s Way a text with readings thinking critically about profound
ideas. Pearson.
Chemhuru, M. (2016). Pursuing the agenda of Africanising philosophy in Africa: Some possibil-
ities. South African Journal of Philosophy, 35(4), 418–428.
Chidzonga, M. A. (2016). A Hunhu-Ubuntu informed critique of patriotic history discourse and
Chimurenga nationalism. Dalhousie University.
Davis, B. W. (2019, April). Beyond philosophical Euromonopolism: Other ways of—Not otherwise
than—Philosophy. Philosophy East and West, 69(2), 592–619.
de Arimateia da Cruz, J. (2011). Africa’s elusive quest for political, social and economic develop-
ment [Review of debt-poverty as an impediment to social development: An economic and
political analysis; Africa’s elusive qeust for development; Sub-Saharan Africa’s development
challenges]. Journal of Third World Studies, 28(1), 305–311.
Deng, F. M. (2004). Human rights in the African context. In K. Wiredu (Ed.), A companion to
African philosophy (pp. 499–508). Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Doan, P. L. (2010, October). The tyranny of gendered spaces – Reflections from beyond the gender
dichotomy. Gender, Place and Culture, 17(5), 635–654.
Ejike, C. E. (2020). African indigenous knowledge systems and philosophy. In I. A. Kanu & E. J.
Ndubisi (Eds.), African indigenous knowledge systems: Problems and perspectives (pp. 20–29).
Association for the Promotion of African Studies (APAS).
Emeka, G., & Chinweuba, C. G. (n.d.). Philosophy and governance in contemporary Africa.
Fikentscher, W. (2006). The whole is more than the sum of the parts, therefore I have individual
rights: African philosophy and the anthropology of developing economics and Laws. In
I. M. O. Hinz (Ed.), Shades of new leaves. Governance in traditional authority a southern
African perspective (pp. 295–328). LiT Verlag.
Gade, C. B. (2012). What is Ubuntu? Different interpretations among South Africans of African
descent. South African Journal of Philosophy, 31(3), 484–503.
Gaie, J. B. (2007). The Setswana concept of Botho unpacking the metaphysical and moral aspects.
In J. B. Gaie & S. K. Mmolai (Eds.), The concept of Botho and HIV?AIDS in Botswana
(pp. 29–43). Zapf Chancery.
Ganyi, F. M., & Owan, J. I. (2016). Impact of transculturalism and globalization on the concepts of
oral literature and “Ubuntugogy” as educational paradigms for African liberation and develop-
ment in the 21st century. English Language, Literature & Culture, 1(3), 30–39.
Groves, J. R. (2014). The divine ordinary: What the West can learn from Chinese philosophy.
Journal of East-West Thought, 4(2), 53–64.
Hull, G. (2019). Introduction. In I. G. Hull (Ed.), Debating African philosophy perspectives on
identity, Decolonial ethics and comparative philosophy (pp. 1–22). Routledge Taylor & Francis.
306 J. B. R. Gaie
Ibanga, D.-A. (2018). Concept, principles and research methods of African environmental ethics.
Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies, 11(7), 123–141.
Ibuot, E. J. (2011). On delimiting African philosophy and the equalization scheme. Ogirisi: A New
Journal of African Studies, 8, 210–224.
Janz, B. B. (2017). The geography of African philosophy. In I. A. Afolayan & T. Falola (Eds.), The
Palgrave handbook of African philosophy (pp. 155–166). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-
1-137-59291-0_11
Jimoh, A. K. (2017). Ubuntu, Ibuanyindanda: Harnessing African philosophy of personhood for
peaceful co-existence in Nigeria. Ewanlen: A Journal of Philosophical Inquiry, 1(1), 40–49.
Jones, W. E., & Metz, T. (2015). The politics of philosophy in Africa: A conversation. South African
Journal of Philosophy, 34(4), 538–550.
Kaphagawani, D. N., & Malherbe, J. G. (2000). African epistemology. In I. P. Coetzee & A. Roux
(Eds.), Philosophy from Africa a text with readings (pp. 205–216). Oxford University Press.
Kasanda, A. (2015). Analyzing African social and political philosophy. Journal of East-West
Thought, 5(1), 29–50.
Lajul, W. (2020). A critical analysis of political philosophy in African political discourses. Art
Human Open Access Journal, 4(5), 176–185.
Letseka, M. (2013). Educating for Ubuntu/Botho: Lessons from Basotho indigenous education.
Open Journal of Philosophy, 3(2), 337–344.
Magosvongwe, R. (2016). Shona philosophy of Unhu/Hunhu and its onomastics in selected
fictional narratives. Journal of the African Literature Association, 10(2), 158–175.
Makgala, C. J., & Mogalakwe, M. (2021). The tribal conciliar experiment and marginalisation of
local public opinion in Botswana, 1948–1957. South African Historical Journal, 73, 1–27.
Mawere, M., & Mubaya, T. R. (2016). African philosophy and thought systems: A search for a
culture and philosophy of belonging. Langaa Research & Publishing CIG.
Mbaku, J. M. (2020, October 30). Africa in focus. Retrieved November 25, 2021, from Threats to
democracy in Africa: The rise of the constitutional coup: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/
africa-in-focus/2020/10/30/threats-to-democracy-in-africa-the-rise-of-the-constitutional-coup/
Mboti, N. (2015). May the real Ubuntu please stand up? Journal of Media Ethics, 30, 125–147.
Metz, T. (2007). Toward an African moral theory. Journal of Political Philosophy, 15(3), 321–341.
Metz, T. (2012). Developing African political philosophy: Moral-theoretic strategies. Philosophia
Africana, 14(1), 61–83.
Metz, T. (2018, November). An African theory of good leadership. African Journal of Business
Ethics, 12(2), 36–53.
Msengana, N. W. (2006). The significance of the concept ‘Ubuntu’ for educational management
and leadership during democratic transformation in South Africa. University of Stellenbosch.
Mill, J. S. (1859). On liberty. John W. Parker and Son, West Strand.
Mill, J. S. (1879). Utilitarianism. Longmans, Green, and Co.
Msila, V. (2009, June). Africanisation of education and the search fo rrelevance and context.
Educational Research and Review, 4(6), 310–315.
Nsamenang, A. B. (2011). Toward a philosophy for Africa’s education. In I. A. B. Nsamenang &
T. M. Tchombe (Eds.), Handbook of African educational theories and practices: A generative
teacher education curriculum (pp. 55–66). Human Development Resource Centre (HDRC).
Ogunnaike, O. (2017). African philosophy reconsidered Africa, religion, race, and philosophy.
Journal of Africana Religions, 5(2), 181–216.
Okaneme, G. (2013). A philosophical evaluation of the concept of African freedom. Open Journal
of Philsophy, 3(1A), 161–167.
Okyere-Manu, B. (2018). Who is umuntu in Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu? Interrogating moral
issues facing Ndau women in polygyny. South African Journal of Philosophy, 37(2), 207–216.
Oyeshile, O. A. (2008). On defining African philosophy: History, challenges and perspectives.
Humanity and Social Science Journal, 3(1), 57–64.
Oyeshile, O. A. (2018). African philosophy and Africa’s political crisis: The ontological and ethical
imperatives and the contributions of Anthony O. Echekwube. Ewanlen, 2(1), 1–41.
Prinsloo, E. D. (1991). Ubuntu culture and participatory management. In I. P. Coetzee & A. Roux
(Eds.), Philosophy from Africa a text with readings (pp. 41–51). Oxford University Press.
Rettová, A. (2020). Cognates of Ubuntu: Humanity/personhood in the Swahili philosophy of utu.
Decolonial Subversions, 31–60.
Rypka, J. (1968). History of Iranian literature. D. Reidel Publishing Company.
Sogolo, S. G. (2000). Logic and rationality. In I. P. Coetzee & A. Roux (Eds.), Philosophy from
Africa a text with readings (pp. 217–233). Oxford University Press.
Strauss, L. (1957). What is political philosophy? The Journal of Politcs, 19(3), 343–368.
Taole, M. J. (2016). Grounding ODL curriculum in Ubuntu values. In M. Matseka & M. Matseka
(Eds.), Open distance learning (ODL) through the philosophy of Ubuntu (pp. 65–76). Nova
Scientific Publishers.
Taringa, N. (2020). The potential of Ubuntu values for a sustainable ethic of the environment and
development. In E. Chitando, M. R. Gunda, & L. Togarasei (Eds.), Religion and development in
Africa (pp. 387–399). University of Bamberg Press.
Teffo, J. (2004). Democracy, kingship, and consensus: A South African perspective. In K. Wiredu
(Ed.), A companion to African philosophy (pp. 443–449). Blackwell Publishing Ltd..
Thornton, R. (2003). Chiefs: Power in a political wilderness. In D. I. Ray & P. Reddy (Eds.),
Grassroots governance?: Chiefs in Africa and the Afro-Caribbean (pp. 123–144). University of
Calgary Press (International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration (IASIA)).
Tschaepe, M. (2013). A humanist ethic of Ubuntu: Understanding moral obligation and community.
Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism, 21(2), 47–61.
Van Norren, D. E. (2014). The nexus between Ubuntu and global public goods: Its relevance for the
post 2015 development Agenda. Development Studies Research: An Open Access Journal, 1(1),
255–266.
Wamala, E. (2004). Government by consensus: An analysis of a traditional form of democracy. In
K. Wiredu (Ed.), A companion to African philosophy (pp. 435–442). Blackwell Publishing Ltd..
Wareham, C. S. (2017). A duty to explore African ethics? Ethics Theory Moral Practice, 1–16.
Wiredu, K. (2000a). Democracy and consensus in African traditional politic: A plea for a non-party
polity. In I. P. Coetzee & A. Roux (Eds.), Philosophy from Africa a text with readings
(pp. 374–382). Oxford University Press.
Wiredu, K. (2000b). The moral foundations of an African culture. In P. Coetzee & A. Roux (Eds.),
Philosophy from Africa a text with readings (pp. 306–316). Oxford University Press.
Doing Contemporary African Social
and Political Philosophy from Below
Yeelen Badona Monteiro
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
The Discipline of African Social and Political Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
African People Can and Already Do Social and Political Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
A Manifesto for Contemporary African Social and Political Philosophers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
Democracy in Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
Anocracy: Another Trajectory of Democracy in Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
How to Develop African Social and Political Philosophy from Below . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Why Civil Disobedience, and Why Sudan? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
Philosophizing from Below While Democratizing from Below . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
Abstract
Recent research into contemporary African social and political philosophy has
emphasized African folk and indigenous heritage, as well as the legacies of
eminent African leaders and precolonial African societies. Such research has
also attended to theoretical debates and discussions and clarifications of concepts
employed in the political and social spheres. The core themes and issues driving
this subject area relate to African people’s daily lives, the search for better modes
of political and social organization, and the challenges that African people must
face. In accordance with this contemporary definition, African social and political
philosophy draws on African people themselves and considers them to be actively
engaged in philosophical theorization work while tackling the challenges that
reality poses to their lives. Democracy is one of the main challenges for Africa. In
particular, on the continent, democracy is increasingly following an alternative
trajectory toward anocratic forms of government. Anocracy is examined to
Y. Badona Monteiro (*)

Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy
e-mail: yeelen.monteiro@gmail.com

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_43
310 Y. Badona Monteiro
describe the path to democratization that various African countries are following.
The analysis of acts of civil disobedience carried out in an anocratic regime, such
as that of Sudan, provides additional evidence of the role that African people are
playing in dealing with injustices and democratizing their countries from below.
Through these processes, African people are philosophizing from below, and it is
on this process that African social and political philosophy should concentrate to
further develop as a field of study.
Keywords
African social and political philosophy · Democracy · Anocracy · Civil
disobedience · Sudan
Introduction
This chapter concentrates on contemporary African social and political philosophy

and is divided into three sections. Section “The Discipline of African Social and
Political Philosophy” provides an overview of this field of study, which remains
among the less explored areas of African philosophy. One of the chapter’s aims is to
reflect on how this philosophical field could develop. More specifically, section “The
Discipline of African Social and Political Philosophy” seeks to answer the following
questions: What is contemporary African social and political philosophy? How is
research in this discipline conducted? Which sources does research relating to this
discipline use? What is the role of contemporary African social and political
philosophers? What future directions could such philosophers take? Few studies
have been published on this specific philosophy as a discipline. The definition of
contemporary African social and political philosophy endorsed here is the one that
Albert Kasanda (2018) propounded. In his analysis, Kasanda claimed that this
philosophy deals with African people’s daily lives and challenges, including dis-
eases, poverty, and social and political organization. Furthermore, according to his
research, this philosophy analyzes how African people creatively tackle these
challenges (Kasanda, 2018). With this preliminary definition, some of the central
questions driving the field of contemporary African social and political philosophy
are identified.
Following a brief overview of further topics and issues discussed, which relate to
contemporary African social and political philosophy, section “Democracy in
Africa” of this chapter concerns one of the field’s main themes: democracy in Africa.
However, a thorough discussion of the African theories of democracy is beyond the
scope of this contribution. Section “Democracy in Africa” calls into question the
appropriateness of the category of democracy regarding contemporary African
states. Subsequently, the section reexamines the generally deployed categorization
and presents a different classification of regime: anocracy. Once this new classifica-
tion is considered, along with the present experiences of democracy and the ongoing
path to democratization on the African continent, the section analyzes a connected
Doing Contemporary African Social and Political Philosophy from Below 311
topic: civil disobedience as a form of protest undertaken in anocratic contexts, whose

aim is to bring about full-fledged democratic regimes (i.e., a means of transformation
for democratization from below).
Section “How to Develop African Social and Political Philosophy from Below”
examines an emblematic example: the civil disobedience campaigns that Sudanese
citizens have recently undertaken with the aim of restoring a sound democratic system
in their country. The study of Sudanese civil disobedience corroborates the description
of the nature and scope of contemporary African social and political philosophy, as
outlined earlier in the introduction. Ultimately, the aim of this chapter is to demonstrate
that this discipline has focused, and increasingly has to focus, on African people’s
daily lives and challenges and, consequently, on how African people reflect on,
discuss, and develop concepts and ideas. African citizens and African protesters are
exemplary subjects in this regard and should be central to an investigation into African
social and political philosophy. By undertaking civil disobedience campaigns, the
Sudanese people, and African citizens in general, actively participate in the practicing
of contemporary African social and political philosophy. By democratizing from
below, African citizens philosophize from below. It is by recognizing African people’s
engagement in the process of philosophical theorizing that a contemporary African
social and political philosopher can identify a way to advance their philosophy.
The Discipline of African Social and Political Philosophy
Contemporary African social and political philosophy is a relatively new subject area
in African philosophy and is still among the less explored areas. Commonly, this
philosophy is considered to be the study of the theories that prominent African leaders
and professional philosophers have elaborated (Kasanda, 2018), as well as the study of
African citizens’ more general reflections on the past and ongoing experiences of their
people and the responses to other political ideologies and philosophies (Osei, 2017).
Moreover, many African scholars have described this philosophy as a nationalist
ideology. The philosophy has been defined in terms of ideological and national
thought (Kasanda, 2018). Consequently, for such scholars, the sources of African
social and political philosophy are mainly considered to be the speeches of African
leaders and statesmen and the productions of African intellectuals.
In addition to these widespread and narrow conceptions, Kasanda outlined an
interesting and more comprehensive approach. He identified African social and
political philosophy “as aiming at the clarification of concepts in use in the African
social and political sphere.” It “is a rational search for better modes of social and
political organization and governance on behalf of African people and their leaders
and intellectuals. This search not only includes theoretical debates and the clarifica-
tion of concepts, but also deals with African people’s daily challenges for a better life
and creating a humanized community ( faire société). [. . .] African social and
political philosophy is not merely a subcategory of a general philosophy, nor is it
exclusively concerned with metaphysical issues. On the contrary, this philosophy
also deals with matters related to people’s daily lives, such as diseases, poverty, and
social and political organization” (Kasanda, 2018: 29–30; emphasis in original).
In response to the Africanists and African scholars who have tended to confer an
ideological status on this philosophy and consider it a prerogative of African leaders
and professional philosophers, this alternative definition first better describes what
African social and political philosophy is. The purpose of outlining African social and
political philosophy as a subject field is clear in Kasanda’s definition, which aims to
demonstrate “that African social and political philosophy is not merely a subcategory
of a general philosophy” (2018: 30). Second, this definition broadens the approach to
the sources of this philosophy. Assuming that the theories that African leaders and
professional philosophers have elaborated do not exclusively constitute African social
and political philosophy, the study of this subject area considers not only the leaders’
speeches but also African precolonial and indigenous legacy, literature, music, art, and
religion. When discussing professional philosophers, Kasanda referred to the institu-
tionalization of philosophy and, more specifically, English and Kalumba’s (1996)
concept according to which African scholars are identified as such owing to their
credentials as doctors of philosophy, which involve “reflection, criticism, argument,
and written peer review” (English & Kalumba, 1996: 7). To broaden the reservoir of
the sources of this discipline, Kasanda (2018) justifiably argued in favor of the
inclusion of literature – thus of creative writing – and of the artistic production more
generally in the sources to be investigated in the study of African social and political
philosophy. This stance arose in response to a perspective that, in his opinion, a
number of African thinkers had assimilated. On the heels of the Platonic view,
according to which only the philosopher has access to the world of ideas, various
African thinkers disregarded the philosophical significance and role of fields such as
literature, art, and music. Creative writers and artists themselves, as well as their
productions, actively participate in social and political life and, thus, in this philoso-
phy. The necessity for and the fruitfulness of this broadening of the approach to the
sources and the subjects involved in contributing to contemporary African social and
political philosophy become clear in section “How to Develop African Social and
Political Philosophy from Below” of the chapter.
Before examining some of the main themes and questions driving this philosoph-
ical field, the chapter first clarifies why African people themselves not only can but
already do actively contribute to African social and political philosophy. With this in
mind, the chapter attempts to outline what it means to be a contemporary African
social and political philosopher and what the role of such a philosopher is in the
development of this philosophy.
African People Can and Already Do Social and Political Philosophy
It seems unnecessary to continue discussing whether African people can truly

philosophize. There is, however, a concerning past that must be addressed when
dealing with this issue. Historically, African people have been depicted as cursed and
have consequently been enslaved and colonized by the Europeans. Some of the
justifications provided to explain colonization appear to stem from an incorrect

reading of the Bible. As Gerald J. Wanjohi (2017) explained, Ham, one of the
three sons of Noah, as well as the ancestor of African people, is generally considered
to be responsible for not clothing his father when he discovers him drunk and lying
naked (King James Bible 1994, Genesis 9: 18–27). Accordingly, Noah condemns
Ham to be a slave to his two brothers, Shem and Japheth. In fact, Canaan, Ham’s son,
is the one cursed by Noah. In addition to this incorrect reading of the Bible, some
European philosophers (e.g., Hume, Kant, and Hegel) have considered African
people to be inferior and incapable of philosophizing because of a lack of intelli-
gence and reason. According to a number of philosophers, African people have thus
not been considered rational beings. Discussing such beliefs, Björn Freter (2018)
provided an interesting contribution about and investigation into structural racism in
the philosophical edifices of some of the major philosophers of the Enlightenment
(notably Voltaire, Hume, and Kant) and the prodromes of White supremacy in their
philosophies.
These distorted views about African people have challenged African people’s
involvement in the philosophical debates (Wanjohi, 2017). A way to respond to all of
the critics wondering whether African people can philosophize and how African
people can participate in the study and discussion of political philosophy is by
highlighting two fundamental and intertwined points: (i) African people can unde-
niably appreciate and participate in the discussion of political issues and in social and
political philosophy because (ii) they already actively participate in social and
political philosophy (i.e., they engage in this philosophy). As this chapter aims to
demonstrate, African people participate in political discourses and practice social
and political philosophy while taking to the streets to protest, calling for democracy,
peace, and justice. It is necessary to consider the historical and recent vicissitudes of
the Sudanese people and their civil disobedience campaigns, which are further
explored subsequently. Through civil disobedience, which is the term that they
used to refer to their actions, the Sudanese people mobilized themselves and
expressed their dissent to restore a sound democracy in their country. This phenom-
enon applies not only to the case analyzed in this chapter, namely that of the
Sudanese people’s civil disobedience, but, as Osei (2017) suggested, also to the
South African people who protested and marched against the apartheid regime. It
was an “unrelenting intellectual and physical struggle by the poor and unarmed
Black South Africans” (Osei, 2017: 291). Osei also encouraged consideration of
how South African people “stood for endless hours in endless lines just to have a
chance to cast a ballot for the first Black African president in a peaceful, democratic
and racially inclusive election” (2017: 292). Thus, the South African example is
another one that demonstrates that African people are primary actors in such a
philosophy. Basically, Osei argued that “in so far as the man or woman in the street
thinks critically about his or her own political views or those of others, or ponders on
their justification, or compares them with rival ideas, to that extent he or she is a
political philosopher” (2017: 293). This premise sustains the idea that social and
political philosophy is – also and above all – done by African people themselves.
In the abovementioned cases, citizens have explicitly engaged in acts of civil

disobedience. What does the term mean for such citizens? Why engage in such acts
specifically? What is the aim of engaging in nonviolent acts of civil disobedience?
These, among others, should be the questions driving contemporary philosophical
debates. Contemporary African practices challenge the conceptual categories, such
as civil disobedience, discussed thus far in the field of social and political philoso-
phy. Hence, social and political philosophers should observe how such concepts are
deployed and their designated meanings. Such philosophers should perform the
tasks of studying and analyzing these social and political phenomena, the relative
conceptual terminology, and the pursued goals. What warrants investigating for a
social and political philosopher should be the meaning of such categories, which are
typically studied from an eminently Western perspective, in Africa. These categories
are also debated beyond the Western horizon. Thus, the engagement in contempo-
rary African social and political philosophy requires that the perspective be broad-
ened. Being contemporary social and political philosophers and being committed to
an in-depth study of the philosophical concepts signify making efforts to move
beyond the canonical and influential philosophical debates – crossing boundaries –
to investigate how the philosophical conceptual categories, which one pretends to
sufficiently, or sometimes even definitely, understand, develop, and possibly trans-
form in different debates. This means that debates should not only be had among
Western philosophers or African philosophers, but also among activists, citizens, and
artists too. Philosophers deal with concepts that are constantly discussed,
reappraised, and challenged by reality. It is time for philosophers to dismiss bound-
aries. In other words, through a borrowing of Juliet Hooker’s (2016) suggestion
about the approach to civil disobedience, it is time to think more expansively, which
means thinking more comparatively and considering how concepts are defined in
neglected contexts in particular. As pointed out in this chapter’s introduction, the acts
of civil disobedience on the African continent and the reflections on this form of
protest and on the related philosophical concept can be fruitful starting points to
discuss what it means to practice contemporary African social and political philos-
ophy, as well as what the trajectories for this subject area could be in the future.
A Manifesto for Contemporary African Social and Political

Philosophers
Some questions must be addressed more thoroughly, including how contemporary

African philosophers can practice social and political philosophy, what such philos-
ophers’ roles could be, and how they should relate social and political philosophy to
traditional African heritage and legacy and other philosophies. An interesting
starting point in this regard is Wiredu’s (1997a) reflection on how present-day
African philosophers should philosophize. In a contribution entitled How Not to
Compare African Traditional Thought with Western Thought, which was first
published in 1984, Wiredu distinctly described the state of the art of engagement
in philosophy; what it means to philosophize as an African philosopher; and what, in
his view, are the stumbling blocks on this path. Through a critical reading of this
contribution, it is possible to understand more precisely how a contemporary African
philosopher can fruitfully philosophize, especially as regards African social and
political philosophy, and what the role of the African philosopher consequently is.
Two of Wiredu’s related statements can now be considered. Wiredu first claimed
that “unfortunately, African philosophers writing today have no tradition of written
philosophy in their continent to draw upon” (Wiredu, 1997a: 325). Subsequently, he
added that, because the ancestors of African philosophers “left them no heritage of
philosophical writings,” they “have no choice but to conduct their philosophical
inquiries in relation to the philosophical writings of other peoples” (Wiredu, 1997a:
326). In Udoidem’s (1987) commentary, the problematic and disputable points of
Wiredu’s reflection were well raised and formulated. First and foremost, it is
necessary to clarify, as Wiredu only did in a footnote, that, by stating that there is
no tradition of written philosophy, no consideration is given to the Ethiopian and the
Arab written heritages (particularly that of Egypt, as Udoidem rightly underlined
with reference to some of the works on this topic by Lancinay Keita [1984], Henry
Olela [1984], and Edward P. Philip [1974]), which are fundamental parts of the
African intellectual heritage. Second, the lack of an African written heritage is no
longer a problem in the way that Wiredu outlined. Contemporary African philoso-
phers can now access a number of written contributions by more or less prominent
African philosophers, which is true even though, on the one hand, there remains
considerable work to do with regard to oral traditions. On the other hand, as Martin
(2012) pointed out, when dealing with African political thought as a specific subject
area, one encounters a relatively new discipline. When considering the subject area
examined here, the problem is not the lack of written sources but rather that, as
previously underlined, the subject area draws on different types of materials and
sources that are scattered among the speeches of famous African leaders, African
traditional thought, books, literature, art, music, and religion (Kasanda, 2018).
Regarding African philosophical heritage, archival work and, more importantly, a
subsequent critical analysis of the deriving material represent something to which a
contemporary African philosopher should be committed, as suggested by Udoidem
(1987), who also clarified that
“this does not mean that some African philosophers should not be specialists in Western
thought, but a problem arises when all African philosophers are specialists in Western
thought and no African philosopher knows anything about African heritage. The move
should not be to stop Africans from contemplating their traditional and folk thoughts but to
encourage them to adopt a critical and analytical attitude towards these indigenous thoughts.
It is the only way that African philosophy can be personal and intensive, critical and logical,
analytic and synthetic, and above all competitive in a pluralistic world of competing ideas
and world views. It is also the only way that the African philosophers can have a basis or
foundation for their philosophy” (Udoidem, 1987: 103).
Thus, there certainly is a heritage to begin with and relate to, which is represented
by African folk and traditional thought. There is material for African philosophers
and future specialists in African thought, as well as material that could be of interest
to and inform Western philosophers, and, as both Wiredu and Udoidem argued,
adopting an analytical attitude, and especially a critical approach, could be a

productive posture for contemporary African philosophers.
Critical reflection is also required with regard to Wiredu’s second statement about
the inevitability that an African philosopher conducts research in relation to other
people’s philosophical writings, owing to the lack of a written heritage. In this claim,
reference is made to an African tendency to be “apish” (Udoidem, 1987: 102) in the
search for knowledge, which means imitating and uncritically referring to other
people’s writings. According to Udoidem (1987), this tendency is one that Wiredu
also subscribed to, when formulating the second statement that is under discussion
here. It is necessary that this point be clarified: It is not a matter of imitating Western
philosophy or thought. The study of philosophy also involves engaging with influ-
ences, exchanges, dialogs, and conversations that go beyond the boundaries of the
Western and the African world. Given this premise, it is necessary to make a due
distinction. It is one thing to reflect on the implications of colonization for the
expression and the elaboration of African philosophy and discuss how not to
continue confining African thought and philosophy to a subordinated level or the
status of an inferior complement of other more important philosophies. This is part of
the work to desuperiorize Western philosophy. As Björn Freter (2018) argued, this
work of desuperiorization is indispensable, especially for Western scholars, given
that African thought is still considered inferior to Western thought and even a form of
primitive thinking that has nothing serious to offer. African thought is considered to
have something serious to offer when it adjusts itself to Western thinking. For Freter,
Western thinkers must urgently engage with African thought without colonial
contempt, overcoming the implicit racism, to initiate a meaningful discourse. There-
fore, Western thinkers must desuperiorize themselves, their philosophies, and their
thinking. Hence, “desuperiorisation, the practical decolonisation from the standpoint
of the violator, must be the project that flanks the African work on decolonisation”
(Freter, 2018: 246). On the heels of colonialism, it is another thing to describe
African thought as “apish” and thus limited to the development of inquiries that
continue to depend on other people’s philosophical writings. The fact of considering,
studying, analyzing, and being influenced by other people’s philosophical writings is
not aping and is not a problem per se. Moreover, it is not driven by the lack of a
philosophical written heritage; rather, it is also a part of the discipline. More
importantly, African philosophers have been, and remain, involved in processes of
exchange that Erin Pineda effectively identified as “imaginative transit” (2021: 19).
The term “imaginative transit” can be summarized as a “process of thinking and
traveling across boundaries and disparate contexts” (Pineda, 2021: 19). Pineda
introduced the expression to describe the processes through which activists around
the world developed the idea of nonviolent direct action as a means of protest in the
“transnational struggle against white supremacy and global capitalism” (2021: 12).
The idea of nonviolent resistance has been in imaginative transit in different con-
texts, from India to South Africa to the United States. Pineda (2021) highlighted the
influence that Gandhi’s ideas had on the reflections of Martin Luther King, Jr., as
well as King’s journey to Ghana to listen to Kwame Nkrumah’s independence-day
speech. Nonviolent direct action was the product of intellectual labor and of
conceptual innovation (hence the term “imaginative”), and it resulted from a

boundary-crossing movement (hence the term “transit”) of ideas and also of bodies,
meaning that activists actually moved across continents and created “circuits of
transit” (Pineda, 2021: 57). This is a practical demonstration of what has previously
been highlighted as essential features of a discipline such as African social and
political philosophy, and philosophy in general. Practicing philosophy also involves
exchanges, comparisons, influences, conversations, and imaginative transits. African
people were not apish in respect of Western philosophy. Philosophizing meant, and
still means today, also engaging with other people’s philosophical written heritage
and critically analyzing it.
The goal of practicing African philosophy should neither be the purity of the
discipline, nor to philosophize in an uncontaminated way in the name of the
ultimately gained dignity of African philosophy. Purity is impossible because Afri-
can philosophy, similarly to other subjects, nourishes also of contamination and will
not benefit from the drawing of sharp distinctions and the building of geographical
walls. A primary commitment and an endeavor to contemplating, preserving, and
critically analyzing the indigenous thought are unquestionably legitimate. The work
on decolonization is also important. However, a dialog, conversation, or a meaning-
ful discourse – to borrow Freter’s (2018) term – between different philosophical
worlds is similarly essential. As Udoidem (1987) stated, there could be African
philosophers who are specialists in Western thought, and there could be African
philosophers who are specialists in African thought. There is no need to dictate what
an African philosopher must do, and there is an even lesser need to state that African
philosophers must not limit themselves to engaging only with the philosophical
productions of their former colonizers. Wiredu’s idea should be endorsed instead,
and African philosophers should study the written philosophies of other peoples and
lands, avoiding isolation from other contexts of thought. As Wiredu claimed, African
philosophers should ideally “acquaint themselves with the philosophies of all the
peoples of the world: compare, contrast, assess them critically and make use of
whatever of value they may find in them” (Wiredu, 1997a: 326). Specifically, this is
what a contemporary African social and political philosopher should do.
At this point, a manifesto for contemporary African social and political philoso-
phers could be drafted based on several points: First, contemporary African social
and political philosophers should look back, as there is a heritage upon which they
can rely and should focus. Wiredu (1997a) was right when he claimed that an
African philosopher cannot cultivate a cultural pride rooted in the philosophical
achievements of Kant, Hume, Aristotle, Hegel, or Marx in the way that a Western
philosopher or student of philosophy can. It can be affirmed that there is material for
an African philosopher to develop cultural pride. Second, African social and political
philosophers should look back critically. A fruitful approach to the heritage of
African folk and traditional thought is a critical one. Rather than looking back to
the past nostalgically to find answers, adopting such an approach is a way of keeping
ideas and the philosophical debate alive. Being critical means not observing the
solutions to present social, cultural, and political challenges exclusively and unques-
tionably in precolonial African societies and their legacies. The risk is that one refers
too much to the past and ends up being anachronistic and shortsighted, not consid-
ering the changes that Africa is undergoing as a result of globalization and other
dynamics that are in play around the world (Kasanda, 2018). Third, a contemporary
African philosopher should be in imaginative transit and should not fear being
involved in circuits of transits of philosophical ideas and concepts. Wiredu summa-
rized this when arguing that African philosophers should become acquainted with
the philosophies of all of the people of the world and compare, contrast, critically
analyze, and allow such philosophies to inform their reflections and ideas. Fourth,
African philosophers should be receptive to different types of sources. As
underlined, the materials of African social and political philosophy are hidden and
scattered in various fields. Exploring this philosophy means not only considering the
speeches that African leaders wrote and the sermons that they delivered, i.e., not only
analyzing these leaders’ elaborated theories or the written texts of professional
philosophers (Kasanda, 2018), but also being receptive and open to other means of
expression, since this philosophy is developed in different ways, including through
music, art, and literature, as outlined above. Fifth, African philosophers should
understand that, in their daily lives and challenges, African people philosophize.
Philosophy begins in African people’s daily lives. African people actively contribute
to social and political theorization, insofar as they think critically about their political
views or those of others, compare such views with opposing ideas, discuss political
issues, express their consent or dissent, and reflect on how to pursue the democra-
tization and the development of their countries.
Democracy in Africa
Thus far, this chapter has focused on defining contemporary African social and
political philosophy, identifying the sources of this philosophy, and developing a
suitable method to conduct the research in this field. This section first provides a
broader overview of some of the themes and issues discussed in social and political
philosophy while focusing on one topic in particular: democracy in Africa. After
reflecting on the discussions centered around this topic, the section problematizes the
category of democracy and the classification of political regimes with reference to
the African context. The section presents a different categorization and introduces
the concept of anocracy as more appropriate to some African regimes and, in
particular, to Sudan.
Once again, Kasanda’s (2018) book on contemporary African social and political
philosophy helps to identify the main topics and issues driving this field of study. As
previously explained, for some thinkers, African social and political philosophy
corresponds to a national ideological philosophy, which is the case for Lajul (2013)
and Serequeberhan (1991), for instance. Alongside the discussion of reducing
African social and political philosophy to ideology, Kasanda (2018) examined the
distinction between this philosophy and ontology by defending the thesis that there
is no similitude between the two because they have different purposes: African
people’s daily reality in the first case, and the quintessence of being in the case of
ontology. For Kasanda, African social and political philosophy should not be limited
to the boundaries of the search for the essence of being. When discussing identity
and identity-related issues, the debates on the paradigms of ethnophilosophy and
negritude must be recalled. Another core theme of this philosophy is Pan-Africanism
and the connected role of the African diaspora. To conclude this brief overview,
which is by no means exhaustive, it is necessary to mention one last set of themes
that is central to the discussions characterizing African social and political philoso-
phy. Given that it is both a matter of African traditions and people’s daily life, other
topics are equity (i.e., the search for excellence and the well-being of citizens) and
the challenges mentioned in section “The Discipline of African Social and Political
Philosophy”, namely poverty and development. Discussions on issues concerning
human rights and gender are also part of this philosophical research field. Another
central matter for African social and political philosophy is power. In particular,
some of the questions that relate to this matter include the following: How is power
exerted? Who governs, and by which principles and for how long? In addition, as
Kasanda (2018) investigated, the concept of civil society and the idea of African
civil society, which is regarded as a fundamental part of African social and political
life, constitute further themes. Lastly, one of the main and most debated concepts in
this research field is democracy. What follows is an introduction to the topic of
democracy in Africa and a problematization of this conceptual category.
Anocracy: Another Trajectory of Democracy in Africa
Before proceeding to problematize the concept of democracy in Africa, a premise is

needed. It would be useful to examine Africa’s democratic experiences to approach
the topic of democracy. By critically analyzing Kasanda’s (2018) contribution about
the forms that democracy has assumed on the continent, this subsection clarifies why
it could be useful to open reflection to a new categorization to describe the current
status of and deficits in African democracy.
Kasanda’s (2018) contribution basically outlined three main phases of democracy
in Africa: (i) the introduction of democracy as a means of governance following
countries’ independence with a strong anticolonial nationalistic imprint; (ii) changes
in the type of democracy, from Western representative democracy to single-party
rule governance, diarchism and no-polity systems; and (iii) the (re)discovery of
multiparty systems. A complete discussion of the mentioned forms, their strengths
and weaknesses, and the trajectories of these forms of government in Africa is
beyond the scope of this chapter. Here, before discussing an additional phase of
democracy in Africa, this subsection briefly summarizes the abovementioned forms
of government.
Representative democracy in Africa refers to a form of government based on the
Western model and implemented in the aftermath of the independencies. The
emancipation of African countries was initiated through the organization of elections
and the constitution of parliaments, governments, and modern states institutions.
Thus, this first idea refers to liberal democracy and a multiparty system. Other forms
of government soon replaced representative democracy. The first mode was the
one-party system. According to this alternative idea, a single political party, with
its ideology and principles, should rule a country. As Kasanda (2018) explained, if
one considers some of the major African leaders and founding fathers (Nkrumah,
Nyerere, Ben Bella, Sekou Touré, and Mobutu to name a few), one can observe that
they are representative of this one-party system, which acts as an instrument to
pursue unity, stabilization, modernization, and development. Diarchic rule, as evi-
dent in the Graeco-Latin etymology of the term (the Latin term “duo” means “two”
and the Greek term “arkhein” means “to rule”), refers to a form of government where
two actors exert the state’s power simultaneously. This form of government could
constitute a way of striking a compromise between different actors contending
power. This form of government seemingly represents an apt system to pursue
political stability, yet, as Kasanda (2018) appropriately observed, it does not prevent
military putsches, which are one of the major causes of instability across the entire
African continent. The last form of government, the no-party political system,
represents a sort of return to the past and hinges on the idea of consensus. The
no-party political system is considered to be a better solution than the multiparty
system, since it is not based on competition and antagonism but rather on consensus
and inclusion. The most illustrious advocate of this system is Kwasi Wiredu. His
contribution entitled Democracy and Consensus in African Traditional Politics: A
Plea for a Non-Party Polity (1997b), which provided an analysis of the traditional
Ashanti political system, is a remarkable and interesting source to mention.
There has been little debate on another experience – or, put differently, another
trajectory – of democracy, which is a deviated one. It is not a paradigm or an ideal form
of government to pursue or to discuss in terms of its potential strengths and weak-
nesses. This deviated trajectory results in another form of government: anocracy.
The term “anocracy,” according to the Polity 5 Project of the Center for Systemic
Peace (2018), refers to a middling form of government that mixes democratic and
autocratic traits. More specifically, anocracies, unlike fully institutionalized democ-
racies and autocracies, are “societies whose governments are neither fully demo-
cratic nor fully autocratic but, rather, combine an often incoherent mix of democratic
and autocratic traits and practices” (Marshall & Elzinga-Marshall, 2017: 30).
Anocracy also includes countries that a transitional government administers. The
Center for Systemic Peace’s Polity 5 Project consists of a data series comprising
“annually coded information on the qualities of institutionalized regime authority for
all independent countries” (Marshall & Elzinga-Marshall, 2017: 29). The project
rates “the levels of both democracy and autocracy for each country and year using
coded information on the general, practical qualities of political institutions and
processes, including executive recruitment, constraints on executive action, and
political competition” (Marshall & Elzinga-Marshall, 2017: 29; emphasis in origi-
nal). The scores of the series range from 10 to +10. Countries with scores varying
from 10 to 6 are grouped under the autocracy category. Anocracies are the
regimes with scores between 5 and +5, while countries with scores between +6
and +10 are considered democracies. In the general classification of the countries, a
subcategory represents failed or occupied states.
Returning to anocracies, these political regimes can also be subcategorized as

either “open anocracies” or “closed anocracies,” depending on a more or less open
competition for power. In the latter type of anocracy, this competition takes place
among the elite of the country, whereas in the open anocracies, other actors also
participate in the competition. An additional element of anocracies must be
underlined: Some anocratic regimes can be found in countries that “have
succeeded in establishing democracy following a staged transition from autocracy
through anocracy” (Marshall & Elzinga-Marshall, 2017: 30). In this regard, the
case of the African continent is symbolic and worthy of consideration. Anocracy is
a widespread regime on the African continent (Marshall & Elzinga-Marshall,
2017: 30–32). Anocracy appears to be a way of portraying the present status of
various African countries. In the global landscape, some countries have established
democratic regimes by transitioning from an autocracy to an anocracy. Since their
independence, various African countries have followed a different path: Demo-
cratic forms of government have been established, but subsequently replaced by
anocratic regimes owing to a progressive integration of autocratic features into the
democratic edifice. Sudan has followed a similar political trajectory, as the next
section explains.
The reason for discussing anocracy is twofold: Anocracy is an interesting and
accurate concept that complements the canonical categorization of political regimes
while making it possible to better describe the real political form of several govern-
ments on the African continent and their paths to democratization. Furthermore,
anocracy raises crucial questions about the concept of democracy itself in Africa,
how to transition from anocracy to democracy, and which forms of democracy could
replace anocratic regimes. Anocracy begs the question: What should Africa’s form
of democracy be in the future? The following section provides an analysis of the
Sudanese acts of civil disobedience to support this more comprehensive and inclu-
sive approach from below as a fruitful way to potentially develop African social and
political philosophy in the future.
How to Develop African Social and Political Philosophy from

Below
The idea that contemporary African social and political philosophy concerns a
rational search for better means of social and political organization and governance
and that it deals with matters and challenges associated with African people’s daily
lives becomes clear when analyzing forms of protest, such as acts of civil disobedi-
ence, and the act of staging such protests in African countries. The acts of civil
disobedience that Sudanese people carried out to restore a full-fledged democracy in
their country are considered as an emblematic example of how African social and
political philosophy is defined and how it should develop. First, this section clarifies
the reasons for focusing on acts of civil disobedience and, more specifically, such
acts in Sudan. Second, the section examines an approach to the study of contempo-
rary African social and political philosophy, starting from civil disobedience.
Why Civil Disobedience, and Why Sudan?
It was in December 2018 (Elsheikh, 2019) that the Sudanese people began to
organize what would, in the following months, become a mass campaign of civil
disobedience that, on April 11, 2019, would culminate in President Omar al-Bashir’s
forced removal from power following a 30-year rule. What began as a demonstration
against the rising cost of living and bread spiraled into a large protest against
Bashir’s presidency (Badona Monteiro, 2020). It was not the first time that the
Sudanese people succeeded in bringing down a military regime peacefully. During
two popular uprisings, one of which took place in October 1964 and famously
became known as the October Revolution, with the other one taking place in April
1985, dictators were deposed, ushering in civilian, democratic rules (Elsheikh,
2019). For a detailed analysis of these historical peaceful uprisings in Sudan, two
contributions must be mentioned: Anakwa Dwamena’s (2019) The Historical Pre-
cedents of the Current Uprising in Sudan and Adam Branch and Zachariah
Mampilly’s (2015) book entitled Africa Uprising: Popular Protest and Political
Change.
The 2018 and 2019 protests in Sudan are part of a broader picture of popular
uprisings across the African continent on the heels of the Arab Spring. The protests
are part of what political scientists have defined as the “third wave of African
protests” (Mueller, 2018: 19), with the first wave leading to decolonization in the
1960s and the second wave ushering in democratic transitions during the 1990s
(Mueller, 2018). Since the Arab Spring, sub-Saharan Africa has experienced an
increasing number of protests (Mueller, 2018). The reason for these protests is not
exclusively linked to the influence of what happened in North Africa. Where popular
uprisings begin must be investigated more thoroughly. In sub-Saharan Africa, people
would demonstrate because of poverty, inequality, and hunger but “not because they
oppose dictatorship on ideological grounds” (Mueller, 2018: 24). This is why “pro-
tests in sub-Saharan Africa are materially motivated revolts of the poor – bread riots,
essentially” (Mueller, 2018: 27). On the one hand, this interpretation identifies one of
the reasons for the increasing number of protests (i.e., a growing discontent fueled by
poverty and inequalities). On the other hand, as the case of the acts of civil
disobedience in Sudan illustrates, it is not only a question of materialist concerns
but also and above all an opposition to a dictatorship that obstructs the path to
democracy, equality, freedom, and justice. Sudan is a representative case demon-
strating that such uprisings are not merely bread riots.
Sudan is an anocracy and is so according to the Polity 5 Project scores. The
country was indeed assigned a score of 4 that, based on the division of the
abovementioned different score ranges, indicates a closed anocracy (Center for
Systemic Peace, 2018). Essentially, Sudan has been an anocracy since Omar
al-Bashir seized power in 1989 with a coup d’état, overthrowing the civilian
coalition government. When the protests began in 2018, the Republic of Sudan
was formally a democratic system where elections were even held, but it was
virtually no longer a fully democratic system (Badona Monteiro, 2020). Autocratic
traits and practices progressively permeated the originally democratic structure,
which explains why, at some point, the demonstrations against the rising cost of
living transformed into mass acts of peaceful civil disobedience against Bashir’s
presidency, calling for the restoration of a democratic regime. The case of Sudan is
representative of instances in which citizens take to the streets to peacefully express
their dissent with the aim of achieving full-fledged democratization in their country.
Here, three questions arise: Why are acts of civil disobedience carried out specifi-
cally? What does it mean for the Sudanese people to disobey? What is civil
disobedience from an African perspective? These questions are all of interest for a
study of African social and political philosophy that deals with African people’s
challenges and how African people creatively and tirelessly tackle them. The last
subsection of the chapter aims to explain why the way of practicing contemporary
African social and political philosophy from below derives from the study of civil
disobedience and Sudan.
Philosophizing from Below While Democratizing from Below
Within the Western philosophical debate, civil disobedience is predominantly con-

ceived as an act that is contrary to law, which is to be carried out publicly, in response
to unjust laws or policies that a government enacts. The aim of such action is to bring
about a change in such laws or policies (Rawls, 1971; Habermas, 1985; Bedau,
1991). From this perspective, civil disobedience is considered appropriate only in
liberal democratic political systems. Little research (Roberts & Garton Ash, 2009;
Chen, 2016) has focused on civil disobedience and, more generally, peaceful
resistance in authoritarian contexts. The role of this political practice in peculiar
regimes, such as the anocracies, remains underinvestigated. When approaching civil
disobedience, a philosopher usually encounters the famous figures of Henry David
Thoreau, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr., and then
commonly runs into the influential Western liberal corpus of literature that ranges
from Rawls to Habermas to Arendt to name just a few. In short, the state of the art is
that civil disobedience has been investigated almost exclusively from a Western
liberal perspective and as something that pertains to a democratic system and is
limited to bringing about small changes in law or policy. Civil disobedience cannot
entirely change a political system (Badona Monteiro, 2020). The limit and narrow-
ness of the liberal paradigm exclude the practice of civil disobedience in anocracies.
Conceiving civil disobedience in abovementioned way also means downplaying its
radical and transformative potential. Erin Pineda (2021) provided an explanation of
the reason behind this narrow conceptualization.
The focus of Pineda’s analysis was the civil disobedience of the United States’
civil rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s. This period in the history of the
United States was one of widespread disorder, riots, and violence. In particular, 1968
was a tumultuous year with student protests; violent oppositions to the Vietnam War;
and the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., the leader of
the civil rights movement (Gillon, 2019; Zelizer, 2020). In this context, since it
constitutes an act that is contrary to law and aims to oppose unjust policies or rules,
civil disobedience was soon considered a direct threat to democratic stability and
order. In response to this turmoil, Western liberal philosophers conceptualized civil
disobedience merely as a reformist gesture or a corrective to injustices in an overall
just system (a democracy), thereby downplaying racial injustice and inequality as
limited and exceptional. Erin Pineda argued that liberal theorists conceptualized civil
disobedience in this way because they saw civil disobedience “like a state” and,
specifically, “like a white state” (2021: 40). Liberal philosophers, such as John
Rawls, saw civil disobedience from the perspective of a White state, which is why
Pineda revisited protest campaigns and investigated how activists saw civil disobe-
dience while attending “to the ways civil rights activists constructed the problem of
white supremacy; devised strategies for effective action; and challenged the meaning
of democracy, equality, freedom, and citizenship” (Pineda, 2021: 15). Pineda
suggested an alternative starting point for political theorizing, i.e., seeing civil
disobedience in the way that an activist does. By seeing civil disobedience in the
way that an activist does, it becomes possible to observe that civil rights activists,
through the previously mentioned imaginative transits in concert with anticolonial
movements across the world (from India to South Africa to Ghana), engaged in civil
disobedience as a decolonizing praxis. In doing so, they emancipated themselves and
others from White supremacy and a global structure of domination (Pineda, 2021). It
is thus possible to see civil disobedience, through its radical and transformative role
within a not entirely democratic political system. The United States’ Jim Crow laws
were not representative of an overall just system with the “exception” of racial
inequality. Racial injustice was a systemic issue. Thus, the Jim Crow laws were
representative of a political system that was not far from that of the previously
described anocracies.
Another important point emerges from Pineda’s analysis, namely approaching
activists as political theorists or “reading activists themselves as engaged in the work
of political theory” (2021: 18), since “civil rights activists were engaged in a vibrant,
contentious debate about how to understand the problem posed by the mid-century
American racial order; how to construct the meaning of the sacrifices and risks of
collective action; and how to devise strategies that would best confront, combat, and
reconstitute the polity as a multiracial democracy” (Pineda, 2021: 51). Similarly,
Sudanese protesters and activists were, and continue to be, engaged in debates on
how to oppose an unjust system and on how to restore democracy in their country.
This is where the issue of democracy comes in. Not only did Sudanese civilians
explicitly call for complete nonviolent civil disobedience to the bitter end (Badona
Monteiro, 2020), but they also made efforts to dismantle the regime that was in
place, to transform it into a system based on a constitution and the rule of law, and
create the conditions for the people of Sudan to elect their representative freely. This
can be read in the Sudanese Professionals Association’s (2019) drafted Declaration
of Freedom and Change. Elsadig Elsheikh (2019) stated that Sudan’s grassroots
social movements can embrace people’s aspirations for freedom, and racial, ethnic,
and social justice. Such movements have both the capacity and imagination to lead a
revolution – through peaceful means – in the name of structural change. According
to Elsheikh, this path for social movements is possible when such movements succeed
in valuing “the collective systems of knowledge forged by Sudanese civil society,
drawing on the participation of the masses and intellectuals, and on collective cultural,
literary, and creative experiences” (2019: 467). Cultural and artistic experiences were
deployed during the Sudanese campaigns to reach different corners of society.
The focus on civil disobedience, and on Sudan in particular, has highlighted a gap
in the philosophical debate (i.e., a discussion of civil disobedience as a democratiz-
ing practice from below, which could help to understand the role of this practice). In
short, such a discussion would be one that, first, embraces the perspective of the
actors involved in the democratizing process (i.e., the perspective of the activists and
protesters).
Conclusion
Contemporary African social and political philosophy was defined as a field of study
that concerns the intellectual legacies of distinguished African leaders and statesmen
and precolonial African societies. It is a philosophy that comprises theoretical
debates and clarifications of concepts deployed in African social and political
spheres. Moreover, this philosophy addresses and discusses matters relating to
African people’s daily lives. Since this philosophy is not an ideology and is not
limited to the African leaders’ speeches and pamphlets, the present analysis empha-
sized that this philosophy’s sources are diverse and often scattered or hidden in oral
tradition, literature, music, art, and religion.
In addition to outlining African social and political philosophy, this chapter
demonstrated that not only are African people’s realities at the heart of this philos-
ophy but that African people themselves primarily contribute to the philosophical
reflections. Contrary to the racist views that various philosophers of the Enlighten-
ment advocated, not only can African people participate in discussions on political
issues and, thus, in social and political philosophy, but they are also central agents in
the development of this philosophy. The best response to all of those thinkers who
believed that African people were incapable of philosophizing lies in African
philosophy and, particularly, in the nature and constitution of the philosophical
subject field under investigation here. A manifesto of this philosophy was drafted
in this chapter to describe (i) the relationship of an African social and political
philosopher with African philosophical heritage; (ii) the role that such a philosopher
could play in this field of study, including decolonizing knowledge and
desuperiorizing Western philosophy; and (iii) ways to further develop this discipline.
Subsequently, this chapter concentrated on one of the main themes driving this
philosophy: democracy in Africa. The chapter provided an overview of the experi-
ences and paradigms of democracy debated with reference to the African context and
highlighted another trajectory – or experience: In Africa, democracy is following a
deviated trajectory toward the political regime of the anocracy. In the discussion,
anocracy was introduced not as a paradigm or an ideal to pursue but as an interesting
analytical category to describe a trajectory that is currently widespread in African

countries, as well as better reflect on which type of democracy should be targeted for
the future development of African states. This alternative way of analyzing the issue
of democracy in Africa today, through the category of anocracy, served as an
introduction to a discussion on civil disobedience in anocratic regimes, such as
that of Sudan. Anocracy was discussed to comprehend the reasons for engaging in
peaceful form of protest (e.g., civil disobedience) as a means to democratize the
country from below. The last section of the chapter demonstrated the connection
between the topic of democracy and civil disobedience in Africa, as this form of
nonviolent protest in Sudan, as well as increasingly in other countries on the
continent, is transforming into a means to pursue democracy.
By highlighting the predominance of Western paradigms and theories of civil
disobedience within philosophical debate, the last section of this chapter suggested
that further research is required to account for this form of political action in Africa.
In other words, it would be interesting to assess an African paradigm or an African
theory of civil disobedience. What the present analysis attempted to show is that an
indication of how to develop this African theorization results from an alternative
starting point, which, in this case, could be summarized as an attempt to begin seeing
civil disobedience in the way that a Sudanese activist does before seeing it in the way
that an African activist does, which would mean including those who participate in
acts of civil disobedience in the philosophical theorization work of contemporary
African social and political philosophy.
This approach, which can be described as a way of philosophizing from below,
could be a fruitful approach to the topic of civil disobedience and the issue of
democracy in Africa. By analyzing the case of Sudan, the chapter provided additional
evidence in this regard because it is the Sudanese activists, and African activists in
general, who are discussing how to explain the problems that their countries are facing,
debating the strategies to tackle everyday challenges, debating what democracy
means, and imagining which democracy should be established in the future of their
countries. Ultimately, Sudanese activists, and African activists in general, are philos-
ophizing and contributing to contemporary African social and political philosophy.
References
Badona Monteiro, Y. (2020). Civil disobedience outside of the liberal democratic framework: The
case of Sudan. South African Journal of Philosophy, 39(4), 376–386. https://doi.org/10.1080/
02580136.2020.1839834
Bedau, H. A. (1991). Civil disobedience in focus. Routledge.
Branch, A., & Mampilly, Z. (2015). Africa uprising: Popular protest and political change. Zed
Books.
Center for Systemic Peace. (2018). Polity5 Project, Political Regime Characteristics and Transi-
tions, 1800–2018. https://www.systemicpeace.org/inscrdata.html. Accessed 20 Jan 2022.
Chen, C. (2016). Civil disobedience as a transformative power under a non-democratic regime:
Does the Umbrella Movement undermine the rule of law? Asia Pacific Law Review, 24(2),
87–107. https://doi.org/10.1080/10192557.2016.1242917
Dwamena, A. (2019). The historical precedents of the current uprising in Sudan. The New Yorker,
February 8. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-historical-precedents-of-the-cur
rent-uprising-in-sudan. Accessed 20 Jan 2022.
Elsheikh, E. (2019). Sudan after revolt: Reimagining society, surviving vengeance. Critical Times,
2(3), 466–478. https://doi.org/10.1215/26410478-7862560
English, P., & Kalumba, M. K. (Eds.). (1996). African philosophy: A classical approach.
Prentice Hall.
Freter, B. (2018). White supremacy in eurocentric epistemologies: On the west’s responsibility for its
philosophical heritage. Synthesis Philosophica, 65(1), 237–249. https://doi.org/10.21464/sp33115
Gillon, S. M. (2019). The revolution that was 1968. History.com, January 31. https://www.history.
com/news/the-revolution-that-was-1968. Accessed 11 Oct 2022.
Habermas, J. (1985). Civil disobedience: Litmus test for the democratic constitutional state.
Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 30, 95–116.
Holy Bible – 21st Century King James Version. BibleGateway. https://www.biblegateway.com/
passage/?search¼Genesis+9&version¼KJ21 (Original work published 1994).
Hooker, J. (2016). Black lives matter and the paradoxes of U.S. black politics: From democratic
sacrifice to democratic repair. Political Theory, 44(4), 448–469.
Kasanda, A. (2018). Contemporary African social and political philosophy: Trends, debates, and
challenges. Routledge.
Keita, L. (1984). The African philosophical tradition. In R. A. Wright (Ed.), African philosophy: An
introduction. University Press of America.
Lajul, W. (2013). African philosophy: Critical dimensions. Fountain Publishers.
Marshall, M. G., & Elzinga-Marshall, G. C. (2017). Global report 2017: Conflict, governance, and
state fragility. Center for Systemic Peace.
Martin, G. (2012). African political thought. Palgrave Macmillan.
Mueller, L. (2018). Political protest in contemporary Africa. Cambridge University Press.
Olela, H. (1984). The African foundations of Greek philosophy. In R. A. Wright (Ed.), African
philosophy: An introduction. University Press of America.
Osei, J. (2017). Political philosophy in the African context. In I. E. Ukpokolo (Ed.), Themes, issues
and problems in African Philosophy (pp. 289–303). Palgrave Macmillan.
Philip, E. P. (1974). Can ancient Egyptian thought be regarded as the basis of African philosophy?
Second Order, An African Journal of Philosophy, 3(1), 79–86.
Pineda, E. R. (2021). Seeing like an activist: Civil disobedience and the civil rights movement.
Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Harvard University Press.
Roberts, A., & Garton Ash, T. (Eds.). (2009). Civil resistance and power politics: The experience of
non-violent action from Gandhi to the present. Oxford University Press.
Serequeberhan, T. (Ed.). (1991). African philosophy: The essential readings. Paragon House.
Sudanese Professionals Association. (2019). Declaration of freedom and change. https://www.
sudaneseprofessionals.org/en/declaration-of-freedom-and-change/. Accessed 15 Oct 2020.
Udoidem, S. I. (1987). Wiredu on how not to compare African thought with western thought: A
commentary. African Studies Review, 30(1), 101–104.
Wanjohi, G. J. (2017). Philosophy and liberation of Africa. Nyatũrĩma Publications.
Wiredu, J. E. (1997a). How not to compare African traditional thought with western thought.
Transition, 75(76), 320–327.
Wiredu, K. (1997b). Democracy and consensus in African traditional politics: A plea for a
non-party polity. In E. C. Eze (Ed.), Postcolonial African philosophy: A critical reader
(pp. 303–312). Blackwell.
Zelizer, J. (2020). It’s been five decades since 1968, and things are somehow worse. CNN, May 30.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/30/opinions/2020-echoes-of-1968-zelizer/index.html.
Accessed 11 Oct 2022.
The Philosophy of Human Rights:
The Akan Model
Joseph Osei
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
Critiquing Arguments Against Liberal Democracy in Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
Human Rights and Justice Principles in Traditional Akan Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
The Place of Human Rights in Akan Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
Human Rights in Akan Ethic of Social Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
Human Rights and Justice in Akan Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
Human Rights and Justice in Akan Economic Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
Human Rights and Justice in the Religious Life of Akans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Human Rights and Justice in Akan Traditional Legal System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
Abstract
This chapter is a response to the decades of Western skepticism and cynicism
regarding the sustainability of democracy in Africa toward the end of the last
century as most African countries experienced what political scientists term the
third wave of democratization. Focusing on the human rights tradition in Africa,
which is given as the main reason for the skepticism, this chapter argues to the
contrary that not only is there a vibrant tradition of human rights in Africa with
particular reference to the Akan model, but that its existence offers one of the best
explanations for the relative success of democracy in Africa from the last century
The is a posthumous publication of this chapter as the author, the Ghanaian philosopher, Professor
Joseph Osei died on November 30, 2022, before the completion of this book but after submitting the
full draft. Thus, Elvis Imafidon has only revised the chapter in response to reviewer’s comments and
worked with the production team in copyediting and finalizing the chapter for publication.
J. Osei (*)
Fayetteville State University, Fayetteville, NC, USA
e-mail: josei@uncfsu.edu

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_10
330 J. Osei
to the recent. The chapter shows further that an objective analysis into the Akan
culture will reveal that the Akan conception of human rights which compliments
negative rights with positive rights in principle and practice is more relevant and
heuristic within African contexts than dominant conceptions of human rights
from the Global North. This is seen in its demonstrated potential for facilitating
and sustaining African democracies to maturity, despite the pressures from the
pandemic and global economic crises.
Keywords
Akan · Human rights · Democracy · Justice · Ethics
Introduction
Western skepticism and cynicism regarding the sustainability of democracy in Africa

that dominated the discourse on the prospects of democratization or
re-democratization in postcolonial Africa toward the end of the twentieth century
have not disappeared completely but have significantly diminished. The reason is not
because they are tired, but because they are experiencing a cognitive dissonance.
For, contrary to their predictions, democracy in Africa has not failed or collapsed,
but has survived three or four decades and continues to evolve despite civil wars,
terrorist attacks, and external pressures from the unrelenting pandemic and global
economic hardships.
Freedom House reports that in 1989, two-thirds of African states were “not free,”
as measured by Freedom House. By 2009, two-thirds were considered “free” or
“partly free.” What could be the best explanation for the modest political success in
these African countries? (Repucci & Slipowitz, 2021).
Focusing on the human rights tradition in Africa, once presumed to be lacking
and construed as the main reason democracy could not survive in Africa, this paper
argues to the contrary that the existence of a vibrant human rights tradition in Africa
offers one of the best explanations for the relative success of democracy in Africa
since the last decades of the last century termed the third wave of democratization by
political scientists.
Further, it will be argued that far from lacking a tradition of human rights, an
objective analysis into the Akan culture will reveal that the Akan conception of
human rights which compliments negative rights with positive rights in principle and
practice is morally superior to the dominant conceptions of human rights in either the
Global East or the Global West. It is therefore the kind of moral structure with the
best potential to facilitate and sustain to maturity the ongoing democratization and
(holistic) development throughout the continent.
The chapter will employ conceptual analyses of the relevant concepts, definitions,
theories, and principles of human rights reflected in the anthropological, sociolog-
ical, and historical data from the region. The Akan human rights tradition, as
conceived and practiced in Ghana and cognate West African countries, will be
The Philosophy of Human Rights: The Akan Model 331
used as the case study for the paper’s main argument. Democracy in Ghana and
many other African countries has not only survived, and proved sustainable, but
have evolved to what political scientists recognize as “mature” status. The Akan
traditional culture will be chosen as the paradigm case in Africa in arguing against
the skeptics and in explaining the relative success of the democracies in Africa. The
choice of the Akan culture as a paradigm case for Africa is neither arbitrary nor just
for convenience being the most familiar to this author.
Rather, it is chosen for many relevant reasons, including the fact that the Akan
human rights tradition has existed in thought and practice to some degree
continuously for at least 500 years and has been studied objectively by world-
renown anthropologists and sociologists since the ten-year groundbreaking land-
mark research by R.S. Rattray in the first decade of the nineteenth century. His
initial research resulted in three classic volumes on Ashanti from 1923–1929,
followed by nine other related publications. The publications include Ashanti
(1923), Religion and Art in Ashanti (1927), Ashanti law and Constitution (1929),
and The Tribes of Ashanti Hinterland (1932). He also published 12 volumes of
ethnography and folklore. A major publication on his research published by
Oxford University Press is Anthropology and Power: R.S. Rattray Among the
Ashanti (1976).
Critiquing Arguments Against Liberal Democracy in Africa
The arguments of these skeptics and cynics are well represented in the following two
quotations. The first is from Robert Packenham, professor of political science at
Stanford University and the author of Liberal America and the Third World.
The chances for liberal democracy in most Third World countries in the foreseeable future,
are not very great; the attempt to promote liberal constitutionalism is often both unrealistic
from the point of view of feasibility and ethnocentric from the point of view of desirability.
(Packenham, 1973)
Packenham does not only show his skepticism of the chance for sustained democ-
racy in the Third World. He goes further to argue that authoritarian regimes are better
at advancing the economic and justice interests in their respective countries. The
second quote attributed to Irvin Kristol, a well-known conservative US political
commentator, is similar in political orientation toward Africa and other regions of the
Third World. Kristol claims he is not one of those thrilled by the success of
democracy in Argentina, in the Philippines, or Korea and that as a betting man, he
will lay odds that democracy will not survive in those countries. His reasons:
The preconditions for democracy are complex; certain strong cultural traditions, certain
strong attitudes (are required). [But] so far as I can see, those countries do not have these
[requirements] and therefore, a democracy in any of them would shortly be discredited and
be replaced by some sort of authoritarian regime of either the left or the right. (Kristol as
quoted by Muravchik, 1992)
332 J. Osei
A precondition represents a logically necessary condition for something to happen.

Logically speaking, X is a requirement or a necessary condition for Y if and only if
Y cannot be realized without X, or if the absence of X makes Y impossible. While
most African and other Third World countries embraced democratization toward the
end of the last century, skepticism about their sustainability continued unabated
among Western skeptics and critics such as they argued that since a human rights
tradition is a necessary condition for the sustainability of democracy and such
traditions are lacking in Third World countries, it follows that democracy in Third
World countries are certainly unsustainable.
Writing the US Foreign Affairs Newsletter, Campbell and Quinn write “foreign as
well as domestic expectations for liberal democracy in Africa have often been
unrealistic.” After commenting on a few examples of setbacks based on charges of
corruption and the pandemic, they conclude, “Africa’s setbacks are not surprising.”
With the explanation that “For much of the continent, the foundations of a political
culture necessary to sustain liberal democracy have been weak for most of the
postcolonial era (roughly six decades for most African states).” Other explanations
they offer in the paper include the persistence of religious and ethnic rivalries which
they claim “have been underestimated” by African democrats and their friends
abroad (Campbell & Quinn, May, 2021).
Explaining why he chose Ghana to be his gateway to Africa when he visited
Africa as the first Black president of the USA, Barack Obama cited the success of
Ghana’s democracy. By his own admission, the president was motivated by the
desire to recognize Ghana’s achievement of what political scientists describe as
“mature democracy” status and to project it as a model worth emulating by other
African countries (Osei, 2009).
Ghana is, however, not the only country with a mature or stable democracy.
Significant progress has been recognized in Nigeria, South Africa, Algeria, Tunisia,
Senegal, Benin, Botswana, Namibia, Mauritius, and Malawi. Some of the reports do
not appear to be fair or objective. For example, the BBC report of democratic
countries doing well excludes Nigeria because of corruption as if there is not
corruption in Britain or the USA (BBC, 2019). Will anyone pull the USA off the
list of democracies because of the financial and political corruption related to former
President Trump and his misleading and false claims about electoral fraud that
culminated in the political violence or attempted coup of Jan 6, 2021?
Despite its pessimism about the success of democratization in Africa, the US
Councill on Foreign Affairs’ Newsletter, International Affairs, acknowledges that
the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has devoted serious
energy and resources to defending democracy. It explains that ECOWAS has played
a major role in rolling back military dictatorships in West Africa and opposing
military coups (Campbell & Quinn, May 26, 2021).
Malawi’s democracy, as acknowledged by Freedom House, has not only survived
the economic crises and the pandemic, but has even evolved significantly. According
to Freedom House, Malawi is the only country globally whose democracy strength-
ened during COVID-19 lockdowns. That’s because it became the first African
country to overturn a fraudulent election through legal means and to conduct a
free and fair follow-up election without resorting to political violence. For this
outstanding achievement in democratization, The Economist has happily declared
Namibia the country of the year (Campbell & Quinn, May 2021).
The success of Malawi’s democracy in overcoming these formidable obstacles
should be considered another refutation of the hasty conclusions drawn by the
skeptics and cynics of democratization in Africa and as a good sign that most
African democracies can and will withstand similar challenges on their way to
maturity and permanence.
Human Rights and Justice Principles in Traditional Akan Ethics
A universally acceptable theory or definition theory of rights remains an illusion within

both Western philosophy and jurisprudence. What the inquirer may find are multiple
competing theories or definitions, each of which addresses an aspect of what could be a
fully adequate conception of rights. To show that traditional Akan ethics includes the
principles of human rights and justice, this section will discuss briefly some of the
established or plausible conceptions of rights within the Western tradition and to
identify their equivalents within Akan philosophical thought. What would be identified
below as equivalents – it should be stressed – are not translations of the Western
concepts, but indigenous conceptions of rights that have essentially the same meanings
or implications, and function to the same or similar effect in thought and practice.
The eighteenth-century English political philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, was
among the first philosophers to articulate a definition or theory of right. He writes,
By liberty is understood, according to the proper signification of the word, the absence of
external impediments: which impediments, may oft take away part of a man’s power to do
what he would, but cannot hinder him from using the power left him according as his
judgement and reason shall dictate to him. (Hobbes, 1651: 79–80)
Hobbes in this quote maintains that a right is a liberty. The implication is that if
someone S has a right to do X, then S is at liberty or free to do X or not. Being at
liberty thus means there is no obligation on S’s part to refrain from doing X, as long
as the action does not threaten harm to others. Secondly, it also means that all others,
including the state, have the corresponding obligation to refrain from interfering with
S’s exercise of his/her right and to stop others from also interfering with it
(Hobbes, 1651).
Consequently, X has a right to free speech means X is at liberty to speak freely
(though not irresponsibly) and no one should stop X (without just cause). Stopping X
or interfering with X’s free action that threatens no harm to others will be a violation
of his/her right and therefore unjust or morally wrong. This theory of right is
therefore among those rightly classified in modern terms as negative rights, given
the noninterference clause.
In Akan’s thought, this conception of right is quite well known and is popularly
expressed in terms of X having okwan or permission. Thus, I have the right to free
334 J. Osei
speech or I have a right to speak on this issue is equivalent to saying “Me wo ho

kwan se meka bi.” When pressed for the justification for this right, X is likely to
argue, “Me nso me ye nipa, tekyrema da manum, enti momma menka bi,” i.e.,
I am also a human being, Therefore, I have a (human) tongue in my mouth, so allow
me also to talk. The emphasis is on X’s ontological status as a human being, and
consequently indicates that it is not just a legal right or a civil right, given by any
human authority, but a natural or a fundamental God-given right. The human tongue
in my mouth metaphor has been widely used in traditional music and folksongs even
among folks who have little or no exposure to Western culture or formal education.
Another interesting conception of right has been attributed to Thomas Holland, a
nineteenth-century English jurist. A right for him means “a power for influencing the
acts of another by the force of society.” For example, X has a right to private property
such as a piece of land, in this sense would mean, X has the authority – backed by
social pressure or legal sanctions – to stop an intruder or a thief from interfering with
his/her piece of land (Holland, 1924). The indigenous Akan expresses this concep-
tion of “right” saying, “Me wo tumi wo asase no so” to assert his/her authority over
a piece of land. Likewise, to assert his/her authority over a coconut tree he/she would
say, “Me wo tumi wo kube no so.” Provided one acquired the piece of property
through a just means of acquisition or transfer, no one, including the state or the
traditional authorities, can deprive the private owner of the property (without just
cause). Hence, the Akan says, “Nea adee wo no na odie, na nnye dee ekom de no,”
i.e., private property is (or should be) enjoyed by its owner, and not necessarily the
needy (unless the owner sells or voluntarily gives it to the needy). Anyone violating
this right, including the chief, could be summonsed to appear before a traditional
court to face justice.
Right is also conceived as a claim upheld by law. In this sense, a person can claim
his/her right to compensation for work done, an injury to his/her body, or damage to
his/her property. In general, X has an ethical claim against some second party Y
means that Y should perform some action A if Y has a duty to compensate X by
doing A. This represents an example of right in the positive sense, in contrast to
negative right in modern usage. Akans likewise have a positive conception of right
beside the negative conception of noninterference, and it is not only well understood
but also generally respected in Akan thought and practice. The equivalent expression
is, however, the same as for liberty. Therefore, I have an ethical claim against you to
compensate me for damaging my house may be rendered as “Me wo ho kwan se me
ma wo siesie me dan a wasee no yi.” The offender has the duty to repair the house if
the offended insists, but it is X’s prerogative or right to insist on X being done by Y
or to forgive the offender. Under normal circumstances, not even the chief or any
ruler will impose his/her will on the owner who refuses to forgive the offender.
According to Carl Wellman, the well-known American moral philosopher and
philosopher of law, one is immune from the loss through any act of another or
immune from any ethical claim against second parties if warnings or caution that
they refrain from doing some action are ignored (Wellman, 1999). For example, if X
warns Y from striking him, and Y fails to heed to the words of caution, and strikes
him, X should not, in the name of fairness, be held morally responsible for the
consequence of that act. By the same immunity principle, X should not be held
morally responsible for the macho men’s actions in defense of X. Wellman justifi-
cation for such punishment would be that it is permissible in case because the
wrongdoer has forfeited his/her right against punishment by culpably violating
(or at least attempting to violate) the rights of others (Wellman, 1985). Similarly, if
contrary to X’s advice, Y makes payments due X to a third party, and the person fails
to hand it to X, X has a right to demand payment from Y and a right not to be blamed
for the loss. These kinds of rights are termed rights of immunity because they make it
morally impossible to blame their holders or to hold them responsible for the
consequences in question, just as holders of diplomatic passports are generally
immune from arrest. Among indigenous Akans, this conception of right is expressed
variously as “Ennye masodie,” meaning, “It’s not X’s responsibility or my duty to
do a, b, or c.” “Me pe a, mema watua,” X can say it is my prerogative to make Y
pay, or to forgive Y. An example from the traditional Akan thought and practice
is this: Suppose X possesses some magical powers to make a part of Y’s body shrink
instantaneously upon striking him and Y hits him, despite the warning, Y then
should blame himself/herself, and not X if X forewarned Y of the potential negative
consequence (s). X might also have some extremely strong bodyguards or “macho
men,” as they are popularly known in Ghana, to teach Y some lesson on his behalf,
the X should not be held responsible for the beating or punishment from them given
the prior notification or warning.
As the foregoing analyses have shown, where Western philosophers of law or
jurisprudence use four key expressions to articulate their conceptions of human rights,
the Akan uses three. The more important point to note, however, is that the Akan
expressions are not simply translations of the English/Western expressions. Rather,
they are indigenous expressions descriptive of the traditional or authentic ethical
values and principles in Akanland. Akans do not consider these as rights peculiar to
them but as rights for every child of God regardless of ethnicity or race, gender, or
geographical region. They understand them to be part of those ethical rights that every
human being must possess just by virtue of being a person (onipa) as it is not attached
to any position in life, royalty, education, or wealth. However, based on age, gender,
royalty, etc. some people may be given certain privileges, special rights, or entitle-
ments, but those are beyond the basic human rights in this discussion.
It must also be evident from the analyses that Akans take these rights seriously,
and their meanings and values are comparable to their Western counterparts. In other
words, the conception of human rights in Akan thought and practice is essentially no
different from the Western conception which takes human rights simply as “The
rights any individual possesses as a human being” (Wasserstrom, 1964).
The Place of Human Rights in Akan Ethics
This section examines some important aspects of Akan ethics in support of the
thesis that traditional Akan Ethics takes human rights seriously not only in thought
but also in practice. It will also demonstrate how fundamental and integrated
336 J. Osei
these conceptions are to the culture and thus underscore the point that these Akan
conceptions of right are not translations of Western conceptions, but indigenous
conceptions. The aspects examined here in relation to human rights are Akan ethic of
social life, economic life, political life, religious life, and legal life.
Human Rights in Akan Ethic of Social Life
The basic unit of society, expert anthropologists tell us, is not the political party, or
school, but the family. For the Akan and for most Africans, this means the extended
family within a communalistic system where each member of the family tries to be
each other’s keeper. Moral training for young ones in the family is the responsibility
of each adult member and it is by both precept and example. The youth are taught to
respect everyone’s right to private property, when the youth is told not to steal. This
teaching further implies that although our societies are communalistic, individual
rights to private property are not denied, but protected. The youth is also taught to
respect each person’s right, to respect and treat others fairly. If the youth fails to obey
the moral teachings and instruction or counsel of their parents, the parents may claim
the right to immunity from the consequences of the youth’s behavior. For example,
such a parent could say, “Nsemone nti na yekye din.” This Akan proverb means
names are given to individuals to ensure individual responsibility for moral evils.
The implication is that it is the offending youth, but not the parent, who should be
held morally responsible for the offense in question if the youth refused to comply
with the instructions of their parents.
When it comes to disbursing or sharing some common property such as meat,
salt, or corn, there is a moral principle to ensure distributive justice for all concerned.
The principle states, “Kyadee ntu bi.” It is an Akan proverb or maxim that implies
that the one who disburses or shares goods intended for a group cannot choose a
portion (ahead of others). It is a morally binding rule of thumb to ensure that he/she
does not get undue advantage over others by intentionally and selfishly making one
portion bigger than the rest in the hope that he will choose that special portion. The
maxim logically implies that the sly or clever distributer takes whatever is left after
others have chosen their portions. Whatever is left, irrespective of the size or quality,
necessarily becomes his/her portion. And that explains why the maxim means the
distributer does not make a choice. The assumption behind the Akan maxim is that
all humans are, if not always, most of the time motivated by selfish interests
indicating Akan’s endorsement of either psychological egoism or more accurately
predominant egoism. Since Akans do not deny but acknowledge and appreciate
altruism. Most of the moral teachings featuring Mr. Ananse (the spider) in Akan
children’s literature and songs are intended to caution the youth against selfishness
and to reduce the likelihood that they will cheat out of selfish interest, if they believe
they will not be caught or punished.
It is therefore necessary – in Rawlsian terms – to place the sharer or distributer
“behind the veil of ignorance” so that he does not know in advance which portion
(say, of meat) would be left for him or her. Knowing that whatever is left over is what
belongs to him/her is enough to motivate this person (presumed to be a rational

agent) to share the meat as equally as possible to maximize fairness to all concerned,
self-included. The principle is thus consistent with disaster-avoidance rationality and
the maximizing utility principle, in moral or rational choice theory and is aimed at
protecting the (human) right of each person concerned to fair treatment and distrib-
utive justice (Rawls, 1971).
In general, it is the duty of the parent or adult members of the family to protect the
human rights of the youth until they are cognitively mature enough to fend for
themselves. Correlatively, the youth have a right to be protected from their predators
or abusers by the family and society at large. However, when the youth becomes old
enough to fight for their own rights to fair treatment, and the youth is unable to do so,
they would be queried with such rhetorical questions as, “Wodee wonnye nipa?”
“Woye aboa?” The questions being asked are: Are you not a human being? Are you
a beast? The point is not to irritate the youth on to a fist fight, but to impress it upon
their minds that as human beings each of them has the right not to be abused or
cheated by others, within or without the family. This clearly shows that the rights in
question are none other than human rights to which everyone is entitled just for being
a human being, young or old.
Besides these negative rights and their corresponding duties, Akens also recog-
nize positive rights in social life. This means, inter alia, that members of the
(extended) family including uncles and aunties have a moral obligation to provide
for the material needs of their young, disabled, or sick members. These would
include food, clothing, shelter, health, and, to some extent, basic education until
they become self-supporting.
On their part, when the youth become adults and their parents or elders become
aged – and are no longer able to be self-dependent – they (the youth) have the
reciprocal moral responsibility to care for them. Correlatively, the parents now have
the right to be cared for by their children or wards. The right to be taken care of by
one’s children is a social right, or to use the more contemporary philosophical jargon,
an example of positive rights, which are not as well known or recognized within the
Western ethos as negative rights. The UN Charter of human rights, however,
includes and promotes both negative and positive rights (UN Charter, 1948).
This complex network of reciprocal rights and duties are epitomized in the Akan
maxim. “Se obi hwe wo ma wose fifi a, wo nso wo hwe no ma ne dee tutu.”
That is: If a person takes care of you while you are developing your teeth, you
ought, in turn, to take care of the person while the person is losing his/her teeth.
Despite the authoritarian tendencies of our elders and parents, the right to free speech
is dully recognized in the (extended) family and the larger society. Hence, an
individual who finds his right under threat would usually complain and insist on
his/her right to free speech by arguing, “Tekyerema da manum na momma me
nkabi.” This maxim, as discussed earlier, is meant to argue: All human beings have
the right to free speech, and since I have a human tongue in my mouth, I am also a
human being. Therefore, I should be allowed or not hindered from expressing my
views without just cause.
338 J. Osei
In case the authorities or the audience in question remain adamant, and refuse to
recognize the person’s right to speak, he/she may further ask rhetorically, “Mennye
nipa anaa?” Am I not a human being? In other words, the person is demanding this
right not as a favor or grace from any human being or institution, but by virtue of
being a human qua human being.
While it is true that in communalistic societies extended family members love to
live together for a long time and share things in common, it would be, as Professor
Gyekye would like to say, “a conceptual blunder” to interpret such a practice to mean
that communalistic societies are communist societies where individual rights to
property are not recognized (Gyekye, 1975). It is therefore worth stressing that
communalism is not co-terminus with communism. The difference is centered on
the negative rights of the individual, especially the right to free speech and private
property (Osei, 2019a).
Akans like other communalistic societies therefore recognize the right of each
matured member of the family to marry outside the family, to raise their own
children, and acquire their own private property. In times of any debilitating sickness
such as tuberculosis, cancer, diabetes, stroke, or a disabling car accident, every
member of the (extended) family has a right (in the sense of a claim) to be taken
care of by the family, and the family concerned has, and (usually) recognizes, the
correlative duty of taking care of this member until the member is well enough to
become self-dependent again. The family that fails to honor its moral obligations
toward the sick member is liable to sanctions after due arbitration in a traditional
court. Not even the death of the offended party is enough grounds to terminate the
pursuit of justice in this case. If found guilty the family elders and those concerned
could be asked to sacrifice a sheep, fowl, or dozens of eggs to pacify the soul of the
deceased family member who died as a result of culpable negligence.
This practice also goes to show that for the Akan, such rights are integral to one’s
essential being, which is the soul, and not just the body which is temporal. Such
rights are based on our status as human beings, and are therefore ontological rights.
Similarly, death is not allowed to abrogate the right of persons to their private
property. For, if prior to their death normal adult members of the family make a will
(without any coercion) directing how their personal wealth or property (excluding
anything inherited from the family) should be disbursed, their right (in the sense of
power) to have the will executed as directed is upheld by the family and the larger
society. This done as a sign of respect for them and their human rights as human beings
absent in this (physical) world but present in the metaphysical or ancestral world. It is
also significant to note that since Akans attribute superior (spiritual) powers to the
ancestors over the living, one should not be surprised to notice that the rights of the
dead are often taken more seriously than the rights of the living. It is not only on the
grounds of respect for their new ontological status, but also for fear of ancestral
retribution. Consequently, certain calamities such as sudden deaths, inexplicable but
serious accidents, and epidemics within a family or a community are often given
personal causal explanations in terms of ancestral revenge or retributive justice for the
refusal of certain families to uphold the rights of their deceased relatives.
From these examples, it must be clear that human rights are not only conceptually
understood and articulated among traditional Akans, but that they are also enforced
for the benefit of the living as well as the dead or ancestors. Whether one takes right
to mean, entitlement, permission, power, or immunity, individual rights to property,
negative and positive rights, are both duly recognized, promoted, and protected
among Akans, living or dead.
Human Rights and Justice in Akan Politics
From the works of R. S. Rattray, the British anthropologist of nineteenth century,

Dr. J. B. Danquah, Professor K. Busia, Professor Akwasi Wiredu, Dr. Kwame
Gyekye, Rev. Dr. Robert Aboakye-Mensah, and other contemporary writers on
Akan traditional politics or political philosophy, it is abundantly clear: While the
Akan chief combines in his office the highest executive, judicial, military, and
religious powers of the traditional state under his jurisdiction, the Akan ruler is not
an autocratic ruler. In thought and practice, he is forbidden by traditional laws –
including taboos – and practices from becoming autocratic. For, he cannot abuse or
even ignore the human rights of his people with impunity (Aboagye-Mensah, 1994).
The people do not only have the right to elect by representation the traditional
chief or ruler they want, they also have the right in terms of power to remove the
person. The queen (sometimes called queen mother) has the constitutional prerog-
ative to nominate a qualified member of the royal family, but neither she nor the
entire royal house can impose a ruler on the people. For as a popular Akan political
maxim goes, “Odehyee nsi hene,” which means, a royal or a member of the royal
family cannot elect or appoint a chief or ruler.
Whoever is nominated from the royal family does not automatically become a
chief or a king or queen until the nominee has taken the oath of allegiance by which
the nominee promises by oath to respect the individual and communal rights of the
people inter alia. Before taking the solemn oath, the people through the Okyeame
or their spokesperson declare their human rights or “Bill of Rights” and other values
which they would want their new king to take seriously and not violate:
1. All the elders agree that I should give you the stool.
2. Do not go after our women.
3. Do not become a drunkard.
4. When we give you advice, listen to it.
5. Do not grumble.
6. We do not want you to disclose the origin of your subjects.
7. We do not want you to regard us as fools.
8. We do not want autocratic ways.
9. We do not want bullying.
10. We do not like beating.
340 J. Osei
It is only after listing these expectations that the spokesperson symbolically

presents the stool saying:
Take the stool. We bless the stool and give it to you. The elders say they give the stool to you.
(Aboagye-Mensah, 1994)
The king-elect on his part responds to these moral imperatives by swearing the
great oath of the nation. Holding a ceremonial sword, he solemnly pledges to respect
their human and civil rights as well as the traditions of the elders saying:
Today you have elected me. If I do not govern you as well as my ancestors did, if I do not
listen to the advice of my elders, if I make war upon them, if I run away from battle, then I
have violated the oath. (ibid.)
To show their loyalty and solidarity with the king-elect, all the subordinate or
divisional chiefs under him also take solemn oaths to submit to his authority in
reciprocity. Then follows the powerful congratulatory messages from the giant
“talking drums,” amidst joyful songs of praise and thanksgiving from the praise
teams to God the Otwieduampon or Supreme Being, and the ancestors for helping
them choose a new king. With that, the first part of the enstoolment ceremony
gradually wanes down to a victorious end.
Commenting on these traditional political policies and practices, Rattray, with the
keen insight of an anthropologist, states: “Democracy is again triumphant though
ready to allow autocracy to boast the semblance” (Rattray, 1923). In other words, the
Akan political system may appear autocratic but in reality it is essentially democratic
or democratic at its core.
Human Rights and Justice in Akan Economic Life
Prominent among the many ethical do’s and don’ts that one is taught as an Akan
youth is the injunction not to steal. Parents, grandparents, and other adults in the
community repeatedly warn, “Se, wo hunu obi adee a, fa wani hwe mfa wo nsa
nka.” That is, “When you see someone’s property (you may) look at it, but you don’t
touch it.” [Emphasis mine] The implication is that although communalistic, the Akan
society (unlike communist societies) upholds the right to private property, as pointed
out earlier. Consequently, one cannot just walk into an Akan neighbor’s relative’s
store/shop and start packing home whatever items one wants on the grounds of
communalistic values. Such a behavior will be promptly met with a barrage of
proverbs and maxims in defense of private property. For example, the opportunist
would be told inter alia:
(a) “Mfasoo nti na yedi dwa,” i.e., the rationale for (private) trading or business is profit.
(b) “Obi nhuhu mma obi nkeka,” i.e., (in business), one does not suffer for another to
enjoy. (c) “Dee ode nadee na odie, nnye dee ekom de no,” i.e., property is (or should be)
enjoyed by the owner, not the needy. Central to all these responses is the right of the
individual to private property as well as the right to profit-making through legitimate
business. These rights and corresponding duties are therefore duly affirmed in Akan thought
and practice. (Rattray, 1916)
Another Akan economic right is evident in the following maxim intended to

ensure fairness in business transactions and competition. “Se wamma wo yonko
antwa nkron a, wo nso wontwa du.” That is, “Unless you allow your neighbour to
have nine, you cannot have ten.” This maxim attempts to discourage the “winner-
takes-all mentality” that unfortunately continues to dominate many Western minds
and financial institutions. The Akan cannot accept this economic dogma from the
West, since for the Akan, the right to fair treatment, including fair wages, or fair
competition, is as important as the fundamental human right to private property.
Economic right in Akan traditional thought, however, does not trump the right to
life in Akan ethics. For, even if a business partner or customer owes you heavily, you
do not have the right to confiscate the person’s private property and deprive the
person of the means to livelihood. The principle involved is Kafoo didi, meaning a
debtor reserves the right to eat. In other words, the right to demand a debt is not
superior to the right to life.
This principle Kafoo didi was once famously deployed by General Ignatius K
Acheampong (who led the military coup to overthrow Professor K A Busia, prime
minister of the Second Republic). Responding to a hostile demand for loan payments
by the World Bank, the prime minister said, “Kafoo didi,” by which he meant, “The
debtor has the right to eat.” In other words, no amount of financial indebtedness
should deprive a person of the right to exist since the right to life is a fundamental
human right. Deployed at the right time, and in the right way, it serves as the power
to prevent yourself or others from unjustifiable economic harassment.
Rattray also noted that among the Akans, not even the criminal behavior of a
person however horrible could be a sufficient condition for depriving the person of
the right to own or use a private piece of land for farming, or housing.
We have seen that [it] is protected from forfeiture, even when a clansman had committed
some capital offence and that the king did not dare to seize the offender’s land because he
would have opposition from the whole clan. (Rattray, 1923)
Without doubt, land is the most critical asset to production. The right to land (private
ownership) is consequently highly desirable as an economic right. Fortunately, Akan
masses do not have to overthrow any landowners, middle class, or governments for
access to the land.
Regarding this, the skeptics and cynics of Africa’s democratization may be
shocked to learn that despite the communalistic values in Akanland, individuals
have this stringent right to demand access to plots of land for subsistence or
commercial farming or renting. The chiefs, assisted by their sub-chiefs and recog-
nized family heads, “abusua mpanimfoo,” are stewards of the land, and therefore
only hold the lands in trust for, and on behalf of, the people or the state. Therefore,
342 J. Osei
provided such lands are available, no family head or chief has the authority to
deprive a family member of access to them. The economic right to a piece of land
is therefore recognized as a human right guarded by the ancestors or the Supreme
Being, who, as Dr. Danquah points out, is regarded in family lineage terms as “Nana
Nyankopon” or the Great Ancestor.
Human Rights and Justice in the Religious Life of Akans
Although one does not find or hear the king explicitly pledging to respect the
religious freedom of his people, it is implicit in the injunction not to be autocratic
and in the pledge to rule them as well as his predecessors did. Akans do not take their
religious freedom lightly and will use all the constitutional means available to them
to depose an autocratic ruler who threatens their freedom of religion.
A classic case supporting this position is evident in Akan political history from
the eighteenth century. The Asantehene Nana Osei Kwame was de-stooled at the end
of the eighteenth century after ruling for 23 years. The best explanation for his
political demise was an allegation about threatening the religious freedom of his
people. Long before Christianity penetrated Islam was well-established in Ashanti,
and Ashanti Kings could consult Moslem leaders for prayers and charms in antic-
ipation or during wars and other natural or supernatural life-threatening events. Nana
Osei Kwame, however, became too attached to the Moslem community in Kumasi,
his capital, and showed signs of inclination to impose Qur’anic law as the civil code
for the Ashanti Empire. Seeing their religious freedom threatened by this King, the
subordinate chiefs in coalition with the elders de-stooled him, after he ignored their
warnings.
Although this happened in the eighteenth century, it set a precedent that has been
effectively used as deterrence against all subsequent Asante Kings and their sub-
ordinates up to the present. Despite the close association between African traditional
religions and chieftaincy, the right of individual chiefs as well as individuals to
affiliate or not to affiliate with any religion or religious denomination has never been
denied. So while they are not allowed to impose their religious preferences on their
people, they are free to pursue their own preferences for themselves (Aboagye-
Mensah, 1994: 34).
Human Rights and Justice in Akan Traditional Legal System
Centuries before the European exploration and penetration into Africa, Akans had
relatively well-organized (though not perfect) traditional moral and legal systems
which provided law and order as well as protection of the human rights of the people.
The traditional courts did not only uphold the right of each individual to a fair
trial, but also their right to seek redress through the due process of the law against
even an omanhene or paramount chief. The paradigm case of the Asantehene (King
of Asante Empire) Nana Osei Kwadwom who was de-stooled for threatening the
religious freedom of his people, implied that no one, including subsequent

Asantehenes, and their subordinates, could be presumed to be above the law.
Consequently, just as the Asantehene Osei Kwadwo was de-stooled for misuse of
power, any Akan Omanhene could be de-stooled when found guilty of any capital
offence, including murder, stealing, impersonation, or even adultery with the wife of
his subjects. Ordinary citizens could file charges not only against other ordinary
citizens, but even against their omanhene or paramount. The citizen also has the right
to appeal to a higher court all the way to the court of the Asantehene, the equivalent
of the Supreme Court, when not satisfied with the judgment of the lower courts.
Although admittedly imperfect, the traditional legal system, in as much as it tried
people and punished guilty ones for theft, rape, assault, and murder, can be said to
have given due recognition to the (human) rights of the people to private property,
the pursuit of their individual legitimate social, economic, and political interests, and
especially the right to their own life and property.
Conclusion
The skeptic might be wondering, if Akans and similar African societies know and
respect human rights, how could one explain the long history of ritual murders,
slavery, ethnic wars, and the ongoing genocide in Sudan as well as the civil wars in
the Congo, East Africa, and, until recently, in West Africa? While the question seems
appropriate, it should be pointed out that it relies on the false presupposition that if
one knows the right, one will necessarily do the right. Although Plato – unlike
Aristotle – identified with this elitist principle and denied the possibility of human
weak will or akrasia, collective human experience over the centuries since Plato has
clearly shown that most crimes are not committed out of ignorance but out of greed,
lust for power, revenge, and extreme narcissism. Ritual murder was common among
the Akans until the British colonial government abolished it in the Gold Coast. They
were, however, not occasioned by selfish interests but by questionable metaphysical
beliefs. Most Akans, at the time, believed that the ritual killings were necessary to
ensure their Kings and Queens did not enter the next world without their spouses and
retinue. The question about human rights abuses also wrongly assumes that the
causal factors for these multiple and devastating ethnic rivalries and civil wars were
caused only by internal factors within Africa. A more realistic analysis will however
reveal a reductionist fallacy since the causal factors were deeply rooted in the foreign
demands for oil or ivory from elephants, and such vital minerals as gold, diamonds,
and other precious metals including those mined in the Congo for computer chips
among others. Unless the foreign countries and multinational corporations
concerned curb their appetites for these raw materials and precious minerals or
restrict their commerce to legitimate governments and refrain from direct or indirect
political interference, and illegal mining, and curb the role of mercenaries in Africa’s
hot spots, the political instabilities will remain serious impediments not only to peace
but also democracy and development in Africa.
344 J. Osei
In sum, this chapter has shown, using the Akan model as a paradigm case for
indigenous African societies, that far from being a Western ethnocentric imposition
on Africa, human rights are indigenous and fundamental to the African worldview.
Far from being a translation of the Western conceptions or theories of rights, this
project has presented the relevant concepts in Akan as used in precolonial, colonial,
and postcolonial times. It has also been shown that the concept is fundamental to
their ethics as well as their socioeconomic, political, religious, and legal institutions
and practices. Further, the chapter has shown that the African concept or theory of
human rights is more comprehensive and more contextually relevant in African than
the negative conception dominant in the Global West as well as the positive
conception that is (or used to be) dominant in the Global East. The challenge for
the contemporary African social and political philosopher or political scientist then is
not to introduce the Western or Eastern conception of human rights to Africa.
Instead, the challenge would be ensuring that indigenous conceptions are given
protection from both internal and external aggression. While internal aggression
from military coups will undermine or abandon the negative conception of rights and
the protection it provides citizens in a democracy, external aggression even in the
form of inhumane economic conditionalities such as those imposed by the IMF and
the World Bank could force Africans to abandon their positive conception of rights
that is so critical to social justice in a democracy.
With the rate of deaths in the USA far worse than the deaths in Africa, the
pandemic generated by COVID-19 has, among other things, revealed the weak-
nesses in upholding negative rights almost exclusively without the corresponding
positive rights. By insisting on their right to be left alone, refusing COVID-19
protocols and the free and abundant vaccinations around them, the majority of the
deaths recorded during the pandemic may have been avoidable. Therefore, if both
the negative and positive conceptions of rights are protected and promoted internally
and externally, democracy in Africa will continue to grow not only quantitatively but
also qualitatively toward maturity and permanence. And as this chapter has shown
using the Akan example, a significant part of the contributing factors should be
attributed to the presence, rather than the absence, of a vibrant human rights
tradition.
References
Aboagye-Mensah, R. K. (1994). Mission and democracy in Africa: The role of the Church. Asempa
Publishers for Christian Council of Ghana.
BBC. (2019). https://www.bbc.com/news/world/Africa. 22 Feb 2019.
Campbell, J., & Quinn, N. (2021, May). What’s happening to democracy in Africa? Council on
Foreign Affairs, House of Freedom.
Gyekye, K. (1975). Review of John Mbiti’s African religions and philosophy [Book Review].
Second Order, 4(1), 86–94.
Fagan, A (ND). Internet encyclopedia of philosophy. Human Rights. https://iep.utm.edu/hum-rts/
Hobbes, T. (1651). Leviathan. Andrew Crooke, London
Holland, E. K. C. (1924). The elements of jurisprudence (13th ed.). Clarendon Press. xxvi, p. 458
Dec 6, 2021.
Muravchik, J. (1992). Exporting democracy: Fulfilling America’s destiny. AEI Press.
Osei, J. (2009). The challenge of sustaining emergent democracies. Xlibris Academic.
Osei, J. (2019a). How the selfishness ethics and ideology of Ayn rand have undermined American
socio-economic stability: Analysis and prescription from African communal ethics. In Golfo
Maggini Vasiliki P. Solomou-Papanikolaou Helen Karabatzaki Konstantinos D. Koskeridis
(eds), Philosophy and Crisis: Responding to Challenges to Ways of Life in the Contemporary
World. Washington DC: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, pp.103–121.
Osei, J. (2019b). Ethical issues in third world development: A theory of social change. https://
philosophi.uoi.gr/wp-content/uploads/2019/. . .
Packenham, R. (1973). Liberal America and the third world: Political development ideas in foreign
aid and social science. Princeton University Press.
Rattray, R. S. (1916). Ashanti Proverbs. Clarendon Press.
Rattray, S. (1923). Ashanti. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Harvard University Press.
Repucci, S., & Slipowitz, A. (2021). Freedom House Report, International Affairs.
Uduagwu, C. S. (2019). How relevant is African philosophy in Africa? A conversation with Oladele
Balogun. Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions, 8(2),
27–36.
UN. (1948). https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
Von, T. H. (1976). Anthropology and power among the Ashanti by Laue. African Affairs, 75(298),
33–52.
Wasserstrom, R. (1964). Rights, human rights, and racial discrimination. The Journal of Philoso-
phy, 61(20), October American Philosophical Association Eastern Division sixty-first annual
meeting 628–641. https://doi.org/10.2307/2023445
Wellman, C. (1985). A theory of rights: Persons under laws. Institutions, and morals. Totowa, N.J.:
Rowman & Allanheld.
Wellman, C. (1999). Liberalism, communitarianism, and group rights. Law and Philosophy, 18 (1),
13–40.
Technologies of Human Rights Protection,
Sovereignty, and Freedom
Uchenna Okeja
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
Technologies of Human Rights Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
Sovereignty, Freedom, and Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
Reading for the Political: Beyond Digital Sovereignty and Digital Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Abstract
Whereas technology promises to advance freedom through strengthening human
rights protection, the policies enacted to control access to technology infrastruc-
ture claim to protect the sovereignty of states. Could these divergent claims be
reconciled? In this chapter, an account of technology governance that can accom-
modate the claims of freedom and sovereignty is provided. The starting point of
this account is a reconstruction of the central claims of the two approaches to
technology governance. It is argued that the two perspectives are severely limited,
hence the need for a third way. To transcend the claims of digital sovereignty and
digital freedom, it is imperative to take a standpoint that is political. Adopting an
approach or a mode of reading that is political requires that the theory of
technology governance answers the question: what does it mean for the experi-
ence of (un)freedom to say that human rights or sovereignty requires one to act in
one way or another?
Keywords
AI · Freedom · Responsibility · Governance · Sovereignty · Politics
U. Okeja (*)
Faculty of Humanities, Nelson Mandela University, Gqeberha, South Africa
e-mail: uchenna.okeja@mandela.ac.za

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_47
348 U. Okeja
Introduction
Technology accounts in part for the reelection of Macky Sall as president of Senegal
in 2019. It has been reported that big data tools were deployed to optimize his
chances in the election (Allison, 2019). Besides Senegal, there are a few other
countries where technology is now a core part of the practice of democracy. In
Nigeria, for instance, a major controversy about the recent elections was the failure
of technology to deliver political hope. Recent political experiences show that the
internet is becoming a political battleground. We see this in countries like Cameroun,
Uganda, Nigeria, and the United States of America.
Although the challenge of technology in politics is universal, human rights NGOs
and some so-called advanced democracies frequently denounce unorthodox tech-
nology governance practices in developing countries as a form of human rights
abuse. This is mostly the tenor of the responses to news reports about the restriction
of access to the internet in countries of the Global South. Implicated in these
responses is the imagination that attempt to control or constrain opposition voices
by shutting down or limiting access to social media platforms, like Facebook and
Twitter, is an infringement on human rights.
Technology governance is complex. The implications of this complexity within
the landscape of human rights protection in Africa could be seen in movements such
as the #Endsars protests in Nigeria and the Arab Spring. Although human rights
activists in many developing countries are able to mobilize effectively using internet-
based platforms, governments quickly silence them through arbitrary laws and
targeted intimidation. The question that emerges from these experiences are many.
In this chapter, an attempt is made to answer a question that is fundamental for the
understanding of the changing nature of the perception of freedom, namely, how to
balance the claims of sovereignty and respect for human rights in technology
governance practices.
Attempts to conceptualize the relationship between technology governance and
human rights have crystallized into two opposing perspectives. The one view holds
that countries have the right to govern the digital public sphere. They are at liberty to
do this, it is claimed, because it is an integral component of a country’s sovereignty
to proactively regulate and prevent harmful use of technology. A second position is
the consideration that the digital public sphere should be free from the interference of
governments. Freedom, proponents of this view argue, demands that every possi-
bility to advance human rights must be free from coercion and arbitrary restrictions.
These two perspectives, it is argued, have significant shortcomings that make them
untenable.
For the first position, the main problem is the harmful potential of minimizing the
dangers of new forms of bureaucratic dictatorship. The second perspective is
ultimately unviable because it is unable to account for the modes of negotiation
that are vital for the exercise of agency in contexts where institutions are weak. To
move beyond the shortcomings of the two positions, it is imperative to adopt a
political mode of reading. This mode of reading entails seeing the main question of
the governance of technology as a challenge of the imaginative horizon that gives
meaning to human action. The issue on this account is not how to merge the claims
Technologies of Human Rights Protection, Sovereignty, and Freedom 349
of state sovereignty and freedom of the individual per se, but how to conceive a
perspective on freedom that will enable states, private actors, and individuals to act
meaningfully.
The chapter is divided into four sections. The first section is the “Introduction,”
which sets out the question and my approach in answering it. In the section
“Technologies of Human Rights Protection,” the idea of technologies of human
rights protection is discussed. Section “Sovereignty, Freedom, and Technology”
focuses on the explication of the main claims of the two perspectives on technology
governance. Finally, in the section “Reading for the Political: Beyond Digital
Sovereignty and Digital Freedom,” the possibility of overcoming the shortcomings
of the two dominant perspectives on technology governance is considered.
The section “Conclusion” consists of a summary of the claims and discussion of
the problems that arise due to the integration of technology and politics. Although
the chapter considers the dialectic of freedom and sovereignty in light of the
integration of technology into politics, it is important to note that the argument
advanced is mainly a form of normative political theorizing.
Technologies of Human Rights Protection
To understand what is regarded as the technologies of human rights protection, it is

perhaps most viable to proceed by discussing examples. There are basically two forms
of technologies of human rights protection, namely, the hardware and software variants.
The first category consists mainly of digital platforms for advancing human rights
awareness and enforcing protection. The second category comprises modes of enact-
ment of agency in politics through the deployment of technology. Whereas human
rights apps exemplify the first category of technologies of human rights protection, the
second category manifest through new forms of digitally based activism.
One way of contextualizing the emergence of technologies of human rights
protection is to view them through the lens of the deepening of digitization of
societies. The process of digitalization has no doubt enabled the introduction of
different mechanisms people can use to monitor and enforce respect for human rights
in both advanced and emerging democracies. Mobile apps created by organizations
such as Amnesty International and the United Nations Human Rights Office paved
the way for the flourishing of hardware technologies of human rights. Currently,
apps like Eyewitness to Atrocities, TraffikCam, HR Campaign Buyer’s Guide,
Women’s Human Rights App (W’sHR), Mobile Justice, and Human Rights Watch
do not merely seek to educate people about human rights. They also provide the
means for reporting cases of actual or potential human rights abuses.
As a result of the possibilities they create, technological platforms mitigate in real
time the abuse of the human rights of vulnerable groups. It is reasonable to refer to
these innovations as belonging to the hardware category of technologies of human
rights protection, because they are built as platforms that are meant to subsist and
offer a niche service in relation to the advancement of human rights causes. Thus,
whereas one of the apps may be focused on women’s rights, another could find its
niche in mitigating human trafficking. These hardware technological innovations for
350 U. Okeja
the protection of human rights are united by a common factor, namely, the provision
of tangible platform dedicated to the advancement of the cause of human rights.
This contrasts with what can be regarded as software technologies of human
rights protection, which are essentially the ever-evolving digital innovations that
advance the cause of human rights. Software technologies are fluid. They are not
static because they are not constructed to advancement any specific aspect of human
rights. An example in this regard is the Twitter tool called hashtag (#). The mobi-
lization of this technological innovation transformed human rights activism in
various ways. One can see the transformation in the vistas opened by such impactful
hashtags like #Bringbackourgirls, #Metoo, #Endsars, #Rhodesmustfall, and many
others.
Although the hashtag as a form of digital innovation could be deployed to
advance human rights causes, it is not exclusively dedicated to this goal. It is fluid
in the sense that it could be given any content and directed towards any goal.
Notwithstanding, it will be reasonable to suggest that software technologies of
human rights protection are united by their mode of operationalization. This
means they function on the basis of a specific logic, namely, the amplification of
the voices advancing a cause, whether a human rights cause or something different.
In many developing countries, journalists and ordinary citizens rely on these tech-
nological innovations to further the cause of human rights protection using a variety
of strategies, such as “tagging” prominent international figures and platforms or
growing an audience that is capable of developing into a critical mass.
Recognizing the disruptive potentials of technological innovations, governments
in various countries have put in place different mechanisms of control. Recent
experiences in many African countries and other places in the world show that the
two favored responses of governments is access restriction and content moderation.
These responses could take the form of internet shutdowns, data taxes or content
restriction and erasure, targeted exclusion of prominent voices, and outright ban of
social media platforms. One can therefore assert that access to internet platforms is
now the main means through which the dialectic between sovereignty and individual
freedom manifests. The challenge thus is to conceive a viable response to this
dialectic – how should we think about the claims of sovereignty and freedom in
relation to digital technology? Are the two claims always opposed? Is reconciliation
a viable approach to adopt in thinking about the way forward? These questions will
be addressed in the section “Reading for the Political: Beyond Digital Sovereignty
and Digital Freedom.” The necessary first step towards addressing them is to
understand the claims of the two dominant approaches to technology governance.
Sovereignty, Freedom, and Technology
In the growing literature on the integration of politics and technology, there are two
dominant perspectives on the relationship between freedom and sovereignty. One
cluster of arguments proposes that countries have a right to control emerging
technologies because of their capacity to disrupt social harmony and peace, the
economy, and many critical infrastructure. The idea is that digital sovereignty is a
new frontier for enacting state sovereignty. In opposition to this view, a second
approach suggests that the main promise of freedom is the realization of an
unhindered digital public sphere. The imagination driving this view is the thought
that, in a digital age, individuals are free to the extent they are able to assert their
right to privacy and access to the means of interacting with co-citizens without
hindrances, such as restriction and surveillance. Given that these opposing views
have crystallized into the main ways we frame the governance of technology locally
and internationally, it is pertinent to examine them in fuller details to conceive a
perspective on the future.
Questions about the governance of technological innovations are not new. The
emergence of the internet in the early 1980s, however, heightened the need to find
answers to questions about the impact of technology on privacy, access, safety of the
young and vulnerable, and jurisdiction for the prosecution of cybercrimes.
Confronted with the seemingly intractable power of online actors, governments
around the world imagine internet governance as a matter of national security.
A declaration by the United Nations in 2012, however, suggests that it is not entirely
up to governments how regulation in this regard should be conceived. The United
Nations’ Human Rights Council states that “human rights apply equally online and
offline, digital rights are human rights” (Bussiek, 2022: 2). This implies that “all
people have the right to access, use, create and publish information freely, to enjoy
and exercise freedom of expression, information and communication as long as they
do not violate the rights of others” (ibid.).
It is often imagined that there is an opposition between the claims of digital
sovereignty and the outlook that conceives the digital infrastructure as a means to
protect human rights. The implications of this imagined opposition are many, given
that human rights could be considered as the modern concept that expresses the idea
of freedom. At all events, the thinking that informs this opposition is that “the digital
transformation and the global technical infrastructure of the internet seem to chal-
lenge sovereignty [because] the principles of territoriality and state hierarchy appear
opposed to diffuse, flexible, forever shifting constellation of global digital networks”
(Pohle & Thiel, 2020: 2). Governments in different parts of the world often consider
digital innovations like the internet to pose critical social and political challenges. In
other words, there is always that suspicion that these innovations are opposed to the
claims of state sovereignty due to the difficulties associated with asserting control.
Examples of such moments where control is imagined as posing intractable dangers
to governments include disruptive online-based activism targeting government
actions or policies and so-called ethical hacking. Notwithstanding, since the expan-
sion of digital infrastructure depends in some ways on the corporation of govern-
ments, there has been commensurate extension of mechanisms of control over digital
infrastructure.
A prominent way of expressing the burgeoning governance of digital infrastruc-
ture is through the operationalization of the concept of sovereignty in relation to
technology. Captioned internet sovereignty (in the context of China) and digital
sovereignty (in the context of the European Union), the concept of digital
352 U. Okeja
sovereignty captures the claims of states to exert control over digital infrastructure.
The concept underscores that it is “the right of a state to govern its networks to serve
national interests, the most important of which are security, privacy, and economic
health” (Lewis, 2020: 3). In exercising digital sovereignty, therefore, “states impose
national laws and regulation on networks and services to improve privacy and
security, ensure opportunities for their citizens, and, in unpopular regimes, reduce
political risk” (ibid.).
As Milton Mueller pointed out, it is interesting that debates about digital sover-
eignty go back to efforts in the 1990s to assert that the digital space represents an
independent context of sovereignty. He notes that “it is indicative of the changing
times that the first papers to raise the issue of cyber-sovereignty were animated not
by attempts to apply traditional forms of state sovereignty to cyberspace but by
claims that cyberspace itself was its own sovereign space” (Mueller, 2019, 2). This is
an important point to note because some attempts to explain the claims of sover-
eignty in relation to the digital space run into problems due to lack of clarity about
the very notion of sovereignty. As we will see in the next section, addressing
adequately the dichotomy between the claims of digital sovereignty and the claims
of digital freedom requires us to adopt a perspective that allows for an imagination of
digital governance as a question of normative political theory.
Digital sovereignty is at core an imagination of the necessity of territorial control
of digital infrastructure (Goldsmith 1998b). The concept refers to actions aiming to
provide effective regulation of the internet and similar media of interaction in the
cyberspace. The key claims are that such regulations are necessary to maintain
territorial integrity and ensure protection of privacy, security, and maintain economic
and cultural health. To understand the claim of digital sovereignty, therefore, it is
necessary to have clarity about how it is imagined as the means to guarantee these
envisaged outcomes.
Asserting digital sovereignty could mean a range of things. According to a recent
Briefing of the European Union, for instance, it “refers to Europe’s ability to act
independently in the digital world.” The Briefing proposes that the concept “should
be understood in terms of both protective mechanisms and offensive tools to foster
digital innovation” (EU Parliament, 2020: 1). For the EU, asserting digital sover-
eignty is necessary for reasons ranging from economic competitiveness, protection
of privacy and data security, and behavioral concerns. Recognizing that the main
opportunities for economic growth in the future lie in “digital markets,” digital
sovereignty enables the attainment of desirable economic goals, while mitigating
the dangers that issue from disadvantages vis-à-vis competitors. The claim of digital
sovereignty in this regard is that a condition of self-determination for the European
Union, or any country that endorses the idea of digital sovereignty, is the attainment
of independence from foreign technological control. To say therefore that digital
sovereignty is necessary due to economic competitiveness is to suggest that it is a
component of self-determination which is necessary to guarantee economic inde-
pendence in a world where digitalization is a key driver of economic activities.
What then is the mechanism for achieving digital sovereignty when conceived in
the sense just stated? The approach to achieving this goal differs from one context to
another. In the case of the European Union, it includes boosting investment in key
areas that will increase competitive advantage for the Union, creating new areas of
dominance, and controlling access to critical infrastructure and data. China, Russia,
and emerging global powers take a different approach. The main point to note,
however, is that, in seeking to attain digital sovereignty for economic or any other
reasons, governments adopt two principal means, namely, content regulation, access
regulation, and expansion of capacity (Wu, 1997).
Besides the first core claim of digital sovereignty, there is a second contention,
which is that it is the means to attain self-determination by guaranteeing privacy and
data collection. Here, too, the approach to realizing this outcome is largely context-
specific. Whereas the EU sees the assertion of sovereignty in this sense to be
necessary due to the dominance of non-EU companies in controlling personal
data, China follows a different approach in framing how to realize digital sover-
eignty as a guarantor of privacy and data ownership. In the Chinese context, there are
three major aspects of digital sovereignty, namely, a governance dimension, a
national defense dimension, and an internal influence dimension (Mckune &
Ahmed, 2018: 3837). This compartmentalization implies that the imagination of
digital sovereignty in the Chinese conception is, on the one hand, externally focused
and, on the other hand, internally oriented.
Regardless of how digital sovereignty as guarantor of privacy, data ownership,
and control is framed, the idea is that the concept is a shorthand for a new frontier for
the realization of external as well as internal sovereignty. One cannot fail to notice
the suggestion that digital sovereignty is a form of self-determination aiming to
overcome the dominion of imperial powers of the West in the way the concept is
defined by emerging global powers. To this end, it is plausible to assert that digital
sovereignty has “become a primary arena for the contest between China, Russia, and
Iran on one hand, and democracies on the other. In this context, democracies are on
the offensive” (Lewis, 2020: 2). This implies that it will be a mistake to accuse
“China and Russia to be “seeking to splinter the internet” because “they would prefer
not to create a new separate internet, but to control the existing one, and cite a desire
to protect national sovereignty and public safety as reasons for moving away from
the governance regime created by the United States in the 1990s” (ibid.).
Evidently, privacy and data, when mobilized as a means to frame digital sover-
eignty, are contested. The outcome of this contestation is that there is no clear idea
regarding how to frame a robust imagination of the concept in this regard. What is
clear, though, is that the various constituencies mobilizing this framing of digital
sovereignty do so in accordance with their perceived needs for guaranteeing territo-
rial dominion and external influence or resistance in changing circumstances. For
this reason, it is important to ask whether the claims of digital sovereignty are indeed
about territorially circumscribed right to self-determination in a changing global
context or a new language that masks attempts by states to consolidate power and
assert global influence.
The reason for this skepticism should become apparent when one considers the
counter perspective advanced by proponents of the autonomy of the cyberspace.
Digital freedom which is opposed to the claims of digital sovereignty and the
354 U. Okeja
government regulation is the view that the digital sphere constitutes an independent
form of sovereignty. This view should not be confused with arguments that suggest
that a global technology infrastructure enhances sovereignty. In other words, digital
freedom is different from postulations that claim that the internet can be harnessed to
attain positive outcomes, such as strengthening international law, improving positive
economic interdependence, and empowering non-state actors (Perritt Jr, 1998: 424).
Digital freedom is a totally different perspective, because it does not merely seek to
suggest the ways technology could produce positive outcomes. The view asserts a
sovereignty for the digital sphere.
As a view opposed to government regulation of digital infrastructure, digital
freedom derives its cogency from two sources. On the one hand, the imagination
that the failure in practice to effectively regulate global digital infrastructure in the
manner promised by digital sovereignty shows that freedom in the digital age
demands a different imagination of the claims of sovereignty. On the other hand, it
is claimed that even if it were possible to regulate the digital space in a territorially
circumscribed manner, doing so would be wrong because the digital sphere is an
independent domain of sovereignty that should not be subjugated to the whims and
tyranny of any territorial authority.
John Perry Barlow postulated: “I declare the global social space we are building
to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you [the governments] seek to impose on
us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of
enforcement we have true reason to fear” (Barlow cited in Wu, 1997). This decla-
ration merges the two sources of legitimation of the claims of digital freedom. Not
only does Barlow suggests that it is impossible for governments to truly and
effectively regulate the digital space, he also underscores that such regulation
would be morally wrong. To understand the claims of digital freedom as a view
that is more than a critique of digital sovereignty, it is important to consider some of
the core claims it entails.
Digital freedom suggests that the digital space is a sphere in which the funda-
mental freedom of human beings unfolds. As such, it should be protected from
undue interference and regulation by state and non-state actors. Jack Goldsmith puts
the point across aptly when he described opponents of state regulation of digital
technology as making “both descriptive and normative claims. On the descriptive
side, they claim that the application of geographically based conceptions of legal
regulation and choice of law to a geographical cyberspace activity either makes no
sense or leads to hopeless confusion. On the normative side, they argue that because
cyberspace transactions occur ‘simultaneously and equally’ in all national jurisdic-
tions, regulation of the flow of this information by any particular national jurisdiction
illegitimately produces significant negative spillover effects in other jurisdictions”
(Goldsmith, 1998a: 1200). The main issue is therefore not that the digital sphere
should be disordered. It is instead the contention that the digital sphere is a self-
regulating, independent sovereign sphere that must be respected as such.
The claim advanced by the proponents of digital freedom is therefore that the
digital space constitutes an essential dimension of human life. It is the context in
which people live their lives and enact agency. Constraining the scope of the exercise
of agency by individual persons, which is at core the outcome of the claims of digital
sovereignty, is illegitimate. Digital technology, by its very nature, so proponents of
digital freedom argue, must be thought about as independent of territorial control
practices directed at asserting the self-determination principle of state sovereignty.
Recognizing this point means to accept that it is pointless to invoke the threats and
dangers that an unregulated digital space poses to justify its regulation and control.
For, what is at issue is not the mitigation of an impending calamity but the imperative
of changing our understanding of sovereignty in a manner that would enable us to
recognize the digital sphere as a new sphere of sovereignty. That is, to see why it
should not be subjugated to the impositions of territorially circumscribed norms of
state sovereignty.
Overall, digital freedom as a view on technology governance amounts to a
suggestion that the digital sphere is a sovereign sphere constituted by freely partic-
ipating netizens. Rather than seek to regulate and control it, states should recognize
its sovereignty and accept its ability and effectiveness to self-regulate and autono-
mously achieve self-determination for netizens. Seen in this way, the idea of digital
sovereignty is but an unwarranted interference by governments.
Reading for the Political: Beyond Digital Sovereignty and Digital

Freedom
What are the implications of the two perspectives considered in the preceding
section? The claims of digital sovereignty takes as a given that territorial sovereigns
can regulate digital infrastructure, such as the internet. The claim of digital freedom
is that the digital sphere constitutes an independent sovereignty. Attempts to assert
so-called digital sovereignty, on this view, are merely a euphemism for unwarranted
interference by governments. Evidently, both claims have serious consequences.
And one can understand why these implications are critical mostly in relation to two
things, namely, imagination of a desirable future and advancement of the conditions
of freedom.
To see why the claims of digital sovereignty matter, consider such issues as the
manipulation of currencies of emerging markets, new forms of espionage, the
potentials to disrupt critical infrastructure that guarantee service delivery, and
ransomware attacks on government institutions and private entities. These possible
misuses of technological power, left unchecked, could pose grave dangers, espe-
cially the instigation of turmoil and political instability. Notwithstanding, there are
reasons to worry that digital sovereignty is even more dangerous than what it claims
to prevent. Widespread practices of government surveillance, curtailment of press
freedom, manipulation of citizens, and even outright misuse of data about private
citizens all point to grave dangers that accompany government regulation of digital
infrastructure. Given this, the two positions make important claims about technology
governance. Since both positions are radically opposed, there is need to consider a
possible way forward. Doing this is not merely interesting philosophically but
356 U. Okeja
practically necessary due to the implications of not having a clear political imagi-
nation that enables meaningful action in a digital age.
In the introduction, it was noted that there are shortcomings that make the
approaches of digital sovereignty and digital freedom incapable of providing us
the right orientation to adopt in dealing with the challenge of the ever-evolving
digital innovations. The main shortcoming of the digital sovereignty position is that
it minimizes the destructiveness of new forms of bureaucratic dictatorship. Bureau-
cratic dictatorship refers to forms of institutionalized control that stifle the exercise
and experience of freedom. Consider practices such as selective content erasure and
surveillance. The harm of these practices is not merely that it disrespects the rights of
private citizens. The main harm consists in the erosion of the condition for the
exercise of agency in politics. For digital sovereignty to be asserted, it must be
administered in some way. This means that enormous power is transferred to
government agencies without any clarity about how this power will be used –
because the threats and actions to be regulated in the digital sphere by these agents
are non-static, organized, and predictable, so the regulators have to adapt and make
things up as the situation demands. What emerges in the end is the ceding of
unquantified power to government agents acting under uncertain conditions.
Why is this dangerous? The danger here lies in the potential that this undefined
power ceded to government actors will not only be misused inadvertently but it will
entrench an imagination among citizens that genuine political action is completely
out of their reach. Once this sense of powerlessness is entrenched, the outcome is
that a paralyzing inertia will become the defining feature of citizens’ engagement
with social and political reality. To this end, a desirable solution to the challenge of
the evolving digital sphere will not emerge from the assertion of digital sovereignty,
at least not in the sense its main proponents envisage. This means there is need to
find an approach that minimizes or completely avoids the diminishing of political
agency.
This is all the more important due to the fact that most people in the world today
consider the scope of the exercise of real political agency to be global. For instance,
climate activists, antihuman trafficking activists, and children’s rights activists
engaging in online activism experience their political agency to be beyond the
territorial boundaries of particular countries. Political action aimed at remedying
child labor, for instance, must operate in an in-between world – that is, in the context
of the interconnection between the place where child labor occurs (Bangladesh, for
instance) and the location where the products are marketed (Europe, for instance).
The point made with this example is that new forms of bureaucratic dictatorship have
the potential to trivialize the complex context in which people exercise political
agency in a globalizing world. And this is the case because political agency has
evolved significantly beyond the restrictions of territorial boundaries. Thus, a viable
approach to the challenge of digital sphere must accommodate the changed circum-
stance of genuine exercise of political agency.
Turning to the second perspective, digital freedom, one also finds that there is an
important limitation to overcome. This is the situation that this approach to the
challenge of the evolution of the digital sphere cannot account for modes of
negotiation that are vital for the exercise of agency in contexts where institutions are
weak. Consider, for instance, recent experiences in such countries as Uganda,
Cameroun, Zimbabwe, and Nigeria. In these countries, controversies about the
regulation of the digital sphere have made the news for many wrong reasons. In
Cameroun, for instance, the government forced telecommunication companies and
internet service providers to restrict access to the digital sphere because of concerns
about the activities of separatists groups. In the last decade, countries such as Togo,
Gabon, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, Chad, Nigeria, and the Democratic Repub-
lic of Congo have experienced internet shutdowns due to government attempts to
truncate the exercise of political agency by citizens.
The fact that these shutdowns occur, either in relation to government attempts to
quell protests or minimize the dangers they claim would threaten peaceful elections,
gives reason to conclude that governments impoverish the exercise of political
agency by shutting down the digital sphere. This is more the case because of the
strong evidence that shows the internet provides an alternative means for citizens’
self-expression in the democratic process (Moyo, 2009; Madenga, 2021). By limit-
ing freedom of expression, especially press freedom (Selnes, 2021; McIntyre &
Cohen, 2021), restrictions to the digital sphere seem to reverse the progress made in
entrenching democracy in Africa and other places. What is more, using internet
restrictions as a tool of political control could come at a considerable financial cost,
as we see in countries such as Benin Republic, Guinea, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and
Zambia, where governments have instituted taxes on Internet data (Bergere, 2019).
For these reasons, it seems to make sense to argue that experiences like the one we
have noted in many countries in Africa suggest that digital freedom is a necessary
condition for the exercise of political agency and the protection of human rights
today. The idea would be that government interference either delays or diminishes
the exercise of the sort of agency needed to make democracy work in developing
countries. In other words, the claim would be that respecting the sovereignty of the
digital sphere is a necessary first step in the quest for greater freedom for people
living under unjust social and political conditions.
The merits of this perspective notwithstanding, it seems that, should one take this
approach, it will be impossible to truly understand the way political agency mani-
fests in contexts where institutions are weak. This is because a specific form of
mutual dependence shapes the nature of political agency in the context of weak
institutions. This mutual dependence explains, for instance, why journalists and
citizens affected by internet shutdowns and digital controls imposed by governments
insist that the same government should provide the means for them to participate in
the digital sphere and also enforce their rights against technology giants. The claim
advanced is that an abstract notion of digital freedom is not very useful as an ideal of
technology governance for citizens of a very poor country who do not have access to
any means of asserting their rights against technology giants.
Implicated in this thought is the problem of digital colonialism. Responding to the
challenge posed by the digital sphere through the prism of digital freedom would not
change much for people who are powerlessness and vulnerable when confronted
with the power of global technology giants. In contexts where there are weak
358 U. Okeja
institutions, digital freedom and its dream of sovereignty for the cybersphere would
make no sense. And this is the case because such an approach would in the end
simply reconfigure the power asymmetry between the Global South and Global
North. As Renata Pinto observed, “the world’s offline populations are the disputed
territory of tech empires, because whoever gets them locked into their digital
feudalism, holds the key to the future. Tech giants are, without doubt, heavily
influencing the way campaigns, governments, and politics operate” (Pinto, 2018:
17). This explains why the main problems of the two perspectives we have consid-
ered so far are insufficient sensitivity to context and acknowledgment of the burdens
of the history that produced the present unequal world. Approaching the challenge of
the digital sphere in the manner envisioned by proponents of digital sovereignty is
insensitive to the context in which agency must be enacted today. As it was
highlighted earlier, the shortcoming of the approach of digital freedom is that it
does not account for the modes of negotiation that are vital for the exercise of agency
in nonideal situations.
Finding a viable alternative beyond the two perspective considered above
requires us to understand first what is at stake. Why, in other words, should we
care about how (not) to regulate the digital sphere? What is driving the concern in
this regard is not merely the perception of dangers and opportunities as the pro-
ponents of digital sovereignty and digital freedom assume. To be sure, digital
sovereignty claimants see threats (for instance, the breach of privacy and terrorism)
and opportunities (for instance, the economic opportunities embedded in data control
and ownership) in relation to the digital sphere. The same is true of digital freedom
claimants. They imagine the digital sphere to be confronted by threats of government
regulation (for example, the tyranny of surveillance) and opportunities (such as the
expansion and guarantee of freedom of expression).
What is missing in the assumption of both perspectives is context-sensitivity and
a recognition of the lessons of history. More is implicated in the concern about the
digital sphere than merely an accounting of threats and opportunities. The core issue
at stake is the imagination of the power of agency in a changing context. This
concern can be stated in the following way: given the disruptive nature of digital
platforms, who should possess what power of agency, and why is this justified? The
power of agency refers to a sense of freedom that forms the basis of genuine,
meaningful human action in the different contexts of life in a society. Putting this
at the center of the debates about how to deal with the challenges posed by the
evolution of the digital sphere will enable us to conceptualize a viable alternative.
The claims of digital sovereignty and digital freedom revolve around an exclusive
imagination of the freedom that is required for genuine, meaningful human action.
Whereas one perspective considers this exclusive freedom as the power to control
through regulation, the other perspective sees this exclusive freedom to inhere in
independence from such controls. To conceive a viable way forward, one must
consider what the imagination of the sense of freedom that should form the basis
of genuine and meaningful human action in the context of a digitalizing society aims
to achieve. In other words, what is the core property of such a conception of
freedom?
Before specifying this core property of freedom, it is important to restate the

concern with technology. The discussion so far shows that the problem of technol-
ogy governance is not whether technology is good or bad. Instead, the problem is
political in the sense that it concerns how to imagine the future of societies. The
concern with technology governance is squarely a worry about the changes that are
desirable in terms of how we live together. Seen in this way, the question of
technology governance becomes what is justified in relation to the impact of
technology on our sense of the world. The reason for this concern is that our sense
of the world provides us an orientation to live a meaningful life.
Based on this thought, the challenge of technology governance demands that one
adopts a political standpoint in thinking about the viable way forward. This means to
consider what it means for the experience of (un)freedom to say that responding
adequately to the evolution of the digital sphere demands that we act in one way or
another. In effect, the point is to conceive an imaginative horizon. Imaginative
horizon refers to the condition for meaning. That is, the orientation to reality that
enables one to experience the world and one’s place in it in a non-alienated manner.
Such an orientation requires the stipulation of the core property of freedom that
enables genuine action in an era of an unprecedented expansion of the power and
possibilities of the digital sphere.
It seems plausible to infer that the core property of this conception of freedom is
interdependent autonomy. That is, a form of self-reflexivity that enables one to
recognize the necessity of mutual dependence. Such an outlook does not focus
exclusively on the digital sphere to conceive a sense of what technology governance
requires. Instead, it focuses on the wider context of how the perception of what it
means to be human continues to evolve in response to the stimuli that are conse-
quences of human actions in the digital sphere and other areas of experience.
Interdependent autonomy therefore inverts the logic of the challenge of technology
governance by making it a concern about how, in acting on their/our world, human
beings reconstitute their orientation regarding what it means to be human and the
implications of this changing conception of humanity for imagining the nature of a
decent and desirable society.
This is a political reading of the challenge of technology governance, because it is
a suggestion that what is necessary to navigate the terrain of the digital sphere for
both governments and individuals is to put the power of agency at the center. By
putting the power of agency at the center, it is guaranteed that human beings do not
strip themselves of responsibility in relation to the challenge of the artifacts they
created. In relation to the technologies of human rights protection, a political reading
of the governance of technology suggests that the relevant issue is neither what
sovereignty demands nor what freedom, in the sense of realizing human rights,
requires.
It is instead the necessity of thinking about the experience of freedom in terms of
the imaginative horizon that gives it meaning. This imaginative horizon is the
reconstituted sense of what it means to be the sort of human being that is the subject
of the specific form of freedom we refer to as human rights. Against this background,
it should become apparent that articulating what technology governance requires
360 U. Okeja
should not be hinged on the claims of digital sovereignty, digital freedom, or a hybrid
of the two perspectives. What is required instead is recognition of the imaginative
horizon that gives our experience of freedom meaning under current circumstances.
This imaginative horizon is the mutual interdependence that has become the core of
human experience of freedom, which is shaped by the consequences of our actions in
the digital and other spheres. The implication of this mutual interdependence that
human actions have produced requires one to put affirmation of the power of agency
at the center of imagination of human-made technological artifacts. Doing this is
necessary and desirable because it is how human beings take responsibility for their
world without capitulating to alienation.
Conclusion
It is important to highlight a crucial implication of the perspective advanced in this

chapter for the theorizing of the merging of politics and technology. One of the
critical issues in the integration of technology into politics is the negative effect on
political agency. This problem confronts both advanced and emerging democracies,
as one can observe in the disaffections about elections in countries such as the United
States of America and Nigeria. In the former country, an insurrection was instigated
by the belief by a large number of citizens that technology rigged the election against
an incumbent president. In the latter country, there was widespread disaffection
because of the inability of technology to deliver political hope.
Rather than attempt to understand these experiences by focusing on whether
technology should be regulated or not due to the opportunities and dangers involved,
the perspective argued for in this chapter suggests a different approach. The proposal
argued for is that one should attempt to understand current challenges of technology
by asking what its imagination means for the experience (un)freedom. This means to
uncover the imaginative horizon that gives meaning to the experience of technology
in and beyond politics. Taking this approach has two advantages. The first is that it
enables one to put the power of agency at the center of the discussion. The second is
that enables one to adopt an orientation that recognizes the demands and opportu-
nities of a new sense of freedom and responsibility that have come about as a result
of human actions in the digital and other spheres of life.
References
Allison, S. (2019). How big data Swung Senegal’s vote. Mail and Guardian. Available online at:
https://mg.co.za/article/2019-09-06-00-how-big-data-swung-senegals-vote/. Accessed 04 Feb
2023.
Bergere, C. (2019). “Don’t tax my megabytes”: Digital infrastructure and the regulation of
Citizenship in Africa. International Journal of Communication, 13, 4309–4326.
Bussiek, H. (2022). Digital rights are human rights: An introduction to the state of affairs and
challenges in Africa, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung – Fesmedia Africa. Available online at: https://
library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/africa-media/19082-20220414.pdf. Accessed 04 Apr 2023.
European Parliament Briefing, EPRS Ideas Paper – Towards a More Resilient EU. (2020). Digital
Sovereignty for Europe. Available online at: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/
BRIE/2020/651992/EPRS_BRI(2020)651992_EN.pdf. Accessed 14 Apr 2023.
Goldsmith, J. L. (1998a). Against cyberanarchy. The University of Chicago Law Review, 65(4),
1199–1250.
Goldsmith, J. L. (1998b). The Internet and the abiding significance of territorial sovereignty.
Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 5(2), 475–491.
Lewis, J. A. (2020). Sovereignty and the evolution of Internet ideology, Center for Strategic and
International Studies Report, Oct 2020. Available online at: https://csis-website-prod.s3.
amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/201030_Lewis_Sovereignty_Evolution_Internet_Ide
ology_1.pdf. Accessed 04 Apr 2023.
Madenga, F. (2021). From transparency to opacity: Storytelling in Zimbabwe Under State Surveil-
lance and the Internet Shutdown. Information, Communication and Society, 24(3), 400–421.
McIntyre, K., & Cohen, M. S. (2021). Salary, suppression, and spies: Journalistic challenges in
Uganda. Journalism Studies, 22(2), 243–261.
Mckune, S., & Ahmed, S. (2018). The contestation and shaping of cyber norms through China’s
Internet sovereignty agenda. International Journal of Communication, 12, 3835–3855.
Moyo, D. (2009). Citizen journalism and the parallel market of information in Zimbabwe’s 2008
election. Journalism Studies, 10(4), 551–567.
Perritt, H. H., Jr. (1998). The Internet as a threat to sovereignty? Thoughts on the Internet’s role in
strengthening national and global governance. Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 5(2),
423–442.
Pinto, R. A. (2018). Digital sovereignty or digital colonialism? Sur International Journal on Human
Rights, 15(27), 15–28.
Pohle, J., & Thiel, T. (2020). Digital sovereignty. Journal on Internet Regulation, 9(4), 1–19.
Selnes, F. N. (2021). Internet restrictions in Uganda: Examining their impact on journalism.
Information, Communication and Society, 24(3), 490–506.
Wu, T. S. (1997). Cyberspace and sovereignty – The Internet and the international system. Harvard
Journal of Law and Technology, 10(3), 647–666.
African Philosophy of Development
Monday Lewis Igbafen
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
The Problem of Development in Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
Theories of Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
The Modernization Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
Dependency Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
The Cultural Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
The Reconstructionist Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
Toward an African Philosophy of Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
Abstract
Over 60 years of political development, most postcolonial African nations appear
to be condemned to live perpetually in conditions of unmitigated underdevelop-
ment. In these nations, the realization of meaningful development has remained
elusive and illusory. The quest for development, understood as a search for a
positive change or an improvement in the status of things, has given rise to several
development theories, plans, and strategies, all designed to facilitate an improved
quality of life in postcolonial African nations. Prominent among these theories are
Modernization theory; Dependency theory; Cultural theory; and Reconstruction-
ist theory of development. This chapter critically examines the quest for mean-
ingful development in postcolonial African nations in light of these dominant
theories of development and argues that they failed to bring about desired
development because the theories lack a strong and clearly developed philosoph-
ical foundation that pays attention to the ontological, epistemological, and ethical
M. L. Igbafen (*)
Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Nigeria

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_39
364 M. L. Igbafen
systems of African peoples. The chapter, therefore, argues for a philosophy of

development for Africa, which prioritizes the building of communities over
industrialization, capitalization, and competitiveness among African nation-
states.
Keywords
Development · Underdevelopment · Africa and African Philosophy
Introduction
The concept of development has been defined in various ways. The diverse ways in
which development has been conceptualized make it difficult to define the extent to
which a person, society, community, group, environment, or nation can be said to be
developed. For instance, development has been defined by social theorists using
different indices. For scholars like W. Arthur Lewis, John Fei, and Gustav Ranis, a
developed human society is one in which the gross national product (GNP) or per
capita income experiences sustained growth (Iyoha, 1996: 2). Development within
this context focuses on economic growth and capital accumulation of it. This idea of
development places priority on economic growth, placing the benefits of increased
GNP per capita to wider “society” above individual human needs. Some scholars
have also construed development from a humanistic perspective. For instance,
Wiredu, 1995: 121) argued that development should not be perceived solely in
material terms. According to him, development has two dimensions, viz., material
and moral (1995: 121). From the material perspective, development involves the
control and exploitation of the physical environment through the application of
the results of science and technology, which of course reiterate the development
of the one (human) at the detriment and underdevelopment of the other (ecological
and nonhuman). On the moral plane, development consists of regulating and
improving human relationships through promoting humane values such as freedom,
justice, equality, and cooperation. To Wiredu, therefore, an all-encompassing idea of
development is one in which material advancement and social or moral develop-
ments are mutually reinforcing (Oladipo, 2000: 121). One important position in the
various conceptions of the concept of development is that they are intertwined, that
is, the human, material, moral, economic, and political are all crucial to a robust
understanding of development. They are all intersected, such that it will not be
possible to talk about one without the other.
This no doubt defines the situation of Africa as a diverse and multifaceted
continent with many nation-states, value systems, priorities, cultures, and develop-
mental strides. By extension, it is difficult to judge the whole continent on the basis
of one developmental indices. In the last two decades, some countries in Africa have
achieved giant strides with respect to all-round development. For instance, Rwanda
is one African country where a major genocide in human history took place. While
there are other countries that reference can be made to in terms of development in
African Philosophy of Development 365
Africa, the question still remains, within the overall assessment of Africa’s devel-
opment, can Africa as a continent be said to be developed especially when compared
to other continents such as Europe and Asia? If yes, what defines such development?
The idea of what development entails in present Africa is often understood in the
dominant discourse from economic and political perspectives. While these perspec-
tives are germane to assessing the developmental strides of a continent, it is
important to note that they do not suggest finality to development in the African
place. More so, these perspectives on development often ignore the immaterial cum
moral aspect of development.
The primary aim of this chapter is thus to explore the nature of the philosophy of
development in Africa by critically examining the dominant theories of Africa’s
development and theorizing the philosophical grounds on which an efficient theory
of development must emerge from. The chapter begins by examining the conundrum
of underdevelopment in Africa and why it can be said that Africa as a continent may
not be said to be developed, especially when compared to the European and Asian
continents. The chapter then proceeds to examine the dominant/normative theories
that have over the years been prescribed by developmental theorists in an attempt to
unravel some of the factors responsible for the underdevelopment of some continents
and nation-states. The chapter later proceeds to explore a robust African philosophy
of development. The importance of such philosophy cannot be overemphasized as it
is crucial to fine-tuning the whole project of development in Africa, be it economic,
political, human, or moral.
The Problem of Development in Africa
Africa’s present social, political, and economic conditions reveal a crisis of devel-
opment. There is an evident failure of development efforts in postcolonial Africa.
After decades of postindependence efforts to transform for the better the material and
social realities of African life, Africa is still dogged with repetitive famine, unequal
exchange, vast debt burden, political, social, and cultural repression, civil wars,
steady corruption and graft, political conflicts, and a general collapse in the morale of
the masses. Today, Africa’s situation has deteriorated from the rather bad situation of
the 1980s and 1990s to the worse since 2014. Today’s Africa appears to be
enveloped in a palpable loss of hope for the future. The reason is that extreme
poverty – induced by a near collapsed economy – unsustainable debt, unequal
exchange devastating ethnic conflicts and wars, terrorism, religious killings, fester-
ing refugee problems, food shortages, social anarchy, political upheavals, and
insecurity are in ascendance. As Robert Mugabe candidly puts it:
Africa is now home to the world’s largest number of least-developed countries. The
continent further boasts of the largest refugee population in the world. Furthermore, it is a
theatre of endless conflicts, civil strife and gross human rights abuse. Whereas standards of
living in other continents have risen over time, in Africa, present standards of living are no
better than they were two decades ago. High unemployment, inflation, civil strife, poverty,
366 M. L. Igbafen
refugee crisis, desertification, diseases, malnutrition - the list is endless - appear to be the
only legacy the continent is capable of passing on from one generation to another. (Cited in
Oladipo, 1996: 86)
The level of social and political turbulence in contemporary Africa is frightening

because of the rising number of African countries enmeshed in political upheavals,
ethnic wars, ethno-religious upheavals, religious killings, terrorism, and boundary
conflicts with the result that there is little value for human life. Sudan (South and
North), Liberia, Cote’d Ivoire, and Nigeria are among the numerous African coun-
tries that have had and still have their share of crises of insecurity of monumental
dimension. The deadly activities of Boko Haram, a fundamentalist Islamic sect,
particularly in the North East of Nigeria, the Al Shabaab in Somalia, and the Tuaregs
in Mali have distorted developmental initiatives in Africa. Their negative activities
have assumed an intolerable dimension such that the attention and response of world
powers are being mobilized to contain the security challenge in Nigeria. On the
whole, happiness, peace of mind, and communal survival which used to be the
underlying ideas of indigenous African development have been discarded, and
hatred, suspicion, and distrust have replaced the cherished spirit or idea of indige-
nous African brotherhood and solidarity.
Driven by the challenge of development, postcolonial African states have had to
adopt different development paradigms or theories at different stages of their histor-
ical evolution. Such paradigms or theories have been meant to mitigate the crisis of
development in Africa. For example, approaches like Rostow’s stages of economic
growth, Arthur Lewis’s idea of the will to economize, Merle Lipton’s or Reginald’s
green work in Africa, the dependency school, the theory of structural adjustment,
and lately the policy of privatization and commercialization have been variously
embraced and practiced by African states with little or no success. More so,
democracy has become the adopted philosophy of political development in Africa
such that a politically developed African state would be a developed one. These
paradigms of development are generated according to the dictates of foreign episte-
mological orientation imbued with Eurocentric preferences and values. But does it
matter if the policies and paradigms of development being pursued or that have been
implemented in African countries are products of a foreign culture? After all, some
apologists of Western culture have theoretically justified the need for cultural
borrowing in an increasingly globalizing world. While it is not wrong to borrow a
good idea from other cultures, there is everything fundamentally wrong when people
continue unrepentantly to allow other races to shape their orientation and processes,
which leads to becoming slaves to other people’s ideological consciousness. African
leaders are perhaps the guiltiest for the inglorious underestimation of African
intellectual capacity and capability. African leaders have allowed Africans to be
thought for and have tended to encourage the relationship of teacher (the West) and
student (Africa), thus strengthening neocolonial tendencies.
But have these foreign philosophies or foreign packaged policies for development
stimulated the desired result in contemporary Africa? For example, has life changed
for the better for Africans whose nation-state has been completely democratized?
What is the state of the standard of living in African states where the structural
adjustment program has been tested? Are Africans fairing better with the policy of
privatization? Are Africans better placed with an IMF-driven economy? What is the
place of Africans in a rapidly globalized world? K.C. Prah’s penetrating view
provides illuminating answers to these questions in the economic sense. According
to him, “If the pursuit of development paradigms based rigidly and essentially on the
computation of indices on GNPs and GDPs has failed in three decades of African
independence, and structural adjustment has proven to enhance the misery of the
masses of the African people, then the solution should be found elsewhere. New
concepts or old concepts with new applications should be sought” (Prah, 1993: 65).
As this chapter will show shortly, indigenously developed philosophy of developed
would be more effective as Africa presses forward in her quest for development.
There is no dearth of literature on why Africa is underdeveloped. In other words,
much has been said by scholars of different leanings on why Africa is backward. For
example, Samir Amin, Cessire Aimee, Walter Rodney, and Claude Ake, among
other scholars, are united in the condemnation of the present world order. For one,
Amin argued that the global capitalist order is unjust because it is organized in a way
that African states, whether underdeveloped or developing, are at the receiving end.
To him, it is a case of a world between master and servant, with Western societies
playing the role of the master, thus perpetually reaping the fruit of the situation while
African states are continuously being exploited (Chuke, 1996: 35). This implies that
the integration of African states into the world capitalist order is not in their interest.
What this means is that African states cannot develop so long as they are dependent
on Western countries. This is the underlying idea of the dependency theory of
development. According to Amin and his co-ideological travelers, the solution to
the problem of Africa lies in the delinking of African states from the global world
order and thus from Western hegemony.
There is, however, a contrary view to this. The proponents of the catch-up theory
of development believe that Africa will develop if and only if it mimics the
developed nations of the world. Anthony Appiah, a Ghanaian philosopher, is a
leading advocate of the catch-up theory in the humanity. But the glaring reality in
African states today has revealed the opposite. After many years of experimentation
with the catch-up strategy of development, the outcome, however, points to the fact
that the development of African states cannot come easily. Owolabi (1995) has
argued that:
Appiah’s assumption that Africa will develop after a conscious effort to follow the example
of the developed nations is a sign of naivety or more pretension; the issue of Africa’s
development is rather more complex than the simplistic approach that Appiah is advocating
(121).
From the foregoing, it is clear that neither the catch-up theorists’ position nor the
view of scholars who are seeking solution to Africa problem through the delinking of
African states from the global world order is infallible and flawless. It is a statement
of fact that interdependency and interrelationship of countries have come to stay. In
368 M. L. Igbafen
fact, man’s social composition as underscored by Aristotle in his Politics (1981) has
made the claim of interdependence and interrelationship undeniable. For instance,
humans are social beings that cannot afford not to associate and interact with others.
In what follows, the chapter examined some of the specific philosophies and theories
of development in Africa and the challenges they have faced.
Theories of Development
Theories of development are models of theoretical understanding or development

philosophies that seek to answer the following interrelated questions: What are the
root causes of the wealth and poverty of nations? Why have some countries
advanced further than others? What account for the underdevelopment or backward-
ness of some countries and the presence of “sustained” development in others? What
are the epistemic frameworks for development? Why are some countries developed
and others underdeveloped? The question why are some nations rich and
others poor? in political economy has been around since the publication of Adam
Smith’s classic The Wealth of Nations (1776) and has continued to be revisited and
examined afresh by scholars even in contemporary times. Traditionally, there are two
competing models, namely, modernization and dependency theories, which proffer
differing answers to the questions above. They are regarded as part of the volumi-
nous literature of development in social sciences. Basically, these theories represent
the cumulative ideas, views, and discourses of development in the social sciences.
Indeed, from the 1950s to the early 1990s, development theory and policy “models”
were driven by the social sciences’ epistemological and ontological commitment to
the objectives of the natural sciences (Morvaridi, 2008: 10). Other theories that
provide further explanation for African underdevelopment and discussed in this
chapter are cultural theory and reconstructionist theory.
The Modernization Theory
Scholars from economics, who consider or perceive development as basically

economic roles, chiefly developed the idea of this theory. Proponents of the mod-
ernization theory are the early mainstream development theorists, such as W. W.
Rostow, who clearly believed that industrialization or modernization were the
vehicles required to lift the poor countries out of poverty and to increase the living
standards. Reflecting this perspective, states were encouraged to invest in infrastruc-
ture that would facilitate faster economic growth such as dams, roads, and power
generation projects (Morvaridi, 2008: 12). This resulted in according some sort of
priority to economic growth, placing the benefits of increased gross national product
(GNP) per capital to wider society above individual human needs.
In other words, this theory is a product of development economics which emerged
in an attempt to find answers to why underdeveloped countries remained poor and
how this problem could be remedied (Iyoha, 1996: 2). The basic premises of
modernization theory are that: (i) transformation in the developing countries could
be achieved through the ability to generate sustained economic growth; (ii) African
societies are in the process of becoming modern rational entities in which efficiency
and scientific logic replace traditional values and belief systems. Thus, the theory
emphasizes concepts such as GDP and industrialization as yardstick for measuring
development. With this orientation, modernization theorists operate with the
assumption that the process of development is one-way enterprise, that is, a process
of structural change in which society moves from the stage of underdevelopment to
the stage of development. This implies that the phenomenon of underdevelopment is
a natural conundrum.
The exponents of modernization theory in trying to justify it provided elaborate
explanations, descriptions, and arguments of why some countries are rich and others
are poor. For instance, they argue that underdevelopment has nothing to do with
imperialism, by which they mean that there is no correlation between development
or underdevelopment and the exploitation tendencies or activities of the metropolitan
economies (Idjakpor, 1994). Put differently, modern bourgeois theorists believe that
the underdevelopment and persistent crisis of development in third world nations are
not a direct or logical consequence or outcome of European imperialism and
colonialism. This is a rebuttal of the claim by dependency theorists who argued
that the impoverishment of developing or underdeveloped nations is a direct conse-
quence of neocolonialism – or imperialism. “Imperialism” here refers to the subor-
dination of one country, and in this case, a continent to another or to subordinate one
country, people, or continent to another in order to maintain a relationship of unequal
exchange (Ake, 1979: 99). In this context, the world is divided into two “worlds,”
namely, the center (metropolis) and the periphery. The developed world (Western
nations) constitutes the center or metropolis while developing or underdeveloped
countries are grouped under the rubrics of the periphery.
Samir Amin gives an insight into the relationship, which exists between the two.
Amin’s contention is the proposition that the center (core regions) exploits peripheral
regions through various mechanisms of unequal exchange (Chuke, 1996: 33). This
turn on the fact that the relationship between the center and peripheral nations is that
of dominance where the metropolis dominate or lord it over the peripheries.
Apart from the refutation of the view above, the solution or recipe the modern-
ization theorists put forward is: developing or underdeveloped nations must as a
matter of deliberate effort follow the steps or mimic the developmental capabilities
of the developed nations of the world in order to experience development. By this,
modernization theory indicates that the Western capitalist societies represent a
paradigm for other societies, and that underdeveloped or developing countries
could be made to grow and develop following the Western pattern or model of
development.
The modernization theorists insist that the third world countries are poor and
underdeveloped because of certain inhibitory characteristics or factors. They locate
underdevelopment within basically internally variable and point specifically to
African culture as obstacles to development. For them, internal factors are to
blame for Africa’s failure to develop (Martin & Mueni, 2009a: 12). Modernization
370 M. L. Igbafen
theorists would want us to believe that Africa has remained traditional and under-
developed because of the following features: (i) low division of labor and special-
ization, (ii) lack of effective and inscriptive orientation, (iii) lack of spirit of
entrepreneurship, (iv) lack of capital or saving capacity, and (v) prevalence of
governmental instabilities.
What all this signify is that Africa’s development is a possibility if and only if the
region can fundamentally transit from what is traditional to what is modern. The
modern lives are typified or exemplified by the Western capitalist states. This view is
clearly represented in David Micclleland’s analysis. Micclleland, an ardent exponent
of modernization theory, argues that Africa and indeed third world countries are poor
and backward because of certain inhibitory factors, which include superstition,
traditional kinship values, high illiteracy rate, ignorance and disease, extended
family system, geo-ethnic interest, and demagoguery. According to Micclleland,
there are certain values including “N” achievement value (the need for achievement
or development value) which ultimately determine the tempo of development in
society. As he pointed out, societies inhabited by individuals with the need-for-
achievement are likely to be more advanced or developed than societies which lack
individuals with need-for-achievement. The third world countries, he argues, are
underdeveloped or backward because they are inhabited by individuals with low
needs for achievement, by which he means that the presence of traditional values
discourages individualism and achievement. What is explicitly discernable from
Micclelland’s argument is that until these traditional values or characteristics are
discarded for modern methods, African countries and other poor nations of the world
will continue to remain in the doldrums of underdevelopment.
Rostow who is a vociferous advocate of modernization theory argued that African
countries are poor and backward because they are not producer nations but rather are
consumer nations. He identified what he called unbridled consumption habits of
Africans and people of other developing countries as responsible for their back-
wardness. Rostow’s analysis of the consumption pattern and habits of African
countries reveals various stages, viz., traditional society, precondition for takeoff,
and consumption period. According to Rostow, African countries and other under-
developed nations of the world can only develop if and only if they purge themselves
of high consumption habits and embrace production ethics (Idjakpor, 1994).
Rostow’s recipe at best is a glorification of capitalism in that his prognosis for
rapid development in Africa and other third world nations is structural adjustment
program (SAP).
From the foregoing, modernization theory assumes that Western capitalist soci-
eties can become the paradigm for other countries. Based on this approach, African
should follow a pattern of development similar to that of the West. Thus, the effort of
modernization theorists is to covertly or overtly make underdeveloped or developing
countries to grow and develop in accordance with the dictates of Western countries.
In contrast to the dependency theory, modernization perspective holds that the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and multinational companies are
agents of development and not underdevelopment in the periphery.
The modernization theory has variants in political science and also in the human-
ities. In political science, scholars like Samuel Huntington, in his work Change to
Change: Modernization Development and Politics (1971), enjoin third world nations
to emulate or mimic the process of politics of the advanced world. This variant of
modernization theory indicates that African politics presumably suffers from a lack
of adequately educated people. To press home this argument, Martin Meredith, in a
recent survey of Africa, argued that European leadership is indispensable for eco-
nomic development in British East and Central Africa. According to Meredith, the
degree of development achieved by various ethnic groups and nations in Africa
depends on the length of contact and degree of closeness with European colonialists,
as well as on the presence or absence of a sizeable white settler community viewed as
the engine of development (Mueni & Martin, 2009: 12).
Similarly, Kwame Anthony Appiah, a prominent Ghanaian African philosopher,
portrayed or betrayed his bias for modernization theory when he said:
I do not believe, despite what many appear to think that this is a reason for shame or
embarrassment. But it is something to think about. If modernization is conceived of in part as
the acceptance of science, we have to decide whether we think the evidence obliges us to
give up the invisible ontology. (Appiah, 1992: 135)
What this quotation implies is that traditional African culture harbors mystic
elements, which makes it out of tune with development in modern technology. As
Appiah explicitly puts it: “the practical successes of technology. . . are largely absent
in traditional culture” (1992: 35). Thus for Appiah, Africans and people of other
third world countries must fundamentally alienate themselves from their culture and
embrace Western culture for them to experience development. It is axiomatic from
the foregoing that though exponents of modernization theory exhibit various and
different perspectives, they are, however, united by the basic assumption that all
nations or underdeveloped countries can attain the goal of development if they
emulate the developmental capability, policies, and programs of industrialized
capitalist nations of the West.
On a critical note, modernization theorists have been accused of Eurocentrism,
given their treatment of African societies and other underdeveloped nations of the
world as though they had no history, and for assuming that African indigenous
culture, traditions, and institutions were an obstacle to economic development
(Martin & Mueni, 2009b: 12). A Eurocentric bias is also reflected in their belief in
the rationality and reality of the Western capitalist ideology. This is particularly the
case if viewed against the realization that most of the scholars who imbibed or
developed modernization theory are products of Western capitalist orientation. For
example, W.W. Rostow belongs to the radical group of economists that acted as the
think tank of the J.F. Kennedy’s administration (Idjakpor, 1994). The Eurocentric
campaign has led to Western countries, transnational corporations, and non-
governmental organizations’ total control over African countries, leaders, resources,
and economies. It is fact of history that since 1960, economic, political, social, and
cultural development in African countries has followed – with dire consequences – the
372 M. L. Igbafen
modernization trajectory, in spite of the theory’s obvious shortcomings and dismal

failure (Martin & Mueni, 2009b: 12). The woeful or abysmal failure and the
consequent unpalatable experience of African nations with SAP tells or gives the
lie to Rostow’s claim of SAP as a prognosis of Africa’s and other third world
countries’ development conundrum. The woeful failure of SAP is well captured
by J.S. Sorensen, who says, inter alia, that “the result of such policies in Africa was
deepening poverty, widening social polarization and increasing unemployment
across the continent” (Sorensen, 2010: 9).
Besides, the surpassing consumption rate of Western societies contradicts
Rostow’s thesis that African nations are poor because of high consumption habits.
What is more! Micclelland and Appiah identify some structural causes including
religion, superstition, kinship, and class values as the bane of Africa’s development.
Micclelland, on his part, seems to have contradicted himself. He assumes that these
factors are embedded in his conceptual scheme yet asserts in another breadth that the
need for achievement is a function of personality variables – independent of any
social structure. He thus erroneously believes that his theory is independent of
structural determinism. According to him, it is men and in particular their concerns
that shape history.
The argument that third world countries are poor and underdeveloped because of
the absence of individuals with “N” achievement values also misses the mark.
Following the view of S.K. Ballet, there are a number of individuals in developing
countries imbued with high rationality and “N” achievement value. It has been
observed in the traditional structure of the Igbo society in Nigeria, for instance,
that there are individuals of high entrepreneurial values of will. The activities of the
famous Awka blacksmiths and Igbo scientists during the Nigerian civil war are a
case in point.
It is arguable that underdevelopment in Africa or third world nations cannot be
completely attributed to the presence of certain traditional values. After all, the
presence of such traditional values rather than hindering development process pro-
motes development. In the practice of African religion, for instance, the health and
prosperity of members of a particular community constitute a matter of great
concern. It is the case that a good deal of ritual communication takes place between
the living and the spirit world as an attempt to maintain or reestablish individual or
group well-being.
Come to think of it, it is a historical fact that Western countries cannot be
completely exonerated from the debilitating poverty and crisis of development in
developing or underdeveloped countries. Neocolonialists and their Western collab-
orators’ penchant for exploitation, expropriation, marginalization, and manipulation
of Africa’s positive will to development is indicative of the contribution of the
Western world to the impoverishment and underdevelopment of third world coun-
tries. The activities of multinationals like IMF and other international financial
bodies like the Paris and London clubs have also impacted negatively on Africa’s
search for development through their “poisoned” loans and aid.
The modernization theorists, particularly those from the economic background,
can also be criticized for conceiving development as a single enterprise, thus failing
to recognize the complexities of the process of development in human society. Much

of the scathing criticisms against modernization theory are from scholars from the
radical school of thought. The summary of their objections has developed into an
alternative theory called dependency or liberation theory of development.
Dependency Theory
The dependency or liberation theory represents the ideas of many scholars who have
shared a lot of common views on the problem of underdevelopment in African states
and other developing countries. Grouped together, they are commonly referred to as
the “neo-Marxists or world system theorists” or liberation theorists. Proponents and
promoters of the dependency theory include Samir Amin, Paul Prebrich, P. Baran,
A.G Frank, F. Fanon, and Cessire Aimee to mention a few. In contrast to the
modernization theory, which is shorn of all historical and sociological contexts,
dependency theory is founded on the historical and sociological dynamic that
determines the existing structural relationships between the industrialized and the
nonindustrialized nations of the world.
The dependency theory thus explains development as being constrained by the
unequal exchange relationships that exist between the nations that are developed and
those that are viewed as developing (Idjakpor, 1994). According to dependency
theorists, the crisis of development facing developing nations is a created condition
and not a stage in their evolutionary process. They thus perceive or conceive
neocolonialism or imperialism as the bane of development in the third world
countries. The basic premise of the dependency theory is that the wealth of nations
or poverty of nations is the end result of a global process of exploitation and
expropriation unleashed on third world countries during the colonial era (Idjakpor,
1994). Expanding this view further, dependency theorists claim that the phenome-
non of underdevelopment has continued unabated even after colonialism, through
the activities of neo-imperialist institutions and agents who masquerade as leaders in
developing countries. This rationalization stems from the assumption that the period
and process of transfer of political power to the indigenous bourgeoisie by the
Western colonialists reelected a transition from a colonial to a neocolonial political
economy. The period, the argument goes, witnessed the promotion of class and
power relations which ensured the continued domination of third world countries by
international capitalism. According to dependency theorists, the relationship
between the center and periphery is by virtue of the nature of the structural needs
of the center necessarily are “exploitative,” the consequence of which turns on the
fact that poor nations become poor and the rich ones become richer. This is what
Frank A. Grunder refers to as the development of underdevelopment. To Grunder,
capitalism is an integrated structure of metropolis and satellites that bound nations,
regions, and urban rural areas into dominant-dependent relationships.
Using the foregoing argument as a premise, the dependency theorists conclude
that the rich nations of the world developed at the expense of third world countries.
Put differently, third world countries are underdeveloped because they have been
374 M. L. Igbafen
exploited or are still being exploited by the advanced countries of the world. This is
another way of saying that the third world countries are stagnating because the
resources necessary for their development have been transferred or are being trans-
ferred to develop the center or metropolis. Thus, external factors (especially the
world capitalist economy) explain Africa’s predicament. This condition or situation
puts the periphery (less developed countries) in a situation of permanent dependence
vis-à-vis the center (European countries).
A prime example of neo-Marxist analysis of underdevelopment and dependency
applied to Africa is Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972). In
the book, Rodney gives a graphic espousal of how Europe exploited and underde-
veloped Africa through the process of slave trade, trade distribution of African
indigenous technology, the criminal exploitation of Africa’s raw materials by the
colonial masters, and the destruction of Africa’s will power and capacity to develop
by the colonial masters. According to him, the answer to these two key questions
(why Africa has realized so little of its potential and why so much of its present
wealth goes outside of the continent) resides in two factors that have brought about
underdevelopment throughout the period of Africa’s participation in the capitalist
economy, namely, wealth from African labor and restrictions on African’s economic
capacity. The Western European capitalists assisted by African sellouts – or accom-
plices – actively extended their exploitation to cover the whole continent.
It is for the foregoing reason(s) that the dependency theorists insist that the
impoverishment of peripheral economies is not a function of the lack of technolog-
ical growth or technological know-how. Neither is it the lack of a conducive
environment for foreign investment or international trade nor the development of
modern institutions. The impoverishment of peripheral economies lies in the exploi-
tation, expropriation, and marginalization being foisted on underdeveloped nations
by the international capitalist system and its special agents or compradors both at
home and abroad (Idjakpor, 1994). Typical examples of capitalist agents are multi-
national institutions. They achieve and sustain their dual aims of exploitation and
underdevelopment by entering into an unholy alliance with other capitalist compra-
dors, thus facilitating the process of underdevelopment of the poor nations through
the activities of colonial conquest and exploitation, slave trade, international trade,
aid, investment, and fiscal policy formulation.
The dependency theorists insist that underdeveloped countries have remained at
the abyss of underdevelopment because they unrepentantly depend on the industri-
alized countries. To them, underdeveloped countries are not only dependent on the
advanced countries for materials, but they also look up to them for ideas and models
of development. Such ideas have been described as (Western) value-laden, thus
prompting Claude Ake to say that “Western mainstream social scientists are agents
of imperialism by the propagation of intellectualism or ideas which tend more to
foist or ossify the true and logical historical process which crystallized in European
underdevelopment of the third world” (Ake, 1979).
Though some proponents of the dependency theory are of the opinion that
possibilities for autonomous capitalist development exist in the periphery countries,
others advocate a complete withdrawal (or delinking) of third world countries from
the world capitalist system. The latter see the necessity of delinking as a prerequisite
for the realization of autonomous, self-centered, independent development of the
periphery countries (Martin & Mueni, 2009b: 13). Amin is counted among scholars
who argued for the delinking of the third world countries from the global capitalist
community, given that the global community is an unjust one because it is organized
in such a way that developing societies are at the receiving end. To Amin, it is a clear
case of a world between master and servant, with Western countries playing the role
of the master, thus perpetually reaping the fruit of the situation, while developing or
underdeveloped nations are continuously being exploited (Igbafen, 2000: 82). This
implies that the integration of developing countries into the world economic order is
at their disadvantage to the extent that they cannot develop so long as they remain as
appendages of Western countries.
In agreement with other dependency theorists, Amin in his work, Eurocentrism
(1989), argued that the solution to the crisis of development lies in delinking
developing or underdeveloped countries from the global order and thus from West-
ern hegemony. In other words, the dependency theory insists that development can
only occur if there is a deliberate or conscious effort by third world countries to
delink from the world capitalist order. The question that looms large is: how realistic
is this proposal of delinking, given the historical antecedents of third world countries
and the deepening interlinking of countries by globalization forces? Appiah’s answer
to this question, for instance, is negative. Ashe poignantly puts it: “To forget Europe
is to suppress the conflicts that have shaped our identities; since it is too late for us to
escape each other we might seek to turn our disadvantage to the mutual
interdependency history has thrust upon us” (Appiah, 1992: 72).
What is explicit from Appiah’s argument here is that it is unrealistic for devel-
oping underdeveloped countries to completely severe relationship or link with the
West. In other words, delinking or completely severe relationship with the Western
world is impossible or unrealistic because, with the general interconnections today
among politics, economics, religion, literature, art, science, technology, and educa-
tion, it is far from realism to think of the doctrine separatism which dependency
theorists are advocating. Thus, the solution put forward by the dependency scholars
falls flat before common sense and reason.
The dependency theory has also been criticized for its pessimistic evaluation of
Africa’s future development prospects Colin Leys identified the most problematic
aspects of dependency theory to include: (i) it does not provide a clear and opera-
tional definition of “development”; (ii) it is unclear whether the masses in the
underdeveloped countries suffer from exploitation or not; (iii) dependency theory
is far too broad; (iv) dependency theory tends to be economist; (v) the concept of
“imperialism” appears independency theory only as an “extra”; (vi) it is not clear
what the central unit of analysis in dependency theory is; and (vii) it does not provide
any explanation of why more capital did not get invested and accumulated in the
third world in the past (Martin & Mueni, 2009b: 13). Leys further argued that it is not
really an accident that it is the simplistic binary concepts that are at the core of
dependency theory. This fact, in his view, explains why the concept of “underde-
velopment” is empirically so weak as to be almost meaningless.
376 M. L. Igbafen
Dependency theorists can also be taken up on their claim that developing or

underdeveloped countries are stagnated and underdeveloped because of the exploit-
ative activities of colonial and neocolonial elements. This claim can no longer be
rationally defended or justified. It is arguable that the exploitative activities of some
leaders and elite of third world countries surpass that of the inglorious periods of
colonialism and imperialism. The point of view here is that today the fashionable or
reigning discourse is not how Europe underdeveloped Africa but how Africans
underdeveloped Africa. Ogbogbo (1999: 11) succinctly puts the argument thus:
After over 30 years of the independence of most African countries, Africa can no longer
afford to continue to point accusing fingers. How has she utilized the years since flag
independence to get herself out of the quagmire in which she finds herself? Put differently,
how has she faired in the management of her affairs? The answer is certainly obvious. It has
been a colossal failure such that some of her political leaders had wished that it was possible
to recall the former colonizers. Indeed, Ali Mazuri’s thesis of internal self colonization is
merely a variation of this call.
Following these inherent pitfalls, therefore, in the modernization and dependency

theories, the recent discourse of development in third world countries has provoked
other options or theories of development, including the cultural theory of
development.
The Cultural Theory
The cultural theory of development expresses a down-to-earth critique of the two

dominant theories (modernization and dependency). Among scholars who have
made immense contribution to the emergence and development of the cultural theory
are Hamed Miske, Verhelst G. Thierry, Wendy Tyndale, and Deborah Eade. The
cultural theorists are not comfortable with the two traditional theories of develop-
ment because of the emphasis they placed on external factors to the neglect of
internal factor, i.e., the real people and society who are the subject of development.
In particular, they are critical of modernization theory for its narrow conception of
development and its Eurocentric impressions, i.e., that Western countries are the
ideal models of development. The underlying idea which cuts across the various
works of cultural theorists is that the problem of third world nations is nothing but
the problem of cultural dependency, distortion, or dislocation.
According to cultural theorists, rather than perceive Western societies as models
or criticize Western nations for marginalizing or expropriating or exploiting the
resources needed to develop the peripheries, a good theory of development should
emphasize the nature of underdeveloped or developing country itself which is the
cause of the susceptibility to external manipulation. What this implies is that a good
theory of development must begin with a proper analysis of the society or cultural
context which desires development.
The cultural theorists have a broad idea or understanding of the concept of
development. To them, development is not an economic growth alone; neither is it
about political economy and the relationship between the process or power acquisi-
tion and processes resources management. Development, to the cultural theorists, is
a concept that encompasses the entire activities of the society. It is for this reason that
cultural theorists believe that development can only be attained if and only if it is
conceived for what it is, that is as a cultural phenomenon.
Again cultural theorists construe the idea of culture far more than the simple
aesthetic appreciation of society’s heritage and legacy. Culture, to the cultural
theorists, is holistic in nature and could best be appreciated in the Taylorian meaning
of culture as “the sum-total of the solutions supplied to the problems set for a people
by the environment and the process of social interaction” (Taylor as cited by
Odetola & Ademola, 1990: 38). Thus, cultural theorists conceive development as
ultimately the progress attained by the culture of a given society in its bid to realize
the goals of the good life.
The unifying argument of the cultural theorists is the proposition that develop-
ment in third world countries is retarded not because the resources, human or
material, have been taken away but fundamentally because the cultural roots neces-
sary for the production of the totality of resources have been removed. This view of
cultural theorists has been seriously defended by Verhelst Thierry in his work No Life
Without Roots: Culture and Development (1990) wherein he argues that indigenous
societies are presently facing an underdevelopment problem because the essential
roots which are necessary for development have been removed. Thierry Verhelst
(1990) argued that the root of the problem is the neglect of culture by development
theorists and practitioners. He believes that without consideration of culture, which
essentially has to do with people’s control over their destinies and their ability to
name the world in a way which reflects their particular experience, development is
simply a process of social engineering whereby the more powerful peoples control,
dominate, and shape the lives of others. He insisted that when a people’s beliefs,
ideas, meanings, and feelings are not taken into consideration and respected, we
cannot speak of human development.
Corroborating this view, Miske argued that underdeveloped nations or third world
countries are incapable of attaining development despite all their efforts because the
cultural root that should supply the necessary nourishment for development is
absent. Beneath the analysis of cultural theorists is the assumption that imperialism
is more effective and devastating because of its cultural dimension. In contrast to the
dependency theorists, who persistently advocate for restitution, the cultural theorists
recommend as lasting recipe for development in third world nations, a return to the
“original” culture of the people. That is to say that development should be culture-
dependent. The reason, as Verhelst (1990) explains, is that indigenous cultures
contain within them the seeds necessary to give birth to societies, which differ
from the standardized and vitalized societies of the Western model. Flowing from
above, cultural theorists posit that development efforts must necessarily take into
consideration the restoration of the cultural foundations of third world countries. To
do otherwise, according to cultural theorists, is to vote for underdevelopment in all
ramifications.
378 M. L. Igbafen
On a critical note, however, the position of cultural theorists cannot be said to be

flawless. For example, their call for a return to the cultural roots of the people has
attracted or elicited criticisms from many scholars who expressed serious doubt over
the possibility of third world nations maintaining a unique cultural identity or purity.
The reason is that Africa, for instance, has so much absorbed a lot of European
values to itself that it can no more talk of cultural independence. To drive home the
point explicated above, Emmanuel Abraham’s characterization of African today
gives an insight into the shortcoming of the solution put forward by cultural
theorists. As he illustratively puts it:
Perceived as a cultural being, the African today is highly a complex being, in fact, an
accumulation of a variety of culture fragments. He is endowed with a base of this
traditional culture, which is by now irreversibly impregnated at various levels by elements
of other cultures some of which were imposed and others sought and acquired. (Abraham,
1992: 14)
Similarly, Joseph Mensah argues against the possibility of maintaining a unique

cultural identity or purity, particularly in the era of globalization. Mensah’s position
is premised on the argument that culture is a nested, heterogeneous phenomenon
characterized by change and instability. According to him, the notion of a pure,
stable, or static culture is theoretically unsustainable. “In agreement with Mensah,
Said argues that “all cultures are involved in one another; none is single and pure, all
are hybrid, heterogeneous extraordinarily undifferentiated and un-monolithic”
(Mensah, 2011: 40). Following the argument of Mensah and Said, Miller writes
that culture is “more like an octopus, a rather badly integrated creature – what passes
for a brain keeps it together, more or less, in one ungainly whole” (Mensah, 2011:
40), meaning that for the most part, culture derives from both the inside and the
outside and is therefore not geographically bounded. What is commonly considered
intrinsic culture used to be extrinsic and, perhaps, vice versa. It is clear from the
above that any effort at recapturing the past (unique) cultural values or roots which
cultural theorists so much desire for development in third world nations will be
fruitless because of the dynamism of culture. This makes the continuous search for a
recipe for the problem of underdevelopment in Africa inevitable.
The Reconstructionist Theory
Closely related to the cultural theory of development is the reconstructionist thesis.

Like the cultural analysis, reconstructionist theory starts with the observation that
none of the existing theories of development adequately explained the African
predicament, and none proposes a viable way out of this predicament. The central
idea of this theory is that: “in order for the African state to be able to perform its basic
functions and deliver development to its people, it will have to be reconstructed
(or reinvented) in some shape, way or form” (Martin & Mueni, 2009b: 17).
Crawford Young puts this central concern in the form of a question thus: “can a
new state be invented that sheds the debilitating traditions of the past?” (Young as
cited by Guy & Mueni, 2011: 17). Scholars whose works or writings probably best
define the reconstructionist theory include Crawford Young, Basil Davidson, George
Ayittey, Kelechi A. Kalu, and Daniel Osabu-Kle. While almost all, if not all,
proponents of the reconstructionist theory agreed on the inevitable need for the
construction of the African state, they differ on the ways in which the reconstruction
should be achieved This means that there exist different versions of the reconstruc-
tionist theory of development.
Having analyzed the complex factors that shaped the modern African state, the
reconstructionist theorists share the view that the African state must necessarily be
rescued from its colonial and postcolonial formation. This is germane because the
crises facing the African state lie in a lethal combination of the colonial state
heritage, the failed vision of the integral state, and the prebendal realities of political
management. Davidson, on his part, argues that the problem of African states is
primarily that of a crisis of institutions. Davidson pointed out that because they are
built on European colonial models, African states are naturally illegitimate in the
eyes of their subjects, and contrary to what prevailed in Japan, modernization meant
alienation in Africa. What this means is that nation-statism necessarily leads to a
negation and rejection of African traditions. According to him, in indigenous Africa,
the rule of law was linked to the visible and invisible worlds, and the wholesale
acceptance of nation-statism by the African political elites marked the victory of the
“national” over the “social.” While advocating for some form of rational federalism,
Davidson’s recipe for the development of the African state is a conscious resolve to
invent a new state based on African tradition, culture, and historical experience.
Extending the reconstructionist thesis further, George Ayittey heaps the blame of
Africa’s predicament on African postcolonial elites whom he categorizes as “hippo
generation.” In his view, African postcolonial elites and leaders are “bereft of
original ideas” and cannot use their imagination to craft authentically African
solutions to African problems. He faulted the present generation of Africans for
making what he calls the fatal mistake of rejecting its own culture. He spoke
growingly about African culture. For instance, he argues that in African countries,
indigenous economic systems are the key to development because they allow free
trade and movement. Ayittey observes that “the colonialists did not really introduce
any institutions in Africa. What they introduced were merely more efficient forms or
already existing institutions” (Ayittey as cited by Guy & Mueni, 2011: 17). He
argues that Africa should build on its indigenous institutions. For him, “moderniza-
tion” does not mean “westernization.” Given the dismal failure of the postcolonial
statist development model, Ayittey insisted that a completely new approach or
paradigm is needed to take Africa to the next level. Africa’s hope, he says, lies
with the “cheetah generation.” By “cheetah generation,” he meant a new generation
of young African graduates and professionals whose challenge is a complete over-
haul of the African state or states. For him, African problems can only be solved by
Africans themselves.
In agreeing with Ayittey, Daniel Osabu-Kle explains the futility in embracing
Western form of (liberal) democracy or socialism in the quest for a solution to
380 M. L. Igbafen
Africa’s democracy and development predicament. He argues that a democracy

anchored on African culture is the surest way to development. In other words,
Afrocentrism should replace Eurocentrism in every aspect of African life. In partic-
ular, Osabu-Kle hinged Africa’s progress on the establishment of what he calls an
African high command and youth organization to educate youth about African
culture and history. Ogbogbo is also in the group of scholars who believe that
Africa’s path to greatness cannot come easily while underestimating its cultural
heritage. He argued that in the task of recreating a crisis-free Africa, its cultural
heritage cannot be easily sidelined. He, however, sounds a note of caution:
. . .it must be emphasized that it is not everything which bears the stamp of African culture
that is good enough to propel the people into a crisis-free epoch. Therefore, different aspects
of African culture will need to be subjected to proper philosophical scrutiny if such is to
constitute part of the continuity that is to be carried forward into the 21st century. (Ogbogbo,
1999: 17)
Olusegun Oladipo also expressed reservations about Africa’s uncritical embrace

of the colonial and postcolonial state structure, particularly its capitalist ethos.
Examining Africa’s daunting path to progress and development, Oladipo (2008)
argued that capitalism of modernization paradigm or capitalist ethos has a grave or
far-reaching consequence(s) for Africa’s socioeconomic development. According
to him:
Capitalist ethos promotes a certain kind of individualism, which emphasizes consumption at

the expense of production, material success at the expense of social responsibility. Thus, they
are not only worsening the condition of alienation, which is making the task of social
coordination a daunting one. They have also further weakened the capacity of the African
state to tackle the problem of dependency (23).
He argues that the postcolonial African state should be reconstructed to elim-

inate these shortcomings of the capitalist orientation. Oladipo insists that if these
shortcomings are unaddressed and the positive lessons of Africa’s sociocultural
values are not learnt and made to bear on individual and social action, Africa would
remain permanently in the throes of underdevelopment. Oladipo is in partial
agreement with Amin that no significant step can be taken on the path of devel-
opment unless Africa learns to subordinate external relations to the logic of internal
development.
It is important to note, however, that Oladipo did not see modernization or
capitalist ethos as bad in its varied manifestations. Some of the good or positive
aspects of modernization or capitalist ethos, which Oladipo claims should be culti-
vated in order for Africa to survival and flourish in the contemporary world, include
rationality, precision, planning, involving calculation and anticipation, resourceful-
ness, thrift, etc. His submission seems to cast doubt on African culture as if it is
without elements of rationality, precision, and calculation. This is contestable since
because Oladipo’s position is neither here nor there. For example, the question of
rationality is a controversial one in philosophy.
Kelechi A. Kalu is another adherent of the reconstructionist theory. For him, the
nature of the colonial state is such that conflict resolution is a herculean task if not
wholly impossible, given Europeans’ assumption that Africans were stateless or
preferred authoritarian rule. According to him, Africa’s integration into the world
system is an important factor to consider in any transformation project. Coupled with
this is the use of violence to remain in power which is inherent in the nature of
African states. In all, this development and progress is hampered. To break the yoke
of underdevelopment, therefore, Kalu proposes two options to African states,
namely, (i) the reconstitution of contemporary states based on culture and language
similarities and (ii) the erasure of existing borders, followed by the creation of 5 out
of the 54 states. For him, conflict can only be resolved within reconstituted states
(Kalu as cited by Guy & Mueni, 2011: 17).
Toward an African Philosophy of Development
What can be gleaned particularly from the cultural and reconstructionist theories
above is that the development of nation-states all over the world cannot be achieved
without a contextually responsive philosophy. This means that irrespective of irrec-
oncilable differences among the citizens of a country, there is a developmental
philosophy that must be followed in the attempt to make a particular nation develop.
This can be seen in the philosophy that guides the United States of America, for
instance, and other Scandinavian countries. Here, there is a certain philosophy
behind “putting America” first, and there is a philosophy guiding the Scandinavian
countries’ attempts to make sure that they remain part of the best countries in the
world in terms of economy, security, political will, infrastructural development,
human well-being, and happiness.
With specific reference to the African continent, can it be said that there is a
philosophy that guides Africa’s quest for development? No doubt that the theories of
development as espoused in the previous sections in this chapter point to the fact that
some factors are responsible for the crisis of development in Africa. However,
beyond the diagnoses made by the proponents of these theories of development, it
is obvious that Africa as a continent lacks a distinct philosophy which ought to guide
her attempt to attain development. The task before African philosophers, therefore, is
to, in Godwin Sogolo’s words: “start by looking into the logical structure of certain
important beliefs widely held in his culture” (Sogolo, 1990: 51). By this, it is
important for African philosophers to engage the issue of development so as to
ensure that there is a model that each nation-state in Africa is expected to follow.
Therefore, an African philosophy of development can be defined as “an applied
African philosophy that projects developmental strides from the binoculars of
African philosophical enterprise within and outside continental Africa. It is an
inquiry into the role of philosophy in developmental processes” (Guy & Mueni,
2011: 11). African philosophy of development is a theory of development that
emerges from an African philosophical perspective of reality, understanding of
knowledge, and value systems. This suggests that development here would be
382 M. L. Igbafen
understood within the context of an African ontology in ways that also consider the
African episteme and also in ways that are in tune with African ethical value
systems. In summation, an African philosophy of development takes seriously
African philosophy as a departure point for development. The implication of this
definition is that in African philosophy of development, there are ontological,
epistemological, and ethical standpoints, and by extension, these standpoints are
explored towards the propagation of a philosophy of development that is distinctly
African.
African ontology is vehemently communitarian such that there is an interconnec-
tedness among beings that make up African ontology. This position has been
defended by many African philosophers such as Kwame Gyekye and Kwasi Wiredu.
The idea of interconnectedness, however, cannot be understood in isolation of the
vital force theory. According to Polycarp Ikuenobe:
In the traditional African view, reality or nature is a continuum and a harmonious composite
of various elements and forces. Human beings are a harmonious part of this composite
reality, which is fundamentally, a set of mobile life forces. Natural objects and reality are
interlocking forces. Reality always seeks to maintain an equilibrium among the network of
elements and life forces. . . . Because reality or nature is a continuum, there is no conceptual
or interactive gap between the human self, community, the dead, spiritual or metaphysical
entities and the phenomenal world; they are interrelated, they interact, and in some sense,
one is an extension of the other. (2006: 63–64)
The implication of the argument above for development within African contexts
is that is that development within the African ontological framework recommends a
harmonious, reciprocal, and dignified interaction among all beings human and
nonhuman. A lack of it would lead to underdevelopment or a one-sided develop-
ment, as we see in the global situation of industrialization at the expense of the
environment.
Related to this is the African ethical framework for development which can be
understood within the context of actions and values geared towards building and
sustaining community or harmonious relationships among all beings, human and
nonhuman. The importance of this ethical dimension of development is explained by
Crocker thus:
Development ethicists assess the ends and means of local, national, regional and global
development. National policy makers, project managers, grassroots communities, and inter-
national aid donors involved in development in developing countries often confront moral
question in their work. Development scholars recognize that social scientific theories of
“development” and “underdevelopment” have ethical as well as empirical principles relevant
to social change in poor countries, and they analyze and assess the moral dimensions of
development theories and seek to resolve quandaries lurking in development policies and
practices. (2008: 35)
The overarching communitarian ethical framework in African communities and

the specific ethical values within it are crucial for rethinking development, For
instance, there are acts that are considered injurious and must be avoided at all
costs on the basis that these acts do not promote the developmental strides of the
community. Thus, African moral theory is constructed severally as:
An action is right just insofar as it respects a person’s dignity; an act is wrong to the extent
that it degrades humanity. U2: An action is right just insofar as it promotes the well-being of
others; an act is wrong to the extent that it fails to enhance the welfare of one’s fellows U3:
An action is right just insofar as it promotes the well-being of others without violating their
rights; an act is wrong to the extent that it either violates rights or fails to enhance the welfare
of one’s fellows without violating rights. U4: An action is right just insofar as it positively
relates to others and thereby realizes oneself; an act is wrong to the extent that it does not
perfect one’s valuable nature as a social being. U5: An action is right just insofar as it is in
solidarity with groups whose survival is threatened; an act is wrong to the extent that it fails
to support a vulnerable community. U6: An action is right just insofar as it produces
harmony and reduces discord; an act is wrong to the extent that it fails to develop commu-
nity. (2007: 328–334)
Thus, it is expected that ethical values within African contexts would promote the
development and well-being of all and sundry. African cultures are also loaded with
virtues that are imbibed into community members in order that they can contribute to
the overall development of the communities in which they live. For instance, in the
Yoruba thought system, emphasis is placed on iwa and Ọmọlúàbí. According to
Ipadeola (2021):
The moral traits of development, growth, and maturity, which developed people should
exhibit, according to the Yorùbá, include ὶwàrere (good/appropriate character), ὶwàpèlẹ
(gentle character), ὶwàtútù (peaceful character), ọgbón (wisdom), and sùúrù (patience).
These traits are the indices of development among the Yorùbá. This means, therefore, that
development is not measured by how affluent a person is. Among the Yorùbá, the notion of
development is holistic. A human being, apart from being a constituent part of society, is also
microcosm of society. Therefore, the qualities that characterize a developed person also
characterize a developed society, community, or country. A developed person is expected to
possess and display all the traits of development and not just one or two of the traits, and this
also applies to the larger society. Therefore, a person who has all the traits of development is
referred to as Ọmọlúàbí (110).
By extension, a typical African philosophy of development is expected to have an

ethical framework which promotes the building of societies through cooperatively
pursued duties and values, and that which also recognizes the importance of acting in
ways that promote the community. African communitarian epistemology is also impor-
tant in developing an African philosophy of development. In African epistemology,
knowledge is understood as shared knowledge. In the words of Hamminga (2005):
Since togetherness is the highest value, we want share our views. All of them. Hence we
always agree with everybody. Standing up and saying: “I have a radically different opinion”
would not, as it often does in the West, draw attention to what I have to say. Instead, I am
likely to be led before my clan leaders before I even had the chance to continue my speech.
Among us, you simply never have radically different opinions. That is because, and that is
why we are together. Togetherness is our ultimate criterion of any action, the pursuit of
knowledge being just one of them (58).
384 M. L. Igbafen
Development strategies and projects must take into serious consideration the
importance of collectively producing knowledge and collaborative epistemologies
in achieving development, one that values indigenous knowledge systems within
African places. Consequently, an African philosophy of development will be one
that emerges from an African epistemological outlook and one that sustains and
builds community in all its ramifications.
Conclusion
Developing a robust and heuristic philosophy of development is no doubt one of the

crucial tasks of contemporary African philosophy, a philosophy that should bridge
the gap between philosophy as purely theoretical and as applied. The African
continent continues to experience a quagmire of underdevelopment challenges in
postcolonial Africa. In our examination of some of the dominant theories of devel-
opment that have been proposed to aid Africa to become developed, it is clearly seen
that they lack a strong and clearly developed philosophical foundation. It is for this
reason that this chapter has theorized the importance of a philosophy of development
for Africa, which prioritizes the building of communities over industrialization,
capitalization, and competitiveness among African nation-states. To achieve this,
African philosophers of development must pay attention to the ontological, episte-
mological, and ethical systems of African peoples.
References
Abraham, E. (1992). Prologue: Crisis in African cultures. In K. Wiredu & K. Gyekye (Eds.), Person
and community cultural heritage and contemporary change (Series IL Africa Vol. I (14)). The
Council for Research in Values and Philosophy.
Ake, C. (1979). Social science as imperialism: The theory of political development. lbadan
University Press.
Amin, S. (1989). Eurocentrisim (R. Moore, Trans.). Zeb Books, Monthly Review Press.
Appiah, K. (1992). In my father’s house: Africa in the philosophy of culture. Oxford University
Press.
Aristotle. (1981). The politics (T. A. Sinclair, Trans.). Penguin Books.
Chuke, P. (1996). Samir Amin’s development theory and Nigeria’s dependent development. In F. E.
Lyoha & E. C. Onwuka (Eds.), Administering development in the third world: Theory, practice
and constraints (pp. 32–44). Stirling-Horden Publishers.
Crocker, D. A. (2008). Ethics of global development: Agency, capability, and deliberative democ-
racy. Cambridge University Press.
Hamminga, B. (2005). Epistemology from the African point of view. In B. Hamminga (Ed.),
Knowledge cultures: Comparative Western and African epistemology (Poznan studies in the
philosophy of the sciences and humanities) (pp. 57–84). Rodopi.
Idjakpor, O. G. (1994). Paper/lecture notes on Philosophy of Development Ekpoma: Edo State
University, Nigeria (Unpublished).
Igbafen, M. L. (2000). Appiah and the crisis of identity in Africa, an M.A. Dissertation submitted to
the Department of Philosophy, University of Ibadan, Nigeria (Unpublished).
Ipadeola, A. P. (2021). Ìdàgbàsókѐ: An African notion of organic development ethics. Journal of
Developing Societies, 37(1), 98–115.
Iyoha, F. E. (1996). The meaning and theories of development. In F. E. Lyoha & E. C. Onwuka
(Eds.), Administering development in the third world: Theory, practice and constraints
(pp. 1–31). Stirling-Horden Publishers.
Martin, G., & Mueni, M. (2009a). A new paradigm of the African state, copyright material from
www.palgraveconnect.com – licensed to National ChengChi University-Palgrave connect 2011-
04-27.
Martin G., & Mueni, M. (2009b). A new paradigm of the African state. In Martin, G & Mueni, M.
(Eds.) A new paradigm of the African state. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 191–210.
Mensah, J. (2011). Cultural dimensions of globalization in Africa & dialectical interpenetration of
the local and the global. In Mensah, J. (Ed.), Neoliberalism and globalization in Africa
copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com – licensed to Taiwan eBook Consortium-
Palgrave connect.
Metz, T. (2007). Toward an African moral theory. Journal of Political Philosophy, 15(3), 321–341.
Morvaridi, B. (2008). Social justice and development. Palgrave Macmillan.
Mueni, M, & Martin, G. (2009). A new paradigm of the African state. In Martin, G & Mueni, M.
(Eds.) A new paradigm of the African state. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 191–210.
Odetola, O. T., & Ademola, A. (1990). Sociology: An introductory African text. Macmillan
Education Limited.
Ogbogbo, C. B. N. (1999). Of history, culture and the African crisis. Stirling-Horden Publishers
(Nig).
Oladipo, O. 1996. Philosophy and the African experience: The contributions of Kwasi Wiredu.
Ibadan: Hope Publications.
Oladipo, O. 2000. The idea of African philosophy: A critical study of the major orientations in
contemporary African philosophy (3rd ed.). Ibadan: Hope Publications.
Oladipo, O. (2008). The need for a social philosophy in Africa. Convocation Lecture delivered at
Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma.
Owolabi, K. (1995). Cultural nationalism and western hegemony: A critique of Appiah universal-
ism. Africa Development, 2, 121.
Prah, K. (1993). African languages: The key to African development critique of ideal in develop-
ment thinking. In M. Von Troil (Ed.), Changing paradigms in development South East
and West: A meeting minds in Africa. Afrika Institute Uppsala.
Rodney, W. (1972). How Europe underdeveloped Africa. Bogle-Louventure Publications.
Sogolo, G. S. (1990). Options in African philosophy. In Philosophy, 65(251), 39–52.
Sorensen, J. S. (2010). Introduction: Reinventing development for the twenty-first century? In J. S.
Sorensen (Ed.), Challenging the aid paradigm: Western currents and Asia alternatives. Palgrave
Macmillan.
Verhelst, T. G. (1990). No life without roots: Culture and development translated by Bon Cumming.
Zeb Books.
Wiredu, K. (1995). Conceptual decolonisation in African philosophy: Four essays. Selected and
introduced by Olusegun Oladipo. Hope Publications.
Part VI
Feminist Philosophy
Gender and Afro-personhood
Lindokuhle B. Gama
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
The Afro-Communitarian Conception of Personhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
Gap 1: Heteropatriarchy as a Regulatory Norm in Afro-Personhood Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
Gap 2: Race as a Totalizing Category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
Separating the Theory from Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
Abstract
In general, proponents of Afro-personhood theories claim that the theories cap-
ture a just and egalitarian society owing to its gender-neutral nature wherein men
and women are treated equally. Moreover, the value of prizing persons in virtue of
their ability to commune fosters individual difference and respect which can
protect persons against heteronormativity and/or gendered expectations. As
such, Afro-personhood theories offer an account of personhood that fosters
welfare for all persons. However, it appears that Afro-personhood theories are
gendered in pernicious ways that deny Blackwomxn moral value. That is, upon
closer examination, it seems that Afro-personhood theories do not cover all
persons in the theories owing to two textually subliminal gaps as heteropatriarchy
and the subsumption of particularized lived experiences into broader categories
such as race. These gaps continue to be an oppressive aspect of society. As such, I
will critically illustrate that Afro-personhood theories do not help us to critique
and/or begin to think about ways to alleviate these gaps. Rather, they conceal and
bolster oppressive aspects of our society that violently affect marginalized
groups, especially Blackwomxn. After all, if they are to act as normative guide-
lines capable of regulating people’s behavior, they ought to transcend the
L. B. Gama (*)
Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa
e-mail: Lindokuhle.Gama@ru.ac.za

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_34
390 L. B. Gama
oppressive aspects of African societies so as to be an effective tool for social

critique. Moreover, this White Supremacy in Eurocentric Epistemology is a
clarion call for African Philosophy to systematically address and engage the
heteropatriarchal aspects of African society, which is its world, for which it is
yet to directly do so.
Keywords
Afro-personhood · Blackwomxn · Moral Value · Gender-neutrality · Gender ·
Heteropatriarchy · Race · Normative theories
Introduction
Proponents of Afro-personhood, such as Rianna Oelofsen (2018) and Motsamai

Molefe (2020), claim that it captures a just and egalitarian society owing to its
gender-neutral nature. They assert that such gender neutrality is evident on both the
metaphysical and normative levels of Afro-personhood. On a metaphysical level,
gender neutrality is evident in the requisite ontological features required to be a
person (Menkiti, 1984: 171–172). In virtue of these ontological features, one is
afforded recognition-respect and persons are treated equally. On a normative level,
they claim that moral recognition is secured through relationality. Owing to moral
recognition, one acquires a moral status which confers moral value to the individual.
This requires adherence to norms of the community which are distilled through
socialization and rituals of incorporation. As a result, proponents of Afro-
personhood claim that can guard against gendered oppression. If one accepts this
proposition, then Afro-personhood theories do endorse the moral value of all
persons.
Nonetheless, I argue that while Afro-personhood theories are presented as gender
neutral, they are actually gendered in pernicious ways that threaten the moral value
of Blackwomxn. The spelling of Blackwomxn as a single term illustrates the
conceptual necessity of announcing the intersectional experience of Blackwomxn
and that their Blackness is inextricable from their womxnhood (Mailula, 2019: 2).
The use of a capital “B” is to evince that it is a social category and a collective
identity with an attended history (Appiah, 2020). Womxn is an inclusive
intersectional concept that functions as an antithesis to the daily micro-aggressions
that subtly, but systematically work to undermine the value of womxn and enforce
their secondary social status (Kunz, 2019: 2). Upon closer re-reading, it seems that
Afro-personhood theories do not include Blackwomxn persons in the theories.
I argue that it is precisely because the theory is not gender neutral owing to two
textually subliminal gaps as the heteropatriarchal nature of the theory and the
subsumption of Blackwomxn into categories as race. These gaps constitute a
disjuncture and contradiction in Afro-personhood theories. That is, while the theo-
ries claim to embody moral ideals and values that ought to secure moral recognition
for all persons, they exclude and do not defend the moral value of Blackwomxn.
Gender and Afro-personhood 391
Moreover, owing to their gendered nature, it is my contention that the theories do not
engender positive and equal recognition-respect for all individuals. Rather, they are
loaded with asymmetrical power relations that treat Blackwomxn’s personhood,
especially, as subordinate. As such, it is conceivable that Afro-personhood theories
do not engender equitable social relations or equitable societies. Perhaps we should
ask, what contributions, if any, can a theory of personhood make to address the
secondary marginalization of Blackwomxn in society if it remains neutral on the
matter? Is Afro-personhood useful where it concerns the moral devaluation of
Blackwomxn or does its fake gender neutrality thwart its usefulness?
In this White Supremacy in Eurocentric Epistemology, I begin by providing the
relevant conception of Afro-personhood. Thereafter, I critique the gender neutrality
of Afro-personhood theories to illustrate that they are gendered. My aim is to expose
this gender blind spot in the Afro-personhood theories to reveal the asymmetrical
power dynamics in hegemonic norms/values and social relations required to be a full
person. In exposing these gaps, I want to illustrate that they constitute the non-
recognition of Blackwomxn’s personhood – a kind of non-recognition that contrib-
utes to the in-group marginalization of Blackwomxn. As a result, Afro-personhood
does not account for, nor does it defend the moral worth of Blackwomxn. In so
doing, I will evince how its gendered nature cannot address the particularity of the
social condition of Blackwomxn. Rather, it renders them invisible in the theory.
Given that the theory conceals oppressive relations that hamper the flourishing of
Blackwomxn in society, it is a moral theory that only defends some persons not all
persons. Thereafter, I provide a critical overview of arguments from proponents of
Afro-personhood. These thinkers explicitly make the claim that Afro-personhood is
gender neutral and/or promotes gender equality. As such, they assert that Afro-
personhood theories have the moral resources to secure equality for all.
The Afro-Communitarian Conception of Personhood
Rosalind Shaw (2000: 25) asserts that Afro-personhood theories have been used as
tools of epistemic resistance to Western conceptions of personhood. Historically,
Afro-personhood theories partly reflect African Philosophy’s resistance to the sub-
jugation of Africa’s knowledge systems and its discourses by the European world
(Oyowe, 2013: 209). Some Western thinkers such as Immanuel Kant, who can be
aligned with the Enlightenment era, unilaterally claimed the right to speak on behalf
of Africans thereby defining the meaning of experience and truth. This was informed
by an idea of “common humanity” with reason at its center (Mbembe, 2001: 6–8;
Ramose, 2002). Western philosophers claimed that reason organizes society, defines
human nature, and governs our actions. In the European world, reason was central to
classic individualist social ontology that demands equality of moral status. The
equality of moral status was the overarching norm that informed equal treatment
of persons and safeguarded their interests (Mills, 2008: 1381).
Central to Enlightenment thought is the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant.
Kant’s moral philosophy can be extracted from the Groundwork for the Metaphysics
392 L. B. Gama
for Morals (1789). He views the single most important moral feature of human
beings to be their ability to pursue ends of their own subject to their own capacity for
reason. As such, the capacity for reason gives the individual autonomy. Having
autonomy, we regard individuals as persons morally responsible for their actions. As
such, anyone who is capable of moral responsibility is self-governing. Furthermore,
it is the capacity for reason that gives an individual dignity where dignity is a value
that commands others to treat you with respect (G 4: 434–436). For Kant, the value
of a person is their dignity owing to their capacity for reason. Dignity gives humans
value, and as such, they cannot be replaced or sacrificed. In the absence of rational-
ity, your value is that of price (G 4: 397). An entity that has the value of price can be
replaced or traded away as a kind of commodity (G 4: 434). As such, to be
considered a person for Kant you have to have the capacity for reason. Moreover,
it is the capacity for reason that gives actions moral value. Actions are accorded
moral value if they are performed from duty not self-interest or inclinations. That is,
an actions rightness cannot be conditional (G 4: 397–398). Thus, for Kant what
makes us persons is our universal capacity for reason which, in turn, gives us an
inviolable moral status worthy of dignity and moral value. African Philosophers
found this characterization of social ontology to not only be violently exclusionary
but incongruent with the social ontology of African people.
Many African philosophers have refuted the universalization of reason in Western
philosophy. Among them are Mabogo More (1996) and Mogobe Ramose (2002).
These thinkers argue that the intellectual racism evident in Western philosophers’
critical systems is informed by their reports on human nature. More argues that the
Western “valorisation of reason” (1996: 109) as foundational to Western philosophy
wrongly interrogates the existence of African Philosophy. Such interrogation merely
serves to question the cultures, beliefs, and being of Africans. In a similar vein,
though directed to the work of Aristotle, Ramose posits that the universalization of
reason amounts to intellectual racism. He argues that when Western philosophers
configured their ideas on the basis of reason, they excluded Africans because they
were taken to be irrational. This being the case, reason was not merely a descriptive
feature but a value judgment used to adjudicate persons and non-persons (2002). For
these African thinkers, such value judgments are informed by the ethnocentrism in
the anthropological, literary, and political texts wherein Western thinkers studied
race. These texts contained ethnic stereotypes and prejudices that justified the
superiority of the white European and the inferiority of Black Africans on the
basis of phenotypical and cultural difference. That is, by virtue of Africans’ inferior
status owing to their phenotypical and cultural difference, they are not given moral
status and dignity (1996: 117; 2002: 3). In other words, while Western philosophers
seem to extend dignity to all persons, upon closer examination one finds that said
moral status would not be afforded to Africans because they are not taken to be
persons like the European.
Similarly, Emmanuel Eze (2002) finds the same problematic in Kant’s person-
hood theory. Eze claims that Kant’s theory of personhood excludes Black people and
promotes their dehumanization in society. He asserts that evidence of this is seen
through Kant’s assertions that Black people have no rationality and they are
replaceable because they lack dignity (2002: 437–438). Eze argues that Kant
excludes Black people in two ways. Firstly, Kant argues that naturally Black people
lack rationality (1960: 110–111). Drawing on his racial taxonomy, Kant claims that
owing to their phenotype Black people do not possess rationality. As such, they
cannot be educated. In keeping with Eze’s logic, Mpho Tshivhase argues that it
reasonably follows that such lack of rationality would mean that Black people cannot
create knowledge. Invariably, this justified the exclusion of the Black diaspora from
the world of ideas. Furthermore, this enables the erasure of African knowledge
systems (2021: 114). Secondly, Kant claims that Black people do not have dignity
because they are not persons (Eze, 2002: 438–439). Given that rationality is the
defining requirement for personhood, it follows that the lack of rationality makes you
a non-person or an object that lacks moral worth. Kant’s idea of dignity is drawn
from his Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Herein he argues that dignity is
a value that leads us to hold persons in higher esteem than animals and objects (Ak 4:
411; 4: 4: 434–435). As such, we ought to treat persons not as instruments but rather
as ends in themselves (Ak 4: 428–429). Correspondingly, Charles Mills asserts that
Kant’s theory does not account for the personhood of Black people. As such, Kant
excludes them from the realm of moral recognition. As a result, on the Western
conception of personhood they are not morally worthy of respect and can only be
appreciated for their instrumental value (Mills, 2002: 29). But these are consider-
ations extended to persons, not non-persons or, to use Mills’ category, “sub-persons”
(2005: 25). Black people could not be viewed as deserving of respect and were seen
to lack agency. In turn, they could be justifiably used as instruments because they are
sub-persons.
In light of the foregoing critics, the widely accepted and celebrated normative
conception of Afro-personhood can be understood as a critique of Western notions of
personhood. To be sure, Ifeanyi Menkiti asserts that the Afro-communitarian view is
a rejection of Western views of personhood that isolate one characteristic of persons
as the marker of humanity (Menkiti, 2004: 326). In rejecting the universalism of
European theories of personhood, Afro-communitarians developed a conception of
persons radically different from the European conception proffered by Kant. This
was an effort to counter the ethnocentrism and individualism of European moral
philosophy that is not only incongruent with the African social ontology but is
violently dehumanizing. Thus, Afro-communitarians proposed an African commu-
nal system that disproves the Western ideas that aim to devalue African peoples and
their knowledge system (Menkiti, 1984: 178). Herein, the main aim was to respond
to a racialized view of personhood and/or the “myth” of the race neutrality of
Enlightenment thought.
The African person is understood to have certain ontological and normative
dimensions. The ontological conception refers to the fact of being human with
distinguishable characteristics from other living things (Kaphagawani, 2004;
Matolino, 2008: 80). A normative conception of a person requires communal
participation and the performance of certain roles and/or obligations to attain
personhood (Oyowe, 2013: 2). The general view is that the African conception of
a person cannot be conceived without either dimension as they are interwoven and
394 L. B. Gama
essential to understanding who a person is in the African context. Put differently,

those who are engaged in the normative inquiry of communitarianism do so on the
basis of certain ontological features. As such, despite the distinction between the
ontological and the normative, it is the normative communitarian conception which
is given primacy in Afro-communitarianism as it closely resembles lived experi-
ences evident in traditional African society (Ikuenobe, 2006: 117; Wiredu, 2009: 13;
Masolo, 2010: 135). Below I outline the necessary ontological features of a person as
outlined by Afro-personhood thinkers. The ontological dimension of Afro-
personhood is based on a particular conception of human nature. This conception
of human nature has three important facets.
The first ontological facet speaks to the descriptive biological features of human
beings such as having a body and particular mental capacities (Kaphagawani, 2004).
Herein, morality is predicated on some distinctive characteristics of human nature.
These are certain features of being a human being that are required in order to pursue
personhood. Motsamai Molefe asserts that scholars of Afro-personhood such as
Ifeanyi Menkiti and Kwame Gyekye tend to conceive of human nature in a positive
light (2020: 19). He asserts that according to these Afro-personhood thinkers, human
beings come into the world “morally neutral” (ibid). This moral neutrality is not
pre-determined. Put differently, it can go either way because it is entirely dependent
on the decisions and conduct of the agent in question. This African view of human
nature that leads to personhood stands in contradiction to the Western view of
personhood. That is, it is at odds with the idea of human nature associated with
the state of nature (Menkiti, 1984; Gyekye, 1992).
The second ontological facet speaks to the relational nature of human beings.
Menkiti and Gyekye argue that human beings are naturally social which results in
them being interdependent and communal (1984; 1992: 104). In other words, they
assert that human beings are social at their core. Elsewhere Menkiti avers that in the
absence of others we have “no grounds for a claim regarding the individual’s own
standing as a person” (2004: 324). That is, given that our being is constituted in the
presence of others, we cannot understand ourselves as atomistic entities. Bolstering
this view of human nature, Munyaradzi F. Murove conceives of this ontological facet
as relational rationality wherein human nature is conceived through social relation-
ships. As such, the very project of being a human being is contingent on social
relationships and one cannot imagine their humanity outside of these social relations
among other human beings. Without social relationships, the very project of being a
human being is at stake. It is through the reality of this interdependence that we are
able to attain our full humanness (2014: 37). All in all, the high value placed on
relationality in Afro-personhood is an effect of a particular philosophical
anthropology.
Finally, the third ontological facet speaks to the processual aspect of human
nature (Menkiti, 1984: 174). Molefe asserts that Afro-personhood thinkers tend to
conceive of human nature as something that can grow or diminish (2020: 19). The
moral expectation to pursue and possible achieve personhood is grounded on this
third facet. Here, we see that human nature is conceived in terms of its capacity for
growth. To be sure, this ontological feature is consistent with the socio-moral
processes of transformation that occur in rituals of transformation (Menkiti, 1984:

172; 2004: 325).
Overall, the ontological dimension of persons as conceived in Afro-personhood
theories informs the normative dimension of a person. That is, the moral expectation
for individuals to achieve personhood is informed by a conception of human nature
as relational, processual, and having certain mental faculties necessary to become a
person. Herein, Gyekye asserts that all human beings have these ontological features
required to lead morally virtuous lives albeit the reality that being person is not
automatic or guaranteed in Afro-personhood theories (Gyekye, 2010). Similarly,
Molefe asserts that what these ontological features reveal is that all human beings are
predisposed to achieving personhood owing to the nature of humans (2020: 20).
Contemporaneously, Polycarp Ikuenobe posits that these natural capacities give
individuals an inherent moral status. Such value implies respect and the need to
ensure the flourishing and/or well-being of persons (2018: 590). Altogether, these
three ontological facets of human nature afford one moral dignity. Embedded in the
idea of moral dignity is the idea of recognition or the prescription to recognize a
person’s moral worth in virtue of these “natural capacities.”
In summary, human beings come into the world as a moral “tabula rasa.” On this
conception, we are all in a state of moral possibility owing to our nature as humans.
All things being equal, the agent is responsible for achieving the status of person in a
community. However, Afro-personhood thinkers argue that these ontological facts
alone do not fully constitute personhood. In other words, ontological facts are a
necessary condition for personhood but are not sufficient to achieve it. Therefore, the
goal of morality is to turn these moral possibilities into actualized moral excellences.
As such, something else is required in order for personhood to emerge. Menkiti
asserts that in order for one to attain the full complement of moral excellences
required to be a person, they must go through a process of social transformation
(1984: 172).
This brings us to the normative dimension of Afro-personhood. What Menkiti
alerts us to is that the pursuit of personhood is otherwise incomplete if it is not
accompanied by a socio-moral process of transformation. That is, the moral possi-
bilities inherent in all persons manifest in moral reality through processes which
decorate one’s humanity with certain moral excellences. These social processes
morally actualize the capacities in our human nature to attain moral excellences
(Wiredu, 2009: 15–16). The aim of these social processes is to lead the individual to
ethical maturity. To achieve this ethical maturity, one must engage in processes of
moral self-creation, self-improvement with the aim to contribute positively to the
community (Menkiti, 1984: 172; 2004: 325). These social processes distil a system
of values, relevant to a given community, that one ought to adhere to. Said system of
values is intended to control the sphere of social relations among persons. These
values are relational in their nature. They are other regarding values which embody
duties and responsibilities (Metz, 2012: 390–393). On this model, to be a person is to
relate positively with others. This positive relation to others is instantiated in virtue
of these other regarding duties. Being morally excellent, by fulfilling your duties
requires one to show concern for others. This concern is evident in values of
396 L. B. Gama
“solidarity, compassion, reciprocity, cooperation and interdependence” (Gyekye,

2010). This attitude toward others is invoked by a consciousness of the needs of
the community. Moreover, in relating with others one develops themselves and is
able to achieve their individual goals and aspirations. As such, processes of self-
realization and self-creation necessarily denote promoting the well-being of others
(Molefe, 2017: 10). On this normative dimension, becoming a person requires an
adherence to the norms of the community by conforming to certain community
expectations and participating in socializing processes (Menkiti, 1984: 170–176;
Gyekye, 1997: 49, 71; Tshivhase, 2013: 120–122). In adhering to these dialogical
moral norms, you are recognized as a person. This moral recognition forms the basis
for enjoying the attended privileges of being recognized as a person assimilated into a
society (Imafidon, 2021a: 241–246; 2021b: 46). That is, when one positively relates
with others, it endows a person with certain normative privileges and rights (ibid.).
Moreover, the social-moral evaluation of the proper use of one’s ontological capacities
to perform certain obligations that prompt communal harmony engenders recognition
and respect. This further indicates that personhood is an earned moral status.
In light of the foregoing elucidations on the normative conception of Afro-
personhood, one can deduce that to call someone a person is to say something
about their character. Thus, a good moral character is one that exhibits particular
moral virtues. These virtues are relational and positive other regarding duties. This
conception of personhood reflects a particular system of values intended to regulate
social relations among persons. It is a pervasive system of values in that it permeates
the entire sphere of human existence in order to develop a “perfect” character. The
ideal kind of character here is one that exhibits other regarding kind of moral
excellences (Gyekye, 1992: 113; Menkiti, 1984: 172). Ultimately, moral perfection-
ism is the moral goal of persons on the Afro-personhood conception.
In sum, the aim of the section was to illustrate that Afro-personhood is born out of
a critical response to the dehumanization of African people evident in Western
discourses. Herein, I outlined the African response to the deceptive notion that
Western theories of personhood, particularly that of Kant, are race-neutral. As
such, Afro-personhood theories are, in part, aimed at affirming an otherwise deni-
grated African humanity. Therein, I elucidated what the Afro-personhood concep-
tion of a person is by discussing its ontological and normative features. Altogether,
the Afro-personhood conception, on the basis of a combination of these ontological
and normative features, articulates and defends the moral worth of all persons. In the
following section, I will argue that Afro-personhood theories do not defend all
persons because it is not a gender-neutral theory. Herein, I will show that it is a
gendered theory owing to two textually subliminal gaps. In particular, I will critically
discuss how the moral value of Blackwomxn seems to be ignored and/or violated in
Afro-personhood theories. My analysis delineates the hierarchical relations in the
theory that asymmetrically affect Blackwomxn thereby resulting in the non-recog-
nition of their personhood. This critical analysis will reveal two gaps in the theories.
To reveal these gaps, I consult Patricia Hill Collins’ (2020) work on intersectionality
and Cathy Cohen’s (1999) marginalization theory. Collins’s understanding of
intersectionality reveals the nature of power dynamics where multiple axes of
oppression intersect in ways that adversely affect marginalized groups owing to their
multiple identities. Relatedly, Cohen’s marginalization theory discloses the
intragroup tensions among Black people that adversely affect Blackwomxn because
they occupy multiple identities. Cohen’s theory reveals the gender issues within the
Black grouping; gender issues that are related to the heteropatriarchal ordering of our
society. Overall, I will illustrate that these gaps constitute the non-recognition of
Blackwomxn’s personhood – a kind of non-recognition that contributes to the
in-group marginalization of Blackwomxn. Non-recognition jettisons Blackwomxn
from the moral world of Afro-personhood thereby inadvertently concealing their
maltreatment in society.
Gap 1: Heteropatriarchy as a Regulatory Norm

in Afro-Personhood Theories
There exists a contingent relation between the idealized Afro-personhood described

in the foregoing section and socially recognized personhood among African persons.
It is my contention that this contingency is rooted in a society organized by or
according to heteropatriarchal relations, where heteropatriarchy continues to be an
oppressive aspect of our society. Upon closer examination, one finds that the Afro-
personhood norms and values upon which moral perfection is enacted are deeply
heteropatriarchal. That is, on the perfectionist model, social and moral status in
society is granted and denied on the basis of heteropatriarchy. Once we face this
contingency without evasion, we see that one commits a grave error in assuming that
the supposedly morally objective personhood outlined in Afro-personhood guaran-
tees that all persons’ personhood is recognized. What I am suggesting is that if we
take the historical and present reality of oppressive heteropatriarchal structures into
cognizance, it is evident that Blackwomxn have not been granted the moral status to
which their presumptive personhood entitles them. Hence, Afro-personhood does
not guarantee the ideal of equal moral status. This constitutes a disjuncture between
the theory and social reality. Taking all this into account, I argue that Afro-
personhood ought to be properly understood not as the normative vehicle for the
securing of the moral status of all persons but the normative vehicle of a privileged
few in society, i.e., those whose social ontology corresponds with heteropatriarchal
norms. As such, Afro-personhood serves to conceal and, at times, bolster the
androsexist and heterosexist aspects of our society.
Oritsegbubemi Oyowe (2013) does a good job of illustrating this gender blind
spot in Afro-personhood theories. Oyowe asserts that Afro-personhood thinkers
have overlooked the question of gender. That is, they overlook the fact that the
social and ritualistic processes required to integrate individuals into society in order
to be fully fledged persons rest on social power relations that negatively affect
women. As such, he contends that African theories of personhood perpetuate an
inegalitarian social order owing to their socially engendered nature. He maintains
that Afro-personhood theories rest on an assumed egalitarianism of traditional
African societies. However, upon closer examination Oyowe finds that traditional
398 L. B. Gama
African societies rest on unequal social power relations that foster social hierarchies.
One such power differential is gender. He asserts that gender, as a social category, is
the basis for social domination and unequal treatment. In the case of traditional
African societies, different privileges and rights are afforded to persons on the basis
of gender. As a result, the social achievements of men are valued higher than those of
women. This differential treatment reflects the low status of women in the social
hierarchy owing to their gender. As such, it follows that women’s personhood is
considered inferior to men’s personhood in African traditional societies (2013: 127).
He finds evidence for this in the rituals for social incorporation that gives girls and
boys different norms to guide their behavior and actions toward others in a commu-
nity and to themselves. As such, he submits that the inequality of men and women’s
personhood is evident in African normative theories of personhood (2013:
123–124). As a result, Oyowe argues that it remains unclear what makes persons
equal in Afro-personhood theories. Correspondingly, Augustus Adeyinka and
Gaolekwe Ndwapi (2002), Oyowe and Olga Yurkivska (2014), Kai Horsthemke
(2018), and Manzini (2018) argue that traditional African societies rest on social
norms that foster unequal relations. They contend that African traditional societies
are fundamentally gendered and heteronormative. This is evident in the rituals of
incorporation that assume ontological sameness in requisite features necessary to
attain personhood. As such, owing to these social norms, only certain people can be
fully fledged members and enjoy the attended status of personhood (Adeyinka &
Ndwapi, 2002: 18, 21; Horsthemke, 2018: 70; Manzini, 2018: 42–46). Thus, if Afro-
personhood is acquired by conforming to these social norms, where these social
norms are gendered, then the theory fosters unequal relations (Oyowe & Yurkivska,
2014: 215). Taking my cue from these thinkers, I will argue that the exclusionary and
restrictive aspects of Afro-personhood are rooted in its heteropatriarchal nature.
Heteropatriarchy is the social system in which heterosexuality and patriarchy are
perceived as normal and natural, and which other dispositions are seen as abhorrent
and abnormal. It is based on a gender binary wherein the male is perceived as
normatively superior and female normatively inferior to the male (Arvin et al., 2013:
13). Angel P. Harris assets that heteropatriarchy is based on five assumptions. First,
that all persons are born and remain male or female their whole life. Second, that
one’s sex at birth determines their gender and, as such, one’s biology informs their
behavior in society. Third, that sex/gender causes behavioral differences among
males and females on the lines of interest, character and appearance among other
socially constructed distinctions. Fourth, that sex differences among men and
women are complimentary. As such, sexual and romantic relationships ought to
occur between men and women and not between people of the same assigned sex.
These four assumptions constitute the “hetero” aspects of heteropatriarchy. The fifth
assumption constitutes the patriarchal aspect. Within a patriarchal society, men and
women are not equal. Sometimes their gender roles can be taken to be complimen-
tary but they otherwise remain unequal. As such, masculinity or maleness is taken to
be normatively superior to femininity (Harris, 2011: 22).
Historically, heteropatriarchy becomes an overt organizing principle in African
society through colonization. Maria Lugones asserts that the modern colonial system
of power was created with the intention to permeate all spheres of human existence
differentially according to race, class, and gender. Such spheres of human existence
included “sex, labour, subjectivity, collective authority” and knowledge production
(2007: 189). Lugones argues that the gendered aspects of colonization are too often
overlooked in favor of violent race relations. To the contrary, expanding on Annibal
Quijano’s conception of the coloniality of power (2000), Lugones asserts that both
race and gender were fictions of the colonial imaginary. The aim of such fictions was
to unevenly distribute power among the European and non-European world on a
global scale. On the basis of such fictions, the European was deemed to be human
and therefore had the attended privileges of such a status such as being conferred
moral worth. Whereas the non-European, was deemed to be non-human using this
same metric, thereby denying them their moral worth and/or the status of being a
person (2007: 189–201). Such a distinction justified the dehumanization of African
peoples. On the basis of racialized notions of gender as per the colonial imaginary,
women were treated differently. Where the white woman was considered to be
“fragile, weak in both mind and body, sexually passive [and] secluded to the
private,” the colonized woman was deemed sexually aggressive, perverse, and
only useful for labor (ibid: 203). These pejoratives were attached to colonized
women to invoke the idea that they are “naturally” inferior to white women. As
such, under the false pretence of a civilizing mission, colonized women were
evaluated according to these normative gender constructions in order to justify
their violent exploitation. Elsewhere, Lugones argues that this civilizing mission
was a “euphemistic mask” used to justify the brutal access to colonized women’s
bodies in the form of “violent sexual violations, systemic terror and the control of
reproduction” (2010: 744–745). She contends that it was euphemistic precisely
because such maltreatment was not intended to make colonized women civilized.
I contend that embedded in Afro-personhood theories is the kind of hetero-
patriarchy discussed above. Afro-personhood theories are social engendered. That
is, by virtue of being packaged as a theory of African traditional thought they reflect
the ordering of those societies. Traditional African societies are regulated on hetero-
patriarchy. This being the case, the theory promotes heteropatriarchal relations
among persons. The very nature of these heteropatriarchal relations is such that
they celebrate heterosexuality. Evidence of this is seen in the kinds of persons that
are valued in traditional African societies. Elvis Imafidon posits that in African
traditional societies the cis-heterosexual man is perceived as “ontologically superior
with qualities of strength, vigour and leadership” (2021a: 251) whereas women are
treated as ontologically inferior. Moreover, Imafidon states that familial systems in
Africa are controlled by cis-heterosexual men. Herein, men are the heads of the
household and are given the responsibility of providing for the family because of
their gender. Failure to fulfill this duty to the community results in a loss of respect
from the community (2013: 25). Contrastingly, even if a woman works and provides
for her family, at no point are they taken to be the head of the household (ibid: 26).
What Imafidon’s insights illustrate is the asymmetrical power structures of tradi-
tional African communities that prize maleness over femaleness. If this is what
influences Afro-personhood, then it follows that Afro-personhood will, in part, be
400 L. B. Gama
a heteropatriarchal theory. Even if the theory has universal principles such as respect,
interdependence, and solidarity, they are inevitably heteropatriarchally regulated. As
such, Afro-personhood theories are not gender neutral. One could argue that at worst
these are merely virtues set aside for heterosexual cis-gendered men.
Further evidence of the heteropatriarchal nature of Afro-personhood theories is
evident in the rites of passage required to acquire the moral excellences to be a fully
fledged person. These rites of passage rest on the assumption of biological determin-
ism as they assume one’s sex at birth to be static. Biological determinism refers to the
idea that human behavior is innate and completely disregards the reality that human
behavior is shaped by social and cultural environment. Thus, biological determinism is
a tool to institute unequal gender relations and the oppression of women. All in all,
biological determinism institutes the idea that our respective social positions are
encoded and are determined by our sexual differences (Mikkola, 2022). These
norms are attained through rites of passage that promote gender conformity,
cis-heterosexuality, and gender complementarity. These norms are intended to differ-
entially control the behavior of men and women toward communal goals. Biological
determinism supports claims of difference which are otherwise fictional. The danger
therein is that it justifies a value system that gives advantages to some over others
based on fictional notions of superiority and inferiority (Spanier, 1995: 54). Afro-
personhood theorists uncritically adopt this fiction. These imagined differences are
taken to be “natural” and whose supposed complementarity serves the larger goal of
solidarity and communality. The notion that the differential valuing of persons in
traditional African societies is complimentary is highly suspect. As Oyowe asserted,
one struggles to see how you can value persons differently while still securing equality
for all. Therein, African feminist Bibi Bakare-Yusuf cautions us to remember that no
form of power is atomic (2004: 5). As such, seemingly gender-neutral norms such as
solidarity, interconnectedness, or seniority among others, must be understood within
the purview of the intersectional nature of systems of oppression. To be sure, these
norms express power over others, namely men over women, rather than enabling
innocently enabling one to become a full person. Bakare Yusuf rightly asserts that if
such norms are properly confronted, then we ought to see that norms operate within
the context of limitative power even if we naively take them to be enabling (ibid: 5).
In sum, African personhood theories are androsexist, heteropatriarchal norms,
and social relationships that marginalize Blackwomxn. The danger therein is that the
theory cannot help us engage nor begin to solve the gendered violence that survives
colonization nor help us make sense of contemporary issues such as femicide,
trafficking, sexual harassment, and increased violence against Blackwomxn. As
such, Afro-personhood theories conceal these violent relations as it does not chal-
lenge the subordination and oppression of Blackwomxn in the world. The theory is
in need of a reconceptualization so as to capture the specific socio-cultural lived
experiences and cultural realities that Blackwomxn encounter. The inadequacies of
the theory where it concerns gender underscore the need to develop alternative
African value theories that expose the subtle and intricate power relations embedded
in our society. In so doing, we would develop a value theory that counters hetero-
patriarchy, rather than conceal and/or uncritically valorize it.
Gap 2: Race as a Totalizing Category
Afro-personhood theories, in challenging the racial neutrality of Western theories of

personhood and, in turn critiquing the oppression of African persons by the Western
world, have tended to ignore gendered oppression. In failing to address the lack of
gender neutrality in Western personhood theories, they effectively reinforce it by
omission. As such, the Afro-personhood theory they proffer in turn is not an
inclusive moral theory. In this section, I will argue that Afro-personhood theories
lack of alertness to the gendered nature of traditional African societies is emblematic
of an erroneous understanding of systems of power that sees them as distinct. That is,
they fail to recognize the co-constitutive nature of systems of power. As a result of
this failure, the theory renders Blackwomxn invisible. Put differently, approaching
black people as a unitary category in the attempt to affirm their humanity masks and
mutes the complex oppressions evident in Blackwomxn’s lived experiences. Failure
to recognize the multidimensional vectors of power that structure lived identities and
social reality is paradigmatic of a moral theory that is divorced from material reality.
As such, Afro-personhood theories do not consider the myriad of barriers particular
to Blackwomxn that would make it difficult to attain full personhood and/or have
their personhood be recognized in interpersonal and institutional relations. As a
result, they do not engage the moral denigration of Blackwomxn in society in their
perfectionist model owing to their non-intersectional understanding of oppression. In
many ways, Afro-personhood is a “malestream” (O’Brien 1981: 23) conception of
oppression. That is, it reflects the lived experiences of heterosexual cis-gender men
who remain the privileged constituents of our society.
In critically engaging the relations of Afro-personhood theories and social power,
Oyowe (2013) makes the claim that the search for a distinctive personhood theory in
response to Western dehumanization is mired in a non-epistemic motivation. He
argues that this non-epistemic motivation is the struggle for power in Africa. Oyowe
asserts that the primary raison d’etre of Afro-personhood theories is its resistance to
Western epistemology (2013: 205). Though many African thinkers would agree on
the importance of this epistemic resistance, some, such as Didier Kaphagawani
(2004), maintain that the African response to the exclusion of their personhood
from Western epistemology is incoherent. Kaphagawani argues that the claim “I am,
because we are. And, since we are, therefore I am” is incoherent because the adage
proffered by Afro-personhood theories fails the logical test of validity (337–338).
Essentially, Kaphagawani is pointing out that the aphorism in question fails the
logical test of validity. Therefore, it amounts to an affirming the consequent fallacy.
Take for instance Rene Descartes’s proposition “cogito ergo sum.” It is a valid
proposition because the truth of the premises forces the truth of the conclusion.
Kaphagawani’s point here is that there is not a coherent helping premise for the Afro-
personhood conclusion. As such, it is invalid. Similarly, Dismas Masolo asserts that
Afro-personhood theorists do not give any analytical account for their claim that
African societies are communitarian in their socio-political ethic. Instead, it is
“merely asserted as an abiding ethic” (2004: 490). On these two assertions,
Oyowe contends that this apparent indifference to this logical issue on the part of
402 L. B. Gama
Afro-personhood theories is because of their non-epistemic motivations of resistance

and cultural re-affirmation. As such, the moral theory is a reflection of the struggle
for power which is a socially engendered phenomenon (2013: 205–210). Taking my
cue from Oyowe’s observations, I will discuss the implications of this non-epistemic
motivation on intra-group relations. Very often in our analysis of power, the focus is
on inter-group relations wherein a dominant group oppresses a marginalized and
oppressed group. However, the intra-group relations within a marginalized group are
often left “unpursued” (Cohen, 1999: 36). As such, I will move beyond the analysis
at the level of the struggle of power between the West and Africa. Rather, I will draw
attention to the power dynamics within the group beset by the centralization of race
in the Afro-personhood reaction to the West. In so doing, Cathy Cohen asserts that
this is a move toward analyzing multiple sites of power paying special attention to
power relations within marginalized groups (ibid: 36).
In centralizing race, Afro-personhood theories mask the differential experiences
of the colonial machinery thereby denying the multiple and differing experiences of
that violence. While it remains important to address and critique the exclusion of
Africans from Western conceptions of personhood, a critique that renders Africans
homogenous merely serves to further exclude Blackwomxn’s experiences of such
denigration thereby affirming the personhood of men. That is, in engaging with
Africans as an undifferentiated homogenous group, they silence the experiences of
Blackwomxn on the continent. In totalizing Africans, these thinkers do not consider
the imbrications of race and gender in their critique of colonialism, imperialism, and
modernity as it is manifest in Western conceptions of personhood. While their
resistance to Euro-Western conceptions of rationality and the hegemonic discourses
therein is well placed, they commit a grave error by understanding race, gender, and
other modalities as being apart from each other. As such, the Afro-personhood
critique of Western conceptions of personhood only partially captures the denigra-
tion of Blackwomxn.
Afro-personhood theories separate systems of oppression in its reaction to the
West. To be sure, Afro-personhood is rooted in the isolation of one system of
oppression, as race, while occluding others, namely gender. As such, the normative
theory does not reflect the structural convergence of systems of power. This separa-
bility of oppression is premised on centering the essentialized experiences of rela-
tively privileged members of a group. By essentialism, I mean a “system of
permanent beliefs that remain stable, reluctant to an evolution, always identical,
[and] impermeable to time and history” (Hountondji, 1991: 58). Brubaker and
Cooper argue that this kind of essentialism is normative and creates an expectation
of manifest solidarity in shared dispositions, shared consciousness, or collective
action (2000). This approach distorts the simultaneous oppressions Blackwomxn are
subject to. Put differently, Afro-personhood approaches race and gender as exclusive
categories. In so doing, they render the qualitative experiences of discriminatory
practices against Blackwomxn invisible (Crenshaw, 1991: 1245). Patricia Hill Col-
lins argues that Blackwomxn sit at the intersecting point of prevalent systems of
power as race, gender, social class, sexuality, ethnicity, and age which form mutually
constructing features of social organization (2000: 299). These mutually
constructing systems of power differentially shape the lived experiences of

Blackwomxn. So, if Afro-personhood theories see gender oppression and racial
oppression as separable, they only capture the racial problems that Blackwomxn
face. Hence, it only partially captures the social condition of Blackwomxn. That is, a
homogenizing approach to lived experiences serves to mask the ways in which
ethnic, gender, and sexual identities intersect to make various Blackwomxn’s expe-
riences different across the board. This subsumption masks the complacency and
complicity of black men and black women in the violence enacted against
Blackwomxn. Thus, given that the theory does not fully account for Blackwomxn,
it cannot assist us in intervening in their present social condition.
It is my contention that Afro-personhood theories reflect a kind of socio-moral
theory that privileges certain lived experiences over others. Resultantly, the theory is
dismissive and silencing as it does not reflect all differences. Such a moral theory
lacks the social utility to address the specific social problem of violence enacted
upon Blackwomxn in the present day as a result of their gender. This exclusion of
Blackwomxn from Afro-personhood, jettisons them out of the boundary in which
moral values and considerations of moral worth apply. If they remain invisible in the
theories, harming or exploiting them will continue to appear to be appropriate or
normalized in the public domain. Thus, a theory that remains neutral in a society of
difference is dangerous and, more importantly, complicit in the violence.
I argue that the exclusionary nature of Afro-personhood theories reflects a tendency
to identify with the oppression for which men experience and, in turn, consider all
other oppression as secondary and/or of less importance. Said oppression then has the
propensity to be elevated to master status thereby excluding Blackwomxn from the
moral theory. Invariably, this leads to a kind of contradiction where the oppressed
becomes the oppressor in intra-group relations. Collins asserts that “oppression is filled
with such contradictions because these approaches fail to recognize that a matrix of
domination contains few pure victims or oppressors” (2000: 287). So, the kind of
exclusion of Blackwomxn in Afro-personhood amounts to secondary marginalization.
Now, one could argue that owing to the “discursive context” (Scott, 1999: 9) of the
day, the centralizing of race in the Afro-personhood theories’ critique of racial
neutrality is contextually specific. That is, the racial totalization I have identified is
merely instrumental. As such, the essentialized and homogenized notion of Black
and/or Blackness herein was for the sake of political praxis. To be sure, the idea of a
singular unitary notion of a group was necessary for political strategy. Therefore, it is
perhaps inappropriate to charge Afro-personhood with excluding Blackwomxn. How-
ever, as I have shown, the exclusion of gender from their critique of Western theories
of personhood and its consequent absence from considerations of the conception of
personhood is not “innocently” taken for granted. Rather, it reflects a particular kind of
understanding of oppression and inequality and/or a particular subjectivity in social
relations. Thus, their critique of Western conceptions of personhood remains incom-
plete and, as a result, the moral theory remains illogical if it only defends and secures
the personhood of some over others.
In the following section, I will entertain the view that Afro-personhood is gender
neutral. As such, it could be instrumental in fixing the two gaps I have identified.
404 L. B. Gama
In my discussion, I will engage proponents such as Rianna Oelofsen and Motsamai

Molefe. Oelofsen and Motsamai defend the idea that the theory cannot be blamed for
the immoral nature of society. As such, they share the view that Afro-personhood
theories invoke positive relations among persons, especially where it concerns
marginalized groups such as women.
Separating the Theory from Society
Rianna Oelofsen asserts that the relational ethic embedded in Afro-personhood

ideals is essentially egalitarian. Herein, such relations require equality between the
sexes. As such, Oelofsen claims that the importance placed on good relationships,
which necessarily require recognition-respect for all, ensures equality among all
persons thereby condemning the subordination of women in society (2018: 42–43).
To support this claim, Oelofsen consults the work of Nkiru Nzwegu (1994) on dual-
sex systems in some traditional African societies.
To begin with, Oelofsen concedes that while traditional African societies may be
patriarchal and subjugate women, this does not undermine the egalitarian principles
of Afro-personhood. That is, the fact that African societies do not live up to certain
ethical implications of Afro-personhood does not mean that the theory does not have
said implications. She argues that Afro-personhood theories prescribe egalitarian
relations but do not state that such relations are egalitarian in reality (2018: 49–50).
In other words, she argues that Afro-personhood expresses that we ought to recog-
nize our uniqueness and difference with the moral goal of community building and
harmony. She maintains that while it is the case “that women are not necessarily
explicitly understood as equal in African communities and in how their personhood
is formed,” if the principles of Afro-personhood are applied consistently, one sees
that there is a prescription that they ought to be treated as equals (2018: 50).
Oelofsen advances the argument that if there are indeed gender differences in
Afro-personhood theories, they would not necessarily lead to gender hierarchy.
Rather, the gender differences evident in Afro-personhood are complimentary. For
Oelofsen, even if it were the case that all traditional African societies oppressed
women, it is not yet enough to say that gender differences connote gender inequality.
She argues that evidence of this is seen in the work of Nkiru Nzwegu on equality in
dual-sex systems. Nzwegu argues that we ought to move away from a conception of
equality that rests on individual autonomy and sameness. She claims that such an
understanding of equality is not in accordance with African relational identities
(Nzwegu, 1994: 73–74). Nzwegu contends that what we see in traditional African
societies is a different socio-political structure to that of Western cultures. In Western
cultures, men and women are assigned value based on their biological differences.
As such, women are undervalued owing to asymmetrical patriarchal power relations
rooted in said biological differences. Inversely, traditional African societies assign
men and women value according to what they do. That is, in the African socio-
political structure individuals are valued for the skills they bring to the community
and the role they play in progressing the culture. Moreover, identity is structured in
terms of equal worth of social duties and responsibilities. Herein, equality is a matter
of social responsibilities and obligations. As such, gender equality is construed as
comparable worth. Because gender equality implies comparable worth, women and
men are taken to be complements of one another even if African societies have
hierarchical structures in regards to “age, experience, marital status and rites of
initiation” (1994: 84–85, 89, 94). In agreement, Oelofsen asserts that we ought to
see the gendered relations in Afro-personhood theories as complimentary effectively
standing in equal power (2018: 52). On this account, in spite of the presence of
gender differences central to attaining full-personhood, it is possible for these not to
result in the moral denigration of women. Therefore, in principle, Afro-personhood
is an egalitarian moral theory built on principles of equality.
In a similar vein, Motsamai Molefe asserts that Afro-personhood has the moral
resources to engender a just social order characterized by gender equality. He
imagines a just social order to be characteristically egalitarian wherein persons are
treated equally. As such, Molefe argues that Afro-personhood does not sponsor the
socio-cultural conditions that dehumanize women.
Molefe asserts that one of the most fundamental errors that we commit in the
discussion of the place of women in African moral thought is to conflate cultural
values and moral values. He argues that we ought to separate the ontological notion
of personhood qua personal identity from the normative one, where the normative
notion relies on the values of moral excellence. As such, when one says that we need
the community to realize moral possibilities or moral capacities, we are appealing to
cultural values. That is, that personal identity requires particular cultural values for
its realization. Here, he has in mind cultural values such as how to dress, sing, dance,
or get married. However, these cultural values may differ from each society because
they each have different ideas about how to socialize individuals in the process of
personal identity formation. Each traditional African society has different ideas on
how we ought to socialize individuals in an effort to form personal identities (2020:
63–64). With this in mind, Molefe argues that we cannot determine the status of a
theoretical idea by considering these cultural values. It is Molefe’s view that while it
may very well be the case that many academics are “caught-up” (2020: 65) in the
contingencies of their societies, it does not logically follow that the moral theory
itself has no moral resources to give us a plausible Afro-personhood theory. He
argues that the function of the philosopher is to transcend cultural values in “search
of truth” (ibid.). As such, Molefe claims that while it is possible that Afro-
personhood has been used in ways that perpetuate patriarchy and/or that it is an
expression of historical power relations, it is entirely different to claim that we
cannot use the theory for social justice. Put plainly, Molefe is cautioning us not to
blame Afro-personhood for the state of affairs in Africa and the oppressive attitudes
of practitioners, especially where it concerns women, because a theory cannot
directly cause an oppressive condition. Herein he posits that “the problem is not
intrinsic to the term [person]. Rather it is the problem of cultures and male academics
that are prejudiced by their male centred societies” (2019: 9). As such, it is not Afro-
personhood theories that are gendered for Molefe, rather the academics are bigoted
and discriminatory.
406 L. B. Gama
Keeping with the critique of the conflation of moral and cultural values, Molefe
states that we ought to not reduce the notion of moral excellencies to cultural norms
based on “intragroup recognition” (2020: 65). He argues that this is entirely too
narrow of an interpretation of Afro-personhood. Rather, he proposes that we ought to
take a wider reading of Afro- personhood. In so doing, when we speak of moral
excellencies, we interpret the system of moral values in African societies to be
applicable to all human societies in so far as Afro-personhood is a “moral theory
proper” (ibid). By “moral theory proper,” he means that the theory is built on
objective values necessary to conceptualize a just society. In this way, on a theoret-
ical level, when we speak of moral excellencies, we are referring to a “trans-cultural
system of values” (ibid) that is not context specific and capable of recognizing all
humans. These “trans-cultural systems of values” embody a moral system intended
to cover the whole sphere of human relations wherein the individual is required to
perfect themselves as moral entities. They are expected to display certain virtues and
norms as well as to uphold certain ideals. Consulting Kwame Gyekye, Molefe
asserts that these virtues include “generosity, kindness, compassion, benevolence,
respect and concern for others; [and] any action or behavior that conduces to the
promotion of the welfare of others” (Gyekye as quoted in Molefe, 2020: 66). These
are other-regarding virtues enacted in social relationships in order to safeguard the
welfare of others. Molefe argues that these social relationships imagined by Afro-
personhood theories are strongly marked by virtues which we would not “naturally
associate with the marginalization of women or any other grouping” (2020: 67). He
contends that this aspect of Afro-personhood undermines the critique that it is not
egalitarian.
Molefe argues that we can further see the egalitarianism of Afro-personhood
theories in the concept of moral status. To make this argument, he considers the work
of Ifeanyi Menkiti (1984). He submits that Menkiti’s conception of personhood
suggests a particular theory of moral status – one where an entity is recognized in
virtue of their ontological capacities. Herein, we owe individuals duties of
recognition-respect because they have the capacity for a moral personality owing
to their ontological features. To be sure, Menkiti avers that we owe these entities
“duties of justice. . .which is dependent on their possession of a capacity for moral
sense” (1984: 177). Molefe affirms that such recognition-respect is not dependent on
the achievements of persons but the mere possession of these capacities. Moreover,
Molefe argues that it is this moral status on an ontological level that makes all
persons morally equal (2020: 71).
Molefe asserts that the ethical requirement to treat persons equally gives us an
indication of how we ought to treat each other in our social relationships. For
Molefe, personhood, as a concept, embodies moral ideals that ought to shape our
society and social relations in two related ways. Firstly, he states that our social
spaces must function on the moral principle of treating each other equally in order for
personhood to work. This has several implications for our social spaces such as
aiding moral patients where they require help; treating each other fairly; fostering a
socio-economic system that treats us all equally; and gender neutrality. Secondly,
moral equality requires us to relate to each other in ways that promote collective
welfare. Given that being a person requires one to exhibit other regarding duties, it
follows that we would all be contributing to a common good that fosters social
egalitarianism for all within the collective. He asserts that it is required that one
ought to distil these other regarding duties without regard to gender, class, or race.
Molefe claims that this will empower individuals to live a “decent” life by creating
humane conditions for all (2020: 72). Thus, Molefe concludes that it is not true that
the Afro-personhood theories do not have the moral resources to foster the equal
moral regard of women.
Altogether, these thinkers do not necessarily dispute the empirical claims that
African societies are patriarchal and that such relations are oppressive to
Blackwomxn. However, it is their view that on a theoretical level Afro-personhood
does have the tools to secure the moral worth of women. Given that Afro-
personhood is grounded on the prescription to treat people well in virtue of their
ability to commune with others, it fosters cooperative social relations intended to
engage in mutual aid and solidarity. Therefore, Afro-personhood can regulate the
cultural values of our society. As such, we ought to promote those moral values
which these thinkers take to be gender neutral and/or gendered in complimentary
ways that guard against moral maltreatment.
Perhaps what is most perturbing about this defense of Afro-personhood from the
charge that it is inegalitarian, is the willingness of its proponents to bracket the
theory from social reality. That is, they are preoccupied with “abstract theoretical
concerns” and not involved in the practical affairs of African people (Gyekye, 1988:
1). Given the ethical exigency to respond to and intervene in the moral denigration of
Blackwomxn in society, we can no longer be idealistic about morality. Afterall,
Gyekye asserts that the very nature and purpose of philosophy is a “conceptual
response to the basic human problems that arise in any given era or society” (ibid: 3).
Herein, Gyekye asserts that it is in the realm of axiological reflection wherein
philosophers ought to be concerned with practical considerations for it is from this
vantage point that philosophy can offer practical guidance on questions of individual
action and social policy and can provide people with “fundamental systems of belief
to live by” (ibid: 5). If they wish to remove the theory from the realm of praxis, by
disassociating it from social reality, what then is the practical value of the theory?
After all, as Ralph Eaton asserts, the very act of theorizing is aimed at “moulding
nature to our will” and making “experiences intelligible” (1921: 2–3). It strikes me as
odd to have a moral theory divorced from people effectively rendering it a moral
theory that speaks past the people. While I agree that moral theories are in their
nature prescriptive or idealistic, this prescription need not remain mute in its
theoretical form. The ought in the moral theory is created with the aim to influence
what is. So, if the prescription of morality is mute and does not aim to improve
society, it has no value especially where it concerns social reform. It leaves one
asking why we cannot mold this moral theory to our will where it concerns the moral
devaluation of Blackwomxn?
The moral theory, while claiming to safeguard the moral worth of all persons,
does not give us the tools with which we can respond to marginalization. In truth, it
seems there is a willingness to look to Afro-personhood where it has solved social
408 L. B. Gama
problems in the African context. For example, in the South African context we have
looked to Ubuntu innumerable times to intervene in social problems to the extent
that it has informed juridical and political practice. Thus, if we can credit the moral
theory where it solves social problems, why can we not blame it where it fails to
do so? That is, the proponents of Afro-personhood seem to be simultaneously
suggesting that the theory can intervene in the social problems myself and others
have identified to the extent where they credit it for such successes. However,
Molefe and Oelefson are unwilling to blame the theory for the neglect of gendered
oppression. As such, it seems counter intuitive to state that we should not look to this
moral theory or blame it where we see inequitable and exclusionary relations. It is
their very expositions that point to the inseparability of theory and praxis, i.e., that
we need personhood in order to be treated humanely in society. For these reasons,
there seems to be a cherry picking about when we can link theory to the social. One
wonders, what is being protected here?
It seems to me that what is being protected here is the personhood of
cis-heterosexual males. If one adheres to the logic of the perfectionist model of
Afro-personhood, it follows that you are a person in so far as you treat other people
well. As such, if you fail to do so, you have failed at being person. Yet, perpetrators
of violence against Blackwomxn, which are shown to be largely cis-heterosexual
men, are not denied their personhood. There is no punishment of such acts in the
scholarship. Instead, there is a relaying of an idealistic abstract traditional African
society wherein all persons are equal. As such, non-persons, i.e., immoral cisgender
men, are protected and valued at the cost of persons. In the end, we see that cis-
heterosexual men are afforded full moral considerations despite the fact that they do
not meet the very criterion spelt out by Afro-personhood. Herein, we see a kind of
altruism extended to cis-heterosexual men, effectively empowering them to devalue
other persons. By this very theory, these non-persons disrupt the relational values
espoused by Afro-personhood yet proponents continue to evade directly engaging
this violence and/or the inadequacy of the moral theory to engage in these social
issues. Regrettably, we are left with a moral theory that is ineffective in holding
perpetrators of racialized gendered violence accountable. Therefore, what we have at
hand is policing of personhood wherein the theory is propagated despite its internal
contradictions. As such, the moral theory lacks theoretical purchase where it con-
cerns gender-related matters as they present themselves today.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I made the argument that while African personhood theories purport
to be gender neutral they are in fact gendered in pernicious ways that adversely affect
Blackwomxn. Its gendered nature is evident in the intragroup marginalization of
Blackwomxn owing to the non-recognition of their personhood. In the main, I
unearthed two subliminal gaps in African personhood theories that contribute to
the non-recognition of Blackwomxn. These gaps are the heteropatriarchal relational
norms in the theories and the subsumption of Blackwomxn in the category of race.
In the case of heteropatriarchal norms, I showed the reader that the imagined norma-
tive differences between men and women in African personhood theories bolster
asymmetrical hierarchies that render women inferior to men. The supposed gender
neutrality or, at times, the gender complementarity of the theory merely serves to
conceal these power relations with the aim to make the theory seem more egalitarian
than it is. In the case of the subsumption of women into the category of race, I
illustrated to the reader the danger of a non-intersectional understanding of race
and/or the effects of racism on Blackwomxn. That is, a response to the Western
denigration of African people that is centered around only one axis of power as race
seeks to center the experiences of cis-men thereby erasing that of Blackwomxn. All in
all, this chapter serves to motivate for the conceptual modification of Afro-personhood
theories such that they reflect the lived experiences of Blackwomxn. Moreover, such
conceptual modification should be oriented toward the radical transformation of our
society given the ethical exigency to intervene in the denigration of Blackwomxn’s
personhood. The moral theory is in serious need of an intersectional approach to
axiological analysis with a particular focus on gender. The analysis of gender and/or
gendered relations is essential in understanding and analyzing marginalization and
non-recognition toward the goal of attaining social equity.
References
Appiah, K. (2020). The Case for Capitalizing the B in Black. Available at http://www.theatlantic.
com/ideas/archive/2020/06/time-to-capitalize-blackand-white/513159/. Accessed Nov 2020.
Adeyinka, A., & Ndwapi, G. (2002). Education and morality in Africa. Pastoral Care in Education,
20, 17–23.
Arvin, E., Tuck, E., & Morril, A. (2013). Decolonizing feminism: Challenging connections between
settler colonialism and heteropatriarchy. Feminist Formations, 25(1), 8–34.
Bakare-Yusuf, B. (2004). Yorubas don’t do gender: A critical review of Oyeronke Oyewumi’s the
invention of women: Making an African sense of Western gender discourses. In S. Arnfred et al.
(Eds.), African gender scholarship: Concepts, methodologies and paradigms. CODESRIA.
Cohen, C. (1999). Marginalization: Power, identity and membership. In The boundaries of black-
ness: AIDS and the breakdown of black politics (pp. 32–77). University of Chicago Press.
Collins, P. H. (2000). Black feminist thought. Routledge.
Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity, politics and violence against
women of colour. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299.
Eaton, R. (1921). The Value of Theories. The Journal of Philosophy, 18(25), 682–690.
Eze, E.C. (2002). The Color of Reason: The Idea of Race in Kant’s anthropology in Philosophy
from Africa: A text with readings, ed. P.H. Coetzee and A.P.J. Roux, 2nd ed., 430–456.
Cape Town: Oxford University Press.
Gyekye, K. (1988). The Unexamined Life: Philosophy and the African Experience. Ghana: Ghana
University Press.
Gyekye, K. (1992). Person and Community in African Thought. In K. Gyekye & K. Wiredu (Eds.),
Person and community: Ghanaian philosophical studies (1st ed., pp. 101–122). Council for
Research in Values and Philosophy.
Gyekye, K. (1997). Tradition and Modernity: Philosophical Reflections on the African Experience.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Gyekye, K. (1998). The Unexamined Life: Philosophy and the African Experience. Ghana: Ghana
University Press.
410 L. B. Gama
Gyekye, K. (2010). African ethics. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy.
Viewed 3 December 2021, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/african-ethics/
Harris, A. (2011). Heteropatriarchy kills: Challenging gender violence in a prison nation.
Washington University Journal of Law and Policy, 37, 13–66.
Horsthemke, K. (2018). African communalism, persons, and animals. Filosofia Theoretica, 7,
60–79.
Hountondji, P.J. (1991). African Philosophy Myth and Reality in African Philosophy: The Essential
Readings, ed. Tsenay Serequeberan. New York: Paragon House, 111–131.
Ikuenobe, P. (2018). Human rights, personhood, dignity, and African communalism. Journal of
Human Rights, 17(5), 589–604.
Imafidon, E. (2013). Miss independent: Gender and independence on the African continent. The
Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 5(1), 21–30.
Imafidon, E. (2021a). Intrinsic versus earned worth in African conceptions of personhood. In
E. Imafidon (Ed.), Handbook of African philosophy and difference (pp. 239–254). Switzerland.
Imafidon, E. (2021b). African communitarian philosophy of personhood and disability: The
asymmetry of value and power in access to healthcare. International Journal of Critical
Diversity Studies, 4(1), 46–57.
Kaphagawani, D. (2004). African conceptions of a person: A critical survey. In K. Wiredu (Ed.),
Companion to African philosophy (pp. 332–442). Blackwell Publishing.
Kunz, AD. (2019). Womxn: An Evolution of Identity. Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays,
4(1), 1–10.
Lugones, M. (2007). Heterosexualism and the colonial/modern gender system. Hypatia, 22(1),
186–209.
Lugones, M. (2010). Toward a decolonial feminism. Hypatia, 25(4), 742–759.
Mailula, L. (2019). Queer Blackwomxn on the Periphery of the Rainbow. Agenda Empowering
Women for Gender Equity, 34(2), 56–61.
Manzini, N. (2018). Menkiti’s normative communitarian conception of personhood as gendered,
ableist and anti-queer. South African Journal of Philosophy, 37(1), 18–33.
Matolino, B. (2008). The concept of person in African political philosophy: An analytical and
evaluative study. Doctoral Dissertation. University of Kwazulu-Natal. Durban, viewed
27 September 2021, https://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10413/997/
Matolino._B_2008.pdf?sequence¼1&isAllowed¼y
Masolo, D. (2004). Western and African communitarianism: A comparison. In K. Wiredu (Ed.), A
companion to African philosophy (pp. 483–498). Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Masolo, D. (2010). Self and community in a changing world. Indiana University Press.
Mbembe, A. (2001). Ways of seeing: Beyond the new native. African Studies Review, 44(2), 1–14.
Menkiti, I. (1984). Person and community in traditional African thought. In R. A. Wright (Ed.),
Metz, T.(2012). Developing African Political Philosophy: Moral-Theoretic Strategies. Philosophia
Africana, 14, 61–83.
Mikkola, M. (2022). Feminist perspectives on sex and gender. The Stanford Encyclopaedia of
Philosophy. Viewed 20 December 2021, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/
Mills, C. (2002). The Racial Contract as Methodology. Philosophia Africana, 5(1), 75–99.
Mills, C. W. (2005). ‘Kant’s Untermenschen‘. In A. Valls (Ed.), Race and racism (pp. 1–34).
Cornell Cornell University Press. Cited from: https://www.decolonialitylondon.org/wp-content/
uploads/2015/08/Kants-Untermenschen.pdf
Mills, C. W. (2008). Racial liberalism. PMLA, 123(5), 1380–1397.
Molefe, M. (2017). Personhood and Rights in an African Tradition. Politikon, 1–15.
Molefe, M. (2019). An African philosophy of personhood, morality and politics. Palgrave Macmil-
lan Books.
Molefe, M. (2020). African personhood and applied ethics. African Humanities Program.
More, M.(1996). African philosophy revisited. Alternation, 3, 109–129.
Motsamai, M. (2017). Critical comments on Afro-communitarianism: the community versus
individual. Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy Culture and Religions, 6(1),
1–22
Murove, M. F. (2014). Ubuntu. Diogenes, 59(3–4), 36–37.
Nzwegu, N. (1994). Gender equality in a dual-sex system: The case of Onitsha. Canadian Journal
of Law and Jurisprudence, 2(1), 73–95.
O’Brien, M. (1981). The Politics of Reproduction. London: Routledge.
Oelofsen, R. (2018). Women and Ubuntu: Does Ubuntu condone the subordination of women? In
J. O. Chimakonam & L. du Toit (Eds.), African philosophy and the epistemic marginalization of
women (pp. 42–56). Routledge.
Oyowe, O. A. (2013). Personhood and social power in African thought. Alternation, 20(1),
203–228.
Oyowe, A., & Yurkivska, O. (2014). Can a communitarian concept of African personhood be both
relational and gender-neutral? South African Journal of Philosophy, 33(1), 85–99.
Quijano, A. (2000). Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism and Latin America. Nepantla: Views from
the South, 1(3), 533–580.
Ramose, M. B. (2002). The struggle for reason in Africa. In P. H. Coetzee (Ed.), Philosophy from
Africa (pp. 1–8). Oxford University Press.
Scott, D. (1999). Refashioning futures: Criticism after postcoloniality. Princeton University Press.
Shaw, R. (2000). A political economy of Temne techniques of secrecy and self. In I. Karp & D. A.
Masolo (Eds.), African philosophy as cultural inquiry (pp. 25–49). Indiana University Press.
Spanier, B. (1995). Biological determinism and homosexuality. NWSA Journal, 7(1), 54–71.
Tshivhase, M. (2013). Personhood: Social approval or a unique identity? Quest: An African Journal
of Philosophy, 25, 119–140.
Tshivhase, M. (2021). Personhood: Implications for moral status and uniqueness of women. In
E. Imafidon (Ed.), Handbook of African philosophy and difference (pp. 348–359). Switzerland.
Research in African Literatures, 40(1), 8–18.
An African Feminist Interrogation
of Existential Epistemology: Women
as the “Other of the Other” in (Post)Colonial
Africa
Abosede Priscilla Ipadeola
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
The Colonization of Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
The Colonial Existential Epistemology of Othering Africans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
African Women as the Other of the Other in Colonial and Contemporary Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . 420
A Feminist Deconstruction of Colonial Existential Epistemology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
Abstract
The African peoples’ colonial experience raises some fundamental existential
questions that should not be ignored. There is no doubt that the process of
decolonizing contemporary Africa is going to be difficult, if not outright impos-
sible, without addressing those existential questions. It is worth noting that in
addition to altering, distorting, and destroying part or all of the political, eco-
nomic, relational, moral, and social structures that existed before colonialism,
colonizers also imposed some existential ideals upon Africans, which have
continued to affect how many contemporary Africans perceive and define them-
selves, their continent, and other Africans too. As colonizers, they endeavored to
change the existing existential narratives and beliefs the colonized held about
themselves for centuries to give way to a new narrative. Regarding human dignity
and worth, colonialism was a system of control and dominance that relegated
Africans and other colonized peoples to the lowest ebb of human existence. There
was a common misconception that Africans were inferior to the ideal human
being or subject in their society. As a result, it became pretty easy to rationalize
A. P. Ipadeola (*)
Department of Philosophy, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria
Faculty of Philosophy and Education, Katholische Universitaet, Eichstatt-Ingolstadt,
Eischtaett, Germany

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_45
414 A. P. Ipadeola
their commodification (during the transatlantic slave trade) and dominance (dur-
ing the colonization) of Africans during this period. However, colonialism did not
give African women the existential identity of “the other,” but that of “the other of
the other.” This chapter argues that many of the problems associated with
underdevelopment, social inequality, and neocolonialism, many of which African
states have battled for decades, will remain unsolved until the existential episte-
mology which reinforces the marginalization of African women is critiqued and
deconstructed.
Keywords
Existential epistemology · African women · Colonialism · Decolonization ·
The other · The other of the other
Introduction
The continent of Africa like, and also unlike, many other continents around the globe
has a history of an admixture of the good, the bad, and the ugly. There have been
great empires, kingdoms, outstanding scientific and technological discoveries,
astounding artifacts, economic prosperity, and other laudable achievements on the
continent. However, one of the ugliest events to have taken place on the continent is
the annexation of considerable parts of Africa to empires and powers from other
parts of the world. The colonization of Africa is one of the ugliest on the continent
because for it to be established, kingdoms and communities were violently subdued,
which led to the deaths of countless Africans with some losses on the part of the
invaders too. In addition, many communities were sacked, and thousands of mon-
uments and artifacts were either destroyed or taken away from their communities of
origin out of the continent to be displayed in the houses of the super-rich and foreign
museums.
All that was destroyed or taken away from Africa was, however, not as tragic as
what was left behind. Colonialists left behind an Africa whose political, economic,
moral, relational, social, epistemic, metaphysical, religious, and domestic structures
had been significantly mangled. Significant among the fallouts of colonialism is the
distortion of what the people believe about themselves or the way they see them-
selves. Existential epistemology refers to a person or group’s belief about their
existential position or condition. When a marginalized person or group is made to
believe that their condition is adequate for their inferior nature and that they do not
deserve any better, then the warped existential epistemology serves to strengthen and
perpetuate their subjugation.
The existential epistemology of being perceived and treated as the other of the
colonizers, who were presented as ideal humans, was imposed upon Africans during
the colonial era. Partially transcending this belief, which culminated in Africans
demanding self-rule in the 1950s and 1960s of the twentieth century was, however,
not enough to liberate the continent from the strings of colonization. As evident in
An African Feminist Interrogation of Existential Epistemology: Women as. . . 415
the continent’s opprobrious overreliance on their erstwhile colonial masters, it has

since become apparent that there is more to be desired than the lame and empty
political independence given to African states in the mid-twentieth century. This
awareness gave rise to the emergence of postcolonial studies and decolonization.
Much has been written and theorized by postcolonial scholars. Meanwhile, this
chapter underscores the importance of reexamining the existential epistemology
that Africans, especially African women, inherited from colonialism.
The Colonization of Africa
Different reasons have been attributed to the decision of European powers to

colonize Africa. The most obvious, however, is the need to control more territories
for political and economic gains. In other words, the “new imperialism of the late
nineteenth century was a product of both the continuing industrial revolution and the
great power rivalry between European nations” (Maddox, 2018: 2). However,
European powers did not embark on the venture of colonization without providing
justifications for its imperativeness. One of the most popular justifications for
colonialism was the need to bring enlightenment to the primitive people living on
the continent of Africa. It was argued by some of the famous intellectuals and
adventurers that there was a moral burden on them to bring the light of civilization
to Africa. In other words, colonialism was either spoken of as an altruistic venture or
at least a win-win idea for both Europe and Africa.
The French and British colonizers especially pushed the argument that colonialism was a
civilizing mission aimed at bringing education and enlightenment. For instance, Joseph
Chamberlain who was Britain’s Secretary of State for Colonies in the 1890s referred to
colonization as “constructive imperialism” and he urged the “intervention” and “assistance”
of the British imperial government to “develop” their “great possessions in every part of the
globe” (Hodge et al., 2016: 6).
Fundamentally, therefore, colonialists made their venture look like a religious

cum moral obligation, with a tinge of legality. In other words, colonizers did not just
embark on the conquest and colonization of Africa without appealing to what they
believed were appropriate and relevant laws which were promulgated by them for
that purpose. For instance, during “the ‘Scramble for Africa’ (1870–1914) during the
age of New Imperialism, the European States and non-State actors mainly used
cession and protectorate treaties to acquire territorial sovereignty (imperium) and
property rights over land (dominium)” (Linden, 2016: 1).
However, the intrinsic motivations for colonizing Africa were economic and
political domination, expansion, exploitation, and possession. European nations
needed raw materials to drive their economies and many of the raw materials were
and are in Africa. Hence, the control began with colonization and has continued to
contemporary times because despite professing to have attained independence, the
economic relationship between Africa and Europe remains that of a trade relation
416 A. P. Ipadeola
between unequal trade partners. While bemoaning the problem of attributing African
nations’ underdevelopment to the symptoms observable on the continent rather than
the cause hidden away outside the geographical enclave of the continent of Africa,
Rodney notes that:
The whole import-export relationship between Africa and its trading partners is one of
unequal exchange and of exploitation. More far-reaching than just trade is the actual
ownership of the means of production in one country by the citizens of another. When
citizens of Europe own the land and the mines of Africa, this is the most direct way of
sucking the African continent. Under colonialism, the ownership was complete and backed
by military domination. (Rodney, 2018: 27 emphases added)
Africans could have next to no say on vital issues that affected their economic and
political lives, such as the ownership and distribution of natural resources from the
continent, how they are governed, and so on. Similarly, they could have very little input
into the curricula that formed the core of their so-called education and enlightenment.
One of the most devastating effects of colonization was requiring people who lived and
settled in communities and who had learned from a variety of experiences and
challenges to go along completely different routes to unlearn what the natural world
and experience had taught them and their ancestors, and to learn from alien cultures
that were shaped by historical and experiential circumstances that differed greatly from
their own. Therefore, since the curricula were designed by colonialists whose funda-
mental purpose was to own or exploit and dominate the colonized, the content of the
curricula was mainly to advance the cause of colonizers. Hence, a lot of things peddled
as education were toward the purpose of actualizing the original intent of colonizers.
Education – both formal and informal – was, therefore, a formidable means of
achieving the aim of controlling Africans and their natural resources. Thus, existential
epistemology became one of the cardinal furtherance/enablers of colonization.
The Colonial Existential Epistemology of Othering Africans
Existential epistemology describes the condition of justifying marginalization,

oppression, subjugation, and pain by implying or claiming that the victims’ existen-
tial realities are consistent with their nature or inferior variety. The goal of existential
epistemology is to withdraw from or deny agency to the oppressed group and make
them view and define their existence through the lens provided by their oppressors.
Sometimes, the victim is blamed for their oppression. For example, some women are
blamed for being raped and are subsequently blackmailed or threatened into
accepting their pain as a necessary outcome of their nature or for something they
have done wrong or failed to do right (e.g., dressing inappropriately or appearing
irresistibly attractive, or even for being female and thereby possessing what could
satisfy a sexually active man).
On the other hand, any attempt from the marginalized to resist or reject the
narrative imposed by existential epistemology is responded to with stiff, and
oftentimes, violent suppression. Existential epistemology creates a model of

studying, understanding, defining, and perceiving the oppressed through the lens
provided and endorsed by the oppressor. Existential epistemology, unlike existen-
tialism, does not strive to secernate existence and essence from each other. As a
matter of fact, it serves the purpose of the oppressors to conflate existence and
essence and present the distorted belief to the victim of oppression as their
necessary reality.
One of the ways by which generations of humans have managed the complexities
of the vast universe, especially this planet, which has served as their home from time
immemorial, is to categorize and differentiate based on perceived similarities and
differences. In other words, “[h]uman societies have always produced corporeal
norms, norms explicitly stating how the body should be, or ought to be like, which
though, may evolve from time to time, form the basis of normalization for persons
within such social contexts” (Imafidon, 2019: 4–5). However, when difference is
made on the basis of a person’s or group’s acceptance or the justification for treating
them as unequal, then the difference has become politicized. Sadly, bodily difference
(that is, skin color difference) was not just the basis of othering Africans under the
colonial regime. The difference was much more fundamental than the mere empir-
ical or bodily difference of skin color to have included the intellectual ideal of
existential epistemology.
Existential epistemology is a political scheme that enables a group or person
(subject) to determine not only what valid knowledge is and how it is acquired but
also to preponderantly determine who can acquire valid knowledge, as well as the
options available to “the other” in terms of knowledge production and acquisition. In
other words, oppressors and hegemons employ existential epistemology to weapon-
ize knowledge and thereby legitimately other anyone who does not fit their ideal or
description of a holder of justified knowledge or anyone whose knowledge is at
variance with their own type of knowledge, which is considered to be the standard of
the ideal. In a nutshell,
This reminds us of the attempts of the anthropologists of the ontological turn to explain
practices observed in Amazonian cultures. . . . Here we see the politics of epistemology right
in action. The othering of non-European peoples takes effect through the epistemological
criteria modern Western culture has defined and declared to be universal. Only what is
translated into theory, only what has entered the realm of abstraction, of reflection, is
recognized as valid knowledge. (Roothaan, 2019: 68)
Existential epistemology was a grand tool employed by colonialists to ground

their cause in Africa. In order to sustain the conquest of African kingdoms, empires,
and communities, which was not achieved by colonizers without some heavy prices
and losses on the sides of the colonizers but most fundamentally on the side of the
colonized, an epistemic system underlaid by the wry belief about the inferior nature
of the African was concocted. This kept colonialism going for many decades until
young African scholars and intellectuals began to challenge the assumptions. The
challenge led to agitations for independence in many parts of Africa, which in turn
418 A. P. Ipadeola
led to the exit of colonizers and a formal end to their active participation in the affairs
of African states.
Although not without occasional agitation, confrontation, and resistance, colo-
nizers were able to stay in Africa for as long as they did because of the existential
belief in the inferiority of Africans that they instilled in them. In so many ways,
Africans were made to believe that colonizers had superiority in everything: the
system of governance, military power, domestic/familial composition and arrange-
ment, cuisine, methods of hygiene, economic systems, religious belief, spirituality
and worship, medical care, educational system, history, and culture.
Hence, the white man and everything about him became the standard or ideal,
while the African man and everything about him became relegated as the other. As a
matter of fact, the belief and arguments supporting the view of the African as the
other underpins the commencement of colonization in the first place. At its incep-
tion, as mentioned earlier, colonialism was described as the means of bringing the
light of civilization to the Dark Continent and its uncivilized and barbaric
inhabitants.
Mudimbe argues that for the colonialists to commence and sustain the colonial
scheme, they had to “invent” an Africa, which was basically different from that
which was on the continent before their arrival. Without the “invention” which
shaped the policies of the colonialists and thereby engendered an Africa that could
serve the cause of colonization, colonizing Africa would have been a futile project.
According to him,
[I]t is possible to use three main keys to account for the modulations and methods repre-
sentative of colonial organization: the procedures of acquiring, distributing, and exploiting
lands in colonies; the policies of domesticating natives; and the manner of managing ancient
organizations and implementing new modes of production. Thus, three complementary
hypotheses and actions emerge: the domination of physical space, the reformation of
natives’ minds, and the integration of local economic histories into the Western perspective.
(Mudimbe, 2020: 2 emphases added)
Before the advent of colonialism, Africa was a vast continent of diverse peoples
with multifarious cultures, worldviews, ideals, ideas, historical trajectories, and
aspirations. However, colonialism created a strait jacket of false identity for Afri-
cans. The message was simple. They were perceived as the other of the subject and
were treated accordingly. The invention of a new identity was imperative to drive the
aim and objectives of colonization. in other words, colonizers constructed a binary
view of humans “with implicating and contesting discursive constructions of African
identities which have succeeded in producing generic Africanness – a nativised
Africanness – within discourses that are hostage to the ‘logic of identity’ in which
identity represents saturated and oppositional natural essences” (Ngwena, 2018: 5).
Being constantly inundated with the constructed identity of the other, which was
not just believed but also behaved and instituted, has continued to impact the minds
of many Africans even in contemporary times. One of the means of driving the
existential epistemology of seeing themselves as the other into the consciousness of
Africans was to relegate and invalidate the existing epistemic and linguistic
structures in precolonial African cultures. Talking about the dominant role which
language played, the languages of the colonizers were made the only officially
recognized languages of business, education, and entertainment in many of the
colonies. In other words, languages were taught to be hierarchical, with the lan-
guages of the colonizers at the top, while those of the colonized were commonly
referred to as vernaculars, and so were outlawed in important conversations.
This initially forced Africans to learn in silence until they became minimally
proficient in the newly adopted languages. Learning in silence, however, means
accepting, with a sense of awe and wonder, the superiority of the native speakers of
the languages. This was one of the condescending means through which Africans
were attached to the colonizers’ apron strings, such that even after colonization has
been officially ended, the attachment remains.
The imposition of colonial rule was accompanied by the imposition of a hegemonic foreign
language. Today, it is this language that provides the educated postcolonial African elites
with the much desired ‘window to the world’ at the price of continued and largely exclusive
political, cultural, and economic ties with the former colonial ‘master’ in terms of trade,
monetary standards, external telecommunications, technical and budgetary assistance, spe-
cialist training, etc. for many, however, this fact stigmatizes the ex-colonial language as a
symbol of perpetual hegemonic domination. (Wolff, 2018: 862)
To be sure, the force of the imposition of colonial language was varying

depending on the colonial power in charge. Like the colonial policy of assimilation
of the French and Portuguese empires, the imposition was absolute. However, in
other colonies controlled by the British and Belgian empires, indigenous languages
commonly referred to as vernaculars were only permitted to be used to teach lower
elementary school pupils, who had not started serious scientific studies (Adegbija,
1994: 32). This explains the reason scientific theories and research are basically done
in foreign languages even centuries after colonization has officially ended. There-
fore, even currently, “[m]any African colleges and universities maintain a staunch
commitment to the original colonial language imposed upon (their ancestors) by
their Western martinets” (Knaus & Brown II, 2018: 269).
Scholars (Olaniyan, 1995: 38–39; Augusto, 2013: 118) have argued that using
colonial languages as the officially recognized languages of education, law, gover-
nance, and every important business inadvertently affirms the imperial cultures of
the colonial powers, while it also admits the inferiority and suppression of the
cultures of colonized peoples. The problem is, however, more fundamental because
thinking and doing business exclusively and primarily in foreign colonial languages
reinforces the notion that the colonized are the other. In its state of consciousness, the
other tries to be like the subject. This is what the colonial languages have done to
Africans. The consistent relegation of the indigenous languages has produced a
generation of Africans who constantly look up to the erstwhile colonizers as ideal
humans, while they strive to be like them in the understanding and usage of their
languages as much as possible, while they neglect and relegate their own indigenous
languages (some of which have already disappeared).
420 A. P. Ipadeola
Apart from imposing the colonial languages, an imposition of the colonial system
of education is another method of wedging an existential gap between the colonizers
and the colonized. In many precolonial African societies, a person’s profession had a
different meaning in relation to their perception in society than in colonial Africa.
While idleness was preponderantly frowned upon in many traditional African
societies, there was no necessary nexus between a person’s profession and their
social status. The forms of education required to practice a profession were usually
not focused on giving a person a higher status than other people in society. The
fundamental objective of training people in different professions was to provide for
the existential needs of people and society.
However, with the introduction of “formal education” by the colonizers, the
meaning and aim of acquiring education and training changed. Some jobs and
professions were presented as more prestigious than others because they pay more
than some other less important professions and jobs. Through the introduction of
profession-based hierarchies, the existential epistemology of othering Africans
became grounded. Under colonial rule, a person’s social status was determined by
how prestigious their profession is. Doctors, engineers, and lawyers, for example,
are higher in status (and are paid much better income too) and are, therefore,
deserving of greater respect than cooks, farmers, and cleaners in social gatherings.
Existential epistemology gives the spurious hope (inauthenticity) that with more
efforts and greater achievements, the other can become more like the ideal. There-
fore, many African young people try hard to study and go into some of the
“important” professions in other to affirm or enhance their humanity. In other
words, the impression given is that one becomes more human when they have a
good job or when they go into a high-status profession. Measuring a person’s worth
through their profession is a degrading way of othering the person. This is because,
for this type of worldview, activity precedes humanity. Ranking activity above
humanity was consistent with the aim of colonization. Hence, describing Africans
as lazy and indolent helped the colonizers to justify their imposition of forced labor
on the colonized Africans. For them, productivity comes before humanity. In other
words, apart from influencing Africans’ choice of profession later in the history of
colonial Africa, at the inception of colonization, “the stereotype of the ‘lazy African
(man) . . . was frequently used as a justification for a coercive labour regime”
(Rönnbäck, 2016: 28).
Meanwhile, the worst sufferers of the othering of Africans by the colonial process
and regime were the African women. The marginalization foisted on African women
by colonialism cuts across so many aspects of their private and public lives.
African Women as the Other of the Other in Colonial

and Contemporary Africa
Colonization fundamentally deepened the chasm created by patriarchy between

African men and women. Although there were diverse roles for men and women
in precolonial African communities, this was not founded on the existential
epistemology of othering either of the sexes. Things changed, however, when

education and jobs became political tools and were weaponized as instruments of
dividing African societies to rule and subjugate them.
Apart from suffering marginalization and the existential epistemology of the other
as Africans, women also suffered because of their gender as women. Colonial
powers divided Africans along gender lines and accorded different rights and
privileges to them. Othering Africans was not just a random act from a handful of
colonial administrators. Rather, it was an institutionalized pattern and part of the
colonial strategy. This is because,
The colonial home office, as well as religious and lay sponsors, required Europeans to write
detailed daily, monthly, and annual descriptions. Though not all were published, these
documents offered missionaries and colonialists a privileged venue through which they
were able to confirm their identity as members of a ‘higher civilization.’ . . . And, for the
most part, the authors represented themselves in a rather positive light. The reason is
transparent. They had constituencies; they needed to advertise their work, satisfy their
donors, and solicit recruits and funds. (Musisi, 2002: 97)
Colonization created and validated a different pattern and/or means of earning an

income. The new method introduced by colonizers requires the kind of training that
was not as focused as that which was given to workers and professionals in
precolonial African societies. Also, the type of education introduced by the colo-
nizers was not individual-focused like the education given in precolonial Africa.
Colonial education was toward the end of each person, proving how they are better
and smarter than their fellow students, hence the rat race that it encourages.
Women and girls were grossly excluded from acquiring western education for a
long time in colonial Africa. This, therefore, inhibited their qualification for being
able to enter some professions early. To a large extent, women’s inability to take up
many prestigious and well-paying jobs and professions put a decisive gap between
men and women and reinforced the idea of African women as the other of African
men. Women were, therefore, late starters as entrants into many professions that
require cerebral smartness and scientific knowledge. This inadvertently popularized
the existential epistemology of women as the incompetent and inferior other. Many
women were, as a result, forced to rely on their men for their subsistence and to
provide basic needs. While some African societies have been able to transcend this
situation, it is unfortunate that many African societies are still trapped in this mindset
of seeing women as incompetent or not capable of taking up some jobs in the public
sector.
Coming with the Victorian era idea of the ideal family structure, colonizers
wedged a decisive division between the domestic and political spheres. While men
were given some restricted access to the public sphere, women were systemically
confined to the private sphere. In precolonial times, many African women were
famous traders who traveled far and wide to buy and sell. However, since colonial-
ism made the “white man’s jobs” the lucrative and prestigious jobs that everyone
desired, many African women were not prepared to take up the jobs, as they were
initially denied the requisite education. It was only later that things began to improve
422 A. P. Ipadeola
as more women could acquire western education. Even when a woman takes up a
paid employment, it is still preponderantly believed that her primary role is her
unpaid and unacknowledged work as a cook, cleaner, and homemaker in the
domestic sphere. Therefore, many contemporary women work full-time as profes-
sionals and simultaneously work full-time as homemakers. Therefore,
Even though in many modern African households the custom that a woman is not allowed in
the public sphere, which means she is not allowed to take up a paid employment is no longer
popular, homemaking is still believed to be a woman’s foremost and exclusive duty. For
instance, when there is a clash between her duty as a mother or wife and her career, she is in
most cases required, or expected to sacrifice the career. In many more cases, this is not the
case with men in contemporary Africa. (Ipadeola, 2023: 66)
In addition, the relegation of women as the other of the other was emphasized by
how people were appointed to political positions in colonial Africa. Contemporarily,
many political scholars and other stakeholders in African politics are worried about
the fact that there is “a significantly low level of women’s participation in politics,
(and) . . . their exclusion – or limited participation – in governance. The argument is
that despite constituting half of the world’s population, women’s presence in the
political setting is not a fair representation of their percentage in Nigeria and around
the world. Hence, women are mostly ignored when it comes to decision making”
(Agbalajobi, 2021: 28). However, the problem of low participation of women in
politics in contemporary times is sometimes not holistically analyzed by tracing it to
the impact of colonization on African politics. Colonization had a great impact on
African peoples’ ways of administering their societies and making women the other
of the other in the political sphere is one of the effects of African peoples’ colonial
experience.
In administrative and political matters, colonizers mostly involved men and
disregarded women. British and French colonizers adopted different political
methods in administering their African colonies. While the French adopted the
method of direct rule and total assimilation, the British ruled through the existing
political structures. Although the precolonial political structures in many African
societies were not founded on the principle of equal gender participation, and did not
have women on par with their male counterparts in governance, it can still be said
that women were not completely excluded from governance in most parts of Africa.
To be candid, patriarchy is a fact in precolonial Africa. However, colonialism further
pushed women (both African and Western) into oblivion in the political sphere.
In the first instance, the colonial administrators that came to Africa were mostly
men. In cases where women were permitted to accompany their husbands, it was
after the conquest had been achieved and the women were allowed to come only on
their husbands’ merit. This gave the impression women are not cut out for the
activities that take place in the public space, especially in the political realm. In
African colonies where the natives were ruled by some of their own people, women
were not considered as good enough to hold political positions by the colonizers.
Even in their struggles against colonial powers, women were grossly ignored, and
their efforts underreported. This was fundamentally borne out of the view that while
African men were generally inferior to the whites, African women were not even part
of the consideration at all as they were even less human than the men. In a way, the
African woman was perceived and defined through her body. The Platonic dichot-
omy between body and soul was employed to categorize and associate the African
woman with her body. Since there is a hierarchy between reason and body, anyone or
group associated with reason automatically assumes a higher or significant position,
while anyone or group associated with the body is relegated to the position of
inferiority. Anyone that assumes the higher position, therefore, owns the narrative,
and could even reason the body to a point of invisibility. Hence, “[a]s a site of
postcolonial hauntology, the African female body becomes a site of this ‘something-
to-be-done’ and a site of re-narrativization. As a site, the female body, and eventually
the postcolonial woman, becomes a ghostly figure” (Coly, 2019: 16). Like Oyewumi
argues, the problem of associating people with the body to subjugate them is an
age-old one in Western culture, dating to the ancient period of philosophy.
[T]he issue of gender difference is particularly interesting in regard to the history of and the
constitution of difference in European social science and thought. The lengthy history of the
embodiment of social categories is suggested by the myth fabricated by Socrates to convince
citizens of different ranks to accept whatever status was imposed on them. (Oyewumi,
1997: 5)
The original reason for embarking on colonization was to look for raw materials
for the teeming European industries and possibly expand the market for the finished
products. As stated already, however, one of the ways by which the occupation of
Africa was achieved was to associate Africans generally with inferiority because of
racial differences. For African women, the segregation covered both racial and
gender differences. Although most of the differences introduced or deepened by
colonialism have been challenged and some of them shown as having no place in
modern societies, the underlying existential epistemology that keeps the system of
subjugation running has not been considerably confronted and dealt with.
In contemporary Africa, the woman’s body has remained a domain of othering. The
relegation of African women as the other is therefore largely because their bodies are
used to define or identify them. The practice of identifying women through their
bodies is not limited to African women, as it is found in many cultures across the
planet. The problem, however, cannot be neglected if Africa is to develop. The
problem, however, cannot be neglected if Africa is to develop. For example, society
identifies a woman through her body. In order to look “slim and pretty,” she is told to
exercise. On the other hand, she is considered unattractive if she exercises too much
and becomes “muscular.” Her hair must look Caucasian to make it look attractive.
To be considered good enough as a wife or a mother, contemporary African
women undergo a variety of inconvenient procedures. While they must be attractive,
they must not be seductive. Hence the focus is always on the body of the woman, in a
way that a man’s body is not so gazed. Oyewumi (2005) argues that the body is the
realm of oppression in the West. She notes that Europeans place undue and unnec-
essary emphasis on the body, even when the reality in question is not physical,
because the body is for them a realm of power and domination. The stratification of
424 A. P. Ipadeola
the mental and palpable realms is a ploy to categorize people and justify oppression
and marginalization. Although the somatic-intellect dichotomy imposed by colo-
nialists is one of the tools of perpetuating the othering of Africans, the palpable realm
assigned to Africans is further graded and women are assigned to the lower rung.
This model of social relation has been adopted by contemporary African societies to
associate women with the body, while men are usually associated with the intellect.
The association with the body underlies the subordinate position that many
women “gladly” take in intellectual matters. Women, therefore, pay inordinate
attention to their appearance – their hair, nails, skin tone, lips, body shape, body
mass index, tummy, eyelashes, leg shape, and height – because their value is
somehow attached to how appealing these parts of the body appear. This is not to
say that men do not pay attention to their bodies. In most cases when they do, it is for
verdure or salubrity purposes rather than for aesthetics. There is a subtle compulsion
or burden placed on women to define their worth based on their looks, whereas men
are usually not so burdened. The aesthetic burden has been placed on women by
patriarchy even in precolonial Africa. In other words, the burden placed on women
to be alluring cannot entirely be blamed on the colonial experience of Africans.
However, the condition became exacerbated with the imposition of western values
by colonialism. For many women, therefore, the chase after beauty as defined for
them by the existential epistemology of otherness, is a lifetime pursuit. In other
words, the efforts put into measuring up to societal expectations in relation to beauty
and attractiveness consume many women’s time, which they could otherwise have
invested in their intellectual development.
A Feminist Deconstruction of Colonial Existential Epistemology
Existential epistemology is not just employed by the privileged to look down on or

oppress “the other” from a distance; it is rather considered effective when
the oppressed are made to know and agree that they deserve and should accept the
position of subjugation allotted to them. Therefore, in order to deconstruct the
colonial existential epistemology, which has continued to perpetuate the objective
(s) of colonization over the decades, there is an urgent need for Africans, particularly
the African women who have been made to believe that they are the other of the
other to change the dominant narrative of subjugation and to reject the existential
epistemology foisted on them by the colonialists.
For African women, the attempt to return to the pattern of gender relations before
the emergence of colonialism would not completely solve the problem of marginali-
zation. This is because, while in precolonial African societies women were not
relegated to the rear like in colonial Africa, it remains to be refuted that there was no
mild gender disparity in precolonial African families and societies. Therefore, to
effectively deconstruct the existential epistemology of colonization, contemporary
and pragmatic realities and exigencies must be prioritized. What is meant by priori-
tizing contemporary exigencies is to consider the cost of inequality to the development
of the continent of Africa and the countries that form the continent. An Africa that does
not jettison disparity is an Africa that would be trapped in the cycle of underdevelop-
ment for as long as the existential epistemology of inequality persists.
Even though colonialism’s bolstering of the perception of women as the other
was a reflection of the gender relation which was the reality of many of the
European societies of the precolonial and colonial times, contemporary
Europeans have already moved beyond relegating women as the other because
they know that this worldview contradicts building a developed society. The desire
of contemporary Africans to develop the continent must override any form of
gratification derived from subjugating about half of the population and making
them believe that this is stipulated in the traditions. The existential epistemological
outlook of women as the other in contemporary African societies has a grave
fundamental impact on the opportunities available to women and what they are
allowed to do. For example, in some places in contemporary Africa, despite the
abject poverty that makes it imperative for women to take up paid employment
offers, many women are required to remain in the home as carers and homemakers,
activities which are not considered prestigious nor rewarded. This further keeps
such women marginalized and dependent on their husbands, who are the sole
breadwinners. Demolishing the edifice of colonial existential epistemology
requires a two-level deconstruction of the colonial bequest of viewing or defining
the African woman as the other of the African man, and that of viewing or defining
the African man as the other of the European colonizers. Unless the two-level
deconstruction takes place in the mind of the contemporary African and is also
reflected in the curricula, processes, and blueprints of contemporary knowledge
production and acquisition in Africa, the desideratum of decolonization, which is
requisite for development would continue to be elusive.
To deconstruct the colonial existential epistemology in Africa, we must pay
adequate attention to how knowledge is validated in contemporary Africa’s research
institutes and academic institutions. Education is the bedrock of advancement and
civilization. Therefore, any form of knowledge production or justification process
that privileges male perspectives over females’, or which prioritizes perspectives or
narratives from the global North cannot engender decolonization for the African
continent or liberate African women from the shackles of colonial existential
epistemology. More than ever before, a new pattern of thinking that would give
Africans a new identity is required. The pattern of thinking inherited from colonial-
ism gives two differing identities, stratified along gender and class lines, to Africans.
However, to deconstruct this pattern of thinking, Africans must address their local
existential challenges without looking up to the global North, and women should
also see themselves as active contributors to the development of the African conti-
nent on political, economic, cultural, epistemic, ethical, and social issues.
In other words, for Africa to achieve decolonization and deconstruct the colonial
existential epistemology that has kept the continent in a state of underdevelopment
for centuries, there must be a strategic delinking or weaning of the epistemology of
the continent off the erstwhile colonial powers and their epistemic structure left at the
expiration of active colonial occupation. According to Mignolo,
426 A. P. Ipadeola
Delinking requires analysis of the making and remaking of the imperial and colonial
differences, and it requires visions and strategies for the implementation of border thinking
leading to the de-colonization of knowledge and being; from here new concepts of economy
and social organization (politics) will be derived. . . . Delinking means to remove the anchor
in which the ‘normalcy effect’ has been produced to hide the fact the anchor can be removed,
and the edifice crumbled. (Mignolo, 2010: 407)
In all, deconstructing colonial existential epistemology is a task that all Africans

must be interested in because achieving decolonization depends on a deliberate and
strategic deconstruction of the existential epistemology of colonization. A feminist
confrontation and deconstruction of colonial existential epistemology, therefore,
presupposes that contemporary Africans purposefully examine the epistemic struc-
ture(s) foisted on Africans by colonizers that still shape the way people understand
and treat women. All epistemic values and structures that support the subordination
of women should be rejected and done away with in order for women and the
continent to move forward. African feminism should be focused on redefining the
existential identity of the African woman. Contemporary African women and girls
should view and assert themselves as people who are equally capable of achieving
development for Africa. Women and girls should not be excluded from contributing
to the discourses on the development of the African state.
Excluding women and girls from important discourses on Africa’s development
manifests in some contemporary African societies in two ways. One is denying the
African girl child education, and the other is excluding women from politics. The
two conditions are reflecting the legacy of disparity left in the wake of colonialism.
Until the existential epistemology of gender disparity in the areas of education and
politics is successfully addressed, Africa cannot claim to have achieved
decolonization.
Conclusion
Having examined how African women became the inferior other to African men, a
status or identity which was important to realize and perpetuate the colonial objec-
tives, it is imperative for contemporary Africans, especially African feminists, and
women to confront and reject the idea. The concept of women as the other of African
men serves to preserve the existential epistemology of African men as the other of
colonizers. As long as women are viewed and treated as the other, therefore, the ideal
of colonization (and marginalization) is strengthened and this impacts Africa in
many ways.
It is, therefore, necessary to constantly examine and reexamine the ideals of
gender relations to ensure that they are devoid of the burden of inequality introduced
by the colonizers. Every existing means of defining African men and women through
the identity provided and endorsed by colonization must be firmly resisted and
rejected. Africans must redefine their identity themselves in a way that liberates
them from subjugation and marginalization imposed by the colonial definition of

African men and women’s identities. Realizing decolonization and setting contem-
porary African states on the paths of development depends on doing away with the
colonial epistemology of gender disparity and other legacies of colonialism.
References
Adegbija, E. (1994). Language attitudes in sub-Saharan Africa: A sociolinguistic overview. Mul-
tilingual Matters Limited.
Agbalajobi, D. T. (2021). Promoting gender equality in political participation: New perspectives on
Nigeria. Rowman and Littlefield.
Augusto, A. F. (2013). Assessing the introduction of the Angolan indigenous languages in the
educational system in Luanda: A language policy perspective. David Publishing Company.
Coly, A. A. (2019). Postcolonial hauntologies: African women’s discourses of the female body.
University of Nebraska Press.
Hodge, J., Hold, G., & Kopf, M. (2016). Developing Africa: Concepts and practices in twentieth-
century colonialism. Manchester University Press.
Imafidon, E. (2019). African philosophy and the otherness of albinism: White skin, black race.
Routledge.
Ipadeola, A. P. (2023). Feminist African philosophy: Women and the politics of difference.
Routledge.
Knaus, C. B., & Brown, M. C., II. (2018). The absence of indigenous African higher education:
Contextualizing whiteness, post-apartheid racism, and intentionality. In M. C. Brown II & T. E.
Dancy II (Eds.), Black colleges across the diaspora: Global perspectives on race and stratifi-
cation in postsecondary education (pp. 263–288). Emerald Publishing.
Linden, M. v d. (2016). The acquisition of Africa (1870–1914). Brill.
Maddox, G. (2018). Conquest, and resistance to colonialism in Africa. Routledge.
Mignolo, W. D. (2010). Delinking: The rhetoric of modernity, the logic of coloniality and the
grammar of decoloniality. In W. D. Mignolo & A. Escobar (Eds.), Globalization and the
decolonial option (pp. 371–410). Routledge.
Mudimbe, V. Y. (2020). The invention of Africa: Gnosis, philosophy, and the order of knowledge.
Lulu Press.
Musisi, N. (2002). The politics of perception or perception as politics? Colonial and missionary
representations of Baganda women, 1900–1945. In J. Allman, S. Geiger, & N. Musisi (Eds.),
Women in African colonial histories (pp. 95–115). Indiana University Press.
Ngwena, C. (2018). What is Africanness? Contesting nativism in race, culture and sexualities.
Pretoria University Law Press.
Olaniyan, T. (1995). Scars of conquest/marks of resistance: The invention of cultural identities in
African, African American and Caribbean drama (pp. 38–39). Oxford University Press.
Oyewumi, O. (1997). The invention of women: Making sense of western gender discourses.
University of Minnesota Press.
Oyewumi, O. (2005). Visualizing the body: Western theories and African subjects. In O. Oyewumi
(Ed.), African gender studies: A reader (pp. 3–22). Palgrave Macmillan.
Rodney, W. (2018). How Europe underdeveloped Africa. Verso.
Rönnbäck, K. (2016). Labour and living standards in pre-colonial West Africa: The case of the
Gold Coast. Routledge.
Roothaan, A. (2019). Indigenous, modern, and postcolonial relations to nature: Negotiating the
environment. Routledge.
Wolff, H. E. (2018). African socio- and applied linguistics. In T. Güldemann (Ed.), The languages
and linguistics of Africa. Walter de Gruyter GmbH.
Part VII
Philosophy and the Nonhuman
The Nonhuman in African Philosophy
Alena Rettová
Contents
Introduction: African Humanism and the Nonhuman Turn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432
The Nonhuman in African Thought: From Al-Inkishafi to Postcolonial African Texts . . . . . . . 437
Al-Inkishafi: A Nineteenth-Century Philosophical Primer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437
The World Is Worthless and Destructive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439
The World Is Impermanent and Deceptive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443
Conclusion: The Nonhuman, Language, and Genre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453
Abstract
This chapter interrogates the conceptualizations of the nonhuman in African
thought. To do this, it draws on a Swahili Sufi poem entitled Al-Inkishafi, by
Sayyid Abdallah bin Ali Bin Nassir (1720–1820). The poem presents a distinct
notion of the nonhuman as “the world,” constructed in opposition to the human
understood as fundamentally antagonistic to humanity. The world is characterized
as worthless, impermanent, deceptive, and destructive. Such a view of the world
is not isolated in African cultures, but is indeed ubiquitous in regions with a
strong influence of Sufi Islam, and even beyond these regions. Based on the
philosophical assertion about “the world” in Al-Inkishafi, the chapter then traces
the developments of this notion of “the world” in two postcolonial African texts: a
Swahili novel by Euphrase Kezilahabi, Dunia Uwanja wa Fujo (1975), and a
Wolof novel by Boubacar Boris Diop, Doomi Golo (2003). It suggests that
reading these novels against the background of Al-Inkishafi’s conceptualization
of “the world” dramatically changes their interpretation. In the case of Dunia
Uwanja wa Fujo, an intellectual continuity between Sufism, existentialism, and
socialism makes it possible to attribute the failures of socialism in Tanzania to the
A. Rettová (*)
University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany
e-mail: alena.rettova@uni-bayreuth.de

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_42
432 A. Rettová
very nature of the world. Doomi Golo presents a world where the ephemeral
nature of human existence is taken as a point of departure and where deception
belongs to the basic setup of all reality.
Keywords
Nonhuman · Al-Inkishafi · Genre(s) · Literature · Textual cultures · African
languages · (Euphrase) Kezilahabi · Boubacar Boris Diop · Swahili · Wolof
Introduction: African Humanism and the Nonhuman Turn
“I know of no African philosopher who has not argued that African philosophy is
humanistic,” states Lewis R. Gordon, and goes on to define humanism as “a value
system that places priority on the welfare, worth, and dignity of human beings”
(2008: 186). Lewis Gordon’s statement discloses the glaring absence of a “natural
philosophy” in African philosophy. Does this absence reveal a lack of interest in the
nonhuman? Indeed, the existing representations of African philosophy seem to
confirm Gordon’s observation. Gordon himself derives “African humanism” from
the ontological hierarchy inherent in African cosmologies, which places God on top,
followed by spiritual beings, ancestors, and then humans. Animals, plants, and
inanimate nature follow in rank after humans. Such a scheme is present in a number
of presentations of African philosophy, most famously Placide Tempels’ Bantu
Philosophy (1959). On the other hand, many African philosophers situate the root
of “African humanism” in social practice. This is the case of “Ubuntu,” literally
“humanity” or even “humanism.” “Ubuntu” is seen as a fundamental philosophy
common to all Africa (Ramose, 1999), even if in some cultures it may be present
under different names, such as “communitarianism” (Gyekye, 1995). Ubuntu phi-
losophy is built on two pillars, a normative understanding of humanity and a
constitutive role of community in the formation of humanity.
This chapter contests this apparent absence of a philosophy of the nonhuman. The
focus on human relations – as demonstrated in all the variants of the philosophy of
Ubuntu as well as versions of communitarianism – is, without a doubt, a key
foundational philosophical insight; this is hardly surprising, given the fact that
humans are bound to be interested in their own nature and the practical arrangements
of their own lives. This chapter, however, argues that the “humanistic” trends of
African thought are complemented by equally strong tendencies that interrogate the
nonhuman; and again, this is more than obvious: as humans, we are naturally
interested not only in that which we are, but also in that which we are not.
The interest in the nonhuman is revealed in African textual cultures, and this
chapter looks at textual traditions that portray the nonhuman as that which faces and
opposes the human; as that which is enemical to human strivings and poses a threat
to human existence. It is thus a fundamentally antagonistic understanding of the
nonhuman. In the textual traditions under examination, this broadly understood
nonhuman is generally referred to as “the world.” The intuitions of an adversarial
The Nonhuman in African Philosophy 433
world opposed to human strivings are particularly common in intellectual traditions

derived from Muslim thought, in particular Sufi Islam. Islam spread in vast swathes
of the African continent at the end of the first millennium or in the early second
millennium, and as Souleymane Bachir Diagne emphasizes, the centers of Muslim
learning such as Timbuktu, Djenné, Mopti, or Coki are source of a tradition of
“written erudition” (Diagne, 2016: 57, see also Diagne, 2018) whose presence in
African philosophical thought has so far been almost entirely overlooked. But Islam
also penetrated East Africa, where equally significant centers of learning – city states
such as Pate, Lamu, Mombasa, and many others – burgeoned along the Swahili
coast. Swahili – the name of a language nowadays – is derived from the word
meaning “the coast” in Arabic, and it originally referred to a cluster of coastal
cultures and their variants of a Bantu language.
The key source of this chapter from which I tease out a conception of the
nonhuman is a precolonial text in Swahili, Sayyid Abdallah bin Ali bin Nasir’s Al-
Inkishafi (ca. 1800). In this text, the nonhuman is conceptualized as “the world.” The
human, then, is itself defined through its opposition to the nonhuman. In such
philosophies of the nonhuman, the human is not a point of departure of philosophical
thought but a relational concept: the human is that which the nonhuman is not. In
place of the foundational emphasis on the human as the philosophical starting point,
in these philosophies the focus is thus on the nonhuman while understandings of the
human are derived from these primary intuitions. This understanding of the non-
human underpins concepts classified under epistemology (knowledge, illusion),
practical philosophy and ethics (good and evil, the meaning of life, moral behavior),
for that matter, also ontology and metaphysics (the nature of things, the larger
scheme of worldly existence, and the beyond). In other words, a full-fledged
philosophical system is present – at times formulated explicitly, at times implicit –
and built on this understanding of the nonhuman.
The story, of course, does not end with Al-Inkishafi, itself one poem in a
continuous tradition along the East African coast (Knappert, 1979; Vierke, 2016)
and one that is mirrored in very similar poems in West African Muslim scholarship
(Sylla n.d.; Seydou, 2008; Brenner, 2005; Lô, 2020). This foundational insight about
“the world,” as well as the conceptual repertoire built on it, is further operative in a
vast body of African texts of subsequent epochs, where it has been interrogated and
developed, but also applied to topical historical events and impacted understandings
of African history, politics, and generally African experience throughout centuries.
This conception of “the world,” as a “traveling figuration” (Vierke, 2016), for
instance, has been used to interpret the experience of the historical upheaval that
was the imposition of socialism in Tanzania in the late 1960s.
Contemporary African textual traditions reflect such fundamental philosophical
insights on which they are based. Here a word should be said about the method
through which the interrogation and development of these concepts in African texts
is effectuated. The processes through which African texts perpetuate, complement,
or challenge the foundational philosophical insights exposed in texts such as
Al-Inkishafi are not necessarily the theoretical, abstract articulation that is the
foundation of most of Western philosophy today; after all, nonfictional prose is but
434 A. Rettová
one textual genre among others. Traditions of thought – African postcolonial texts
being a case in question – often proceed by a narrativization of concepts: concepts
are projected in the narrative structure of a story, they are explored through the
temporal development of a narrative, they are spatialized in actual or imagined
settings and embodied in fictional characters. In other words, these intellectual
traditions use genres of what is conventionally called “literature.” This chapter
considers narrativization and fictionization as legitimate processes of philosophical
inquiry, in as much as it challenges the bias of contemporary (mainly Western or
Eurocentric) academic philosophical practice toward nonfictional prose as its sole
genre of expression (Rettová, 2021a). This preponderance is but a historical contin-
gency affecting Western philosophy and should not limit philosophers’ access to the
philosophical traditions of other cultures, which often use other genres and other
forms of articulation and projection in order to arrive at their philosophical
understandings.
In terms of theory, this chapter departs from recent articulations of the nonhuman,
present in fields of philosophy, literary, and cultural theory, such as object-oriented
ontology, animal studies, ecocritical and ecological theories, and branches of post-
humanism. Its key inspiration is the recent theorization of the “nonhuman turn” by
Richard Grusin and the researchers assembled around him. Grusin states that “the
nonhuman turn . . . is engaged in decentering the human in favor of a turn toward and
concern for the nonhuman, understood variously in terms of animals, affectivity,
bodies, organic and geophysical systems, materiality, or technologies” (Grusin,
2015: vii, emphasis added). This list of “the nonhuman” is significant: it makes
clear that the notion of the nonhuman is very wide and inclusive. Grusin also clarifies
the origins of the conceptualizations of the nonhuman: the theorists of the nonhuman
turn “argue . . . against human exceptionalism, expressed most often in the form of
conceptual or rhetorical dualisms that separate the human from the nonhuman –
variously conceived as animals, plants, organisms, climatic systems, technologies,
or ecosystems.” (Grusin, 2015: x, emphasis added). The nonhuman turn is timely in
contemporary humanities. As Grusin elaborates:
Given that almost every problem of note that we face in the twenty-first century entails
engagement with nonhumans – from climate change, drought, and famine; to biotechnology,
intellectual property, and privacy; to genocide, terrorism, and war – there seems no time
like the present to turn our future attention, resources, and energy toward the nonhuman
broadly understood. (Grusin, 2015: vii, emphasis added)
Grusin does not give a full-fledged definition of the human, and perhaps that is
precisely his objective: to demonstrate the fluidity of the human, the inability to
define it other than by speaking about the nonhuman – a procedure strikingly similar
to how Al-Inkishafi approaches the human. He does, however, mention in passing the
“traditional liberal humanist subject” (Grusin, 2015: xvii) as the human pole in the
“conceptual and rhetorical dualisms” evoked in the above quotation. Indeed, this
notion – one based on the humanism of the European Enlightenment, on thinkers
such as Descartes or Kant, to be explicit – appears to underpin his entire theorization
of the nonhuman turn. This is of course a limitation of Grusin’s work. How far is the
nonhuman turn relevant for African philosophy?
If Grusin’s orientation is clearly Eurocentric, his list of the nonhuman phenomena
contains such that are globally pressing and topical. If African philosophy wants to
be relevant in contemporary theory, the nonhuman turn is, then, a highly relevant
notion. This does not mean, however, that the pole of the human needs to be defined
in the same way as Grusin and his colleagues do, nor does this theorist’s list of the
nonhuman exhaust the categories of the nonhuman as constituted and pertinent in
African contexts. The nonhuman turn is relevant as a critique of any humanism; only
the poles of human and nonhuman will be defined differently depending on the
context. An African humanism produces specific notions of the human and the
nonhuman; and an African philosophy of the nonhuman inevitably defines its
human counterpole.
Finally, is it necessary to start from a philosophy of the nonhuman? Also African
humanisms offer conceptualizations of the nonhuman; are these not satisfactory?
Cosmological humanisms rank the nonhuman in a hierarchy, below the human; in
this way they devalue it. Ubuntu philosophy, on the other hand, is based on human
relations – relations among humans. Such relationality has, by some theorists, been
expanded to include also nonhuman others and the environment; Ramose himself
proposes an “ecology through Ubuntu” (2009). Puleng LenkaBula states that the
philosophy of Ubuntu (she uses the Sotho cognate Botho) is a philosophy that
includes a consideration of the environment:
Botho implies at minimum a sensible acknowledgement of the rights of others. It also

recognises the relevance of equality, self-respect, health, opportunities, income, wealth and
relations with the cosmos, the planets and creation. (LenkaBula 2008: 379)
The relationship to the environment is, in fact, constitutive of humanity, in as

much as community and a relationship to a deity are constitutive of it:
Sesotho/Setswana saying motho ke motho ka batho ba bangwe, motho ke motho ka boyena,

motho ke motho ka tikologo, motho ke motho ka modimo. This literally translates as ‘a
human being is a human being through other human beings, through the human self and
through the physical organic cosmic environment and through God.’ (LenkaBula 2008:
383, emphasis in bold added)
It should be noted that, in this quotation, LenkaBula translates or explains the

Sesotho word tikologo “surroundings, environment” as “physical organic cosmic
environment” – a semantic expansion or reinterpretation granted to the philosopher,
but introducing meanings (notions of the physical, the organic, the cosmic. . .) not
necessarily present in the Sesotho word itself.
Human interactions with the nonhuman are indeed based on relating to the
human. However, a philosophy of the nonhuman modeled on human-to-human
interactions is insufficient. As the nonhuman does not react in the same way as the
human – it does not “speak back” –, these interactions are of an unequal nature and
easily end up in objectifying and instrumentalizing the nonhuman. If Ubuntu has
436 A. Rettová
been criticized for giving insufficient attention to the individuality of persons, in

favor of the constitutive role of the community for individuals, this is doubly true for
the nonhuman. As a social construction of the other, Ubuntu is unable to ensure the
nonhuman upholds its autonomy and agency. Ubuntu therefore logically leads to
anthropocentrism, relating everything back to humanity, to the human center
(Horsthemke, 2015). It inevitably fails to consider the transcendence (Levinas,
1979) of the nonhuman other. A fundamentally different way of discursive con-
struction of the nonhuman appears necessary.
On the other hand, there are also good reasons to construct the nonhuman as
antagonistic to the human. This has been demonstrated during the recent Covid-19
crisis. Several African philosophers tried to articulate African responses to the
pandemic based on versions of African humanism (e.g., Ikuenobe, 2020; Diagne,
2020). They referred, respectively, to communitarian ethics and to cosmologies in
adopting and observing measures to curb the spread of the virus. But how can the
virus itself be conceptualized in such philosophies? While the communitarian
approach hardly considers the virus as a distinct entity and prioritizes human
solidarity in the management of the infection, the cosmological approach appears
particularly problematic to conceptualize the situation. If “nothing is at level zero of
life, nothing is inert; from the force of forces, which is God, to the mineral, you have
the continuity of life” (Diagne, 2020). Also, the virus is part of this continuity of life
and part of the constellation of “forces,” as Diagne says in tacit allusion to Tempels
(1959). How then can strategies be developed to combat it? How can anti-Covid
measures be justified, such as the vaccines, which are tested on (and destroy)
animals, also members of the overarching “continuity of life”? Even more poi-
gnantly, from the perspective of the planet (anthropogenic degradation of the
environment, climate change, etc.), the virus appears to work against the human
destruction of the planet and reestablish an equilibrium; how can then members of
the large Ubuntu community (humans) strive to eradicate it? Cosmological and
relational constructions of the nonhuman thus appear inadequate and there is need
of a dualistic philosophy that opposes the human to the nonhuman and helps
understand their mutual antagonism, even destruction. Can such a philosophy be
found in African philosophical thought? What foundational insight on the nonhuman
is there in African thought?
Before we proceed with the interrogation, it is important to consider what is
“African thought”? African thought is articulated in African textual cultures; and it is
these that are the source of approaches to the nonhuman in this chapter. More
specifically, it is in Afrophone (African-language) texts that intellectual continuities
and resonances can best be established: language and linguistic legacies constitute
links across centuries and across spaces. This chapter uses texts in Swahili and in
Wolof. The genres of the texts under scrutiny here are conventionally described as
“poetry” and “novels.” Various genres of poetry have traditionally been the avenues
of philosophical discourse in many African cultures; and it is the novel that has
served as the chief intellectual vehicle to negotiate African colonial and postcolonial
modernity, including its philosophical foundations (Rettová, 2016b). It is thus
impossible fully to understand philosophical thought in African postcolonial
societies without taking into consideration the discourses developed through the
medium of these genres – even if they do not fit neatly in the strict categories of
“scholarly philosophy” (Kresse, 2007: 20) or “second-order philosophy” (Oruka,
1990), themselves categories of considerable Eurocentric bias.
The Nonhuman in African Thought: From Al-Inkishafi

to Postcolonial African Texts
Al-Inkishafi: A Nineteenth-Century Philosophical Primer
While multiple categories of the nonhuman (the animal, the machine, the spirit, etc.)
are elaborated in African textual cultures, in this chapter I will concentrate on a
general notion of the nonhuman constructed in categorical opposition to the human.
To isolate this notion, I will draw on a precolonial Swahili poem called Al-Inkishafi,
authored by a Pate nobleman named Sayyid Abdallah bin Ali bin Nasir
(1720–1820). In the poem, the poetic persona dwells on the impermanence and
evanescence of earthly life and worldly pleasures and admonishes the “heart,” a
reference to the inner sphere of the human being, to withdraw itself from the world in
pursuit of religious truth. The poem thus establishes a distinction between the human
and the nonhuman: the two notions are constituted oppositionally. While the human
is reduced to the capacity to resist the nonhuman (Rettová, 2020), the discursive
construction of the nonhuman is far more elaborate. The nonhuman is referred to as
dunia or ulimwengu, “the world” (etymologically, the former is an Arabic loan word
while the other word has a Bantu origin). “The world” appears in two meanings in
the poem, (1) as historical and material settings of human existence and (2) as a
metaphysical principle on which these material conditions operate. It is this second
meaning that is particularly interesting from a philosophical point of view.
Sayyid Abdallah bin Ali bin Nassir’s Al-Inkishafi inscribes itself in the tradition
of poetic discourse along the East African coast which, in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, gave expression to Sufi trends of Islam. It is thus not an isolated
poem; on the contrary, the East African tradition of Swahili Sufi poetry was already
highly developed in the nineteenth century (Vierke, 2016). One of its trends was
poetry of religious asceticism, zuhdiyya (Abdulaziz, 1996: 421). As Sperl explains:
The zuhdiyya preaches renunciation of transient, sensual pleasures so that man’s soul may
remain pure and he may be rewarded with eternal bliss in the hereafter. . . . The world
(al-dunyā) is full of deceit (ghurūr) to which man falls victim because of his ignorance
( jahl). As a result, he goes astray (ḍall), is subject to greed (ḥirṣ) for wealth and stature, and
so humiliates himself (adhalla) by committing acts of evil (sharr). He acquires wealth
through the misery of the poor and spends his time in laughter and amusement (maraḥ,
ghibṭa). On the Day of Reckoning he will be cast into hell-fire. (Sperl, 1989: 72)
This description applies also to Al-Inkishafi. The poem captures in gist the double
nature of the world: on the one hand, the world makes up the physical environment
of human existence; on the other hand, it operates on a metaphysical principle that
438 A. Rettová
makes it into a highly unreliable place. Al-Inkishafi stands out among similar
homiletic poetic texts of its time precisely in its rich depictions of the world as
historical conditions, as a living space. The world is the context of human life,
human agency, action, and activity. In the poem, this living space is described in its
transition from wealth and luxury to ruin and decay, from human civilization and
enjoyment to wild animals (bats, owls, spiders, vultures, cockroaches. . .) inhabiting
the space. Vierke speaks of the topos of “two cities, constructed in contrasting terms”
(Vierke, 2016: 234).
The poem thus presents a fascinating phenomenology of “the world” as living
conditions, characterized as wealth and pleasure, and a corresponding phenomenol-
ogy of the self, elaborated in opposition to the world (and much less clearly defined,
cf. Rettová, 2020). The connection between the world and the self is in the concept
of death, and this concept is related to the meaning of “the world” as an operational
and organizing principle of reality. Death is a process of change and transformation,
an encroachment of the nonhuman on the human, transforming the human into the
nonhuman. Death makes humans realize that their living conditions – the context of
their lives and actions – are unreliable and changeable, if not outspokenly hostile.
Four characteristics can be derived from the meaning of the world as operational
principle, as portrayed in Al-Inkishafi. The world is
• Worthless: dunia ni jifa siikaribu/haipendi mtu ila kilabu (st. 19, the world is a
rotten carrion, do not come close to it, only dogs want it)
• Impermanent: suu ulimwengu uutakao . . . hauna dawamu hudumu nao
(st. 31, this world that you so desire does not last, and you will not last with it)
• Deceptive: dunia ina ghururi (st. 12, the world is full of deceipt)
• Destructive: suu ulimwengu bahari tesi . . . kwa kulla khasara ukhasiriye
(st. 13, this world is a raging ocean, destructive in every way) (quoted from the
edition by Mulokozi, 1999, with my own translation)
These characteristics are of course related: the world is characterized by being

impermanent and deceptive, and as a result, it is worthless and destructive; they are
therefore also valid simultaneously. These characteristics of the world as an orga-
nizing principle of reality affect the world as the conditions of life: they impose on it
a unidirectional development, from wealth to decay, from pleasure to pain – a pain
that does not finish at death but is perpetuated in the torment of Hell for those who
did not realize the risks of succumbing to the temptation of the world soon enough to
secure salvation for themselves.
We can see here that “the world,” the nonhuman is constructed in Al-Inkishafi in a
radically different way than the constructions present in African cosmologies, where
the nonhuman occupies specific ranks of the hierarchy of “forces” (Tempels, 1959),
with the human in the center, or in African communitarian approaches, like Ubuntu,
where the nonhuman exists in a network of relationships with the human. In Al-
Inkishafi, the nonhuman is constructed in opposition to the human and it stands in
strong antagonism to the human, frustrating human effort and, indeed, destroying
human possessions, even human physical existence. This antagonism is a very
important aspect of this construction of the nonhuman; as we have seen, relational or

cosmological constructions of the nonhuman struggle to explain antagonistic rela-
tionships with the nonhuman, such as when the nonhuman destroys the human
(virus, wild animals, natural catastrophes, etc.).
Another aspect of this construction of the nonhuman that needs to be noted is that
it is exceedingly common across African cultures. Al-Inkishafi is not isolated in
constructing the nonhuman in this way: not only does it rest on a rich tradition of
Swahili poetic discourse along the East African coast; it reflects, in fact, a notion of
“the world” present, if not prevalent, in most cultures in Africa that have adopted
Islam, notably many Muslim cultures in West Africa (Diagne, 2016). But the Sufi
Muslim notion of the deceptive and destructive world also resonates with Christian
notions of the world, and the duality of the hidden and the apparent, of the truth
concealed behind a deceptive surface, upholds multiple African systems of divina-
tion, manipulation of magic – in general terms, forms of spirituality. This means that
similar, more or less adversarial conceptions of the nonhuman are likely to be found
in many African cultures, and they relativize the harmonious conception of the
nonhuman developed in ramifications of Ubuntu philosophy and other communitar-
ian or cosmological systems.
It is then not surprising that the sentiments voiced in Al-Inkishafi strongly
resonate in African textual cultures. A conceptualization of “the world” derived
from Al-Inkishafi can help conceptualize and interpret salient phenomena of modern
African history and politics, such as socialism, migration, knowledge and cognitive
pluralism, war and violence. Postcolonial African writing applies the method of
narrativizing philosophical concepts, principles, and insights to reflect on these
historical and political phenomena. Intertextual continuities connect the “genre
ecologies” (Spinuzzi, 2003) of African cultures. The two case studies presented in
the following sections analyze a novel in Swahili, Dunia Uwanja wa Fujo by
Euphrase Kezilahabi, and a novel in Wolof, Doomi Golo by Boubacar Boris Diop.
Spanning Africa’s West and East, published nearly 30 years after one another, both
the novels present “the world” as a setting of human action. These qualities of “the
world” as a metaphysical principle profoundly impact human lives and determine the
outcomes of human activity. While all four characteristics apply to “the world” in
both cases, worthlessness and a destructive nature of the world are prominent in the
way “the world” is portrayed in Dunia Uwanja wa Fujo. On the other hand,
impermanence and deception are essential attributes of “the world” in Doomi Golo.
The World Is Worthless and Destructive
The influence of Sufi philosophy encapsulated in Swahili poetry of the nineteenth

century on Swahili postcolonial novelists is a direct one. These authors stand on a
long tradition of poetry voicing rejections and devaluations of “the world.” The
world is worthless, changeable, unreliable, and destructive to humans. Next to
religions poems, also “popular poetry” taps on this tradition. The famous Mombasan
poet Muyaka bin Hajji al Ghassaniy, who “brought poetry out of the mosque and into
440 A. Rettová
the market-place” (Harries, 1962: 2), characterized the world as unreliable and
unworthy:
Dunia mti mkavu, / kiumbe siulemele,

Ukaufanyia nguvu / kuudhabiti kwa ndole;
Mtiwe ni mtakavu, / mara ulikwangushile.
Usione kwenda mbele, / kurudi nyuma si kazi.
The world is a dry brittle tree; do not lean on it, you mortal creature.
Nor should you hold on to it tightly with too firm a grip.
It is made of rotten wood, and will soon drop you to the ground:
Do not be too tempted by present good fortune, misfortune may come any time.
(Lit. You may be finding yourselves moving forward now, but going back is the most
easy thing to happen).
(Muyaka bin Haji (1776–1840, in Abdulaziz, 1979: 63, transl. Abdulaziz)
Muyaka’s contemporaries, such as Ali bin Athmani from Pate, known as Ali Koti
(1820–1895) (Harries, 1964), or poets taking up his poetic legacy in the twentieth
century, such as Ahmad Nassir Juma Bhalo (1966, 1971), presented similar visions
of the world. Ultimately, these sentiments can be traced back to the Qur’an, which
states (in Swahili translation): “Na maisha ya dunia si kitu ila ni starehe ya
udanganyifu.” (“Worldly life is merely delusory enjoyment.”, Qur’an, sura
3, verse 185, Tarjuma ya Quran Tukufu kwa Kiswahili, https://www.iium.edu.my/
deed/quran/swahili/3.html, my translation).
There is also a long line of novelists, playwrights, and filmmakers who have
referred to this notion of “the world” in some of their key works. In Said Ahmed
Mohamed’s Dunia Mti Mkavu (The World Is a Dry Tree, 1980), the Sufi sentiments
of the unreliability and destructiveness of the world serve to explain the failure of a
dockers’ strike. In a secularized notion of the Sufi notion of dunia under the impact
of Marxism, the nature of dunia is to blame both for the ailments of the world
(exploitation, oppression) and for the failures of political measures, such as a strike,
to address these. The Sufi philosophy of renunciation legitimates resignation and
accounts for the ineffectiveness of means of class struggle. Obviously, this renunci-
ation of the world derived from Sufism is in tension with the Marxist aspiration to
shape reality and change the world. The same author’s Dunia Yao (Their World,
2006) alludes to the saying “dunia ni mapito, dunia si yetu” (the world is imperma-
nent, the world is not ours); this saying often figures as an inscription on kanga
cloths (wrappers used by women as clothes). The world is presented as distant and
inaccessible, alienated – “not ours.” The novel reinterprets this distancing in post-
colonial and generational categories.
Popular productions trace the flimsical nature of human relationships, in particular
marriage, to the treacherous nature of the world. Good examples are the novels Dunia
Hadaa, by Hammie Rajab (1982), Dunia Hadaa by Catherine N. M. Kisovi (2007), as
well as Lamir H. Omar’s Dunia Mashaka Makuu (2004), the video Dunia
Hadaa ¼ The Cheating World by Kassim El-Siagi, Amri Bawji, Ruwa Ali, Kassim
Mohamed, and Alex Mgaya, produced by El-Siagi Movies, GMC Wasanii Promoters
(2003), the play Dunia Hadaa by I. B. M. Mtunzi (1980), and the film Dunia Hadaa
(2020). Human relationships and human society are thus also subsumed under the term
dunia; even the community is part of the unreliable and destructive workings of “the
world.” The human is indeed reduced to the gist, the agency and capacity of resistance
to the temptation of “the world” thus understood (Rettová, 2020).
Euphrase Kezilahabi’s Dunia Uwanja wa Fujo (The world is an arena of chaos,
1975) uses the metaphysics of “the world” to criticize the Tanzanian policy of Ujamaa
(socialism, “familyhood”) (cf. Rettová, 2016a). The title of the novel introduces the
word fujo, which has an interesting history. Firstly, the title is a quotation of a Swahili
saying, where fujo refers to human effort: the world is a place where humans can
realize their ambitions. Yet, in contemporary Swahili, the word fujo means “chaos.”
For Kezilahabi, the word signals the notion of absurdity derived from the philosophy
of existentialism, which he introduced into Swahili literature (Bernarder, 1977;
Bertoncini Zúbková et al., 2009; Rettová, 2016c). The existentialist redefinition of
fujo – from “effort” to “chaos” – has dramatic consequences. The novel captures the
radical shift of meanings under Ujamaa, the change of productive work into dispos-
session and frustration at a time of historical rupture, as experienced by the characters
of the novel. With the introduction of socialism into Tanzanian society, the world
transforms itself from a place where people could achieve success and prosperity
through focus and applied effort to a stage of absurdity and chaos. The world has
become unpredictable due to Ujamaa: private property has been nationalized, innocent
people have experienced dispossession, and the forced relocation to artificially created
vijiji vya Ujamaa (socialist villages; this phenomenon is studied especially in
Kezilahabi’s subsequent novel, Gamba la Nyoka, A Snake’s Skin, Kezilahabi 1979)
has disturbed traditional values and lifestyles. These are phenomena well known from
most regions where socialism was violently introduced.
Dunia Uwanja wa Fujo demonstrates this on the life of Tumaini, a village youth
who rises to become a wealthy farmer. With the arrival of Ujamaa, however, his farm
is nationalized without compensation. Tumaini cannot bear the frustration and kills
the party functionary whom he blames for this theft of his property. The final scenes
of the novel show Tumaini in prison awaiting execution. Visited by his former
friend, Dennis, who prospers in the new regime, Tumaini complains:
“Ulisema kwamba Dunia uwanja wa fujo, kwamba kila mtu lazima atumie kichwa chake
ajitahidi, afanye kazi kwa bidii ili apate kujiendeleza. . . . Mimi nimefanya fujo hiyo:
nimeweza kuwa tajiri. Lakini sasa niko wapi?”
Dennis alikaa kimya. “Ulinidanganya Dennis,” Tumaini aliendelea.
“Sikusema uwongo,” Dennis alijibu. “Wakati huo Azimio la Arusha lilikuwa halijawa na
nguvu. Wakati huo mambo yalikuwa hivyo kwa sababu ndipo Azimio lilipokuwa likianza.
Lakini sasa mambo yamebadilika.” (Kezilahabi 1975: 187)
“You said that the world was a place to make an effort, that everyone had to use his head to
try and work assiduously in order to develop himself. . . . I made that effort: and I managed
to get rich. But where am I now?”
442 A. Rettová
Dennis was quiet. “You lied to me, Dennis,” Tumaini continued.

“I did not tell a lie,” Dennis responded. “At that time the Arusha Declaration was not yet
in force. At that time things were like that because it was the time when the Declaration was
being launched. But now things have changed.” (translation mine)
With the Arusha Declaration – the manifesto of Tanzanian socialism from 1967 –,
the rules of the game changed. Those playing by the rules lost. Tumaini bitterly
observes:
“Dennis. Sasa nitazame. Nitakufa kama ng’ombe. Nitatupwa pembeni kama gunia zee
niliwe na mchwa.”
“Lakini mwanasiasa yule alitupa fasili nzuri ya dunia uwanja wa fujo. . . .”
“Alisemaje?”
“Alisema dunia uwanja wa fujo. Lakini fujo hii ni ya kiuchumi. Lazima tuifanye kwa
pamoja, kijamaa, ndipo tutaweza kufanya fujo itakayoweza kujulikana ulimwenguni.”
(Kezilahabi 1975: 188)
“Dennis, now look at me. I will die like cattle. I will be tossed aside like an old sack to be
eaten by termites.”
“But that politician gave us a good interpretation of what it meant that the world was a
place to make effort. . . . ”
“What did he say?”
“He said the world was a place to make an effort. But that effort was economic. We must
do it together, socialistically, and then we will be able to make an effort that will be known in
the world.” (translation mine)
The change of the meanings of the traditional saying is a good example of the
“annihilation of semantics” (Glanc, 2022) that illiberal political regimes sometimes
effectuate. Meanings shift or words are emptied of meaning altogether: they become
signifiers of a reality to which they no longer refer with any measure of predictability
and stability.
With Ujamaa, the world has become unreliable, changeable, and as a result
worthless and destructive. In this world become worthless, also human action,
derived from it and situated in it, becomes worthless. Human possessions, even
human existence itself is destroyed: the human body is “thrown away like an old
sack.” In as much as people are invested in this unreliable world, they are prone to
such reduction to nothing, as Al-Inkishafi has warned us. The upheaval of Ujamaa,
where human effort was frustrated by a violent imposition of a political regime,
meant that social conditions changed from one day to another. People suffered
dispossession, frustration, and disillusionment. Uhuru – independence – became
for them not an era of freedom and fulfillment but yet another fracture of history,
ushering in a system that many failed to understand. The world became changeable
like a chameleon, constantly jeopardizing human activities and efforts. Ujamaa is the
implementation of the deceptive and changeable nature of the world.
Kezilahabi establishes a continuity of thought between Sufism and existential-
ism, on the one hand. Sufi sentiments about the world are reinterpreted according
to existentialist philosophy, using the notion of absurdity. On the other hand, there
is also a continuity between Sufism and socialism or Marxism, where the evil of the
world is linked to the class structure of society, to exploitation and oppression, and
the destructive nature of the world is manifest in the failure of political measures to
redress these social ailments. This is the case in Dunia Mti Mkavu by Said Ahmed
Mohamed, less so in Kezilahabi; in Said Ahmed Mohamed’s work the Sufi
resignation with the world resurfaces to justify the failures of socialist politics to
bring about a positive change in society, and it legitimates a withdrawal from
politics.
Postcolonial Swahili literature adopts pivotal concepts of Sufi thought, such as
dunia, but it also “quotes” earlier texts and textual forms (such as genres of poetry, as
in the “quotation” of Muyaka’s line “dunia mti mkavu” by Said Ahmed Mohamed),
topoi or “figurations” (Vierke, 2016). These become the carriers of intellectual
continuity from Sufism to existentialism and Marxism. They are present in contem-
porary African literature on the level of language (the word dunia), through generic
fracturing (quotations of poetry, cf. Rettová, 2021b), in imagery and themes. Post-
colonial literature in African languages thus stands on, elaborates, and
recontextualizes the philosophical notions and principles from its textual predeces-
sors – such continuity is often absent, less visible, or even quite impossible in
Europhone African literature; yet these notions and principles are key in reading
such contemporary texts.
We will see this very clearly in the next case study, which offers an interesting
duality of “world-views” established by translation, more precisely, by the
author’s creation of a new version of the text in another language. Reading
Dunia Uwanja wa Fujo against the background of the Sufi philosophy explicated
in Al-Inkishafi has dramatically changed its interpretation. The same phenome-
non will be observed in Boubacar Boris Diop’s Doomi Golo, where linguistic and
textual continuity with the same tradition of Sufi Islam, mediated through the
word àddina, which shares the same origin as dunia in the Arabic word dunyā
(‫)ﺩﻥﻱﺍ‬, will affect perceptions of the postcolonial situation in Africa and in
particular of migration from Senegal to the Middle East.
The World Is Impermanent and Deceptive
Doomi Golo was published in 2003 in Wolof, then as Les Petits de la guenon in 2009
in the author’s own French translation (Diop 2003, 2009; see Repinecz, 2014 for a
comparison of the two versions). In 2016, the book was published as Doomi Golo –
The Hidden Notebooks in an English translation by Vera Wülfing-Leckie and El
Hadji Moustapha Diop. This translation (used here) follows the French version.
There is also a Spanish-Wolof bilingual edition (Diop 2015), but the two texts appear
one after another and the translation by Wenceslao-Carlos Lozano is also from the
French, not from the Wolof. Referring to the translation will be significant here, as
the meanings of “the world”, present only in the original, have a major impact on the
whole interpretation of the novel.
444 A. Rettová
The themes of Doomi Golo include life and death, migration, aping and
mimicry, questions of community and family, orality and writing, communication
and translation. Structurally, the book is a highly complex composition, consisting
of “six Notebooks, different narrative strains that alternate like the movements of a
symphony” using “cinematographic techniques [that] let [the author] zoom in on
different locations, real or imagined, from this vantage point under the mango tree”
and that “give him the freedom to skip back and forth between past, present and
future, as he sees fit” (Wülfing-Leckie, 2016: viii). The six notebooks signal
toward “a mysterious seventh Notebook, The Book of Secrets” (Wülfing-Leckie,
2016: viii).
The novel was the first of Boubacar Boris Diop’s novels in Wolof. Diop adopted
the Wolof language for his literary writing following his participation in Rwanda,
écrire par devoir de mémoire, a session organized in 1998 by Nocky Djedanoum
and Maïmouna Coulibaly (Fest’Africa) to motivate African authors to write about
the Rwandan genocide. The Rwandan genocide was “un tournant dans la carrière
littéraire de Boubacar Boris Diop” (“a turning point in the literary career of
Boubacar Boris Diop”, Wane, 2004: 8), a turning point that also impacted his
linguistic choice in subsequent writing. He recognized that “language policies had
taken a not inconsiderable part in the Rwandan genocide” and “decided to distance
himself from a linguistic world that could be seen as stained with blood” (Carré,
2015: 103).
The political motivation of the linguistic choice was also linked to a philosoph-
ical view of language, in seeking an “equivalence between the mother tongue and a
feeling of inner unity, a near transparency or adequacy of the self” and “links
between languages and thoughts” (Carré, 2015: 103). Finally, the choice is moti-
vated by aesthetics. Diop elaborates that “writing in your mother tongue makes you
experience feelings . . . you would have thought absolutely impossible before . . .
The words I use to write Doomi Golo do not come from school or from a
dictionary. They come from real life. These words rise up to me from the very
distant past, and if their sound is simultaneously so familiar and so pleasing to me,
it is because I belong, with every fibre of my being, to an oral tradition.” (Diop,
2014: 117, quoted in Wülfing-Leckie, 2016: ix–x). The shift to Wolof effectuated a
shift in the mediality of the novel – in the way it adapts itself to its medium. Wane
speaks of a “roman parlé” (“oral novel”, Wane, 2004: 13). Diop confirms that the
novel “est lu en famille, à haute voix. Il a une vie tellement différente des autres”
(“is read in families, outloud. It has a completely different life from the others”,
Tervonen, 2003), and he adds: “En français, les mots n’ont pour moi aucune réalité
sonore. Ce sont des mots qui sont dans les dictionnaires, dans d’autres livres, dans
un univers froid” (“In French, the words do not have a reality for me in their
sounds. They are words that exist in dictionaries, in other books, in a universe that
is cold”, Tervonen, 2003). He affirms that: “when I compare my earlier novels to
Doomi Golo, I realize now that the words of ‘the Other’ helped me articulate as
much as they reduced me to silence or a pathetic stammer.” (Diop, 2014:
117, quoted in Wülfing-Leckie, 2016: xxv). Yet, he is also aware that he is “writing
for a future audience” (quoted in Wülfing-Leckie, 2016: xxv), in as much as

African-language literatures constitute a “littérature de transition” (“literature of
transition”, Zanganeh, 2010). Ultimately, this linguistic choice will be able to
“better articulate a thinking of [Africa’s] own, freed from the words and concepts
born of and attached to European languages” (Carré, 2015: 104).
While it is true that “local languages express with a greater accuracy the reality
that has to be described” (Carré, 2015: 110), there is another very important aspect of
Boubacar Boris Diop’s adoption of Wolof: the establishment of intertextual refer-
ences and continuities. It was the adoption of Wolof that enabled Diop to fill his
complex work with subtle, yet unambiguous references to West African culture, in
particular to Sufi mysticism present through quotations of Wolof songs and poetry.
The list of intertextual references is long, including Senegalese poet and writer
Cheikh Aliou Ndao (1933-), author of first novel in Wolof Buur Tileen (1967, transl.
to French Buur Tilleen, roi de la Médina, 1972), the famous philosopher Kocc
Barma Fall (1586–1655), proverbs, songs, Sufi poets Serigne Moussa Kâ
(1890–1926) and Serigne Mbaye Diakhaté (1875–1954), philosopher and Egyptol-
ogist Cheikh Anta Diop (1923–1986), as well as the film maker Ousmane Sembène
(1923–2007). Yet where these references depend on linguistic continuities, these
links are entirely lost in translation.
The best illustration of this is the opening passage of Doomi Golo, which
introduces the notion so important to us, that of “the world.” In fact, “the world”
is the very first word of the text:
Àddina: dund, dee.

Leneen newu fi, Badu.
Lii rekk: deman, maa ngi ñëw.
Naka laa wax loolu, daldi déggaat woykat ba:
“Àddina amul solo, ndeysaan. . .
Ku ci dee yaa ñàkk sa bakkan, ndeysaan”.
(Diop 2003: 13)
The world: life, death.

There is nothing else here, Badu.
This only: go, I am coming.
As I said this, then
I understood that poet:
“The world has no importance, pity
Those who die, lose their life, pity.” (translation mine)
“The world”, àddina, is the very first word of the novel and reappears in the two
lines from a song or a poem. The notion of “the world” derives from West African
Sufi Islam and thus shares a common origin with that of Al-Inkishafi. Also the
linguistic form is similar: its basis is the same Arabic word, becoming dunia in
Swahili and àddina in Wolof. How surprising it is, then, that the reference to “the
world” is absent in Boubacar Boris Diop’s self-translated French rendition of the
novel! The solemn opening of the Wolof original, supported by two philosophical
446 A. Rettová
lines from a poem or a song, contrasts sharply with the lengthy introduction of the
topic in the translation. The poetry lines only come on the second page of the text,
after several paragraphs introducing the “farewell ritual” of mourning the dead; the
reference to “the world” is lost. This passage needs to be quoted at full length to
demonstrate this point:
For generations, the farewell ritual in our family has remained the same: one by one, we enter
the room where the dearly departed has been laid out on a mat, and there we each say our silent
prayers for the peace of his soul. The faces are grave and the bodies solemn, as befits the
occasion. But almost without fail there will be someone – often the closest friend of the one
who has passed away – more devastated than the rest, and he will try to brighten up the
atmosphere a little. He will gently tease the deceased who thought it so clever to make a quick
getaway from our trivial worries here on earth. And he will tell him, “You are mistaken, old
chap, if you think it’s all over between you and me. I am never going to leave you in peace. I’m
already on my way, in fact, and I promise I will give you so much hell in heaven that you’ll
regret ever having gone there!” And when he implores him to keep a cozy little spot for him in
Paradise, some of the others manage to flash a quick smile, gone in an instant.
Such moments are precious, Badou.
We do need to remind ourselves from time to time that life isn’t really such a big deal,
even if we all make a huge fuss about it, this flickering little flame that the wind can snuff out
at any moment.
But don’t get me wrong: I haven’t opened the first of my seven Notebooks with these
slightly somber, doleful words to fill you with disgust for life.
It’s quite the opposite. When it comes to living life, I, for one, have never been shy.
Right now, for example, as I write these lines to you, a piece of music that was very
popular some sixty years ago is rising up in my memory. Addina amul solo ndeysaan / Ku ci
dee yaa nakk sa bakkan ndeysaan. (Diop, 2016: 4)
The word àddina appears only in the quotation of the poem; yet, this line remains
untranslated. The line is introduced as “a piece of music” that testifies to the narrator
Nguirane’s “never being shy.” Through this connection with Nguirane’s youthful
frivolity “some sixty years ago”, the Sufi resonances of the two verses are irrevoca-
bly lost, especially since the two lines are untranslated – an exoticizing element in
the translation, left without a deeper meaning. The link of the poem, through the
word àddina, with the heavy philosophical opening is erased. Also the entire
atmosphere of the piece has changed. While the author speaks of “the silence that
follows, the sudden gravity of atmosphere”, the translated version of the passage
does not allow for such silence and gravity; on the contrary, the text appears light, it
is full of words and cheerful memories.
Boubacar Boris Diop himself has commented on this precise passage as a prime
example of the difficulty of translating across two very different cultures:
Le meilleur exemple que je peux donner de la difficulté de la tâche, ce sont les trois premiers
mots du roman: « Àddina. Dund. Dee. » Quoi de plus facile à rendre en français, a priori ?
Cela donnerait: « Ici-bas. Vivre. Mourir. » Il est facile de voir que cela ne veut strictement
rien dire. Il m’a fallu près de deux pages pour donner un peu d’allure à ces trois mots si
chargés de sens et de tendresse en wolof mais complètement pétrifiés et d’une parfaite
niaiserie en français. . . . Pour faire saisir la difficulté à rendre efficacement l’ouverture de
Doomi Golo, il me faut raccorder ses sonorités à ma propre enfance. Chaque fois en effet
qu’il y a eu un décès parmi nos proches, ma mère a annoncé la nouvelle par ces trois mots
tout simples: « Àddina. Dund. Dee. » Il suffit de les prononcer devant n’importe quel
Sénégalais pour qu’il entende, comme moi-même jadis, le silence qui s’ensuit, la soudaine
gravité de l’atmosphère en cet instant où chacun semble se souvenir bien malgré lui de la
dérisoire précarité de l’existence humaine. (Diop, 2012)
The best example of the difficulty of the task that I can give is the first three words of the
novel: « Àddina. Dund. Dee. » What could be easier, a priori, than rendering these in
French? It would be: “Here below. Live. Die.” It is easy to see that this does not mean
anything. It took me nearly two pages to render somewhat acceptably these three words so
charged with meaning and tenderness in Wolof but completely fossilized and perfectly silly
in French . . . To communicate the difficulty to render effectively the opening lines of Doomi
Golo, I have to remember the sounds of my own childhood. Effectively, every time there was
a death among the close relatives, my mother announced the news through these three
simple words: : « Àddina. Dund. Dee. » It is enough to pronounced them in front of any
Senegalese person and he or she will understand, like myself back then, the silence that
follows, the sudden gravity of the atmosphere in this moment when every one seems to be
reminded even in spite of him or herself of the derisory precariousness of human existence.
(My translation.)
This is the effect of having to translate between two entirely different mental
words:
Lorsque l’on traduit de l’italien vers l’espagnol ou du bambara vers le pulaar, on est dans le
même univers sonore et les codes culturels peuvent se faire harmonieusement écho. Dans ce
cas-ci, je devais me débrouiller pour faire correspondre deux univers mentaux radicalement
différents, les univers pris en charge par les langues wolof et française. (Diop, 2012, quoted
in Carré, 2015)
If you translate from Italian to Spanish or from Bambara to Fulfulde, you are in the same
sound universe and the cultural codes echo one another harmoniously. In this case, I had to
establish correspondences between two mental worlds that are radically different, the
worlds as portrayed by the Wolof and the French language. (My translation)
The distance created by translation has made invisible the intellectual continuities
between Doomi Golo and the Sufi Muslim universe – precisely those intertextual
references and continuities that could be established with the author’s adoption of
Wolof for writing. While the Wolof version presents a development of the philoso-
phy of the nonhuman understood as “the world”, this philosophical layer of the story
of Nguirane and his grandson is absent in the French or English versions. In is only
in Wolof that the readers find themselves in a world of impermanence and passing –
the same universe we witnessed in Al-Inkishafi. Yet, this philosophical level is
significant for the storyline of Doomi Golo, for it is a world where human relations
are torn and where people and values are lost. It is the qualities of àddina that
configure what happens to the characters. The world is like that and the grandfather
is accepting of this nature of the world. The grandson is lost to the grandfather
(through migration to the Middle East for work), the son is lost to the father (through
448 A. Rettová
death), and the book also interrogates how personal and cultural identities are lost on
account of history and politics.
But an even more important element of àddina is the characteristic of deception.
Indeed, this reference explains the prominent thematic line of mirroring and aping in
the novel. In Sufi thought, the world’s deception gives rise to a pervasive duality
between apparent reality and hidden true reality. Jan Knappert explains the concep-
tual opposition, using Swahili words derived from Arabic:
BATINI – “Interior, esoteric.” Every word of the Qur’ān, and indeed every creation of God
has a double significance; one is its outer appearance (dhahiri), the other is the interior or
hidden meaning, disclosed only to a few philosophers and mystics whose long hours of
meditation have brought them closer to the secrets of the Omniscient. They are able to see
every creature as an expression of divine beauty and goodness. . . .
DHAHIRI – “apparent”. The word dhahiri denotes the opposite of batini; dhahiri is the
exterior of things and people, their outer form, which is perishable and therefore deceptive.
(Knappert, 1970: 69–70)
This opposition has been very productive in Swahili literature. Tanzanian writer
William Mkufya develops an entire philosophy of udhahiri, identified with Marxist
materialism (with European, Asian and African variants), which is professed by
souls of materialist thinkers in Hell (Mkufya, 1999, see also Rettová, 2007a). The
same duality is – again with the same Arabic loanwords – also present in Wolof
language, as saaxir and baatin (cf. Minerba, 2022), and it is indeed operative in the
understanding of “the world” in Wolof culture and literature. In Doomi Golo, the
dimension of deception is present in the “obsessive metaphor” (Ngom, 2013) of
mirror, and aping is present in the very title, Doomi Golo, which refers to “a
monkey’s young.” Monkeys appear in several incarnations and species – baboons,
gorillas, but also humans – in the novel.
Mirroring and aping are concepts that appear to have clear meanings, and a
reading of the mirror and monkey metaphors as referring to mimicry as theorized
in postcolonial theory (Bhabha, 1994) lies at hand (Wülfing-Leckie, 2016). Yet, also
here, the setting of the novel in àddina provides a deeper philosophical level to
the book: it dramatically changes the understanding of reality and of its enunciation.
Deception and the duality of layers – the apparent and the hidden – makes up the
basic setup of the world in Sufi philosophy. The seventh notebook, the “Book of
Secrets”, is thus not only secret; as it is secret and hidden, it has an intrinsic
relationship to the baatin dimension of reality, that is, to truth. On the other hand,
that which has been exposed in Nguirane’s six notebooks is saaxir, it is the narrating
of mere appearences. It is inherently unreliable and deceptive, entertaining but not
necessarily expressive of truth.
The philosophical univers sonore of Wolof culture and language thus gives quite
another meaning to the events described in the book than they assume in the
Europhone translations. Even more, it configures quite differently the entire rela-
tionship of the text to truth.
Conclusion: The Nonhuman, Language, and Genre
This White Supremacy in Eurocentric Epistemology takes a precolonial text in an

African language as a primary theoretical orientation and organization of material.
Through narrativizations, it applies this theorization to salient phenomena of recent
African history and to philosophy. In interrogating the nature of the nonhuman in a
precolonial Swahili poem, Al-Inkishafi, the chapter works out a conceptual frame-
work and terminology to the nonhuman as “the world.” It then goes on to analyze the
narrativizations of this philosophical concept in postcolonial novels in African
languages. It is African textual cultures, including novelistic writing, that connect
the foundational philosophical insights to recent African history and politics. The
foundational theorization of “the world” provides the basic concepts for understand-
ing recent or contemporary African realities in that the philosophical concepts
derived from Al-Inkishafi are narrativized through novelistic writing, and through
that, contribute to a philosophical, political, and historical understanding of the
African continent.
In distinction to Al-Inkishafi, which establishes “the world” as a prominent theme,
the two novels rather establish “the world” as setting – the setting in which their plots
unfold and their characters act. “The setting” is a narrative technique of the novel as a
genre, next to narrative techniques such as the use of characters, emplotment
(arranging of events into a plot), narrative voice, etc. What is specific about the
setting, in distinction to the plot or the characters, is that it is an essentially
non-objective form of representation: this representation thus avoids objectifying
“the world”; such an objectification, in its turn, represents it as an object of thought
and of discussion. A non-objective representation is the only adequate way to
represent “the world”, because “the world as a whole is not an object and any
attempt to comprehend it as an object (and that precisely means an attempt to
model it in thought as an object of intention) is false” (Hejdánek, 1994, my
translation). “The world” is one of the “non-objective realities”, next to freedom,
truth, the self/the subject, the whole (unity), nature (physis), or logos (Hejdánek,
1997). The passages I cited in this chapter are of course exceptions; they recenter
attention on the setting, on “the world” and philosophize about it, therefore they
make it into a “noema” in the Husserlian sense, that is, the object of consciousness
(of intentional experience, see Husserl, 1977). But generally the two novels regard
the plot, the characters, other themes. “The world” as setting is not kept in focus, nor
does it act or narrate. It is the horizon of the plot and the actions of the characters – a
horizon that, however, exercises great power as it determines the meanings of the
actions of the characters and the episodes of the plot, and it contextualizes the
thought and pragmatic behavior of the characters.
Coming back to Lewis Gordon’s statement, cited in the Introduction, about the
pervasiveness of humanism in African philosophy, do the three texts considered in
this chapter advocate a “nonhumanist” philosophy, that is, a philosophy that is not
only not humanist but that expressly conceptualizes the nonhuman? While Al-
Inkishafi, in conformity with the conventions of homiletic poetry, thematizes “the
world” and could be rightly called an exposition of such a nonhumanist philosophy,
450 A. Rettová
the novels present the nonhuman – “the world”– in a non-objective manner as

setting. This representation of “the world” thus profits from the specific setup of a
narrative genre – the novel – to achieve a non-objective manner of developing a
philosophical concept, that of “the world.” The nonhuman is not in focus, not the
object (theme) of the narrative, yet it is a key factor in understanding and interpreting
the novels, as it configures the meanings of events (in narrative terms, plot), behavior
(characters) and words (dialogue, style). The nonhuman is then central as the
semiotic axis of the narrative.
To recapitulate, this chapter raises the importance of the notion of “the non-
human“, which has so far been marginalized in African philosophy in favor of forms
of humanism, or it has been developed from within those humanisms rather than as
an independent category. It further highlights the importance of formal determinants
of African philosophy, such as language and genre, in order to facilitate an under-
standing of the contribution of Afrophone philosophical discourses and debates to
the field of African philosophy. To these notions, I would like to add several remarks
that point beyond this chapter, but contextualize it within broader debates in African
philosophy:
(1) Language. It has been demonstrated that the intellectual, indeed, philosophical
continuity between precolonial and postcolonial, historical and contemporary
thought is hidden or erased in translation: the loss of the language leads to the
loss of the conceptual framework. Boubacar Boris Diop’s Doomi Golo demon-
strates this very clearly; the entire notion of àddina is either left out or left
untranslated in the French or English versions of the novel. With it, the aware-
ness of the setting of the events in the novel in “the world” is lost, with the
specific understanding of “the world” as elaborated in this chapter. This means
that language is a pivotal factor of philosophical understanding and that the
exclusive reliance of the field of African philosophy on languages of European
origin (cf. Rettová, 2002, 2007a) is deeply problematic.
The question of language is particularly important for the theme of the
nonhuman, and I would like to allude here to the very interesting discussion
about ontology. The focus on the nonhuman, of course, is related to what was
called “natural philosophy“in Europe. Pre-Socratic Greek philosophers were
intent on natural philosophy, the focus then resurfaced in Renaissance and the
Enlightenment with the boom of natural science. The roots of “natural philoso-
phy” lie in the question of “being”: what is it that connects all realities
around us? The fact that they are something, they are somewhere, and they
are in some ways. This orientation toward “being” has been compellingly
challenged both by linguists, such as Émile Benveniste (1971), and by African
philosophers such as Alexis Kagame (1955), Paulin Hountondji (1982), and
Souleymane Bachir Diagne (2021), who point out that this questioning derives
from the structure of Indo-European languages, more specifically Ancient
Greek, Latin, English or French. It is also only possible in these languages, as
the verb “to be” has a variety of uses there: from the copula to locative or
existential meanings. Non-Indo-European languages show a dramatically
different situation as they may have specific verbs for the ways in which persons
and objects are characterized and function in their surroundings. In a language in
which a person teaches or walks, but never is a teacher or a pedestrian, a table
“hards”, stands in a room, but never is a table, never is hard and never is in a
room, and a tree “talls” or blooms, but never is a tree, never is tall and never is in
bloom, there is no common quality or activity that connects these persons and
objects. It is in fact absurd to assume that all these qualities and activities should
be brought to something common to them, such as “being.” This questioning of
the notion of “being” leads to a questioning of the notion of “ontology”, and this
is of course particularly pertinent in the questioning of the nonhuman, which is
generally accessed precisely through the notion of “ontology” in Western schol-
arship, with “object-oriented ontology“being the most recent offshoot of this
theorization. A radical questioning of “being” will undoubtedly lead to another
conceptualization of the nonhuman, and African philosophy has a clear headstart
in this interrogation. This chapter has shown how the nonhuman manifests in
texts relatively uninfluenced by “ontology” and by Western “natural science”,
informed by ontology, such as Al-Inkishafi, and it has also shown how that
departure point provides us with quite a different conceptual inventory to then
interpret how the nonhuman is viewed in contemporary African novels.
(2) Genre. In this chapter, the texts that critically analyze contemporary phenomena
of African history and that provide some of the most incisive insights into these
are not academic treatises or essays, in one word, nonfictional prose. It is poetry,
then again poetry of several genres that in the emic understanding may fall into
multiple categories that cannot meaningfully be subsumed under the umbrella
term “poetry”, that has voiced philosophical concerns in both Swahili and West
African Muslim cultures for centuries (cf. Kresse, 2007; Rettová, 2010) and it is
the novel that gives voice to African modernity (Rettová, 2016b). What is called
African literature, and in particular literature in African languages, thus becomes
a major resource and articulation of African philosophy. For the precolonial era,
it is the only available resource, as the field defines itself as an academic
discipline only after 1945 (Masolo, 1994). The academic discourse on African
philosophy remains a relatively elitist undertaking. By contrast, the varied
philosophical concerns of African cultures are present in existing discourses in
those cultures. It is then necessary to interrogate a wider spectrum of “African
texts”, including “literature“, discussions on the internet, media broadcasts, etc.
to examine their contribution to African philosophy and work with a much wider
perspective on what philosophical thought really is in Africa, in the conti-
nent’s cultural diversity and multiplicity (Rettová, 2021a).
(3) The nonhuman. The nonhuman has been debated in this chapter in only one
meaning, “the nonhuman as such”, “the world.” Moreover, the discussion has
been limited to notions of “the world” strongly influenced by Muslim thought,
dunia (in Dunia Uwanja wa Fujo) and àddina (in Doomi Golo), hence quite
close to the departure point, “the world” (dunia) in Al-Inkishafi.
A broader interrogation of the concept of “the world” in African texts points
to a more diversified spectrum of meanings. First of all, notions of “the world”
452 A. Rettová
can be influenced by other monotheistic religions, typically Christianity, by

contemporary European thought, and by local religious, cultural and philosoph-
ical thought. For instance, the notions of “the world” in Lingala migration
novels, mokili or mikili in the plural (“worlds”), refer to the worlds and knowl-
edges in a multicultural or global setting (Rettová, 2012). The notion of umhlaba
in Ndebele war and genocide novels (Rettová, 2016a) merges an understanding
of “the world” as historical and material conditions with a philosophy of history
as periodical change of “worlds”, as specific configurations of such conditions,
and of wars and violence, as ruptures leading to a reconfiguration of these
conditions on another foundation (Kahari, 1997; Rettová, 2007b).
Secondly, there is not only “the nonhuman“, but also “nonhumans“, and African
texts provide a vast range of such “significant nonhuman others” (cf. Oduor, 2012):
the animal; the machine; the spirit. Here the contribution of the genre becomes
particularly relevant. It shows the textual, narrative, and broadly stylistic strategies
and means that can be used to represent the nonhuman (Herman, 2018) or the role of
digital textuality in an understanding of “the machine” as a nonhuman producer of
information (Hayles, 1999).
Finally, certain forms of the nonhuman constitute what could be called “genres of
reality”: they are game-changers of how humans perceive reality and behave in it,
they suspend habitual conditions and open the field for a reconfiguration of human
understanding of reality. Such phenomena include the pandemic, the climate crisis,
the war, or the apocalypse. Some of these are, furthermore, “entanglements” between
the human and the nonhuman. They challenge habitual distinctions between the two:
is war human or nonhuman? Is a pandemic a medical problem or a social one? Is the
diseased body, or indeed the body as such, human or nonhuman, and why?
Kezilahabi’s understanding of “chaos” changed drastically in his novelistic
writing following the “realist” phase of Dunia Uwanja wa Fujo. Kezilahabi devel-
oped another notion of “chaos” in his last novels, Nagona (proper name,
Kezilahabi 1990) and Mzingile (Labyrinth, Kezilahabi 1991). He adopted the
Fanonian concept of violence (Fanon, 2004) in his doctoral thesis African Philoso-
phy and the Problem of Literary Interpretation (1985), where he went on to apply it
to African philosophy, in advocating for “a destructive rather than a deconstructive
stand vis-à-vis the Western philosophy of value and representation” (Kezilahabi
1985: 4, see Rettová, 2018). In Nagona, he applies this understanding of violence to
the notion of “chaos”, which he now expresses through the word vurumai; it
contrasts sharply with the “chaos” of fujo in Kezilahabi’s earlier writings. While
fujo is chaos full of confusion and frustration, absurdity, meaninglessness, the
impossibility of agency, by contrast the chaos of vurumai is man-made, active and
productive chaos. This chaos caused by human violence leads to an apocalypse in
Nagona, but at the same time this very apocalypse is a new opportunity for human
agency in the novel’s sequel, Mzingile (1991). Kezilahabi thus makes a full circle: by
embracing the destructive nature of the universe (dunia), he reinserts this destruction
within the human through the notion of violence and employs violence to achieve an
apocalypse, a destruction of the universe. It is in this clearing that a new humanity

takes up agency again and builds a new African philosophy (Rettová, 2004).
References
Abdulaziz, M. H. (1979). Muyaka: 19th century Swahili popular poetry. Kenya Literature Bureau.
Abdulaziz, M. H. (1996). The influence of the Qasida on the development of Swahili Rhymed and
metred verse. In S. Sperl & C. Shackle (Eds.), Qasida poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa
(Vol. One: Classical traditions and modern meanings, pp. 411–428). Brill.
Benveniste, E. (1971) [1966]. Problems in general linguistics (Trans. Mary Elizabeth Meek).
University of Miami Press. [Translated from Problèmes de linguistique générale, 1. Paris:
Editions Gallimard.]
Bernarder, L. (1977). Ezekiel (sic!) Kezilahabi – Narrator of modern Tanzania. Lugha, 1, 46–50.
Bertoncini Zúbková, E., Gromov, M. D., Khamis, S. A. M., & Wamitila, K. W. (2009) [1989].
Outline of Swahili literature. Prose fiction and drama. Second edition, extensively revised and
enlarged. E. J. Brill.
Bhabha, H. K. (1994). The location of culture. London & New York: Routledge.
Brenner, L. (2005 [1983]). West African Sufi. The religious heritage and spiritual search of Cerno
Bokar Saalif Taal. C. Hurst and.
Carré, N. (2015). Between mother tongue and ‘ceremonial tongue’: Boubacar Boris Diop and the
selftranslation of Doomi Golo. International Journal of Francophone Studies, Intellect. Multi-
lingual Francophone African Identities, 18(1), 101–114.
Diagne, S. B. (2016). The ink of the scholars: Reflections on philosophy in Africa. CODESRIA.
Diagne, S. B. (2020). Africa, African studies & Covid 19. Lecture delivered at the University of
Bayreuth, Cluster of Excellence EXC 2052 Africa Multiple: Reconfiguring African Studies.
https://www.africamultiple.uni-bayreuth.de/en/Important-Dates/2020-10-28_Africa_-African-
Studies-_-Covid-19/index.html
Diagne, S. B. (2021). Philosophy and African languages. Keynote lecture delivered at UCLA
African Studies Center African Philosophies Conference, 17–19 February 2021.
Diop, B. B. (2003). Doomi Golo. Nettali. Editions Papyrus Afrique.
Diop, B. B. (2009). Les Petits de la guenon. Philippe Rey.
Diop, B. B. (2012). Ecrire entre deux langues. De Doomi Golo aux Petits de la Guenon. Repères-DoRiF
2, November 2012, Voix/voies excentriques: la langue française face à l’altérité, n.p. https://www.
dorif.it/reperes/category/2-voix-voies-excentriques-la-langue-francaise-face-a-lalterite-volet-n-1-
novembre-2012-les-francophonies-et-francographies-africaines-face-a-la-reference-culturelle-
francaise/.
Diop, B. B. (2014). Africa beyond the mirror (Trans. Vera Wülfing-Leckie and Caroline Beschea-
Fache). Ayebia Clarke Publishing.
Diop, B. B. (2015). El libro de los secretos. Bilingual Spanish-Wolof edition. Spanish transl.
Wenceslao-Carlos Lozano. 2709 Books.
Diop, B. B. (2016). Doomi Golo. The hidden notebooks (Trans. Vera Wülfing-Leckie and El Hadji
Moustapha Diop). Michigan State University Press.
Fanon, F. (2004). On Violence. In The wretched of the earth (Trans. Richard Philcox) (pp. 1–62).
Grove Press.
Glanc, T. (2022). O co jde Vladimiru Putinovi? O ideologii současného ruského režimu s Tomášem
Glancem. Streamed live on 11 Mar 2022. A2larm @ YouTube https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v¼m3epzUzhl6A
Gordon, L. R. (2008). An introduction to Africana philosophy. Cambridge University Press.
Grusin, R. (Ed.). (2015). The nonhuman turn. University of Minnesota Press.
Gyekye, K. (1995 [1987]). An essay on African philosophical thought. The Akan conceptual
scheme. Temple University Press.
454 A. Rettová
Harries, L. (Ed.). (1962). Swahili poetry. Clarendon Press.

Harries, L. (1964). Dunia imezunguka. Mashairi ya Sh. Ali Koti. Yamehaririwa na Lyndon Harries.
Swahili, 34(2), 56–59.
Hayles, N. K. (1999). How we became Posthuman: Virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature, and
informatics. University of Chicago Press.
Hejdánek, L. (1994). Nepředmětnost ve skutečnosti a v myšlení. Vesmír, 73, 383. Published lecture,
originally delivered at the constitutive assembly of the Learned Society of The Czech Republic,
Carolinum, Prague, 10 May 1994.
Hejdánek, L. (1997). Nepředmětnost v myšlení a ve skutečnosti. OIKOYMENH.
Herman, D. (2018). Narratology beyond the human: Storytelling and animal life. Oxford Univer-
sity Press.
Horsthemke, K. (2015). Animals and African ethics. Palgrave Macmillan.
Hountondji, P. J. (1982). Langues africaines et philosophie: L’hypothèse relativiste. Les Études
Philosophiques, 4, 392–406.
Husserl, E. (1977). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie.
Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie. Edmund Husserl —
Gesammelte Werke, Band 3-1. Springer Netherlands.
Ikuenobe, P. (2020). African philosophy and the building of resilience and hope during a global
pandemic. Lecture at World Philosophies Day, SOAS, 19 November 2020. https://www.soas.ac.
uk/news/newsitem150714.html.
Kagame, A. (1955). La philosophie bantu-rwandaise de l’Être. Mémoires in-8 de l’Académie
royale des Sciences coloniales. Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana.
Kahari, G. (1997 (1990)). The rise of the Shona novel. A study in development, 1890–1984. Mambo
Press.
Kezilahabi, E. (1975). Dunia uwanja wa fujo. East African Literature Bureau.
Kezilahabi, E. (1979). Gamba la Nyoka. Eastern Africa Publications.
Kezilahabi, E. (1985). African philosophy and the problem of literary interpretation [Unpublished
Ph.D. dissertation]. University of Wisconsin (Madison).
Kezilahabi, E. (1990). Nagona. Dar es Salaam University Press.
Kezilahabi, E. (1991). Mzingile. Dar es Salaam University Press.
Knappert, J. (1970). Swahili religious terms. Journal of Religion in Africa, 3, 67–80.
Knappert, J. (1979). Four centuries of Swahili verse. A literary history and anthology. London &
Nairobi, Heinemann. (Reprint London: Darf, 1988).
Kresse, K. (2007). Philosophising in Mombasa: Knowledge, Islam and intellectual practice on the
Swahili coast. Edinburgh University Press for the International African Institute.
Levinas, E. (1979 [1961]). Totality and infinity. An essay on exteriority. Martinus Nijhoff
Publishers.
Lô, M. (2020). Un Aspect de la poésie « wolofal » mouride. L’éducation morale et spirituelle de
l’aspirant (al murid) dans la production de Sëriñ Mbay Jaxate. L’Harmattan-Sénégal.
Masolo, D. A. (1994). African philosophy in search of identity. Indiana University Press.
Minerba, E. (2022). It’s not just Wolof, it’s wolofal. The fabrication of a new genre. Presentation at
the PhiGe Workshop, University of Bayreuth.
Mkufya, W. E. (1999). Ziraili na Zirani. Hekima Publishers.
Mohamed, S. A. (1980). Dunia Mti Mkavu. Longman Kenya Ltd.
Mohamed, S. A. (2006). Dunia Yao. Oxford University Press.
Mulokozi, M. M. (1999). Tenzi tatu za kale (Fumo Liyongo, Al-Inkishafi, Mwanakupona). TUKI.
Nassir Juma Bhalo, A. (1966). Poems from Kenya. Gnomic verses in Swahili (Ahmad Nassir bin
Juma Bhalo, Ed. & Lyndon Harries, Trans.). University of Wisconsin Press.
Nassir Juma Bhalo, A. (1971). Malenga wa Mvita. Diwani ya Ustadh Bhalo. Imehaririwa na
Shihabuddin Chiraghdin. Nairobi et al.: Oxford University Press.
Ngom, O. (2013). Métaphores obsédantes du seetu et reflets identitaires dans Doomi Golo et
L’Afrique au-delà du miroir de Boubacar Boris Diop. Langues et Littératures (revue du Groupe
d’Études Linguistiques et Littéraires, Université Gaston Berger de Saint-Louis, Sénégal) 17,

121–136.
Oduor, R. M. J. (2012). Interview: African philosophy, and non-human animals. University of
Nairobi’s Reginald M. J. Oduor talks to Anteneh Roba and Rainer Ebert. Online https://
rainerebert.com/2012/05/17/interview-african-philosophy-and-non-human-animals/.
Oruka, H. O. (Ed.). (1990). Sage philosophy. Indigenous thinkers and modern debate on African
philosophy. E. J. Brill.
Qur’an, sura 3, verse 185, Tarjuma ya Quran Tukufu kwa Kiswahili, https://www.iium.edu.my/
deed/quran/swahili/3.html
Ramose, M. B. (2009). Ecology through Ubuntu. In M. F. Murove (Ed.), African ethics. An
anthology of comparative and applied ethics (pp. 308–314). University of KwaZulu-Natal
Press.
Repinecz, J. (2014). The tales of tomorrow: Towards a futurist vision of Wolof tradition. Journal of
African Cultural Studies, 1–15.
Rettová, A. (2002). The role of African languages in African philosophy. In J.-G. Bidima (Ed.),
Special issue of Rue Descartes 36 Philosophies africaines: traversées des expériences
(pp. 129–150).
Rettová, A. (2004). Afrophone philosophies: Possibilities and practice. The reflexion of philosoph-
ical influences in Euphrase Kezilahabi’s Nagona and Mzingile. Swahili Forum, 11, 45–68.
Rettová, A. (2007a). Afrophone philosophies: Reality and challenge. Zdeněk Susa.
Rettová, A. (2007b). Inkos’ uLobengula yasinyamalala: The attitude to tradition in Ndebele
theoretical writing. In M. Malaba & G. Davis (Eds.), Zimbabwean transitions. Essays on
Zimbabwean literature in English, Ndebele, and Shona (pp. 53–76). Rodopi.
Rettová, A. (2010). Philosophy in utenzi metre. Expression of ideas and values in post-
independence Swahili historiographic poetry. Swahili Forum, 17, 34–57.
Rettová, A. (2012). ‘They see him, but they don’t recognize him because of his striking attire’:
Africa’s changing identities and the Lingala novel. In V. Fiala (Ed.), Multiple identities in post-
colonial Africa (pp. 191–202). Publishing House Moneta-FM.
Rettová, A. (2016a). Time as myth, time as history in Afrophone novels on Ujamaa (Tanzanian
socialism) and the second Chimurenga/Umvukela (Zimbabwean liberation war). Comparative
Literature, 68(4), 389–407. https://doi.org/10.1215/00104124-3698477
Rettová, A. (2016b). Novel in African languages. In S. Gikandi (Ed.), Oxford history of the novel in
English, volume 11: The novel in Africa and the Caribbean since 1950 (pp. 71–86). Oxford
University Press.
Rettová, A. (2016c). Existentialism and Swahili literature. In R. M. Beck & K. Kresse (Eds.),
Abdilatif Abdalla: Poet in politics (pp. 109–122). Mkuki na Nyota Publishers.
Rettová, A. (2018). Translation as destruction: Kezilahabi’s adaptation of Heidegger’s ‘Being’.
Special issue of Bulletin of SOAS 81.3, Translating African Thought and Literature, ed. Pierre-
Philippe Fraiture, pp. 439–457.
Rettová, A. (2020). ‘Moyo wangu, nini huzundukani?’: Self and attention in Sayyid Abdallah bin
Ali bin Nasir’s Al-Inkishafi. Journal of World Philosophies, 5(2), 28–42. Retrieved from https://
scholarworks.iu.edu/iupjournals/index.php/jwp/article/view/4044
Rettová, A. (2021a). Philosophy and genre: African philosophy in texts. In A. Kasanda &
M. Hrubec (Eds.), Africa in a multilateral world: Afropolitan dilemmas (pp. 203–228).
Routledge.
Rettová, A. (2021b). Generic fracturing in Okot p’Bitek’s white teeth. Journal of Commonwealth
Literature. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021989420984826. (online Feb 5, 2021).
Seydou, C. (Ed.). (2008). La poésie mystique peule du Mali. Karthala.
Sperl, S. (1989). Mannerism in Arabic poetry. A structural analysis of selected texts (3rd century
AH/9th - 5th century AH/11th century AD). Cambridge University Press.
Spinuzzi, C. (2003). Tracing genres through organizations: A sociocultural approach to informa-
tion design. MIT Press.
456 A. Rettová
Sylla, A. (n.d.). Poèmes et pensées philosophiques wolof (4 volumes). [Dakar]: ACCT-IFAN/C.A.

D., [197-?]-<[1998? >].
Tempels, P. (1959). Bantu Philosophy. Présence africaine. First edition La philosophie bantoue.
Paris: Présence africaine, 1945.
Tervonen, T. (2003). Le français n’est pas mon destin. Interview with Boubacar Boris Diop.
Africultures, 57, 109–112.
Vierke, C. (2016). From across the ocean: Considering travelling literary figurations as part of
Swahili intellectual history. Journal of African Cultural Studies, 28(2), 225–240.
Wane, I. (2004). Du français au wolof: la quête du récit chez Boubacar Boris Diop. Éthiopiques:
revue socialiste de culture négro-africaine, 73, 1–12.
Wülfing-Leckie, V. (2016). Introduction. In I. B. B. Diop & D. Golo (Eds.), The hidden notebooks.
(Trans. Vera Wülfing-Leckie and El Hadji Moustapha Diop) (pp. vii–xxxi). Michigan State
University Press.
Zanganeh, L. A. (2010). Une littérature de transition. Interview with Boubacar Boris Diop. https://
www.lemonde.fr/livres/article/2010/04/15/une-litterature-de-transition_1333889_3260.html
The Animal in African Philosophy
Kai Horsthemke
Contents
Animals and African Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
Ontology and Metaphysics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459
Epistemology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460
Social, Political and Moral Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461
Aesthetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
Philosophy of Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468
Abstract
African philosophy has, in recent decades, emerged from the academic margins to
assume occupation of its rightful place in the scholarly mainstream, having
garnered long-overdue acknowledgement and recognition. Within African phi-
losophy, the question of the animal, which has for a long time been ignored or
deemed comparatively unimportant, is now beginning to get the kind of attention
it deserves, acknowledgement that has, similarly, been long overdue. This chapter
examines the status of “the animal” in African ontology and metaphysics;
epistemology; social, political, and moral philosophy; aesthetics; and philosophy
of education. The argument is that while African philosophical treatment of other-
than-human animals has tended to be anthropocentric, or human-centered, Afri-
can philosophy is equipped with the requisite conceptual resources for the
systematic development of a comprehensive non-anthropocentric stance. What
this requires on the part of African philosophers, however, is nothing less than
intellectual, ethical, and practical honesty and consistency.
K. Horsthemke (*)
KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Eichstätt, Germany
Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, Oxford, UK

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_29
458 K. Horsthemke
Keywords
African philosophy · Animals · Anthropocentrism · Relationality
Animals and African Philosophy
Africa has an extraordinary wealth of non-human animals – domesticated and free-

roaming animals, as well as non-domesticated liminal animals who live among or in
close proximity to humans. To speak of “the animal,” then, is apparently to commit a
two-fold error. It not only seems to ignore the fact that human beings too are animals,
but it also involves what might be called the fallacy of the collective singular. Indeed,
to speak of humans and other animals, collectively, would be to ignore the sheer
diversity that exists within the non-human animal kingdom. Yet, reference to “the”
animal is both a tribute to Credo Mutwa’s fascinating and significant book Isilwane:
The Animal (1996) and an acknowledgement of the symbolic, totemic role played by
animals in African thought and practice over the centuries. In what follows, refer-
ence will be made to “the animal” occasionally as deliberate short-hand for “other,”
“non-human,” or “other-than-human animals” – and to “other,” “non-human,” or
“other-than-human” animals only as a matter of emphasis.
African philosophy has, in recent decades, emerged from the academic margins to
assume occupation of its rightful place in the scholarly mainstream, having garnered
long-overdue acknowledgement and recognition. Within African philosophy, the
question of the animal, which has for a long time been ignored or deemed compar-
atively unimportant, is now beginning to get the kind of attention it deserves,
acknowledgement that has, similarly, been long overdue. At the heart of African
philosophy is the idea of relationality, which arguably goes beyond the naive forms
of community, communalism, and holism that have been embraced by less reflective
practitioners and that may, indeed, be targeted by those not favorably disposed
towards African philosophy. The idea that we are all related, that all is related, is
not unique to Africa. It is captured in the Lakota phrase mitakuye oyasin and the Cree
notion of wahkohtowin. In the southern Africa, it has been articulated in terms of
ubuntu (a Nguni language-group term), botho and hunhu (in SeSotho and Shona,
respectively). In the northern Africa, notably Egypt, the equivalent would be maat,
signaling harmony, righteousness, and the need to locate and understand oneself and
one’s actions in the context of a greater whole, which has profound implications for
human and extra-human relations. Relationality and relationalism characterize Afri-
can ontology and metaphysics; epistemology; social, political, and moral philoso-
phy; aesthetics; and philosophy of education, which are fundamental to
understanding the position of animals in thinking and practices on the African
continent. This is not to imply that African thought and practices are homogeneous.
Approximately, one third of all human languages are spoken on the African conti-
nent. This means that there exist at least 1500 different languages in Africa, with a
corresponding tribal and ethnic diversity. While some of these languages are spoken
The Animal in African Philosophy 459
and understood across national borders, every African state is host to at least a few
but often a large number of different languages that are not spoken and understood
by all of its citizens (see Horsthemke, 2015: 1). This vast linguistic, tribal, and ethnic
diversity makes it even more surprising that there are many commonalities and
points of agreement with regard to African philosophical thinking. While there exists
no single unified “African philosophy,” or “African philosophical outlook,” there are
nonetheless certain core ideas that appear with astonishing regularity across African
societies and cultures.
Ontology and Metaphysics
The African understanding of the universe tends to be binary. It would arguably be

mistaken to call it dualistic, since there is no hard and fast divide between the
spiritual and the physical realm. Although they are represented by the sky and the
earth, respectively, they correlate and interact in a variety of ways. An important
component of this worldview is the so-called hierarchy of beings (see Etieyibo,
2017: 152–153). This ontological hierarchy is composed of a number of levels and
forms an intricate web of relations. At the top of the hierarchy, unsurprisingly, is the
creator-god, who is responsible for all existence and has designed and created all
beings, living and non-living. These are, in hierarchical order, the spirits (which
often act like divinities), ancestors or “living-dead” (who act as mediators between
humans and god), human beings (both those of who exist presently and those yet-to-
be-born), animals, plants (which are often assumed to occupy the same level as
animals, in that they are used by human beings for sustenance and sacrifice), and
finally non-living beings, like rocks, mountains, rivers, stars, etc. A related way of
establishing this hierarchy would be in terms of vitality or life force, as dispensed by
God (who is “at the apex of the ladder”) in varying degrees to “spirits and then
ancestors, humans, animals, and inanimate beings” (Etieyibo, 2017: 153). According
to the African view of the universe, there is an interrelationship of all beings, living
and non-living: all created beings depend on each other and God. The universe is
viewed as the totality of all existence, spiritual and physical.
Regarding human–animal relationships, Africans believe God gave animals to
human beings for their responsible use. Apart from the consideration that possession
of animals is a sign of wealth and prestige, they are used by humans for food, for
clothing and for the manufacture of musical instruments like drums, as payment of
dowry (or “bride wealth”) and of fines (following offenses against God, the ances-
tors, or fellow humans), in the settlement of disputes, and in sacrificial ceremonies.
Many animals also have symbolic or totemic functions in families, communities, and
clans. The problem, of course, is that the totemic status of one kind of animal offers
no protection against those who prize and are committed to preserving a different
kind (Horsthemke, 2015: 74).
The treatment of animals primarily as means to human, spiritual, and divine ends
is commonly justified on the basis of them not being persons. The problem is that,
460 K. Horsthemke
according to the criteria listed by Ifeanyi Menkiti (1984: 173, 174, 176), infants,
young children, and those lacking cognitive and moral autonomy do not qualify as
persons either. Among additional criteria militating against using the latter as means
towards the ends of full-fledged persons are species membership and the purported
special relationships human beings have with each other (see Metz, 2017a, b), all of
which would exclude non-humans. In other words, what earns infants, young
children, and the relevantly disabled special moral consideration and treatment is
the fact of their being human and/or their being part of essentially human relation-
ships. On reflection, the concomitant exclusion or degradation of non-humans seems
rather arbitrary and is, more often than not, based on an unwillingness to take
seriously their characteristics and abilities, let alone their needs and interests.
Epistemology
Relationalism is also a characteristic of African epistemology: “I know because

we know” or “A knower is a knower because of other knowers.” This reflects what
might be called the epistemological dimension of ubuntu – which treats knowl-
edge as communal, as instrumental to the well-being of the community. In other
words, knowledge is not pursued in and for itself but for the potential benefits it
holds for collective human flourishing. Mogobe Ramose (2002a: 230) furnishes a
systematic and sustained account of ubuntu as “the root of African philosophy, . . .
the wellspring flowing with African ontology and epistemology.” He observes
further that from the perspective of African philosophy, “truth is simultaneously
participatory and interactive.” As “active, continual, and discerning perception
leading to action,” truth “is distinctly relative rather than absolute.” Logical and
practical problems around relativism notwithstanding, what is noteworthy about
this account of knowledge and truth is their contribution to communal and,
indeed, cosmic harmony (237), i.e., “harmony in all spheres of life.” The logic
of ubuntu is directed “towards balance and harmony in the relationship between
human beings and between the latter and the broader be-ing or nature” (Ramose,
2002b: 326).
Although ubuntu and its cognates are by definition human-centered – pertaining
to living human beings (umuntu), the living-dead (abaphansi), and future genera-
tions, the yet-to-be-born (see Ramose, 2002b: 326) – animals, too, are credited with
wisdom and general epistemic agency (Mutwa, 1996). The potential benefits that
communal, instrumental knowledge holds for (collective) human flourishing also
pertains to what is sometimes taken to be “animal wisdom” – which is seen to
embody significant lessons and potential benefits for humans. Animal behavior
enables not only prediction of weather patterns, but also issues in communication
of the social standards expected of people. Thus, it is the traits of certain animals or
species that are considered to provide valuable lessons for humans and that are worth
emulating – not least among which is the wisdom of cooperation found in social
animals.
Social, Political and Moral Philosophy
The most comprehensive discussions, by some distance, of the place of the animal in
African philosophy have been in areas that concern considerations of custodianship,
care, justice, rights, obligations, and the like. For example, the functions of totem
animals and social taboos are discussed by a large number of authors, as are cultural
rituals and ceremonies involving other-than-human animals (Behrens, 2009; Metz,
2017a; Akenzua-Ebeigbe, 2018; Zimunya & Gwara, 2018; Oduwole & Fayemi,
2018; Kelbessa, 2018; Ofuasia, 2018; Qekwana et al., 2019). At the heart of social,
political, and moral philosophy are the values “I am because we are” or “A person is
a person because of other persons,” exemplified by ubuntu (botho, hunhu) (Ramose,
2002a, b; Mangena, 2012, 2013; Zimunya & Gwara, 2018). The social, political, and
ethical significance of relationality is expressed in ukama (Murove, 2004, 2009;
Prozesky, 2009), while maat locates human existence within a larger whole
(Karenga, 2004).
Three (rather broad) tendencies can be identified within contemporary African
philosophical thought:
1. More or less outspoken anthropocentrism and more or less qualified endorsement

of human moral superiority (Kagame, 1989; Menkiti, 1984; Kaphagawani, 2004;
Oduor, 2012; Masaka, 2019).
2. Lip service to environmental or animal-friendliness, but morally humans remain
the measure of all things and at the center of ethical concern and deliberation.
Conflicts of interests ought unequivocally to be decided in favor of human beings.
These scholars generally reject moral anthropocentrism and speciesism in the
sense that they do not wish to be associated with these, yet on closer inspection
their positions offer other-than-beings inferior or subordinate standing and rights
compared with those usually associated with humans (Mutwa, 1996; Ogungbemi,
1997; Mangena, 2012, 2013; Tangwa, 2004; Metz, 2017a, b; Bujo, 2009;
Ramose, 2002b, 2009; Murove, 2004, 2009; Prozesky, 2009; Kelbessa, 2018;
Etieyibo, 2017; Ndasauka & Manthalu, 2018; Umar, 2018; Oduwole & Fayemi,
2018; Qekwana et al., 2019).
3. Outright rejection of moral anthropocentrism; explicit pro-animal attitudes
(Masiga & Munyua, 2005; Behrens, 2009, 2014; Taringa, 2006, 2014; Ojomo,
2010, 2011; Nneji, 2010; Tutu, 2013; Zimunya & Gwara, 2018; Akenzua-
Ebeigbe, 2018; Roba, 2018; Oduori et al., 2018; Ofuasia, 2018; Molefe,
2017, 2018).
I have dealt with the several of these authors in considerable detail elsewhere (see
Horsthemke, 2015, 2017a, b, 2018a, b, 2019a, b), so I will focus mainly on new
contributions to the debate and attempt to highlight their virtues and/or shortcom-
ings. As a representative of what I have characterized as the first kind of tendency in
contemporary African philosophical thinking, Dennis Masaka (2019) defends a
“moderate anthropocentrism” in thinking about non-human animals from an African
perspective. Animal ethics and environmental ethics are human created and therefore
462 K. Horsthemke
necessarily (moderately) anthropocentric: “human beings are not necessarily

inclined to create the kind of moral parity between them and non-human animals”
(236). In order to test the logic of this argument, it may be instructive to compare
Masaka’s moderate anthropocentrism to (moderate) white-centrism and/or andro-
centrism. Thus, his argument might be extended along the following lines. Human
rights are white-male-created and therefore necessarily (moderately) white-centric
and/or androcentric: “whites/men are not necessarily inclined to create the kind of
moral parity between them and blacks/women.” Does inclination (whether natural or
not) yield moral justification? Hardly; in all three instances, it amounts to little more
than prejudice in favor of one’s own kind.
Representing what I have identified above as the second kind of tendency,
Yamikani Ndasauka and Chikumbutso Manthalu (2018: 34–36) discuss “indigenous
African values” like “sense of community” and “sacredness of life” in relation to the
ideas of hierarchy and human stewardship (38). Well-known problems concern
sacrifices involving animals (37), the economic status of nations and/or communi-
ties, as well as reliance on animal-driven agriculture. Social relations define
who/what can be part of a community. Therefore, it is not surprising that the authors
should plumb for animal welfare (39) rather than animal rights. The idea of moral
obligation, too, is rendered so weak as to be practically meaningless: “In some
regards, humans are understood to have certain moral obligations to some
non-human animals” (35; emphasis added). In her discussion of strategies for
wildlife management on the African continent, Bridget Bwalya Umar (2018),
similarly, see-saws between wildlife management and animal-centered approaches,
seemingly unable to commit unequivocally to the latter.
While Workineh Kelbessa (2005) draws attention to the symbolic and ethical
reservoir in African indigenous traditions that ensures respect and compassion for
other living creatures, his references (2018) to so-called “moral status” and “rights”
accorded to animals are mere window-dressing: anthropocentrism and superstition
govern relations between humans and non-humans, something the author seems to
be completely unaware of.
In contrast (and here we arrive at what I have referred to as outright rejection of
moral anthropocentrism and explicit pro-animal attitudes), Desmond Tutu (2013:
xv) argues that justice applies not only to human beings, but also to “the world’s
other sentient creatures.” “Even when faced with human problems” that “fight for
our attention in what sometimes seems an already overfull moral agenda,” we should
not overlook “instances of injustice,” i.e., “the abuse and cruelty we inflict on other
animals.”
Clive Tendai Zimunya and Joyline Gwara (2018: 22) maintain that, “despite its
genuinely philanthropic nature, ubuntu fails to acknowledge the importance of
non-human organisms such as plants and animals . . . The theory of ubuntu is
indifferent to the rights of animals . . .” Zimunya and Gwara suggest broadening
the philosophy of ubuntu “using the principle of totemism,” “transforming African
perceptions of non-human animals from merely being of instrumental use to being in
and of themselves intrinsically valuable and worthy of care” (30). However, it is
doubtful whether broadening the philosophy of ubuntu in this fashion is likely to
yield the kind of transformative force the authors are hoping for. Apart from being
side-tracked by superstition, this alleged modification is substantially weakened by
the fact that one clan’s totem animal is another clan’s favorite bush meat.
Sweet Ufumwen Akenzua-Ebeigbe (2018) reveals the much-hailed animal-
friendliness of indigenous Africans (see, for example, Kelbessa, 2018) as sham.
The author makes a strong case against animal sacrifice and useful recommendations
in this regard – but stops short of making suggestions regarding diet/food. Anteneh
Roba (2018), however, does just this, in his discussion of the deleterious effects of
factory farming not only on non-humans but also on humans and the environment.
He rejects all arguments in favor of meat consumption on the African continent – but
unfortunately does not deal with culturalist arguments, that is, arguments that locate
practices as essential within a given culture, which in turn determines individuals.
Finally, the case study by David Obiero Oduori et al. (2018) of working animals in
Kenya and Egypt examines cultural (mis-)perceptions about working equines like
horses and donkeys (282).
Aesthetics
It is not only the wisdom and character traits of (certain) animals that are celebrated
in African cultures and societies but also their beauty and their grace (Mutwa, 1996;
Adepoju, 2017: 512–515). While non-human animals may have moral value, they
also have their own aesthetic value and purpose/telos.
Praise song and poetry is a common practice among African societies and
cultures. Praise accompanies community leaders during ceremonial functions
describing their prowess, such as the Nguni izimbongi praise songs for kings and
chieftains, but it is also used to greet, thank, and demonstrate appreciation for both
domestic and free-roaming animals. Thus, the use of totemic praise is common
among African communities and is applied to animals as a greeting, gesture of
respect, or means of appreciation (see Mutwa, 1996 for numerous examples of praise
songs to domestic and “wild” animals).
Rock art, too, is an important feature of many African communities, like the
Amazigh (Berbers) of North Africa, the Soninke and Dogon of West Africa, and
Khoi and San communities in the southern Africa. Dating back to pre-colonial times,
that is, well before the consolidation of the colonial rule in the nineteenth century,
they commonly depict ceremonies or everyday activities like hunting. Most of these
rock or cave paintings portrayed both members of the local communities and
animals, but in many cases complex symbol systems were used to provide a
means of transmitting information and knowledge to other shelter users and to future
generations.
According to Nicolas Argenti (1992: 197–198), in the highland region of North-
west Province, Cameroon, known as the Grassfields,
decoration of carved and/or beaded artefacts is characterized by geometric designs associ-

ated with certain animals, which in turn signify status ascriptions or other associations in the
464 K. Horsthemke
social structure. The major designs are those of the stylized frog, spider, lizard, python, bush
cow, elephant, and leopard.
The last four are associated especially with small polities headed by kings or
chieftains, the so-called fons, while
the frog is often spoken of as symbolizing fertility and the spider as symbolizing the
supernatural (through its connection with the ancestor spirits in the ground). The spider,
accordingly, is used in divination practice throughout the area. All of these associations
between animals, motifs, and social or cosmological categories form part of the informants’
overt knowledge . . . .
It is of course debatable whether or not one can really speak of “knowledge” here,
as opposed to (mere) belief, but these considerations have little bearing on the
aesthetic value bestowed on other-than-human animals. Aesthetic and symbolic
value, like beauty, are in the eye of the beholder.
Philosophy of Education
Like philosophy of education elsewhere, African philosophy of education emanates

from the mother discipline, philosophy. According to Kwasi Wiredu, philosophy is
first and foremost a matter of effective thinking. To “think effectively” means to have
knowledge (wisdom and skills), to be tolerant and willing to enter into dialogue, and
to possess moral maturity (Wiredu, 2004: 17, 18). For Wiredu, this normative
conception of effective thinking is inspired by the following: indigenous (African)
knowledge systems (24), traditional African faith in consensus (21), and the con-
ceptual and normative priority of community over individuality (20). African phi-
losophy, therefore, “must combine all these considerations, which . . . reveal the
strengths of the traditional African conception of education” (24). Wiredu, Oduor,
and others emphasize that political liberation of African countries must be followed
by intellectual liberation, “the emancipation of our thought” (Oduor, 2012: 4). The
substratum for decolonization of the African mind and for “creating an educational
vision capable of serving the legitimate interests of Africa in the contemporary
world” (Wiredu, 2004: 24) is for Africans to (learn to) think and/or philosophize
in their own language. The difficulty with this account, as I will elaborate below, may
be to prevent decolonization of and within education from assuming the form of
indoctrination, i.e., unquestioning acceptance of the new ethical, political, and
educational status quo.
Mutwa (1996: 14) refers in particular to initiation schools whose function it has
been to teach “the oneness of the human being, the animal and the Deity.” By being
made to believe “that the highest gods were part animal and part human being,”
African children are “taught to look upon animals with great reverence, love, and
respect. If you are taught that God has the head of a lion and the body of a human
being, you will treat lions with respect.” It is difficult to separate this kind of teaching
from indoctrination: the intention of the educators may be to instill reverence, love,
and respect, but the method of teaching permits little or no critical interrogation and
engagement on the part of the learners. Nor could the content, i.e., what is taught, be
said to convey knowledge or to have truth value. Animals should be revered, loved,
and respected not in and for themselves but because of the partial animal nature of
the gods. Moreover, it is surely not a coincidence that the focus is on majestic and
powerful mammals like lions. If African children were taught that God has the head
of a grasshopper or the body of a cockroach it might be considerably more difficult to
instill in them reverence, love, and respect.
The clash between the plight of animals and the demands of indigenous culture
(see also Metz, 2017a: 272, 284–286, 289–293) is starkly demonstrated in the annual
ukweshwama (“first fruits”) festival in KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa). “To continue
our culture and customs is very important because in our new democracy, it doesn’t
mean we forget our ways,” Chief Zibuse Mlaba explains (see Horsthemke, 2015:
49). “Education does not mean we forget our past.” By killing a bull, a symbol of
power, with their bare hands the modern-day warriors are believed to strengthen the
bond with ancestors who ruled the region. “We must use our bare hands,” Mlaba
adds. “It’s cruelty, we agree, but it’s our culture. We cannot change our culture”
(ibid.; emphasis added). The obvious response to Mlaba’s assertions is that a
monolithic view of culture is simply mistaken. Traditions and cultural practices are
by their very nature fluid, dynamic, and ever evolving. Moreover, democratic
education has a crucial function in contributing to social and cultural change, in
highlighting and interrogating morally dubious traditions and practices.
Moeketsi Letseka suggests “that educating for botho or ubuntu, for interpersonal
and cooperative skills, and for human wellbeing or human flourishing, ought to be
major concerns of an African philosophy of education” (Letseka, 2000: 180).
Incidentally, Letseka has, perhaps unwittingly, indicated the gulf that exists between
botho/ubuntu and concern for animals:
Consider . . . the case of an offence on which everyone agrees that it is heinous and an affront
to botho or ubuntu, such as repeatedly raping an eighty-year-old grandmother or a six-year-
old girl. To express their displeasure community folk might utter statements like: “He is not a
person but a dog” [or] “Oh God, he is an animal.” (Letseka, 2000: 186)
The questionable move of equating rapists and animals like dogs might be
excused as reporting an unreflective popular perception, but it arguably points to
something deeper – namely the view that animals occupy a territory untouched by
ordinary moral concerns and considerations: indeed, an amoral if not immoral realm.
Recent articles and opinion pieces by W.N. Masiga and S.J.M. Munyua (2005),
Bellarmine Nneji (2010), Oduori et al. (2018), Emmanuel Ofuasia (2018), and
Motsamai Molefe (2018) are welcome additions to the body of new African philo-
sophical writings that engage critically engage with traditional cultural teachings and
practices. Oduori et al. (2018: 285) discuss educational initiatives to ameliorate the
plight of working equines. Regarding research and laboratory animals, Masiga and
Munyua (2005) – in their critical, albeit largely empirical account of the current state
466 K. Horsthemke
of “animal welfare” in Africa – lament the fact that in most African countries “there
are no policies and legal frameworks in place to support the initiatives“ that pertain
to research and development work: “To compound the situation, in countries like
Kenya and other former British colonies, the legal system criminalized animal abuse
without any provisions for community awareness or education about animal wel-
fare” (584). Although their survey is hard-hitting and graphic, the recommendations
made by Masiga and Munyua unfortunately do not transcend basic welfarist objec-
tives: regular reviews of existing legislation, monitoring and reduction of instances
of animal abuse, increasing community awareness and “promoting . . . community
involvement in and education about animal welfare issues,” and promoting “training
in animal welfare for service providers in veterinary practice, livestock production,
and wildlife management” (585).
Nneji (2010: 40) emphasizes the need for children to put themselves into the
position of animals, via “imaginative empathy” and sympathy, in order for an
appropriate consciousness to be brought about or attained. Just as society can
teach children to be indifferent to (or dismissive of) the plight of other-than-human
animals, it can achieve the opposite, through both the elicitation of care, empathy
and sympathy as well as the inculcation of “moral knowledge,” principles and skills.
A child has to realize that what is wrong for another to do to her is wrong for her to
do another. This appears to be the essence of the idea that there is no substitute for a
direct concern for others as the basis of morality.
Ofuasia investigates the defensibility of animal sacrifice in an African
(in particular, Nigerian Yorùbá) context, informed by recent scientific (evolutionary)
and ethical theory. The result is a measured but nonetheless refreshingly critical
analysis. Interestingly, Ofuasia opts for “ethical individualism as the suitable
groundwork that considers the interest of animals recommended for sacrifice” by
traditional customs (6; on ethical individualism, see also Horsthemke, 2010, 2017c).
Apart from the objection that sacrificial slaughter causes irrevocable harm to indi-
vidual animals, there are some concerns about what underlies the very purpose of
animal sacrifice. Does it really occur for reasons of communal well-being and
harmony, as is often alleged? Is the performance of sacrifices perhaps intended to
prevail upon the Gods and/or ancestors to bestow some favor on the sacrificer or to
ward off some danger to the latter? Or is it to compel or coerce them to do what the
sacrificer wants to be done? Either way, it is difficult not to see these motives as self-
regarding. Molefe (2018), in turn, considers it inconsistent and indeed paradoxical to
lambaste cannibalistic practices (for example, of so-called traditional healers), while
continuing to consume animal flesh. He considers and dismisses several arguments
from moral difference between humans and other animals. In so doing, he draws on
both the argument from marginal cases and the argument from speciesism. The
former holds that if it is permissible to kill and eat animals then it must be
permissible to kill and eat human beings with relevantly similar mental abilities.
The latter argument states that excluding animals because they are not part of the
human community is as arbitrary as excluding blacks because they are not part of the
white community, or women on the grounds that they are not part of the male
community. Molefe then addresses what he calls the “cultural argument,” which is
characterized by the “concern . . . that not eating animal flesh is against some of our
deeply cherished cultural practices and rituals”:
The simple response to this . . . argument is that we need to evaluate our cultures in the light
of moral reason. If we find that our cultures are immoral, we have all the reason to abandon
them and seek noble cultures that create harmony between us and the stakeholders in the
natural community. It was once part of our modern culture to sell and own slaves. It was once
part of our culture to exclude women from participating in politics and in the economy. It
was once part of our culture to carry women off to marriage without their consent. The mere
fact that something is part of our culture does not make it right. The point is not to reject
culture but to imagine a culture that is morally sound. (Molefe, 2018)
Emancipation of thinking, then, is surely brought about also through nurturing a

critical perspective on social and cultural assumptions and expectations. This is an
important function of education. According to John M. Coetzee (2018: xiv),
In any endeavor to shift ingrained attitudes, the role of education is and will be crucial. It is
not hard to bring it home to small children – who are so much closer to the ground than
adults – that animals have lives of their own and deserve to be treated humanely. But to
spread this message across the breadth of the continent requires the bringing into being of a
corps of teachers who believe the lesson is important, and more generally the fostering of a
new animal-friendly awareness.
Conclusion
While African philosophical treatment of other-than-human animals has tended to be

anthropocentric, or human-centered, African philosophy is equipped with the req-
uisite conceptual resources for the systematic development of a comprehensive
non-anthropocentric and non-speciesist stance. The “great goods,” “harmony,
friendliness, community” (mentioned in Tutu, 1999: 35; see also Metz, 2017a:
280ff), “imaginative empathy” and sympathy (Nneji, 2010), or compassion (Tutu,
2013), and especially the notions of interconnectedness and interrelatedness between
everything in nature provide a fertile terrain for reconsidering the place of the animal
in African philosophy. The multitudinous historical and geographical relationships
we have with other-than-human animals give rise to multi-faceted moral responsi-
bilities, which vary according to the kinds of relationships we find ourselves
in. Thus, our obligations towards our companion animals will differ from those we
have with regard to feral urban and free-roaming animals, just as our obligations
towards “our own” may be different from those towards others, but these differences
do not signal any kind of ontological and ethical hierarchy. “I am because we are”
does not necessarily pertain exclusively to humans. The “we” in question could quite
reasonably be taken to apply also beyond the so-called “species divide.” What this
requires on the part of African philosophers, however, is nothing less than intellec-
tual, ethical, and practical honesty and consistency. Ongoing interaction between
humans and non-humans being inevitable, it stands to reason that we should
investigate and welcome the whole range of possibilities of such interactions and
468 K. Horsthemke
engagement. Any non-anthropocentric and non-speciesist conception of relationality

will require humans to relinquish their questionable benefits from animal exploita-
tion and abuse. However, a philosophically coherent and consistent approach will
identify not just the sacrifices that justice and imaginative empathy require of us but
also the generative new relationships rendered possible by justice and empathy.
References
Adepoju, O. V. (2017). Philosophy and artistic creativity in Africa. In A. Afolayan & T. Falola
(Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of African philosophy (pp. 507–523). Palgrave Macmillan.
Akenzua-Ebeigbe, S. U. (2018). Towards the eradication of animal sacrifice in African traditional
religion. In R. Ebert & A. Roba (Eds.), Africa and her animals: Philosophical and practical
perspectives (pp. 114–128). Unisa Press.
Argenti, N. (1992). African aesthetics: Moving to see the mask. Journal of the Anthropological
Society of Oxford, 23(3), 197–215.
Behrens, K. (2009). Tony Yengeni’s ritual slaughter: Animal anti-cruelty vs. culture. South African
Journal of Philosophy, 28(3), 271–289.
Behrens, K. G. (2014). An African relational environmentalism and moral considerability. Envi-
ronmental Ethics, 36(1), 63–82.
Bujo, B. (2009). Ecology and ethical responsibility from an African perspective. In M. F. Murove
(Ed.), African ethics: An anthology of comparative and applied ethics (pp. 281–297). University
of KwaZulu-Natal Press.
Coetzee, J. M. (2018). Foreword. In R. Ebert & A. Roba (Eds.), Africa and her animals:
Philosophical and practical perspectives (pp. xiii–xvi). Unisa Press.
Etieyibo, E. (2017). Anthropocentrism, African metaphysical worldview, and animal practices: A
reply to Kai Horsthemke. Journal of Animal Ethics, 7(2), 145–162.
Horsthemke, K. (2010). The moral status and rights of animals. Porcupine Press.
Horsthemke, K. (2017a). Animals and African ethics. Journal of Animal Ethics, 7(2), 119–144.
Horsthemke, K. (2017b). Biocentrism, Ecocentrism, and African modal relationalism: Etieyibo,
Metz, and Galgut on Animals and African ethics. Journal of Animal Ethics, 7(2), 183–189.
Horsthemke, K. (2017c). Animals and the challenges of ethnocentrism. In L. Cordeiro-Rodrigues &
L. Mitchell (Eds.), Animals, race, and multiculturalism (pp. 121–146). Palgrave Macmillan.
Horsthemke, K. (2018a). Isilwane: The animal – Ubuntu, Ukama and environmental justice. In
R. Ebert & A. Roba (Eds.), Africa and her animals: Philosophical and practical perspectives
(pp. 3–21). Unisa Press.
Horsthemke, K. (2018b). Free-roaming animals, killing, and suffering: The case of African ele-
phants. In A. Linzey & C. Linzey (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of practical animal ethics
(pp. 525–543). Palgrave Macmillan.
Horsthemke, K. (2019a). African religions: Anthropocentrism and animal protection. In A. Linzey
& C. Linzey (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of religion and animal ethics (pp. 23–34).
Routledge.
Horsthemke, K. (2019b). Animal rights and environmental ethics in Africa: From anthropocentrism
to non-speciesism? In M. Chemhuru (Ed.), African environmental ethics: A critical reader
Kagame, A. (1989). The problem of ‘man’ in bantu philosophy. Journal of African Religion and
Philosophy, 1, 35–40.
Kaphagawani, D. N. (2004). African conceptions of a person: A critical survey. In K. Wiredu (Ed.),
A companion to African philosophy (pp. 332–342). Blackwell.
Karenga, M. (2004). Maat: The moral ideal in ancient Egypt. A study in classical African ethics.
Routledge.
Kelbessa, W. (2005). The rehabilitation of indigenous environmental ethics in Africa. Diogenes, 52,
17–34.
Kelbessa, W. (2018). The moral status and well-being of animals in the Oromo culture. In R. Ebert
& A. Roba (Eds.), Africa and her animals: Philosophical and practical perspectives
Letseka, M. (2000). African philosophy and educational discourse. In P. Higgs, N. Vakalisa, T. Mda,
& N. Assie Lumumba (Eds.), African voices in education (pp. 179–193). Juta.
Mangena, F. (2012). Towards a Hunhu/Ubuntu dialogical moral theory. Phronimon, 13(2), 1–17.
Mangena, F. (2013). Discerning moral status in the African environment. Phronimon, 14(2), 25–44.
Masaka, D. (2019). Moral status of non-human Animals from an African perspective: In defense of
moderate anthropocentric thinking. In M. Chemhuru (Ed.), African environmental ethics: A
critical reader (pp. 223–237). Springer.
Masiga, W. N., & Munyua, S. J. M. (2005). Global perspectives on animal welfare: Africa. Revue
Scientifique et Technique (International Office of Epizootics), 24(2), 579–586.
Menkiti, I. A. (1984). Person and community in African traditional thought. In R. Wright (Ed.),
African philosophy (orig. publ. 1979) (pp. 171–181). University of America Press.
Metz, T. (2017a). Duties toward animals versus rights to culture: An African approach to the
conflict in terms of communion. In L. Cordeiro-Rodrigues & L. Mitchell (Eds.), Animals, race,
and multiculturalism (pp. 269–294). Palgrave Macmillan.
Metz, T. (2017b). How to ground animal rights on African values: A reply to Horsthemke. Journal
of Animal Ethics, 7(2), 163–174.
Molefe, M. (2017). A critique of Thad Metz’s African theory of moral status. South African Journal
of Philosophy, 36(2), 195–205.
Molefe, M. (2018). Can You Rationalise Your Pound of Flesh? Mail & Guardian, 15 June. https://mg.
co.za/article/2018-06-15-00-can-you-rationalise-your-pound-of-flesh (retrieved 11 September
2018).
Murove, M. F. (2004). An African commitment to ecological conservation: The Shona concepts of
Ukama and Ubuntu. Mankind Quarterly, 45(2), 195–215.
Murove, M. F. (2009). An African environmental ethic based on the concepts of Ukama and
Ubuntu. In M. F. Murove (Ed.), African ethics: An anthology of comparative and applied ethics
(pp. 315–331). University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.
Mutwa, C. (1996). Isilwane – The animal: Tales and Fables of Africa. Struik.
Ndasauka, Y., & Manthalu, C. (2018). Cultivating animal rights in Africa. In R. Ebert & A. Roba
(Eds.), Africa and her animals: Philosophical and practical perspectives (pp. 33–45). Unisa
Press.
Nneji, B. (2010). Eco-responsibility: The cogency of environmental ethics in Africa. Essays in
Philosophy, 11(1), 31–43.
Oduor, R. M. J. (2012). African philosophy and non-human animals: Reginald M.J. Oduor talks to
Anteneh Roba and Rainer Ebert. https://www.uta.edu/philosophy/faculty/burgess-jackson/
Interview.pdf (retrieved 22 September 2014).
Oduori, D. O., Onyango, S. C., & Farhat, S. F. (2018). Working animals in Africa: A case study of
working equines in Kenya and Egypt. In R. Ebert & A. Roba (Eds.), Africa and her animals:
Philosophical and practical perspectives (pp. 278–289). Unisa Press.
Oduwole, E. O., & Fayemi, A. K. (2018). Animal rights vs. animal care ethics: Interrogating the
relationship to non-human animals in Yorùbá culture. In J. O. Chimakonam (Ed.), African
philosophy and environmental conservation (pp. 70–82). Routledge.
Ofuasia, E. (2018). On the interests of non-human animals in traditional Yorùbá culture: A critique
of Ọrúnmìlà. Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics, 9(2), 6–21.
Ogungbemi, S. (1997). An African perspective on the environmental crisis. In L. Pojman (Ed.),
Environmental ethics: Readings in theory and application (2nd ed., pp. 330–337). Wadsworth.
Ojomo, P. A. (2010). An African understanding of environmental ethics. Theory and Practice: A
Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya (PAK), 2(2), 49–63.
470 K. Horsthemke
Ojomo, P. A. (2011). Environmental ethics: An African understanding. The Journal of Pan African
Studies, 4(3), 101–113.
Prozesky, M. H. (2009). Well-fed animals and starving babies: Environmental and developmental
challenges from process and African perspectives. In M. F. Murove (Ed.), African ethics: An
Press.
Qekwana, D. N., McCrindle, C. M. E., Cenci-Goga, B., & Grace, D. (2019). Animal welfare in
Africa: Strength of cultural traditions, challenges and perspectives. In S. Hild & L. Schweitzer
(Eds.), Animal welfare: From science to law (pp.103–107). La Fondation Droit Animal, Éthique
et Sciences (LFDA). http://www.fondation-droit-animal.org/proceedings-aw/animal-welfare-in-
africa/ (retrieved 18 October 2019).
Ramose, M. B. (2002a). The philosophy of Ubuntu and Ubuntu as a philosophy. In P. H. Coetzee &
A. P. J. Roux (Eds.), Philosophy from Africa (2nd ed., pp. 230–238). Oxford University Press
Southern Africa.
Ramose, M. B. (2002b). The ethics of Ubuntu. In P. H. Coetzee & A. P. J. Roux (Eds.), Philosophy
from Africa (2nd ed., pp. 324–330). Oxford University Press Southern Africa.
Ramose, M. B. (2009). Ecology through Ubuntu. In M. F. Murove (Ed.), African ethics: An
Press.
Roba, A. (2018). The looming threat of factory farming in Africa. In R. Ebert & A. Roba (Eds.),
Africa and her animals: Philosophical and practical perspectives (pp. 225–239). Unisa Press.
Tangwa, G. (2004). Some African reflections on biomedical and environmental ethics. In K. Wiredu
(Ed.), A companion to African philosophy (pp. 387–395). Blackwell.
Taringa, N. (2006). How environmental is African traditional religion? Exchange, 35(2), 191–214.
Taringa, N. T. (2014). The sacred duty of animals in African traditional religion and culture. http://
www.bayreuth-academy.uni-bayreuth.de/resources/WG-C_Taringa_Animals-in-African-Tradi
tional-Religion.pdf (retrieved 25 February 2020).
Tutu, D. (1999). No future without forgiveness. Random House.
Tutu, D. (2013). Foreword: Extending justice and compassion. In A. Linzey (Ed.), The global guide
to animal protection (p. xv). University of Illinois Press.
Umar, B. B. (2018). Strategies for wildlife management in Africa: Actors, successes, and failures. In
R. Ebert & A. Roba (Eds.), Africa and her animals: Philosophical and practical perspectives
Wiredu, K. (2004). Prolegomena to an African philosophy of education. South African Journal of
Higher Education, 18(3), 17–26.
Zimunya, C. T., & Gwara, J. (2018). The ethics of Ubuntu/Hunhu in the animal rights discourse in
Africa. In R. Ebert & A. Roba (Eds.), Africa and her animals: Philosophical and practical
perspectives (pp. 22–32). Unisa Press.
Part VIII
Existentialism and Phenomenology
Key Concerns in African Existentialism
Austine E. Iyare
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474
African Philosophical Perspectives on the Meaning of Human Existence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
Relationality and the Meaning of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481
Death and the Meaning of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482
The Existentiality of Suffering and Meaning of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483
Modern Africa and the Crisis of Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
Abstract
This chapter examines themes and issues in two phases of African Existentialism,
the first in premodern Africa and the second in modern Africa. By premodern
Africa, I mean here African cultural experiences prior to contact with foreign
cultures, and by modern I mean the exact opposite, African cultural experiences
after her contact with foreign cultures as we experience today. In the first phase, I
show that primary concern and theme in Africa Existentialism is the question of
the meaning of life. According to African traditional thought, the life of an
African is meaningful if he or she lives in a community-accepted life. I also
explore the issue that arises from this theme, such as individual autonomy in a
living community-accepted life. In the second phase, I show that the concern
shifted primarily to the question of African identity and authenticity of life in the
face of Western influence. In this case, I explore the works of African existen-
tialist such as Frantz Fanon and Aimé Césaire. I concluded that African existen-
tialism is an essential part of the African philosophy curriculum for understanding
the identity and meaningfulness of life of the African person.
A. E. Iyare (*)
Department of Philosophy, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Nigeria
e-mail: Aiyare@aauekpoma.edu.ng

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_32
474 A. E. Iyare
Keywords
African existentialism · Relationality · The meaning of human existence ·
Existentiality · Identity crisis
Introduction
Existentialism as one of the most famous movements in the history of philosophy

characterizes itself as it tends to examine several themes as they affect human
existence. Right from when Socrates redirected the attention of philosophers from
the cosmos to man himself, philosophers have been asking questions regarding the
nature of human existence. While there are myriad of themes in existentialism,
different philosophical traditions such as the Western, African, and the Oriental
traditions have examined themes in existentialism as they affect their respective
traditions. In particular, existential issues in Western philosophical tradition differ a
great deal from its meaning in Africa. While both Western and African philosophical
traditions ask fundamental questions about man’s existence, they differ in what they
believe gives life its meaningfulness. For instance, the Danish philosopher Søren
Kierkegaard asked the following questions “What is the point of man’s life? What
sense can people make out human existence? What is the purpose of human event?
(Cited in Stroll & Popkin, 1956: 105). The views on human existence in works of
Søren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre, Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Camus, and others
have always been what and how man’s existence can be meaningful. For the
existentialists, “they believe we are trapped in existence, living in a completely
meaningless world. No principle that we can use for ordering or comprehending
events have any basis. But we cannot escape having to deal with existence, having to
make sense out of it” (Cited in Stroll & Popkin, 1956: 105). Their concern is not so
much in understanding and answering questions such as how man ought to live in an
irrational world, but to also search for more humanistic beliefs, ways of dealing with
one’s experience so as to make life meaningful.
The discourse on the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of life, no doubt, is not
peculiar to a particular worldview or civilization. These views exist in all human
cultures and civilizations, and are all philosophies of life which try to answer in
different ways the question that men are inclined to ask about human existence.
Although these views became extremely popular in the France, Germany, and Latin
America since the Second World War, they also became popular in the English-
speaking world, and recently, it has garnered attention from African scholars such as
Thaddeus Metz (2020, 2022), Motsamai Molefe (2020), Ada Agada (2020), David
Aribiah Attoe (2020).
My primary concern in this chapter is to examine some key issues in African
existentialism. As stated in the preceding paragraph, themes in existentialism as they
relate to the African place have been addressed and are still being addressed by
African thinkers. For instance, regarding the theme of the meaning of human
existence, while scholars such as Ada Agada argued for a theory of meaning that
Key Concerns in African Existentialism 475
has a direct bearing with the concept of vital force, Motsamai Molefe pointed out that
the meaning of human existence is tied to one’s personhood. Another key issue to be
examined in this chapter is the crisis of identity which has a precolonial and
postcolonial coloration.
It is important to note here that the term “African” as will be used in this chapter
does not represent a homogenous concept. Objections may be raised when the term
is used to make generalizations. The reason for this is not obscure: Africa as a
continent has more than three thousand (3000) tribes, diverse cultures, and different
languages. Thus, generalizing the use of the term “African” may suggest a super-
imposition of a culture over another within the continent. While this is the case, Femi
Otunbanjo (1989: 15) points out that there are unifying elements in the beliefs and
ideas of the innumerable social groups in Africa to enable them to be identified as
being one genre. Consequently, the use of “African” in this chapter represents the
indigenous peoples of the sub-Sahara.
Having the above points in mind, I set out in this chapter by attempting an
exposition of the meaning of human life, with emphasis on different perspectives
in African traditions. Here, I pay close attention to theories of the meaning of human
life, such as the vital force theory, the personhood theory, and the relationality theory.
In what follows, I examine the crisis of identity in Africa with emphasis on the crisis
during the precolonial and postcolonial era and also with reference to the works of
Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon. All this is followed by an evaluation of the key
issues examined in this chapter.
African Philosophical Perspectives on the Meaning of Human

Existence
The African understanding and conception of existence differs a lot from the
conventional Western metaphysical interpretation and speculations on human exis-
tence and composition. Although not a lot has been done to address the question of
the meaning of life as an African perspective, however, effort will be made to look at
views from some African thoughts in some sub-Saharan African societies, and from
these plethora of views, aggregate views that cut across all the positions that can
most likely be taken as what constitute meaning of life in Africa. Across most
African societies, the meaning of life are similar to the point that they share similar
thoughts on issues of creation and perception of what life is generally, but this
conception explores an understanding of existence different from the dominant
binary postulations in traditional philosophy, that is, monism-dualism, the
material-spiritual, the sensible-nonsensible dissection of reality among others
(Adedayo, 2021: 7).
What does it mean for something to be “African?” According to Oladele Balogun
as cited in Yolanda Mlungwa, “African philosophy can be viewed as a rational and
systematic examination of the essential issues that Africa faces, and it looks to
understand and find plausible answers for these problems” (Balogun cited in
Mlungwa, 2020: 118). From Balogun’s conception, it suggests that the analysis
476 A. E. Iyare
and definition of ideas, problems, and questions that are immersed in the issues of
life are grounded in the belief system of Africans. For instance, the Yorubas are
associated with beliefs bothering on their interpretation of puzzled reality; these
beliefs include explanations on creation, predestination, beingness, extinction of
human persons, and also the issues of destiny, immortality of the soul, and the
relationship between the celestial and terrestrial world and the role it plays in the
reality of human existence (Balogun cited in Mlungwa, 2020: 117).
In the attempt to answer the question: what makes life meaningful within the
African context? Yolanda Mlungwa examined this question from three different
approaches, namely, life, love, and destiny. After careful evaluations of these
approaches, he argued and concluded that the destiny view is the most plausible
account of life’s meaning (Mlungwa, 2020: 155). Looking at the different
approaches mentioned above, different African societies give different meaning of
life, from life as seen in the Akan people’s culture of Ghanaian ethnic group which
sees life as a force of creative energy with the term “Se,” which means that human
life is being understood as a force or power that continuously recreates itself and so it
is characterized by continuous change and growth which depends on its own inner
source of power (Attoe, 2020: 130).
In the opinion of Aribiah David Attoe, any African understanding of the
meaning of human life in African philosophy can be examined from four different
perspectives, and they are: African God-purpose theory; the vital force theory; the
communal normative theory; and the consolationist theory (Attoe, 2020). The
God-purpose theory sees meaning as domiciled in the fulfilment of one’s destiny
or through the obedience of divine law as what makes life meaningful. This theory
is often hinged on the argument that religion and the belief in God as the Supreme
Being permeate the African communal-ontological life. According to Pantaleon
Iroegbu:
So far, nobody to our knowledge, has disputed the claim that in African traditional societies,
there were no atheists. The existence of God is not taught to children, the saying goes. This
means that the existence of God is not learnt, for it is innate and obvious to all. God is
ubiquitously involved in the life and practices of the people. (Iroegbu, 1995: 359).
Evidently, by conceiving that God exists and that He mediates in the affairs of men,
Africans believe that God, therefore, has the power of determining the purpose and
the meaning that is often attached to human existence. It is important to note,
according to Attoe, the belief in God-purpose theory of meaning suggests that
“nothingness is impossible” (Attoe, 2020: 5). What this implies, to him, is that in
African context, nothingness is similar to being-alone and being-with-others
essence of the African communal life. Differently construed, the emphasis Afri-
cans place on the intersubjective relationship with others is important in the
attempt to ensure that nothingness does not exist. This stands in contradistinction
to the Cartesian Cogito where the individual is seen as an enclosed entity that is not
open to others. Relationships with other people are how existence should be
manifested. This is how the other realities that come from God validate his
existence as a being-with-others. Consequently, “the African rejection of nothing-

ness for being-alone comes from the African understanding of God as necessarily
eternal (at least regressively speaking) and also the progenitor of the universe”
(Attoe, 2021: 6).
It is important to state here that the concept of destiny is sometimes tied to the
God-purpose theory of meaning. The reason for this is because it is believed that
the human destiny, good or bad, is divine. Thus, the meaningfulness or meaning-
lessness of human existence in an African place is inextricably linked to one’s
destiny. Here, it can be argued as to how one is to correlate bad destiny with the
good one since it is God that gives one destiny. However, Segun Gbadegesin was
quick to point out that both good and bad destinies are from God, whether or not
the individual choses it. Regarding the divine law and the role it plays in the God-
purpose theory of meaning, according to Idowu, “divine laws are known to the
individual via different conduits that serve as representatives or messengers of the
supreme – usually lesser gods, spirits, ancestors, or priests” (Idowu, 2005:
186–187). While these laws differ from one culture to the other, it is expected
that there are some taboos or injurious acts that individuals are expected to avoid in
order to avoid disharmony in the community. Thus, not adhering to these divine
laws breeds meaninglessness.
While the God-purpose theory is a plausible theory in the discourse on the
meaningfulness/meaninglessness of human existence, several criticisms have been
levelled against it. One is the idea problem of determinism. Given that God deter-
mines the meaning attached to human existence, does it not suggest that human
freedom becomes useless? From another perspective, does this not encourage
laziness? While these questions are pertinent is that the human freedom is already
removed from the equation as God is the sole determinant of his/her destiny. For the
second question, individuals may decide to stay put and watch as things unfold, and
decide not to take action where necessary. Another criticism of this theory is that it
fails to capture the meaningfulness of human existence that is outside one’s destiny
and divine law. Consequently, if a person’s desire of becoming a musical genius
conflicts with his predetermined destiny, they will not succeed in making their efforts
significant. But it seems to reason that such an endeavor counts as a noteworthy
moment (Attoe, 2021: 7).
Another theory that is germane in the attempt to understand the meaning of
human existence in the African place is the Vital Force Theory. Before we proceed
here, it is important to by way of retrospect understand what the vital force entails.
According to Placide Tempels, the “vital force” which is also known as the “inmost
nature of being” is seen as a cosmic energy which permeates all entities that exist in
the Bantu ontology. He captures it as follows:
The key principle of Bantu philosophy is that of vital force. The activating and final aim of
all Bantu effort is only the intensification of vital force. To protect it or to increase vital force,
that is the motive or profound meaning in all their practices. It is the ideal which animates the
life of the ‘muntu,’ the only thing for which he is ready to suffer and to sacrifice himself
(Tempels cited in Okafor, 1982: 84–85).
478 A. E. Iyare
In the same vein, Lajol expresses that:
Africans believe that behind every human being or object there is a vital power or soul
(1989, 369). Africans personify nature because they believe that there is a spiritual force
residing in every object of nature. (2017, 28).
Since the vital force is important in the discourse on African ontology, scholars such
as Ada Agada has incorporated it in the attempt to understand the meaning of human
existence in an African space. He poignantly conceptualizes this by stating that:
Since vital force is the energy of life, determining the mode and extent of survival, it stands
to reason that a meaningful life will be one that maximises vital force in all aspects of a
person’s life. Positive states of mind and affects like optimism, hopefulness and joy are to be
maximised, while negative states of mind and affects like pessimism, nihilism, fearfulness
and sadness are to be minimised. Knowledge must be pursued and ignorance rejected
(Agada 2020: 103).
Evidently, the individual is expected to maximize the vital force for his/her own
benefits. This can further be understood within the context of the three perspectives
from which the vital force can be understood, according to Tempels. In his words:
(a) The nature of the universe to the Bantu African is nothing if not the “universe of
forces.”
(b) These forces can weaken or strengthen the life of a person who stands as the
center of the universe.
(c) In the face of the fact that one’s life force can be dangerously diminished or
beneficially enhanced and strengthened, the best course of action for one is to
take care to avoid the diminution of one’s life force (Tempels cited in Okafor,
1982: 85).
The last point above is important in appraising the vital force theory as one of the
theories of the human existence. This simply means that some practices are causally
interpreted in relation to the weakening or strengthening of life force, as shown by
the way witchcraft, sorcery, the medicine man, ancestor worship, the king, and the
chief are dealt with. This setting makes the argument that some of these players
weaken life energy while others strengthen it. Put differently, life becomes mean-
ingful for the individual if he or she does things that strengthen the life force, and the
life becomes meaningless if he or she also does things that diminish the life force. If
the concept of a vital force is to be taken seriously, it is necessary to acknowledge
that the vital force is a significant component of the person and that there are several
ways in which it can be increased or decreased. One must look to illness, misery,
depression, exhaustion, disappointment, injustice, failure, or any unpleasant event as
factors to the loss of vital force. In the same way, it is possible to argue that positive
interactions with others, justice, enjoyment, good health, particular rituals, and other
factors all help to strengthen and bolster vital force. These concepts bring us to
vitalism as a theory of meaning (Attoe, 2021: 8).
What relationship, if any, exists between personhood and meaning in an African

place? By personhood, we mean the constituents parts of the human person. It is
important to state here without equivocation that there are two basic constituents of
the human person in African traditions, and they are: the descriptive ontological and
normative social. Regarding the former, the human person is believed to possess
some physical features such as the head, hand, legs, eyes, etc., while the normative
social has to do with the individual’s ability to conform to the social norms of his
immediate community.
The personhood theory of meaning has been defended by Motsamai Molefe who
argued in his article entitled “Personhood and a Meaningful Life in African Philos-
ophy” (2020), that this theory of meaning “is construed in terms of the agent
achieving the moral end of moral perfection or excellence. A life that exudes
moral perfection to satisfactory levels, given the limits associated with morality, is
a meaningful one” (2020: 202). What is central to understanding this conception of
the meaning of life, according to Molefe, is the concept of dignity.
. . .inflorescent dignity is used to refer to individuals who are flourishing as human beings –
living lives that are consistent with and expressive of the intrinsic dignity of the human.
Thus, dignity is sometimes used to refer to a state of virtue – a state of affairs in which a
human being habitually acts in ways that expresses the intrinsic value of the human
(Sulmasy, 2008: 473).
The term “inflorescent dignity” describes a state of virtue that an agent develops over
time; the agent’s ability to secure her standing or inherent dignity leads to the
emergence of the state of virtue under examination. Always keep in mind that
according to the ethics of personhood, we have status or inherent dignity since we
have the ability for moral virtue. The growth of the agent’s potential for virtue
translates to moral perfection, which we may also think of in terms of a life of honor.
This form of dignity is what we obtain in relation to our attempts to acquire moral
perfection; it is known as achieving dignity. As a result, the development of the
unique human capacity for virtue is a necessary condition for a dignified human
existence and the pursuit of a meaningful life (Molefe, 2020: 202).
The personhood theory of meaning can further be understood within the context
of the normative social component of personhood in African traditions. The norma-
tive social component of personhood states that the human person attains full status
on the basis of his ability to abide by the community norms and values. In this sense,
the life of the individual is meaningful if and only if he sees himself in relationship
with others. This is captured by Segun Gbadegesin who stated that:
The purpose of individual existence is intricately linked with the purpose of social existence,
and cannot be adequately grasped outside it . . . The meaning of one’s life is therefore
measured by one’s commitment to social ideals and communal existence. The question,
‘What is your existence for?’ (Kíni o wà fún?) is not always posed. It is posed when a person
has been judged to be useless to his/her community. It is therefore a challenge, a call to serve.
It presupposes a conception of human existence which sees it as purposeful, and the purpose
is to contribute to the totality of the good in the universe (Gbadegesin, 1991: 58).
480 A. E. Iyare
It is important to state here that several criticisms have been levelled against this
theory of meaning. For instance, it has been argued that this theory of meaning takes
meaning beyond the physical components of the human person such as the brain and
other central nervous activities. Put differently, this theory suggests that the meaning
of human life is predetermined and as such, the individual has little or nothing to do
to make his or her life meaningful.
In summary, the vital force theory sees the constant striving to increase one’s vital
force as what makes an individual life meaningful. The communal normative
function theory sees meaning in the sustenance of harmony through positive inter-
actions with one’s community while the consolationist theory sees the constant
yearnings for perfection as what makes life meaningful. This was also seen in
Segun Gbadegesin’s theory of destiny from the Yoruba thought which suggests
that prior to one’s birth, one is given a preordained destiny that is specific to the
individual (Adedayo, 2021: 7). This is because God knows how destiny fits to its
grander schemes the individual possesses enough free will to accept, fulfil, reject, or
disregard one’s destiny. Even in fulfilling one’s destiny, it will only be realized when
it aligns or it is in consonant with the destinies of others, and the dictates of the
community. This means the individual destinies are achieved along with the desti-
nies of others and the community he relates with.
These views of the meaning of life may not be exhaustive in this work, but it is
evident that similarities exist among the different cultures in Africa. The meaning in
life is presented in varying degrees among human persons depending largely on their
choices and these are sometimes conceived in terms of purpose to be achieved
(Metz, 2020: 116). These purposes to be achieved can be interpreted differently by
individuals and the community to which they belong. For some they believe that
giving birth to a child and rearing the child with love gives meaning to one’s life.
Some tends to hold that the more one donates rightly, the more meaningful life
becomes while others also believe to live a meaningful life is to grow old to a ripe
age so that when he or she dies, he or she can become an ancestor. So for the African
anything short of these makes life meaningless. For instance, if a man dies premature
death, it means the person did not live a meaningful life. This also account for why to
the Africans the physical death is not seen as the end of life. Life to him appears to be
more meaningful even at death. That is why in Africa, living a good life does not
depend of the individual alone, but his relation with others in the community. That
means individual destinies can only be achieved through the destinies of others in a
community. So man’s purpose in life is to achieve a meaningful life with others. In
fact, if the individual existence is not in tandem with his or her destiny, a contradic-
tion between the destiny and efforts of an individual can lead to an unfulfilled life
(Balogun, 2007).
From the foregoing discussions above, either from seeing life as meaningful from
trying to fulfil one’s destiny as seen in the works of Gbadegesin, or a force of creative
energy as espoused by Ada Agada, and in the works of Attoe, through the sustenance
of harmony, through positive interactions with one’s community negates the Western
belief in reason as the substance of personhood, which is placing the individual as
centermost point of concern in society.
The next sections shall show the importance of relationality and death in under-
standing the meaning of human existence in African space, and the crisis of identity
posed by modern Africa as a result of colonialism and Westernization.
Relationality and the Meaning of Life
The view that Africans by nature are relational refers to the connectedness that exists
among Africans as a result of their communal lifestyle. It means the connectedness
that underlines how no individual exists in isolation. Relationality is the acceptance
of the individuality of others, for all are interconnected and in general, it is the
acceptance of interconnectedness of human, nature, and the spiritual. Many African
Scholars have written so much regarding the communalism and relationality that
exist in the cultures and life of Africans. Each of these cultures in one way or the
other shows how people are interconnected with others and their community. This
communalism finds its best expression in the Ubuntu Philosophy.
Ubuntuism is an African philosophical framework that is characterized by inter-
connectedness of all things and beings: the spiritual nature of people, their collective
and individual identity, and their collective/inclusive nature of family structure;
oneness of mind, body and spirit and value of interpersonal relationship
(Kudakwashe et al., 2022: 325). Ubuntu – its etymology is a root associated with
humanity; person, people, culture, and personhood between one of the core value of
Africans is built around this communalism. Ethics in Ubuntu is the measure of one’s
relationality with others, the environment, and all other independent parts
(Kudakwashe et al., 2022: 327). According to Robert Kudakwashe et al.:
The philosophy is known in different languages in Africa including bomato (Congo);

gumutu (Angola); Umunthu (Malawi); Vumuthu (Mozambique); Vumuntu, Vhutu
(South Africa); Humutu/ubunthosi (Zimbabwe) bumunhu (Tanzania); umuntu Uganda) to
mention but a few. Ubunthu is rooted in the saying “I am a person because you are; I share
because I share and participate and I am because of others.” (Kudakwashe et al., 2022: 327).
This same philosophy is noticeable in other cultures of the sub-Saharan Africa. For
example, as evident in the Yoruba culture, Ubuntuism is noticeable and practiced to the
extent that during marriage ceremonies the bride is often not seen as the wife of the
groom alone, but as that of the entire family and the community at large. Just the same
way, it is believed that the role of bringing up a child is that of the community and not
the biological parent alone. This means the individual exists for the community and vice
versa. This arrangement captures one’s purpose and the idea that the individual is the
image of the community, and the community is the image of the individual. However,
this is not to say there is no individual view point in Africa, or that community decides
in the name of the subject. It is rather a position that views an individual as being
nothing without the community and the community being nothing without the individ-
ual (Mwambi, 2020). In fact, for the African, life devoid of this human interconnec-
tedness with others and the community is a meaningless life. A meaningful life is a life
482 A. E. Iyare
which incorporates the individuality of other, such that one is not complete in oneself
but relies on other for completion. Apart from existing in relation to the others, the
individual exists in relation to the specialized forms making a part of the whole. Thus,
accepting the other human as oneself is to be in harmony with ultimate reality from
which human and all forces derive and are intricately and inextricably interconnected.
Death and the Meaning of Life
Death is a natural occurrence in every human society, and understanding how this
phenomenon is conceived in Africa consists of understanding how Africans con-
ceive reality an existence under which such events are subsumed (Imafidon, 2018:
93). Death simply means the physical termination of a person’s life. When death
occurs, the person ceases to exist physically. But the actual meaning and conception
of death depends on people’s perception and understanding of reality. For Sartre,
dealing with the trauma of loss in death is never that which gives life its meaning. It
is on the contrary that which as a principle removes meaning from life; if we must die
our life has no meaning because its problems received no solution and because the
very measuring of its problem remained undetermined (Sartre, 1969: 545).
According to Camus “the meaninglessness and absurdity of existence ends with
death” (Camus, 1955: 47). Some philosophers such as Plato, St. Augustine, St.
Thomas Aquinas, and René Descartes have argued overtime that the soul is immortal
and by extension, at the point bodily death, the soul transcends due to its immortal
and indestructible nature. However, for philosophers such as Aristotle, Epicurus,
David Hume and Bertrand Russell, there is no life after death, that is, the soul is
mortal and destructible (Omoregbe, 1991: 67).
From the above, it is evident that people’s beliefs in life and death reflect their
approach towards death. Although the West, Oriental world, and Africa believe that
death does not bring to an end the activities of man on earth, their interpretation of
the meaning and conception of death differs based on their understanding of reality.
For the Africans, the physical death is not the end of life but a transition from this
world to the land of the spirits (Asuquo, 2011: 173). The African worldview
understands death as an integral and continuous development of life process insep-
arable from the interwoven connection between the visible and invisible ontologies
(Baloyi & Makobe-Rabothata, 2014). People do not cease to exist once they are
physically dead, instead they transcend to the spiritual world to live in the commu-
nity of the living dead. Dying marks a further development milestone which is not
separate from life development process and stages it as a transition to a different
phase of being. To the African, death does not sever family connections, but the dead
becomes an ancestor (Baloyi & Makobe-Rabothata, 2014).
However, there are different classifications of death resulting to either a good
death or a bad death. A good death is when a person grows old and dies peacefully,
while a bad death is when a person dies at a tender age because of his wrongdoings.
It was not time for the person to die but due to something he did (Geest, 2004: 64). It
is believed that in bad death, a person does not become an ancestor because the
family and community only reckon with those who died a good death. So only people
whose deaths are judged to be good gets the befitting burial by both family and
community. A part of the reason is also because the dead who becomes an ancestor is
most time still considered as a living dead. He or she is still being seen as relevant in
the scheme of things among the living. This is why it is important for the community
of the living to ensure that the dead is properly rested in the invincible realm of
existence by performing the necessary rites to initiate the dead into the ancestral cult
(Imafidon, 2018: 94). It is believed that the physically dead can become wrathful and
harmful to the living if he or she is not properly transited into the invisible realm. That
is the reason for and the importance of the burial rites by the family members. So even
at the death there is this interconnectedness between the dead and the living; the dead
once admitted into the ancestral cult still relates with the living, that is why at some
ceremonies the living still acknowledge the dead by pouring libation during prayers
for them to help direct and guide their affairs here in the physical world.
The Existentiality of Suffering and Meaning of Life
The discourse of suffering has been an integral aspect of human thought and
suffering remains a perennial and highly debated issue in the history of philosophy,
religion, psychology, and studies in theodicy. This has led to two key perspectives
of suffering deducible from existing literature on the subject matter. These
according to Michael Stoeber are: (i) destructive or meaningless suffering and
(ii) transformative or purposeful suffering (Stoeber, 2005). According to Stoeber,
destructive suffering is “suffering which is purposeless and even inhibiting of any
kind of personal growth” (Stoeber, 2005) or human well-being. This sort of
suffering is often discussed in very close relation with evil and has dominated
Western thought for ages as a human experience that threatens meaningful exis-
tence and must be avoided and prevented at all costs. In fact, bulk of the literature
on suffering focuses more on this sense of suffering as destructive and meaningless
and caused by evil. It does follows that in the discussion of destructive suffering,
evil is invariably discussed. As Renee Jeffery explains it, citing copiously David
Parkin’s view on the matter as well,
. . . [in] the wide range of disparate understandings of evil . . . suffering is never lacking from
its conceptualization. . . That is, the idea of evil, in its range of secular and theistic forms has
traditionally sought to make sense of human suffering, to make otherwise meaningless
suffering intelligible. . . the experience of suffering is central to our understanding of evil. . .
Hence, bulk of the existing literature on suffering that have emerged from philo-
sophical discourses focus primarily on the origin of suffering in relation to
the problem of evil. This is seen for instance, in the works of Plato, Augustine,
and Leibniz. Little exist on the theorization of suffering as an actual, factual human
and social experience conceptualized outside the realm of the divine origin of evil
and suffering.
484 A. E. Iyare
Transformative suffering on the other hand is aptly explained thus by Michael

Stoeber (2005: 18):
Writing in a very general way, Dorothee Soelle argues that humanity ‘learns through
suffering . . ., experiences change, is directed towards wisdom’. In such a view, suffering
is understood in terms of the positive role it might play in one’s life. That is to say, it serves a
purpose, has a goal, can be understood in terms of some better end towards which it
contributes.
Thus, in this sense of suffering as transformative or purposeful, some scholars

although recognizing the importance of evil in the discourse of suffering, recognize
as well that there is more to the matter than evil. They see suffering as an integral
aspect of human existence and reality having some benefits – this is not often the
case with destructive conception of suffering which sees suffering as something alien
to ideal human existence and thus must be fought against – which though may cause
pain, also has purpose and benefits. This understanding of suffering is similar, for
instance, to doing good. Doing good is seen as essential for human well-being as it
leads to the betterment of others. But doing good may sometimes bring pain for some
others, but such pain cannot jettison the good it brings as well.
The transformative concept of suffering thus shifts from theodicy to existen-
tialism as its backbone. In this existentialist understanding, suffering is a human
experience that generally showcases life’s meaninglessness, facticity, finitude, and
thrownness, but, as some existentialists show, also has a transformative side where
we can learn through it and improve our lives and well-being. However, even in
this transformative sense as we see, for example, in Kierkegaard’s existentialist
philosophy, the goal is still to overcome suffering and attain ideal state of being and
existence in this world or in an other-worldly existence. Hence, in both the
destructive and transformative senses of suffering dominant in Western philosoph-
ical literature, suffering is abhorred and avoided at all cost and authentic existence
is hinged on one’s ability to avoid, prevent, and overcome and take control of it at
all cost. For example, the Greek moral philosophers including Plato, Aristotle, and
Socrates all agreed that the ultimate moral goal is to maximize happiness of
individuals in human societies through the cultivation of key moral virtues includ-
ing one that is the foundation of philosophy, moral-intellectual virtue. Virtues in
the Greek moral and philosophical tradition help to minimize human suffering and
pain. The atomist philosopher Democritus is known to have said that medicine
heals the body’s diseases but wisdom the soul’s suffering (pathe) (Blyth, 2012;
Hall, 2012). Philosophy itself was thus seen in Greek philosophy as a way of
overcoming suffering. In medieval, largely Christian and scholastic philosophy,
there was a domination of the understanding of suffering from a largely Judeo-
Christian perspective. Suffering was seen as the result of man’s imperfection, sin,
and inability to live up to ideal ethical standards. Christian philosophy is meant to
lead the way to a life of perfection, free from suffering in an other-worldly
existence. This is quite obvious in the philosophy of Augustine of Hippo and
Thomas Aquinas and their understanding of sin, suffering, and the redemption and
hope Christ’s death brings. Admittedly, these Church Fathers highlighted the role
suffering plays in teaching of certain virtues such as endurance, but for them,
suffering was never to be accepted as an ideal existential condition. The key point
in medieval philosophy was that suffering comes from sin and a messiah will bring
redemption from suffering (Tarling, 2012). This understanding of suffering found
its way into modernity particularly in existentialism. Theist existentialists such as
Martin Buber and Søren Kierkegaard, atheist existentialists such as Albert Camus
and Jean-Paul Sartre, and many modern and contemporary philosophers of religion
and theodicy emphasize the destructive and abhorrent nature of suffering. Exis-
tentialists generally describe suffering as the lack of meaning and purpose in
human existence. Overcoming suffering is therefore key to finding meaning and
purpose in life (Camus, 1991).
The discourse of, and ideas of, suffering are therefore, intrinsically linked to
those of human well-being. The general destructive reception of suffering is
essentially tied to the reason that it inhibits human well-being, and existing
literature show this important connection between the two concepts such that the
avoidance of the one – suffering – results in the actualization of the other – human
well-being. This is where the African indigenous conception of suffering differs in
the way it connects suffering to a meaningful life and the development of essential
values. African traditions consists of a transformative, purposeful, and relational
account of existential suffering. Embedded in sub-Saharan African cultures is a
rich existential ontology of suffering which becomes the rich source of virtue
ethics. Suffering is theorized and presented in African thought as emerging from
an existential ontology of being. Suffering is an integral part of our being human
and our relationship with other human and nonhuman beings, both this-worldly
and other-worldly. Far from being essentially destructive, suffering is transforma-
tive, existential, and constitutes a vital feature of existence just like freedom,
relationality, death, and responsibility. It is not a feature of reality that is abhorrent
or meaningless. Rather it gives life meaning as it is key in developing personal and
relational virtues such as resilience, endurance, strength, value for the good life,
respect, solidarity and mutual support, virtues that makes life meaningful. Among
the Esan people of Southern Nigeria, for example, Esan words such as oyaleto,
iziegbo-oya, and oyazigholo, which translate as “suffering breeds longevity,”
“suffering breeds patience,” “suffering breeds strength” manifest and projects the
virtues embedded in suffering, virtues that individuals must develop to lead
meaningful lives. Esan concept of existential suffering is thus transformative
because it not only recognizes the pain that suffering could bring, but also
emphasizes the benefits or utility of suffering for human well-being. More specif-
ically, Esan thought emphasizes the virtues and values that are developed and
sustained in community members due to their experience of suffering, virtues and
values that are essential for human well-being and survival. Adages, names, and
proverbs in Esan thought shows clearly such beliefs. For instance, the Esan names
“oyaletor” and “oyazigholo” which translates as “suffering brings longevity” and
“suffering breeds strength,” respectively, shows how suffering can be the source of
important virtues such as strength, endurance, and patience. These names show
486 A. E. Iyare
that beyond the pain that suffering brings, there are benefits that could transform an
individual, making him or her a better person. The adage “aziegbe agbon” also
given in the shorter form as the name “aziegbe” explains how the problems and
suffering one faces in life helps one to develop patience and courage. It is
ubiquitous that Africa has rich and diverse cultural and philosophical heritages
which questions this seeming singularity and universality in the discourse of
suffering in African philosophy. However, there exist semblances particularly
across sub-Saharan African cultures and communities in the general principles
and assumptions about being, existence, values, and knowledge.
Modern Africa and the Crisis of Identity
Modern Africa can be referred to as the period after the contact with the West which
distinguishes from the premodern African forms of life and experiences prior to
Western influences. This era can well be described as postcolonial Africa, which
means the era proceeding the colonial period in Africa.
After Africa’s colonial experience, most African societies experienced changes as
a result of the impact of colonialism either positively or negatively which resulted in
cultural mix of the major character with the colonizer and created new cultures for
the Africans. The term postcolonial is defined as all the cultures affected by the
imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day (Abdulqadir,
2017). The term postcolonialism, apart from representing the historical period or
state of affairs of the aftermath of Western colonialism, is also used to describe the
concurrent projects to reclaim and rethink history of the people subordinated under
various forms of imperialism. This period heralded different nationalist movements
and reactions against the effect of colonization on the cultures of Africa. Post-
colonialism also ushered in a lot of postcolonial literatures and writers who saw
the need to redirect already distorted cultures as a result of the effects of colonialism.
The main goal was decolonization which has to do with interrogating the effects of
colonialism in terms of cultural alienation, anti-colonial struggles of the third world
and the rise of nationalism.
The decolonization of nations under colonial tenets incited an important move
towards reproducing social and individual identities (Abdulqadir, 2017). The period
likewise was marked by the battles of liberation at all levels of life; culture, economy,
arts, and so on demanded a recapture of actual identity, previously lost by powers of
colonization (Abdulqadir, 2017). The identity issues became prominent especially as
was seen in the works of most postcolonial writers such as Frantz Fanon, Aimé
Césaire, Edward Said, Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and others. Therefore,
the search for identity in modern Africa is the by-product of colonization
(Abdulqadir, 2017). After Africa’s experience of colonialism, modern Africa became
riddled with crisis of identity.
Identity is characterized as “the certainty of being” who or what man or thing
is. Identity as a term is derived from the Latin word identitas which means sameness.
Philosophically identity is defined as the affiliation each thing carries only to itself
(Iyare, 2017). It means those marked differences which distinguishes an individual or a

group from the other. The psychological meaning of identity includes the character-
istics, individualities, beliefs, expressions, and views that construct a person or group,
while the idea of identity in sociology is understood as one of social appearance, self-
appreciation, and looks that express their uniqueness and differentiates from others as
national, cultural, and gender identities (Abdulqadir, 2017). As evident from the above
discussions, modern Africa suffers the problem of identity such that this era became
riddled with the identity crises. To resolve the identity crises, most African writers and
nationalist championing this cause resorted to total decolonization.
This colonization has to do with cultural, psychological, and economic freedom
which aims at helping indigenous people achieve the goal of sovereignty; the right and
ability to practice self-determination over their land, cultures, and political economic
system. For instance, Edward Said in his idea of identity, as observed by Saman
Abdulqadir in his work The Crises of Identity in Postcolonial Literature, focused on
the need to assert oneself to develop an individual personality that is against the ideals
of colonialism and imperialism. He stressed that this “transformation must be
documented and analyzed since the development of a unique identity and the fate of
a person is not dictated merely by his governing authority or oppressive rulers. It is in
the hands of the person to shape his own destiny” (Abdulqadir, 2017).
The argument here is that Western colonialism digs shatteringly into the dignity
and authenticity of the African, such that the native African at all times tries to make
himself look like a white man.
Frantz Fanon also argued along this in his popular work Black Skin, White Mask
where he constantly calls that we should reconstruct and reclaim the native African
identity. Fanon’s argument is that native African identity has been distorted,
deviated, and confused as a result of long years of colonization (Fanon, 2008:
57). For Fanon, the black man has two dimensions, one with his fellow black man;
the other with the white man. A Negro behaves differently with a white man and
with another Negro. . .this self-division is a direct result of colonial subjugation
(Fanon, 2008: 62). Just like Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire was one of the most
influential Caribbean writers of his generation and one of the founding fathers of
Negritude, the black consciousness movement that sought to assert pride in
African cultural values to counterbalance the inferior status accorded them in
European colonial thinking. Césaire through the black consciousness movement
frowned at all the activities and ills associated with colonialism, from all forms of
oppression meted out on the black people during colonialism. According to
Césaire “every day that passes, every denial of justice, every demand of the worker
that is drowned in blood, every scandal that is hushed tip, every punitive expedi-
tion, every police van, every genderme and every militia man brings home to us the
value of our old societies” (Césaire, 1972: 24). Césaire detested the derogatory
manner the Negro had been described and made to look during colonialism. The
uncivilized perception of the blacks by the white colonialist was of great concern to
him. He argued that the idea of the barbaric Negro is a European invention, and
also from the historians and novelists of civilization, they project a false objectiv-
ity, their chauvinism, their shy racism, their depraved passion for refusing to any
488 A. E. Iyare
merit in the non-Western races, their obsession with monopolizing all glory for
their own race. Césaire believes in the value of our old societies. According to him,
our old societies were communal societies never societies of the many for a few.
They were societies that were not only ante capitalist but also anti-capitalist. They
were democratic societies always, cooperative societies, fraternal societies
(Césaire, 1972: 24).
This confused identity described above by Fanon was also captured by Homi
Bhabha; in Saman Abdulqadir’s work mentioned above he used the idea of “hybrid-
ity.” He observed that “such a picture develops when cultural traits of a colonial
power and its colony intermingle together leading to a new identity that conforms to
no specific stereotypical cultural description. He goes on to create the concept of a
third space that lies somewhere in between two separate cultures. This space allows
the mixing of different cultural traits without any prejudice, coercion or imposition”
(Abdulqadir, 2017). These sort of confused identities still exist with Africans such
that one of the greatest problems Africa and Africans are facing both here and in the
diaspora is the problem of identity. Just as Fanon observed how an immigrant must
appear to the stereotype of a white person, so as to be accepted in European nation or
forced to subvert his own individuality so that colonial nation cannot view him under
the prism of his own “backward” cultural characteristics.
Conclusion
From our discussions above, it is evident that understanding Africa and African
existentialism, one needs to understand the authentic being as against the inauthentic
identity such as was experienced in postcolonial era. This authentic being has to do
with the general understanding of what Africans conceive as reality. What gives
meaning to life for an African as seen above differs from the Western conception of
meaning. Hence, such values as God-purpose theory, communal normative theory,
preordained destiny theory, relationality, “Ubuntuism,” etc., negate the Western
imposed identity on Africa, most especially the Western belief in reason as the
substance of personhood and placing the individual as the centermost point of
concern in the society. So the imposition of a false identity by the experience of
colonialism as seen in the works of Fanon and Césaire that the African must appear
to the stereotype of a white person so as to be accepted in a European nation, or in the
views of Césaire the uncivilized perception of the black by the white colonialist as
“barbaric” Negro or in the idea of “hybridity” in Saman Abdulqadir’s work above
which leads to no specific stereotypical cultural description only destroys the more
the dignity and cultural identity of the African. For Africa to reconstruct and reclaim
this battered and distorted identity for an authentic African identity, we need to
appreciate and understand the rich and complex culture of Africa prior to colonial-
ism. This leaves us with no other choice other than to see Africa existentialism as an
essential part of African philosophical curriculum for understanding the identity and
meaningfulness of life of the African person.
References
Abdulqadir, S. (2017). The crisis identity in postcolonial literature. Being a PhD thesis submitted to
the Department of English Language and Literature. Institute of Social Sciences, Istanbul Aydin
University.
Adedayo, S. (2021). Existential philosophy from an African perspective. Being a seminar paper
presented at the Department of Philosophy, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, in partial fulfillment
of the course PHI 703: African traditional thought.
Agada, A. (2020). The African vital force theory of meaning in life. South African Journal of
Philosophy, 39(2), 100–112.
Asuquo, O. O. (2011). A rationalisation of an African concept of life, death and hereafter. American
Journal of Social and Management Sciences, 2(1), 171–175.
Attoe, A. (2020). A systematic account of African conceptions of the meaning of/in life.
Attoe, A. (2021). African perspectives on the meaning of life. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
1, 1–19.
Baloyi, L., & Makobe-Rabothata, M. (2014). The African conception of death: A cultural impli-
cation. Papers from the international association of cross-cultural psychology conferences.
http://www.scholars.gvsu.edu/iaccp_papers/119/. Retrieved: September 17, 2022.
Balogun, O. (2007). The Concepts of Ori and Human Destiny in Traditional Yoruba Thought: A
Soft-Deterministic Interpretation. In Nordic Journal of African Studies, 16(1), 116–130.
Blyth, D. (2012). Suffering and ancient therapy: Plato to Cicero. In J. Malpas & N. Lickiss (Eds.),
Perspectives on human suffering (pp. 131–154). Springer.
Camus, A. (1955). The myth of Sisyphus: And other philosophical essays (J. O’Brien, Trans.).
Alfred A. Knopf.
Camus, A. (1991). The Plague (S. Gilbert, Trans.). Vintage.
Césaire, A. (1972). Discourse on colonialism (J. Pinkham, Trans.). Monthly Review Press.
Fanon, F. (2008). Black skin, white masks. (C. L. Mackman & R Philcox, Trans.). Grove Press.
Geest, S.V.d. (2004). Dying peacefully: Considering good death and bad death in Kwahu-Tafo,
Ghana. Social Science and Medicine, 58, 899–911.
Hall, E. (2012). Ancient Greek responses to suffering. In J. Malpas & N. Lickiss (Eds.), Perspec-
tives on human suffering (pp. 155–170). Springer.
Idowu, W. (2005). Law, morality and the African cultural heritage: The jurisprudential significance
of the Ogboni Institution. Nordic Journal of African Studies, 14(2), 175–192.
Imafidon, E. (2018). Dealing with the trauma of loss: Interrogating the feminine experience of
coping with Spouse’s death in African traditions. In J. Chimakonam & L. Toit (Eds.), African
philosophy and the epistemic marginalisation of women (pp. 89–106). Taylor and Francis.
Iroegbu, P. (1995). Metaphysics: The Kpim of philosophy. International University Press.
Iyare, E. (2017). The cultural dimension of globalisation and its consequence for an authentic
African culture. Ewanlen: A Journal of Philosophical Inquiry, 1(1), 32–39.
Kudakwashe, R., et al. (2022). Ubuntu philosophy as a humanistic-existential framework for the
fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 62(3), 319–333.
Lajul, W. (2017). African Metaphysics: Traditional and Modern Discussions. In Ukpokolo, I.E., ed.
Themes, Issues and Problems in African Philosophy. Cham: Palgrave Macmillian. pp. 19–48.
Metz, T. (2020). African theories of meaning in life: A critical assessment. South African Journal of
Philosophy, 39(2), 113–126.
Metz, T. (2022). Recent Work on the Meaning of Life. In Ethics, 112(4), 781–814.
Mlungwa, Y. (2020). An African approach to the meaning of life. South African Journal of
Philosophy, 39(2), 153–165.
Molefe, M. (2020). Personhood and a meaningful life in African philosophy. South African Journal
490 A. E. Iyare
Mwambi, S. 2020. From rationality to relationality: Ubuntu as an ethical and human rights
framework for artificial intelligence governance. Carr Centre Discussion Paper Series,
2020–009.
Okafor, S. O. (1982). Bantu philosophy: Placide Tempels revisited. Journal of Religion in Africa,
13(2), 84–85.
Omoregbe, J. (1991). A simplified history of Western philosophy. Joja Educational Publishers.
Otubanjo, F. (1989). Themes in African traditional thought. In Z. S. Ali, A. A. Ayoade, &
A. A. B. Agbaje (Eds.), African traditional political thought and institutions (pp. 3–17). Centre
for Black and African Arts and Civilization.
Popkin, H., & Stroll, A. (1956). Philosophy made simple. Doubleday and Company Inc.
Sartre, J. P. (1969). Being and Nothingness. London: Methuen.
Stoeber, M. (2005). Reclaiming theodicy: Reflections on suffering, compassion and spiritual
transformation. Palgrave Macmillan.
Stroll, A., & Popkin, R. (1956). Philosophy Made Simple. London: Heinemann.
Sulmasy, D. (2008). Dignity and bioethics: History, theory, and selected applications. In The
President’s council on bioethics, human dignity and bioethics: Essays commissioned by the
President’s council (pp. 465–501). President’s Council on Bioethics.
Tarling, N. (2012). The meaning and the experience of suffering: A historian’s perspective. In
J. Malpas & N. Lickiss (Eds.), Perspectives on human suffering (pp. 113–120). Springer.
African Conceptions of the Meaning of Life
Aribiah David Attoe and Yolanda Mlungwana
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492
The Love Theory of the Meaning of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493
The “God’s Purpose” Theory of Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495
Destiny Theory of the Meaning of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495
Divine Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
Vital Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498
The Communal View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500
(Yoruba) Cluster View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502
Living a Religious Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
(Contemporary) Cluster View (CCV) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506
Abstract
The question of life’s meaning is a universal question that not only cuts across
various cultures but also resides at the back of the mind of almost every individual
that has ever existed. The very desire to continue striving in this world suggests
that there is something about life that makes it worth living. Even in the throes of
despair and suicide, there is something that drives the existential angst that
awakens such despair. Both striving and despair in life stand as subtle and benign
answers to questions about whether one considers his/her life meaningful. In
African philosophy today, answer to the question of life’s meaning from an
African perspective is receiving more attention now than it has in the last few
A. D. Attoe (*)
e-mail: aribiah.attoe@wits.ac.za
Y. Mlungwana
University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_33
492 A. D. Attoe and Y. Mlungwana
decades. This chapter is a summary of some of the dominant views in the current
literature on African conceptions of meaning. Specifically, it explores traditional
conceptions of meaning such as the love view, the God’s purpose view (destiny
and divine law view), the vital force view, the communal view, and the (Yoruba)
Cluster view, as well as the more contemporary views such as living a religious
life and the contemporary cluster view.
Keywords
African conceptions of meaning · God’s purpose · Meaning · Vital force ·
Communal
Introduction
Prior to a recent special issue of the South African Journal of Philosophy (SAJP,
published in 2020 and edited by Aribiah D. Attoe), there have not been large
comprehensive studies or extensive literature on African conceptions of the meaning
of life. Even though the concept has been underexplored in English-written African
philosophical literature, there have been some attempts to address, analyze, and
sometimes critically engage with this question since 2020. What follows is a
systematic account of a few of the theories of life’s meaning that have been discussed
by African philosophers. Otherwise put, what follows is a comprehensive exposition
of the question of the meaning of life, as defined and explained according to some
characteristically African philosophical perspectives.
Before discussing these African theories of the meaning of life in further detail, it
is important to spell out some key elements that make a theory an account of
meaning in/of life. According to Thomson (2012), a person’s life is meaningful by
virtue of a characteristic or set of characteristics that the life may or may not contain
in varying degrees. Thus, a life is more or less meaningful according to the extent to
which a particular meaning-conferring condition is present within that account of
meaning. Arjan Markus (2012) takes these key elements to include purpose, value,
and/or coherence. Hence an answer to the question of what makes life meaningful
ought to involve ideas that speak to an overarching goal, actions that are of intrinsic
axiological value, and what binds various actions performed within the context of a
theory of meaning such that it makes sense, pursuant to a certain goal (Markus,
2012). Metz (2013) talks about actions that transcend our animal nature, corrals high
esteem and admiration, and also ends that are worth pursuing for their own sake.
Any, and only, theories of meaning ought to capture some (if not all) of these
elements, in order for them to stand as plausible theories of meaning.
So, what are the dominant African theories of meaning, especially in the litera-
ture? This entry specifically examines the following: love view, the God’s purpose
theory (destiny and divine law view), the vital force theory, the communal view, and
the (Yoruba) Cluster view, as well as the more contemporary views such as living a
religious life and the contemporary cluster view. The love view conceives a person’s
African Conceptions of the Meaning of Life 493
life as meaningful to the extent that s/he is loving toward others. The God’s purpose
view is captured with two sub-elements, destiny and divine law. The destiny view
asserts that the fulfillment of one’s God-given destiny is the condition upon which a
person’s life is meaningful (Attoe, 2020; Mlungwana, 2020). The divine law view
conceives of an individual’s life as meaningful only insofar as s/he obeys or lives in
accordance with divine laws given to individuals or communities by God through
special intermediaries such as priests, diviners, or even spirits. The vital force view
sees the meaning of life as involving one’s acquisition or cultivation of the
all-pervading essence of life (vital force) – which emanates from God; and this
vital force can be cultivated through rational and moral achievements. The commu-
nal view entails the idea that communality –a trademark in African Philosophy – or
the communal values of fostering harmony and the promotion of the common good,
while avoiding discord, are what make life meaningful; that is, the inescapable
interdependence or relationality involved in African communalism is what provides
human existence with purpose.
For the more contemporary views about meaning, we also identified the Living a
Religious Life (LRL) view, which locates meaning in the ability for one to pursue
certain religious ideals, in service to God and, sometimes, in expectation of recog-
nition by his/her community. Finally, we explore the contemporary cluster view,
which finds meaning in the pursuit of certain specific values such as “self-suffi-
ciency, child-raising, and accomplishing socio-cultural milestones and a high status
in the community” (Attoe, 2021).
The Love Theory of the Meaning of Life
Let us turn to the first African perspective on the meaning of life discussed in this
entry, which is termed the love view. This conception of meaning is based on
Munyaradzi Mawere’s (2010) idea of Rudo (love) as a theory of life’s meaning.
Munyaradzi Mawere (2010: 279) begins by defining purpose as “the reason for
which something is made or done.” He relates this understanding of purpose to the
context of meaning as what provides the reason for human life in the world, or at
least why human beings should continue to live. According to Mawere (ibid.), the
Shona people (a particular ethnic group largely from Zimbabwe and Mozambique)
answer the why question(s) of human existence through this understanding of
purpose as the reason for human life on earth; this answer is to love. That is, our
purpose – which shall be understood in terms of the meaning of our lives – is to love.
This notion of love is not only a purpose, but it is also a widely cherished virtue in
the Shona perspective. It plays a central role in human life and it influences all other
human actions.
Mawere’s conception of the notion of love is in the Greek sense of agape, which
is a “pure ideal type of love rather than the physical attraction suggested by Eros”
(Edwards 1990, quoted in Mawere, 2010: 279). Following Mawere, the Shona and
the English terms for love are used interchangeably in this entry. Rudo is the Shona
word for love. Rudo, or love, is defined as the “unconditional affection to do and
promote goodness for oneself and others, even to strangers” (Mawere, 2010: 280).
This kind of love goes beyond family and friendship ties, it extends to the entire
community, even strangers. However, the community it extends to is only the human
community in the sense that human beings are the only objects of love (Mawere,
2010). This is in contrast to how some philosophers of meaning, such as in Susan
Wolf’s (2010) influential account, construe love as something that can plausibly be
extended to objects, ideals, projects, or activities. According to the Shona traditional
perspective, love is an innate gift that is inherent in the very make-up of all human
beings (ibid.). Since it is an innate or natural attribute engraved in all persons, every
human being has the propensity to love. Mawere (2010) also explains that this is not
deterministic since despite the fact that love is a natural human faculty, to love – the
act – requires the person’s own free will. Moreover, this capacity to love is “the sole
purpose of life” (Mawere, 2010: 280).
In general, there are metaphysical and normative implications for such a concep-
tion of love, and these shall be discussed in order to spell out the essential conceptual
elements of the theory of love. The metaphysical worldview of the Shona is
expressed in the term rudo as it highlights love as fundamental in all human
relationships (ibid.). It is the foundation of community because it is essential and
unconditional. It is also widely held that chaos and the destruction of life is the
inevitable outcome of the absence of this love in human relationships (ibid.). Hence,
love is at the center of what it means for a person to be virtuous in the Shona
tradition. It does not only define the moral character of a person, but it is also a
fundamental part of the metaphysical aspect of the notion of the purpose of life
(ibid.).
For instance, with regard to human dignity and value, rudo plays such a signif-
icant role that it is an encouraged virtue and an expectation for human persons to
love all others; the opposite – or discriminating against others – is discouraged
(ibid.). Rudo is the foundation and essential element of all good relations in a
community, and it is for this reason that it is the purpose of human life. This
expresses the underlying value of love as the cornerstone of communal living
(ibid.). Communal living entails a specific way of life for every person that involves
living and working in harmony with others in the various dimensions of communal
life (ibid.). According to this Shona perspective of love, every role and responsibility
that a person has in their life is grounded on love, this includes meaningful activities
such as procreating, and ways of conduct like respect, generosity, encouraging
peace, and mutuality within the community (of which ancestors and God are a
part) (ibid.).
Furthermore, Mawere (2010) makes explicitly clear and emphasizes the idea that
in the absence of love, meaning is inconceivable. The meaning of any life in the
world does not exist outside the realm of love. Love, as conceptualized by Mawere,
is an intrinsic kind of value, that is, it is valuable for its own sake. The meaning of
life, according to this view, encompasses the dimension of value (the value of love)
as an inherent quality of a theory of meaning. In addition to this aspect, love is
construed as the “sole purpose” of human existence. Hence, the notion of rudo
captures the dimension of purpose, which is central to the kind of theory of life’s
meaning that Mawere has in mind. Love is viewed as an individual’s intended

purpose in life. Finally, for the coherence dimension, “a life is meaningful when
one is loving towards others and all other actions strive towards loving; and thus, all
acts of love and events that are loving in that life fit together” (Mlungwana, 2020:
156).
The “God’s Purpose” Theory of Meaning
Reality, as we know it, did not emerge out of nothing. In fact, as Wiredu (1998) and
the anonymous traditional African philosophers of the Akan school of thought see it,
absolute nothingness is impossible and is not captured in their metaphysics. Com-
bined with the beauty, and harmony we see in the world, it became apparent to our
ancestors that there must have been an all-enduring first cause, who had to be a
conscious cosmic designer that created the Universe as we know it. They also
imagined that the creation of the world could not have been arbitrary and so there
must be, at least, a cosmic purpose for which the world was made, and for which
human beings play some role. Following this, one immediately sees that meaning is
derived from a person playing the assigned role that his creation entails or helping in
some way to fulfill God’s cosmic purpose. How is this fulfillment achieved? The
literature identifies two major ways – the pursuit of destiny, which some like
Mlungwana (2020) have treated as a stand-alone account of meaning, and obeying
divine law.
Destiny Theory of the Meaning of Life
According to Gbadegesin (2004), destiny is the teleological end, given to a person by

God (usually before birth), which outlines the purpose of that person’s existence – it
is that person’s source of life’s meaning. In other words, life is meaningful if and
only if one fulfills one’s destiny. Gbadegesin’s ideas about destiny, which he derives
from the Yoruba traditional perspectives, direct the current interpretation of destiny
as a theory of meaning (Gbadegesin, 1991, 2004).
The concept of ori in the Yoruba tradition illustrates the fundamental belief in
pre-given destinies. The term ori means the head and it symbolizes what is called an
inner head, which expresses the notion of some kind of bearer of a person’s destiny
(Gbadegesin, 1991). This inner head also serves as the individual’s guide throughout
their life on earth. The idea that one’s destiny is “wound and sealed up in an ori”
(Gbadegesin, 1991: 47) expresses the pre-given nature of this concept (this notion of
a “pre-given destiny” will be discussed later on in this section). Destiny is ordained
to individuals and it is in accordance with this destiny that their lives are meaningful.
The significance of this belief is that there is a God-given “purpose for human
existence in the world, that human beings have to accomplish a ‘mission’ or convey
a message, and that this is the meaning of their existence” (Mlungwana, 2020: 157).
To return to the issue of a “pre-given” or ordained destiny, which explains how

human beings obtain destinies, let us ask the question, what is the source of destiny?
There are various ways that the Yoruba conceive of how human beings obtain their
destinies. These include the notions of a chosen destiny, an ordained destiny, as well
as a combination of the two extremes as the source of an individual’s destiny. The
first concept is what the Yoruba call Akunleyan, which means “that which one kneels
down to choose” (Gbadegesin, 2004: 315). This refers to the idea of choice
according to which human beings obtain their destiny by choosing from an array
of options presented to them by God. The second conception of the source of destiny
is what the Yoruba call Akunlegba, which means “that which is received while
kneeling” (Gbadegesin, 2004: 315). This refers to the idea of an affixed destiny,
which is one that is received from or ordained by God. In this case, God or the
Creator is completely responsible for the destinies of all human beings (Gbadegesin,
1991). Essentially, this means that it is through God’s will that our lives are
meaningful (Gbadegesin, 2004). The third conception of the source of destiny is
what the Yoruba call Ayanmo, which means “that which is chosen and affixed to
one” (Gbadegesin, 1991: 315). This refers to the idea of affixed choice, which is an
intermediate position between that of a chosen destiny and that of one that is
received (Gbadegesin, 1991). Although the idea of choice is at play here, it is not
clear who makes this choice – whether it is the individual herself or some external
entity like the creator (Gbadegesin, 2004).
Something that all three conceptualizations of the source of destiny have in
common is that destiny is closely linked to ori.1 This means that whether the
individual chooses, passively receives, or is the subject for which the choice is
affixed, there is a significant element of some kind of a pre-given nature to destiny.
One does not have to pick a side between the two extremes of a determined life and a
freely chosen one. The third conception of an affixed choice works as the middle
ground of destiny as in some respect received from God while it is also, to a certain
extent, chosen or fulfilled. Mlungwana (2020) proposed that it seems favorable to
use the term “pre-given” instead of terms like “predestined” or “pre-determined,”
and this is in order to highlight the important aspect of the possibility of failing to
accomplish one’s destiny. According to this interpretation, human beings receive
their destinies from the creator; however, fulfilling this destiny is not an inevitable
end (Mlungwana, 2020). Rather, it is up to the individual to freely will to fulfill this
destiny. Nevertheless, a failure to fulfill one’s destiny means that one’s lacks
meaning or has less meaning than that of a person who fulfills their destiny.
Human beings are directed toward their destiny, and it is from the pre-given
(received) dimension of the concept of destiny that one can infer that individuals are
not oriented toward it, but they also possess an inclination or disposition toward their
1
As mentioned earlier, Ori is the bearer of one’s destiny, and this is the case for every human being.
It for this reason that in any of the three sources of destiny, there is a dimension of an pre-existance
to one’s destiny – ultimately from the Creator.
destiny. To elucidate this concept, here are examples that distinguish between a
meaningful and meaningless life in accordance with the destiny view of meaning:
if we suppose that Beyoncé’s pre-given destiny is to become the greatest performer of all
time and she chooses to do all the things that will help her fulfil this destiny, then she has
lived a meaningful life. Hence, although her destiny was received, the choice to fulfil that
destiny was subjectively derived. In contrast, consider an individual who is destined to be the
greatest painter of all time but chooses to become a drug addict and fails to fulfil this destiny.
Such an individual received a destiny, but failed to pursue it. In this instance, such a person’s
life is less meaningful. (Mlungwana, 2020: 158)
To further explore the conceptual elements of destiny as part of the God’s purpose
theory of life’s meaning, let us analyze what destinies are. Gbadegesin (2004) argues
that the very idea that every human being has a destiny implies that there is a
connection or link between one’s own destiny and the destinies of others – these
others may be one’s parents and children, partner(s), relatives, friends, or any other
person in one’s community. To illustrate this point, let us consider, for instance, a
person like Harriet Tubman who may (for the purpose of this argument), presumably,
be destined to become an abolitionist who frees hundreds of slaves. Tubman’s
destiny affected the destiny of other people, such as those slaves that she set free.
It is plausible to think that the many slaves that Tubman liberated had to be slaves in
order for her to be able to free them – that without slavery she would not be an
abolitionist – and had their oppression and injustice, as well as their subsequent
rescue, as part of their overall journey toward their own specific destinies. In this
way, we see how the destinies of the different people may be intertwined with each
other in some significant or even trivial way. This is the idea that each and everyone’s
destiny is intertwined to the extent that the destiny of one individual, whether it is
chosen, received, or an affixed choice, is fundamentally linked to those of others.
Ultimately, this suggests that the destinies of members of a community are
connected, at least to the extent that certain events in the life of each member have
an impact on the lives of other members – all this, to serve God’s grand plan or
cosmic purpose (Gbadegesin, 2004; Attoe, 2020).
Divine Law
Another way in which God’s purpose confers meaning is through the obedience of
divine laws. These laws are precepts about how to live in the world as passed down
from God to human beings, with Diviners and priests as the usual medium of
communication. These laws often prescribe ways in which an individual can live a
harmonious life with others, certain rites and rituals that sustain the community and
cosmic harmony, certain taboos and sacrileges that inform discord or an unpalatable
shift in the balance of things, etc.
For the individual in search of meaning, the subjective desire to always obey
these laws and precepts ensures that not only the individual, but the community in
which s/he belongs, continues to flourish, and the balance needed to hold together
the very fabric of our existence, as things in the world, is sustained (Mbiti, 2015: 49).
Conversely, a meaningless life is one that fails to obey these divine laws, and beyond
mere meaninglessness, the repercussions could be dire. An example of sacrilege
would be murder and/or suicide. Such actions often entail banishment and huge
forms of sacrificial reparations that are done in order to retain the harmony and
balance that was otherwise destroyed.
While Divine laws do not immediately appear as purposes in our minds and might
make one wonder why it is part of the purpose theory, we must remember that these
laws are given because of the cosmic purpose – either to (1) ensure that existing
beings are provided with the space/wherewithal to accomplish that cosmic end or
(2) provide guidelines that aid the individual’s fulfillment of that cosmic purpose.
Attoe (2020), has argued that, perhaps, what ties the destiny view with the divine
law view, is the harmony that sustains the universe. According to him:
Harmony as described in this light expresses fully the mutual interdependency that is thought
of in African philosophy to characterise our existence and mode of living. At the highest
level of being, it shows the mutual interdependency between God and the universe with God
sustaining the universe and the universe authenticating and legitimising God’s existence. At
the lower levels, our very destinies are intertwined in such a way that achieving them creates
the sort of harmony that sustains the universe and legitimises God. The African God-purpose
theory of meaning would therefore locate meaning in an individual’s ability to obey divine
law and pursue her destiny in such a way that the harmony necessary for the sustenance of
the universe and the legitimisation of God is achieved. (Attoe, 2020: 132)
Recall that in African metaphysics, which is mostly relational, the idea of being-
alone is unattractive (Iroegbu, 1995; Attoe, 2022). Thus, for the first cause, God, the
need to be, and remain, a being in relation necessitated the need for something else to
exist in order for relationality, and the transformation from a being-alone to a being-
with-others, to occur. For scholars like Attoe, this is the reason for the existence of
the Universe. In order to continually provide God with an authentic relational
existence, the universe had to exist, and for God’s existence to continue to remain
authentic, the harmony and the type of relationality (among things in the universe)
that sustains the continuous existence of the world. Thus, fulfilling destiny and/or
obeying divine law constitutes the meaning of life as the individual performs those
actions that contribute to a grand cosmic purpose – the legitimization of God’s
existence.
Vital Force
Another theory of meaning that finds root in African thought is the vital force theory
of meaning. To understand the view, it is important to understand the metaphysics
behind it. When one examines a thing, especially a thing that has life, we see that in
some ways it is an animated entity. Even in inanimate things, consider a volcano
exploding or the movements associated with atoms when heated, we see expressions
of this animation in varying degrees. Dissect a living thing or dismantle a mountain,
and all one would see are component parts of a thing, none of which clearly (or, at
least, common sensically) expresses the very thing we know to be “animation.” For
the anonymous traditional African philosopher, whose penchant for empiricism and
pragmatism is well-established, it only makes sense to conclude from the available
evidence that the thing which encapsulates the very idea of animation, must be some
form of non-physical substance, present in things in the world, which allows them to
express themselves as animate things.
Now, this substance, mostly called vital force, is also thought of as all-pervading,
as we find its expression in everything that exists in the present world. However,
when we observe certain things in the world, we see that the level of animation varies
from thing to thing. Rocks, mountains, and rivers appear to have very low levels of
vital force that occasionally express themselves once in a while (for instance, the
occasional volcanic eruption or flash flood), and so inanimate things must have vital
force but at very low levels, at least when compared to plants. For with plants, one
can observe animation in the growth and movement (usually toward the sun), but
this level of animation, though more active than those of inanimate things, cannot be
compared to the activity produced by animals, and so on. Observing this, anony-
mous traditional African philosophers came to the conclusion that various beings in
the hierarchy of being2 all have varying degrees of vitality each commensurate with
its place in the hierarchy. One can even say that it is actually the level of vital force
that a thing possesses that determines its place in the hierarchy of being. Whichever
is the case, one thing that is common in the vitalist view is that this substance, this
vital force, clearly originates/emanates from God, which is the first cause. The mere
assumption of this idea places God as the being with the most vital force, and the
being from which other beings get their vitality (since God is the creator of all things
with vital force).
Turning our focus to human beings, we see that the vitality we possess, unlike
those of animals, plants, and inanimate things, is injected with rationality and a
moral drive. These capacities can, themselves, be harnessed and increased. And so,
traditional Africans and traditional African philosophers began to assert the fact that
vital force could be acquired or diminished depending on one’s relationship with
other things in the world. According to the very controversial Placide Tempels3:
The Bantu say, in respect of a number of strange practices in which we see neither rime nor
reason, that their purpose is to acquire life, strength or vital force, to live strongly, that they
are to make life stronger, or to assure that force shall remain perpetually in one’s posterity.
2
In African metaphysics there is a hierarchy of being mostly in this order – God, Lesser gods/spirits,
ancestors, human beings, animals, plants, and inanimate things (Menkiti, 2004).
3
Tempels’ (1959) work is a controversial in African philosophy mainly because of its colonialist
foundation, the imposition of some western ideas as African and the sweeping assumption that all
Africans think the same way. However, some aspects of Tempels’ views, in spite of the biases, can
be salvaged, only insofar as they correspond with the views of indigenous African thinkers and
philosophers.
Used negatively, the same idea is expressed when the Bantu say: we act thus to be protected
from misfortune, or from a diminution of life or of being, or in order to protect ourselves
from those influences which annihilate or diminish us. (Tempels, 1959: 22)
What we see above is the idea that the acquisition of more vital force is something
that makes life “stronger,” and the lack of this vitality, or low levels of it, implies a
diminution of life or death. What this simple principle implies is a theory of meaning
that is based on the acquisition, harnessing, or increase in vitality. This theory has
now been explored by various scholars from Aribiah Attoe (2020), Yolanda
Mlungwana (2020), Ada Agada (2020) to Thaddeus Metz (2020).
If meaning involves the acquisition of vital force and meaninglessness involves the
diminution of vitality, how is vitality increased or reduced? Attoe (2020: 133–134)
identifies two major ways in which an individual can increase his/her/their vital force.
The first is by an appeal to God. God, as was alluded to earlier, is the source of all
vitality, and beyond being the source of vitality stands as a being capable of doling out
vitality to other beings-in-the-world. In some traditional African belief systems, one
can appeal to God for vitality through worship, the performance of certain rituals, and
other religious acts, as a means of improving the vitality one has, and thereby making
one’s life meaningful. The second way is through normative self-improvement. As
Attoe (2020: 133–134) puts it, it involves:
immersing oneself in morally uplifting acts. In positively exercising one’s moral communal
obligations towards the community of life, it is inevitable that that individual by extension
improves the quality of her/vital force. It would also involve engaging in those acts that
positively expresses human creativity, growth and productivity. (Dzobo, 1992)
In this way, when one is morally virtuous, when the individual engages positively
with others, when that individual expresses creativity, then that individual acquires
more vital force, which makes his/her life more meaningful. In other words, it is
through the enhancement of both the rational and moral components of one’s vitality
that meaning is achieved. Conversely, meaninglessness ensues when the individual
(1) loses and is unable to acquire vitality, perhaps because of illness, (2) when the
individual refuses to acquire more vitality, for instance, if a person is lazy, and
(3) when the individual is malevolent to others. This account of meaning can also be
extended to the more naturalistic accounts of vitality that focus on the idea of well-
being, productivity, and creative genius (Dzobo, 1992; Kasenene, 1994; Metz,
2012). Here, acquiring more vital force would involve engaging in those acts that
excite our creative genius or enable our well-being (both of which can be accounted
for in the enhancement of our moral and rational capacities).
The Communal View
Communality stands as a major trademark of African philosophy, and it is an idea

that cuts across African ontology, African ethics, and African perspectives of
meaning. It is also an idea that one may find in snippets in other African views
about meaning – take, for instance, the vitality view in which acquiring more
vitality incorporates aspects of positive communal relationships with others. The
idea of communality or relationality can be found in the works of various African
scholars including Mbiti (1990), Khoza (1994), Ramose (1999), Menkiti (2004),
Asouzu (2004, 2007), Murove (2007), Ozumba and Chimakonam (2014), Metz
(2017), etc.
The idea is this: the universe, as Africans perceive it, is a universe in relation. In
other words, one can think of all that exists in the world as a collection of mutually
interdependent entities, which are part of a complementary whole (Asouzu, 2004).
Within this framework, emphasis is on maintaining that relationality in a way that
sustains the harmony inherent in that complementary whole. Socio-ethically
speaking, this relationality assumes a normative character, one that enjoins indi-
viduals, even ancestors and lesser gods/spirits, to always seek harmony and avoid
discord. What is harmony (in the context of society)? One answer is that harmony
involves solidarity and shared identity, and living harmoniously involves
performing/promoting those actions that exhibit solidarity and a shared identity
(Metz, 2017). For others, it involves living with the noetic propedeutic that one is
only a missing link – that is, it involves the mindset that recognizes that absolutism
and/or being in isolation is an unattractive mode of being and that one must
cultivate a mutually interdependent relationship with other persons and things in
the world (Asouzu, 2004). It is also the recognition that who we are/become as
individuals, is largely dependent on whether we relate with people positively or
negatively (Mbiti, 1969; Ramose, 1999; Menkiti, 2004), and that one must relate
with the other as strongly as one would relate to a family member (Nyerere, 1968:
1–15).
At the core of this social communalism is personhood – the idea that there is more
to the individual, which can either be acquired/earned (Menkiti, 2004) or enhanced
(Gyekye, 1992). For scholars like Menkiti, one must distinguish between an indi-
vidual and an individual person. According to him the individual:
considered as an individuated source of consumption, a bundle as it were of primary

appetites, [it] could still count as an agent in the world. But to go beyond the raw appetitive
level to the special level marked by the dignity of the person, something more would seem
needed. In this regard, ‘individual’ and ‘individual person’ may carry somewhat different
weight and it is the context of the discussion that spells out whether they converge or
diverge. (Menkiti, 2004: 325)
This weight is normative in nature as one acquires and/or enhances it by engaging

positively with others in the society and also participating in the cultural rites and
rituals, specific to one’s cultural context. In other words, by promoting harmony and
not discord. To become a person is not merely about existing as an individual, but
also involves acting in certain positive ways with others in one’s community. But
what are positive actions, in this context? Metz (2017: 111) presents a clue: “[a]n
action is right just insofar as it produces harmony and reduces discord; an act is
wrong to the extent that it fails to develop communion.” On the basis of the
foregoing, African scholars like Attoe (2020: 136), have curated the communal
theory of meaning as follows:
Meaning in this sense would therefore consist in the individual’s ability to acquire humanity
in its most potent form through a sustained performance of those acts that foster harmony,
avoid discord and promote the common good. Meaningfulness in this sense would involve a
transcendent mindset that goes beyond our animal instincts to shed the pettiness of our
animal desires. The purpose of human existence and what would be most desirable would be
the attainment of full human flourishing.
So, one could be an individual without being a person (by acting in ways that
promote discord), thereby leading a meaningless life, and one could acquire person-
hood over time and therefore have a life worth living. It is important to note, at this
point, that while the discourse on personhood reveals that personhood is attained and
sustained over time, the communal view of meaning does not fixate on that point.
Instead, one can understand moments of communality as moments of meaningful-
ness, and also understand the attainment of personhood as bearing on the meaning of
a life taken as a whole.
(Yoruba) Cluster View
Another theory of meaning that one can find in the literature on African conceptions
of meaning is based on what has been termed the cluster view (Attoe, 2021). Cluster
views involve ideas about meaning that are based on a conglomeration of various
specific but interrelated values that come together to form a single theory of
meaning. In this iteration of the cluster view, the focus is on traditional Yoruba
concepts of meaning. This conception appears in the works of Oladele Balogun
(2020), and you would find snippets of it in the works of Benjamin Olujohungbe
(2020). It is this approach to meaning that also inspired Attoe’s contemporary cluster
view, as we shall see later on.
Balogun, in his description of the Yoruba cluster view, identifies certain values
that constitute the component parts of the cluster. These values include: material
comfort symbolized with monetary possession; a long healthy life; children; a
peaceful spouse; and victory over life’s vicissitudes. What is interesting is that
each of these views is inextricably linked to another, and so isolating one value as
the only route to meaningfulness does not work (Balogun, 2020: 171). Thus, one
must only consider these values together, and pursue the achievement of each of
these values, if one is to attain meaningfulness via the Yoruba cluster route. The
related values, or “life’s goods,” as Balogun calls them, are themselves (according to
him) not intrinsic ends, but a means to meaningfulness – that is, one can think of
meaningfulness as a “cluster state,” one that can be abstracted from these life goods
themselves. To further drive home the point, consider the following:
The above five ‘life goods’ are worthy of attainment, and the extent to which one achieves
them is assessed as exhibiting features of a meaningful life. Understood in this sense, life’s
meaningfulness is not an absolute state even when adjudged at the end of a person’s lifetime. It
is an evolving and unending process that can still be externally adjudged after the demise of a
being. [. . .] In both life and death, the notion of meaningfulness is involved. The Yorùbá
believe that death also accords meaning in life. A fulfilled and meaningful life is a life that dies
a good death, which involves dying at old age, having lived a good and moral exemplary life,
and having children that carries one’s name after death. (Balogun, 2020: 172)
It is at the achievement of this cluster state that meaning is located, and because
the life goods are objective values, judging a life as meaningful is possible (subjec-
tively and externally) while one is alive and even after one is dead (externally, by
others in the society). While Balogun suggests that the attainment of these life goods
ought to be exact and complete, if meaning is to be attained, it is plausible to suspect
that the number of goods attained, and the degree to which they are attained, ought to
influence the degree to which a life is meaningful. In this way, a life that has attained
four of the five life goods is meaningful but not as meaningful as a life that has
achieved all five life goods.
Living a Religious Life
The preceding discussions have been about meaning from a traditional African
perspective. That is, while the theories of meaning that have been described above
do bear on contemporary African life, they are mostly based on core traditional
values that have been passed down from pre-colonial times. Fortunately, the litera-
ture does not end there. In a recent article, Attoe (2021) provides us with some ideas
about what some contemporary African accounts look like. Specifically, he mentions
two specific accounts about meaning (living a religious life and the contemporary
cluster view), which he finds to be indicative of contemporary views about meaning
grounded on contemporary values. These two accounts will be explored in this
section and in the next one.
The living a religious life (LRL) view finds its footing in the religious lifestyle
and values of Africans today. It is important to note, at this point, that the LRL view,
though based on religious values, is not synonymous with the God’s purpose theory
described earlier. This is so for a few reasons. First, a specific focus on the type/
nature of God is not necessary to this account of meaning, and so all the Gods
worshipped in contemporary Africa (and by extension all the religions in contem-
porary Africa) are fully captured by the view. Second, the fulfillment of a God-given
purpose is not the paramount concern of this view.
With all these in mind, what then is the LRL view? Attoe (2021: 177) captures the
crux of the view in the following terse statement:
. . .A life can be meaningful if one lives honorably and in pursuit of religious ideals,
according to the precepts and expectations of his/her religious sect in service to God (insofar
as God exists) and (sometimes) in expectation of recognition by his/her community.
Let us unpack this account of meaning a bit. Contemporary Africans are generally
religious people. Indeed, the Pew Research Centre (2016), tells us that in 2010 only
3% of Africans do not identify with a religion. This all means that contemporary
Africans are religious and/or influenced by some religion. Attoe (2021) contends that
it is this subjective drive or willingness to identify with a religion is drawn from the
idea recognizing and sticking to a deity, as well as the religion that is associated with
that deity, transforms the individual into a “being-for-god,” immediately immerses
the individual into something larger than himself/herself. It is from this feeling of
transcendence that meaning emerges.
Attoe (2021) also recognizes that beyond this subjective transcendence, there is
also the feeling that the objective or external recognition that the individual is living
a religious life also confers meaning on the individual’s life. Whether this recogni-
tion is based on appearances or not is not relevant to the view, as meaning emanates
from the high esteem that living religiously entails.
Whether one is considering the subjective or external posturing of the LRL view,
the claim ticks all the boxes that concepts of meaning such as Metz’s family
resemblance concept of meaning (2013), or Attoe’s modification of it (Attoe,
2021). The view emerges from a subjective willingness to be a religious person
and it transcends our animal nature by allowing the individual to invest in something
larger than himself/herself/themselves. The accolades attached to the recognition of
one’s piety also corral high esteem and admiration.
Attoe (2021), however, acknowledges the fact that the existence or non-existence
of God does play a role in determining the plausibility and implausibility of the view.
For if God did not exist, then living a religious life becomes a futile exercise. The
clause “insofar as God exist” in LRL2 above, is inserted to mitigate against the
possibility that the potential non-existence of God undermines the view.
(Contemporary) Cluster View (CCV)
Recall that earlier we had caught glimpses of the Yoruba version of the cluster
view, put forth by the likes of Oladele Balogun and Benjamin Olujohungbe. In this
section, the focus is on Attoe’s contemporary version of the cluster view that is
drawn from certain life goods or values that speak more to the context of contem-
porary Africa.
Like in the Yoruba cluster view, Attoe identifies three interrelated ideals that he
believes encapsulate meaningfulness. These ideals include self-sufficiency, child-
raising, and accomplishing socio-cultural milestones and a high status in the com-
munity. For him (and unlike Balogun), while each of these values is independently
sufficient in accounting for (at least) moments of meaningfulness, they also do a
good job as an interrelated cluster of values whose attainment grants meaning. Let us
now unpack the contemporary cluster view (CCV).
Attoe (2021), begins by providing an overview of each ideal of CCV. First is the
idea of self-sufficiency. One might think, as Attoe rightly points out, that the idea
of self-sufficiency hardly stands as something that transcends our animal nature. It
involves mundane acts or state of affairs, like feeding, having shelter, etc.
However, Attoe argues that the peculiar recent history of Africa (which involved
the violence of slavery and colonization), and the present condition of a significant
chunk of the African populace, who live below the poverty line and sometimes
have to navigate poor conditions of living, ensures that living well or even being
self-sufficient is not a given for those who do not belong to the wealthy class. For
this significant chunk, animal nature does not usually involve appropriate food,
clothing, or shelter. In this way, Attoe argues, the desire or ability for one to move
beyond or transcend that sorry state of affairs and, in so doing, exercise one’s
will and dignity as a human being, is a legitimate end worth pursuing for its
own sake, mode of transcendence that merits esteem and admiration, especially
from those within that context – transcendence, desire, esteem, all hallmarks of
meaningfulness.
Next, is the idea of raising a child. In traditional African societies, procreation is
an important value, and for many reasons that we would not get into here. In
contemporary societies, it is not so much procreation that is the value for meaning
but child-raising, which goes beyond bearing a child to include raising the child into
becoming a proper person in society. This process is often a life-long activity for
parents who are willing to indulge, and it often involves providing decent formal
education for the child so s/he can be self-reliant (or preferably wealthy), and it
involves providing decent informal education, so the child is instilled with the right
sorts of virtues that nod to the particular society of which the child is part
of. Oftentimes, not only is the eventual success (financial and/or moral) of the
child indicative of meaningfulness on the part of the parents, but also when a parent
is seen to raise their children properly that parent’s life is adjudged to be meaningful.
The reason is simple. While merely procreating speaks to our animal nature, raising a
good child implies transcending that nature, pursuing an end that is intrinsically
worthy, and corralling esteem not only from others in society but also from the child.
Indeed, meaninglessness manifests when one merely procreates and raises a child
badly. Presumably worse is procreating and abandoning the child without proper
arrangements for its future care.
The third ideal is a combination of two mutually dependent ideals – achieving
socio-cultural milestones and attaining status. Oftentimes, the latter follows from the
former. Socio-cultural milestones and status are ideals that were also valuable in
traditional African societies.
In contemporary times, the content of what constitutes status and socio-cultural
milestones have changed, at least compared to precolonial times. In contemporary
times, milestones like, going to school and getting good degrees, getting a job or
business (or a legitimate source of income), getting married, raising children,
engaging positively with one’s society at a recognizable level (for instance, through
philanthropy), are the type of goods that are pursued. Eventually, the achievements
of these milestones, and a recognition of those achievements, allow for the external
conferring of status on the individual, either informally (where the individual is
recognized as a good person/stalwart in the society) or formally (through things like
chieftaincy titles or honorary degrees). This two-pronged pursuit of milestones and

status enables a view that locates meaning in the “subjective pursuit of socio-cultural
milestones, which grants his/her life a high status in the community” (Attoe, 2021:
182).
With these three component parts of the CCV intact, Attoe proposes the following
as a terse statement that captures the CCV as an account of meaningfulness:
. . .An individual’s life can be considered meaningful if s/he achieves financial success and
self-sufficiency, raises children who contribute positively to themselves and their commu-
nity, and/or also pursues those socio-cultural milestones that grant his or her life a high status
in the community (Attoe, 2021).
Following this point, Attoe also notes that the CCV acknowledges the possibility
of degrees of meaningfulness. That is, one only needs to attain some of the ideals in
the CCV for their lives to be meaningful, which then implies that some lives could be
more meaningful than others, depending on how much they achieve, relative to
others.
Conclusion
The aim of this chapter was to provide a systematic account of a few of the theories
of life’s meaning that have been explored by some African philosophers. It explored
some of the ways that have been postulated as answers to the fundamental question
of what, if anything, is the meaning of (human) life. The general overview of some
African theories of Meaning – where characteristically African perspectives locate
the meaning of life – looked at eight major theories; namely, the love view, the
destiny view, the divine law view, the vital force view, the communal view, the
(Yoruba) Cluster view, living a religious life, and the contemporary cluster view.
References
Agada, A. (2015). Existence and consolation: Reinventing ontology, gnosis and values in African
philosophy. Paragon House.
Agada, A. (2020). The African vital force theory of meaning in life. South African Journal of
Philosophy, 39(2), 100–112.
Agada, A. (2022). Consolationism and comparative African philosophy: Beyond universalism and
particularism. Routledge.
Asouzu, I. (2004). Methods and principles of complementary reflection in and beyond African
philosophy. University of Calabar Press.
Asouzu, I. (2007). Ibuanyidanda: New complementary ontology beyond world immanentism,
ethnocentric reduction and impositions. LIT VERLAG GmbH & Co.
Attoe, A. (2020). A systematic account of African conceptions of the meaning of/in life.
Attoe, A. (2021). Accounts of life’s meaning from a contemporary African perspective. Philosophia
Africana, 20(2), 168–185.
Attoe, A. (2022). Groundwork for a new kind of African metaphysics: The idea of singular
complementarity. Palgrave Macmillan.
Balogun, O. (2020). The traditional Yoruba conception of a meaningful life. South African Journal
Dzobo, N. (1992). Values in a changing society: Man, ancestors and god. In K. Wiredu &
K. Gyekye (Eds.), Person and community: Ghanian philosophical studies (pp. 223–240).
Center for Research in Values and Philosophy.
Gyekye, K. (1992). Person and community in Akan thought. In K. Wiredu & K. Gyekye (Eds.),
Person and community: Ghanian philosophical studies (pp. 101–122). Center for Research in
Gbadegesin, S. (1991). African philosophy traditional Yoruba philosophy and contemporary
African realities. Peter Lang Publishing.
Gbadegesin, S. (2004). Toward a theory of destiny. In K. Wiredu (Ed.), A companion to African
philosophy (pp. 313–333). Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Iroegbu, P. (1995). Metaphysics: The kpim of philosophy. International University Press.
Kasenene, P. (1994). Ethics in African theology. In C. Villa-Vicencio & J. de Gruchy (Eds.), Doing
ethics in context: South African perspectives (pp. 138–147). David Philip.
Khoza, R. (1994). Ubuntu, African humanism. Ekhaya Promotions.
Markus, A. (2012). Assessing views of life: A subjective affair. In J. Seachris (Ed.), Exploring the
meaning of life: An anthology and guide (pp. 95–112). Wiley-Blackwell.
Mawere, M. (2010). On pursuit of the purpose of life: The Shona metaphysical perspective. Journal
of Pan African Studies, 3(6), 269–284.
Mbiti, J. (1990). African religion and philosophy. Heinemann.
Mbiti, J. (2015). Introduction to African religion (2nd ed.). Waveland Press.
Menkiti, I. (2004). On the normative conception of a person. Blackwell Publishing.
Metz, T. (2012). African conceptions of human dignity: Vitality and community as the ground of
human rights. Human Rights Review, 13(1), 19–37.
Metz, T. (2013). Meaning in Life. Oxford University Press
Metz, T. (2017). Towards an African moral theory (revised edition). In I. Ukpokolo (Ed.), Themes,
issues and problems in African philosophy (pp. 97–119). Palgrave Macmillian.
Metz, T. (2020). African theories of meaning in life: A critical assessment. South African Journal of
Philosophy, 39(2), 113–126.
Mlungwana, Y. (2020). An African approach to the meaning of life. South African Journal of
Philosophy, 39(2), 153–165.
Murove, M. (2007). The Shona ethic of Ukama with reference to the immortality of values. The
Mankind Quarterly, 48, 179–189.
Nyerere, J. (1968). Ujamaa: Essays on socialism. Oxford University Press.
Olujohungbe, B. (2020). Situational ambivalence of the meaning of life in Yorùbá thought.
Ozumba, G., & Chimakonam, J. (2014). Njikoka Amaka: Further discussions on the philosophy of
integrative humanism: A contribution to African and intercultural philosophy. 3rd Logic
Option.
Pew Research Centre. (2016). Pew-Templeton Global Religious Future Project. Accessed July
18, 2020. http://www.globalreligiousfutures.org/regions/sub-saharan-africa
Thomson, G. (2012). Untangling the question. In J. Seachris (Ed.), Exploring the meaning of life:
An anthology and guide (pp. 40–47). Wiley-Blackwell.
Wiredu, K. (1998). Toward decolonizing African philosophy and religion. African Studies Quar-
terly, 1(4), 17–46.
Wolf, S. (2010). Meaning in Life and Why it Matters. Princeton University Press
African Phenomenology: Introductory
Perspectives
Abraham Olivier
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 510
Hountondji and the Struggle for Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513
The Problem of Subjectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513
Phenomenology of Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515
The Universality of Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517
Hountondji’s Critique of Husserl’s Universals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 518
Hountondji and Wiredu on Particulars and Universals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520
Conceptual Universals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521
Cultural Universals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523
Masolo’s Midway to Phenomenology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526
The Return to the Indigenous Lifeworld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527
Lived Intersubjectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533
Abstract
Phenomenology is an emerging field within the broader domain of African and
Africana philosophy. The phenomenological method, with its various approaches
to studying the meaning of lived experience, is at the core of the thought of
African philosophers such as Paulin Hountondji, Dismas A. Masolo, Achille
Mbembe, Mabogo More, Tsenay Serequeberhan, Noel Chabani Manganyi, and
proponents of Africana Philosophy such as WEB Du Bois, Frantz Fanon, Lucius
Outlaw, Lewis Gordon, George Yancy, and Linda Martin Alcoff. Technically, the
term “African phenomenology” is not used as widely, or introduced as system-
atically, as Africana phenomenology. The aim of this chapter is to introduce some
of the central issues and theorists of the field of African phenomenology. As the
subtitle of this chapter indicates, its scope is limited to what one may call
A. Olivier (*)
University of Fort Hare, East London, South Africa
e-mail: aolivier@ufh.ac.za

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_37
510 A. Olivier
introductory perspectives in African phenomenology. The idea is to outline for

further investigation some thematically related contributions to African phenom-
enology with specific reference to the grounding work of Paulin Hountondji as
related to works of Kwasi Wiredu and Dismas A. Masolo. Hountondji’s critical
adoption of Husserl’s classic phenomenological approach offers a broad, foun-
dational scope, which makes it particularly suitable for a basic introduction to
African phenomenology.
Keywords
Phenomenology · African phenomenology · Hountondji · Wiredu · Masolo ·
Particulars and universals
Introduction
Phenomenology is an emerging field within the broader domain of African and

Africana philosophy. The phenomenological method, with its various approaches to
studying the meaning of lived experience, is at the core of the thought of African
philosophers such as Paulin Hountondji, Dismas A. Masolo, Achille Mbembe,
Mabogo More, Tsenay Serequeberhan, Noel Chabani Manganyi, and proponents
of Africana Philosophy such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Frantz Fanon, Lucius Outlaw,
Lewis Gordon, George Yancy, and Linda Martin Alcoff. Their theoretical focus on
the critical analysis of the lived experience of the prevalent workings of the colonial
regime and its intersectional modalities of exclusion in race, gender, nationality,
culture, class, and religion actually penetrates and permeates the writings of many
African and Africana philosophers. This includes African philosophers from the
analytical tradition such as Kwasi Wiredu, Kwame Gyekye, and Kwame Appiah and
Africana Philosophers like Paul Taylor, Charles Mill, and Naomi Zack. This does not
imply that all African and Africana philosophers are phenomenologists. Rather, it
means that many African and Africana philosophers, regardless whether they are
from the continental or analytical tradition, reflect in their writings what one can call
a common phenomenological concern with lived experience particularly of black
people struggling because of colonial or neocolonial oppression.
Technically, the term “African phenomenology” is not used as widely, or intro-
duced as systematically, as Africana phenomenology with its focus on an analysis of
the lived experience of those within the African Diaspora, who were and are
subjected to colonialism, slavery, and racism (Gordon, 1997, 2000, 2008; Outlaw,
2017; Henry 2006). As Mabogo More writes: “Phenomenology and existentialism
among African people in South Africa have a long history, which unfortunately has
not been explicitly thematised or philosophically engaged” (More 2023). This also
goes more generally for phenomenology in the African context. Indeed, there does
not seem to be any comprehensive systematic introduction to African phenomenol-
ogy as compared to the introductions to Africana philosophy by, for instance, Lewis
Gordon, Lucius Outlaw, or Paget Henry. Notably, the first anthology that gives a
African Phenomenology: Introductory Perspectives 511
systematic introduction to African phenomenology is only forthcoming, entitled

Phenomenology in an African Context: Contributions and Challenges (Olivier,
2023b). In any case, Lewis Gordon is well-known for his extensive introductions
to Africana Phenomenology, more specifically, what he calls Existential Africana
Philosophy in Existence in Black (Gordon, 2000), while Lucius Outlaw has recently
published an extensive overview in his entry “Africana phenomenology” in the
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Outlaw, 2017). Paget Henry in turn offers a
succinct systematic overview of the field of Africana phenomenology by outlining
its contours, problems, and theorists in his paper “Africana Phenomenology: Its
Philosophical Implications” (2006). African Phenomenology awaits such introduc-
tions of works in its field.
To some extent, my aim is similar to that of Henry. It is to introduce some of the
issues and theorists of the field of African phenomenology. A personal disclaimer is
in order at this point. My aim is not to try to introduce my own view of what is
African Phenomenology. Given the focus of African Phenomenology on the prob-
lem of the lived experience of black people under colonial and postcolonial condi-
tions of oppression, and the fact that I am a white male, structurally privileged by the
very same conditions, such an attempt would be questionable.
My focus, rather, is on a thematic introduction of some of what can be considered
foundational works in African Phenomenology, specifically the grounding work of
Paulin Hountondji as related to works of D.A. Masolo and Kwasi Wiredu. The
reason for my focus on Hountondji is that his classical foundational work naturally
offers a good starting point for introductory purposes. Prior to and more than any
other African philosopher, he has dealt with Husserl’s beginnings of phenomenol-
ogy, or what is commonly known as classical or traditional, or more specific,
transcendental phenomenology. One can say, indeed, that Hountondji’s critical
adoption of Husserl’s work paves the very first steps of an African phenomenology.
Masolo’s thorough reception of and expansion on Hountondji’s adoption of
Husserl’s work serves well to complement and further his (Hountondji’s) “way to
phenomenology.” Thus, to give a basic introduction to African phenomenology, it
seems in order to start with Hountondji’s beginnings and its relation to other further
going works, specifically Masolo’s.
One might grant that it is understandable to focus on Hountondji and Masolo for
introductory purposes, as they offer systematically foundational works of African
phenomenology and, more than others, focus on Husserl’s beginnings of phenom-
enology. However, one might like to object, why include Wiredu, an analytical
philosopher, and not Serequeberhan, or Okere or Okolo, whose works on herme-
neutics seem closer to phenomenology? Or, closer to home, why not discuss More’s
work on African phenomenological existentialism and black consciousness?
To begin with, my focus on Hountondji and Masolo brings me naturally to their
inclusion of Wiredu’s work. As is shown in extensive detail, both Hountondji and
Masolo take recourse to Wiredu’s classical notion of conceptual and cultural uni-
versals, more particularly, the seminal issue of conceptualizing lived cultural expe-
rience. Furthermore, Okere and Okolo are not included for the simple reason that
their focus is primarily on hermeneutics, not phenomenology. To some extent, the
512 A. Olivier
same goes for Serequeberhan. This is indicated by the title of his book The Herme-
neutics of African Philosophy (Serequeberhan 1994). Technically, the term phenom-
enology occurs only twice in The Hermeneutics of African Philosophy and not at all
in his other main work Existence and Heritage (Serequeberhan 2015). This does not
mean that Serequeberhan’s work is not relevant to an African phenomenology. After
all, its aim is a hermeneutical examination of the meaning of lived experience in a
colonial and neocolonial context. However, while Serequeberhan concentration in
both major works is more narrowly on hermeneutic phenomenology, with specific
reference to the work of Heidegger and Gadamer, mine is, again, on Hountondji’s
focus on classical Husserlian phenomenology, which has a broader scope and as
such is well suited for basic introductory purposes. In addition, Serequeberhan’s
thematic focus on the issue of “thingification,” dealt with somewhere else (Olivier,
2023a), does not neatly fit to the themes of particularism and universalism on which
this chapter concentrates. The same applies to More, whose thematic focus on
Sartre’s, Manganyi’s, and Gordon’s existentialist phenomenology and Biko’s black
consciousness differs from and has a narrower scope than Hountondji’s classical
phenomenological explorations (More, 2008a, b, 2018). More’s work on Sartre and
Biko is undoubtedly relevant to an African phenomenology but also goes beyond my
specific introductory scope. Due to limited space, other more recent works, for
instance, by Achille Mbembe (2017), Rozena Maart (2015), M. John Lamola
(2020, 2023), and Michael Cloete (2019) cannot be incorporated.
As before, to do some justice to the works this chapter focuses on, it is confined to a
selection of a primary phenomenological issue, which is the tension between the
particularity of experience and the pursuit of conceptual universality – which is, as
Barry Hallen argues in A Short History of African Philosophy (2002) an underlying
issue in African philosophy as such. As the subtitle of this chapter indicates, my scope is
limited to what one may call introductory perspectives in African phenomenology.
Perspective here means something like a viewpoint, inviting the exploration of other
points of view, thus an adumbration of sorts. The idea is to outline for further
investigation some thematically related contributions to African phenomenology,
again, with specific reference to the foundational work of Hountondji as related to
works of Wiredu and Masolo. Once more, my focus is on a primary issue in African
phenomenology: the tension between the particularity of experience and the pursuit of
conceptual universality. As this is such a major, comprehensive issue, relating themes of
language, knowledge, subjectivity, culture, community, oppression, and decolonization,
its examination serves well to offer a basic introduction to African phenomenology.
The first section examines Hountondji’s fundamental exploration of and expan-
sion on Husserl’s work, specifically, by focusing on the tension between lived
experience and its conceptualization. The second section compares Hountondji’s
and Wiredu’s views of the relation between conceptual and cultural particulars and
universals. The third section shows how Masolo’s work presents a midway in its
presentation of this relation. The conclusion takes the lead of these authors to suggest
a possible working definition of what one may call classical or traditional African
phenomenology.
Hountondji and the Struggle for Meaning
Paulin Hountondji is what one might like to call the father of African Phenomenol-
ogy. He started by writing his doctoral dissertation on Husserl’s first ventures into
phenomenology in his Logical Investigations. Much later, the first and major part of
Hountondji’s book, The Struggle for Meaning (Hountondji 2002 -henceforth SM),
gives, as he calls it, a “parasynthesis” of his doctoral dissertation, linking it to other
works of Husserl and of his own. It is impossible to do justice here to Hountondji’s
rich reflections on Husserl’s voluminous Logical Investigations or to give a thorough
assessment of his account. Hountondji himself points out the need to limit his focus
and confine himself to examining the first volume of the Logical Investigations and
the First Investigation of the second volume (SM 27). The following section
concentrates on three central issues in Hountondji’s exploration of Husserl’s Logical
Investigations in The Struggle for Meaning: the problem of subjectivity (section
“The Problem of Subjectivity”), the phenomenology of language (section “Phenom-
enology of Language”), and the universality of meaning (section “The Universality
of Meaning”). Note, the first two subsections examine Hountondji’s close, standard
reading of Husserl’s phenomenology, while the remaining subsections and section
“Hountondji and Wiredu on Particulars and Universals” turn more specifically to his
use of Husserl in moving towards African phenomenology. While Hountondji is
widely known for his critique of Ethnophilosophy, little attention is paid to his notion
of phenomenology; this is all the more reason to focus here on his phenomenology.
The Problem of Subjectivity
Hountondji’s states that his main interest remains to examine the “incipient phe-
nomenology” as Husserl first launches it in his Logical Investigations (SM 27).
Husserl develops a notion of phenomenology that integrates two different theoretical
lines, (Brentano’s) psychological theory and (Bolzano’s) logical theory. On the one
hand, he develops a descriptive psychology, which analyses various types of first-
personal subjective experience; on the other hand, he develops a kind of logic, a
theory of meaning or semantics, which reflects the ideal meanings (ideas, concepts,
images, propositions) of types of experience (Moran, 2000, 2005; Smith, 2018). As
these ideal meanings can be shared and corroborated by different subjects, they can
be considered objective. Husserl’s phenomenology thus aims – throughout his works
in fact – to develop an objective analysis of subjective, first-personal or conscious
experience, in short, consciousness. Consequently, I use the terms experience and
consciousness interchangeably to refer to first-personal conscious experience.
Against this backdrop, Hountondji cautions not to mistake Husserl’s focus on
subjective experience for a “retreat into subjectivity” (SM 28). As he puts it:
The investigation of experience seeks to confirm the objectivity of essences, by identifying

in experience itself an internal element of transcendence that obliges it to recognize its
objective correlate. (ibid.)
514 A. Olivier
When he refers to a “retreat in subjectivity,” Hountondji has in mind Husserl’s critique

of psychologism in the first volume of the Logical Investigations. Psychologism retreats
into subjectivity by isolating subjective experiences as factually occurring psychological
states (SM 32). The Logical Investigations, on the contrary, set out to define phenom-
enology as a study of the necessary or essential structure of types, forms, and acts of
experience. Husserl thus asks the question as to what is the essence of types of experience
such as an act of perception, or an act of thinking, etc. As Hountondji points out, essences
refer to the ideal, and in this sense, objective correlates that constitute particular types of
experience (SM 33/34). Phenomenology does not account for actual psychological states
but describes and analyses ideal acts of experience, and in this sense pursues the “logic of
experience” (SM 32). Hountondji thus endorses Husserl’s logical quest to unite the
subjective and the objective by identifying objectively shareable meanings of first-
personal subjective experience.
Far from retreating into subjectivity, so Hountondji consequently shows, Husserl
rather reaches for objectivity, for the “things themselves” and how they can be given
to any possible subject. As Hountondji puts it, “. . .phenomenological analysis
proper (is – AO) the in-depth exploration of subjective experiences in which the
object ‘is constituted’. But never, not even in its most resolutely ‘subjective’
approaches, does Husserlian phenomenology risk dissolving this already cleared
terrain, of letting this hard and concrete ground of objectivity slip away” (SM 12).
The focus on the subject is at the same time, as Husserl’s well-known motto goes, a
call to go “Back to the things themselves” (Zurück zu den Sachen selbst!).
Hountondji consequently begins his discussion of the Logical Investigations with
Husserl’s motto to go back to the things themselves. Starting with the First Inves-
tigation in the second volume of Logical Investigations, Hountondji argues that
Husserl “appealed to an immediate, pre-reflexive experience of the world that is
always already there, and simply called for a description, prior to any explanation, or
interpretation, of this primary experience” (SM 13). In this way, so he infers, “the
object is always already given, and with each object is this horizon of all possible
objects that we call the world” (ibid.). Hence, so Hountondji concludes: “Conscious-
ness is not a monad with neither doors nor windows; it always points to something
other than itself, it is ‘intentional’” (ibid.). With intentionality, with the “necessary
object-directedness” of consciousness, “arises the outright possibility of objective
knowledge” (ibid.). Hence, “intentionality provides an escape from a retreat into the
self; it removes the danger of solipsism and of being mired in the irrational” (ibid.).
Notably, Hountondji points out that Husserl ascribes intentionality to our most
basic experiences, the sensory experiences, which subjects have prior to any reflec-
tion or expression in linguistics signs or words. He dedicates the rest of his first
chapter to defending Husserl’s inclusion of what appears to be our most primary
experience, “nonintentional” primary sensory perceptions and affective states, into
intentional consciousness (SM 13). Even our most primary sensory perceptions
(sensory matter or data) direct us, prior to any reflection, meaningfully to things.
These primary experiences include also the “entire sphere of affective states such as
feelings of pleasure, pain, itching, ‘as well as sensual phases in the realm of drives’”
(SM 19). Feelings of pain and pleasure, for instance, are not mere “vibrations of the
subject on itself, circular experiences with no relation to an object: they are inten-
tional” (ibid.). There is no pleasure without an intentional object of pleasure, neither
is there pain without an intentional object of pain. Pleasure and pain are acts of
consciousness directed toward specific objects. The same is true of desires and drives
(ibid.). Thus, so Hountondji shows, Husserl expands the notion of intentionality to
the sphere of both sensory and affective phenomena.
The fact that even the most primary experiences are intentional means they are not
confined to an internal subjective realm but directed to external objects of which subjects
can share experience. However, these experiences can only be shared if they reach
expression of some sorts. Such expression is achieved, so Hountondji argues, through
the “phenomenology of language.” This is an enquiry into the origin of and “struggle for
meaning,” more precisely, the struggle for the objective expression of the meaning of
subjective experience. As is shown in section “The Universality of Meaning,”
Hountondji’s reference to a “struggle for meaning” pertains specifically to the African
subject – a return to the African subject means a struggle to decolonize concepts, which
dominate epistemically and culturally African experience and its lifeworld.
Phenomenology of Language
Hountondji dubs the section of The Struggle for Meaning in which he examines
Husserl’s notion of language in the First Investigation (of the second volume of
Logical Investigations), “the language of things” (SM 52). This emphasizes, from
the outset, Husserl’s motto to go back to the things themselves, to the given, to
phenomena in the sense of whatever immediately appears to consciousness in the
manner that it so appears. The Logical Investigations, as is shown, is interested in
“logical experience,” in the formation of types of acts and states of consciousness
that can be ideally or essentially shared. This calls for their expression in language,
that is, intended expressive acts such as writing or uttering sentences.
As Hountonji says, for Husserl, language in its primary sense is an act of speech
(SM 53). Speech does not merely consist of verbal articulation in linguistic signifiers
such as words or sentences, but rather verbal articulation is just the accidental
manifestation of a more primal act of speech, the “mental act of signification”
(ibid.). Hountondji thus moves into the heart of Husserl’s distinction between signifiers
of language such as words and the act of signification in his First Investigation.
Signification refers to the act of conferring meaning to an intended object through
linguistic signifiers such as words. Not the linguistic signifier per se but the act of
signification extends meaning to objects. More specifically, the act of signification
turns a signifier into a sign that expresses meaning (SM 53). As Hountondji puts it:
For Husserl the linguistic signifier does not signify by itself, but its relationship to the
signified is conferred to it by the subject. Behind the reference of the signifier to the signified,
which a superficial linguist might see as inherent to the signifier itself, the phenomenologist
discovers a signifying act which, by investing the given phonic or graphic matter, transforms
it into a sign. (ibid.)
516 A. Olivier
These introductory marks require some more explanation of the relation between
acts of signification, signifiers and signs. The further going explanation in the
following will be related to distinctions Wiredu also makes, as discussed in section
“Hountondji and Wiredu on Particulars and Universals.”
To start with, consider Husserl’s notion of signs. Husserl distinguishes between
two types of signs in his First Investigation: indications and expressions. Indications
pertain to something that refers to something else, for instance, smoke indicating fire,
or a fossil as a sign of a mammal, or a flag referring to a nation (Husserl, 2001:
Logical Investigations I § 2; SM 54). As such, indications do not express meaning.
Expressions, on the contrary, convey meaning. Expressions primarily manifest in
terms of acts of speech (excluding gestures and facial expressions). Their function is
to communicate the meaning of phenomena, of objects as they appear to us, of
signified objects. More precisely, expressions convey the ideal, shareable meaning or
sense of the objects that appear to consciousness.
Expressions consist of signifiers such as written or spoken words or sentences. On
their own, signifiers say nothing. Only through an act of signification, when a subject
confers meaning to a signifier, does it express meaning (Husserl, 2001: Logical
Investigations I § 7). Such signification can even take place in “solitary life” when
something is thought by someone without saying anything to someone else. How-
ever, typically subjects do not separate meanings and signifiers. As Moran puts it,
“we normally experience an expression as a set of words and meanings which are so
unified that they cannot be separated” (Moran, 2000: 111).
Importantly, Hountondji points out that Husserl distinguishes between
“sense-giving” and “sense-fulfilling acts,” or between “meaning-intentions and
their fulfilment” (Husserl, 2001: Logical Investigations I § 9; SM 57). To explain
this distinction, consider the expression “the Victor of Jena.” This expression refers
to Napoleon’s victory at Jena. Its intended reference is Napoleon’s victory, and it
finds sense-fulfilment if the intended reference is the actual referent, Napoleon
(SM 57). So, on the one hand, the expressed act of signification is a sense-giving
act with an intended reference. It gives meaning to some object, its intended
reference. On the other hand, this act seeks sense-fulfilment in its objective correlate,
an actual referent. The sense-giving act thus has as its meaning-intention the
intended reference and its fulfilment is through the correlating referent. Notably,
Husserl uses meaning and sense interchangeably, unlike Frege who takes sense to
refer to reference. As Moran (2000: 112) points out, though, arguably Husserl’s
distinction between meaning/sense and reference is ultimately similar to Frege’s
distinction between meaning and sense/reference.
According to Husserl, several expressions may have different meanings while
having the same intended reference. For instance, “The victor at Jena” and “The
vanquished at Waterloo” are examples of two expressions with different meanings
referring to one and the same individual, Napoleon. Inversely again, the same
expression may refer to different objects but have the same meaning, for instance,
the expression “emperors of Germany” may refer to different individuals at different
stages in history who were emperors of Germany. A meaning-intention thus has a
range of possible meaning-fulfilments, and it will find such fulfilment in a particular
objective correlate specified by its context only (Husserl, 2001: Logical Investiga-
tions I § 13). Whatever the case, an expression always “means something, and in so
far as it means something, it relates to what is objective” (Husserl, 2001: Logical
Investigations I § 2, 280).
Notably, as Moran says in his introduction to the Logical Investigations (Husserl,
2001: Logical Investigations I, lix.), Husserl’s distinction in the First (§1) and Fifth
Investigation (§17) between the signified object and the signifying act is the basis for
the distinction between noesis and noema that he will make later in his Ideas. Noesis
corresponds with the sense-giving act of signification and noema with the meaning
of the signified object. One can say, the noetic act of signification has a meaning-
intention that finds meaning-fulfilment in a signified object (noema). More specif-
ically, the noetic act of signification uses signs in the sense of shareable expressions
to signify the meaning of its referent. Noemata are thus signs qua signifiers that
express shareable meaning, they are bearers of meaning. In short, one can distinguish
between the sense-giving act of signification (noesis), the sign as expression of
meaning (noema), and the object of its reference.
Hountondji rightly argues that the core of the phenomenology of language
consists for Husserl in the mental act of signification. The focus is not on the
signifiers (words) or signs (expressions of meaning) of language as such, but rather
on the sense-giving act of signification, the act of making expressions out of
signifiers; in short, the act of consciousness. Even when an intended object ceases
to be given, or when words (signifiers) are missing, or when no communication takes
place with others, consciousness keeps “sustaining language” by producing meaning
in terms of what Husserl calls “silent thought” (SM 54). The phenomenology of
language consists essentially in the act of conferring meaning on objects even in their
absence and the absence of others in the form of what he calls solitary discourse.
Consequently, Hountondji emphasizes the importance of Husserl’s systematic
effort to “purify the sign” in order to reduce it to its essential function – the act of
giving sense (SM 54). This purification means, firstly, to exclude the indicative sign
(a material sign such as a flag) in order to concentrate on the sign as expression.
Secondly, it requires severing physical aspects of expression to focus on the linguistic
sign, the true bearer of meaning. Finally, purification results in reducing the sign to its
use also in the absence of signified objects, such that it obtains an ideal form and
manifests in an act of sense-making shared by all possible speakers and interlocutors.
The idea is to progressively “de-realize” the sign in order to free it for its essential
function of sense-giving in an act of speech (SM 54). As such the sign is simulta-
neously bound to the reality of speaking subjects and free for the ideality of possible
discourse going beyond individual subjects – it becomes universally shareable.
The Universality of Meaning
To resume, according to Hountondji, the sign as carrier of meaning concurrently

features in the reality of acts of speech and the ideality of shared meaning going
beyond these particular acts. In this sense, meaning eventually becomes something
518 A. Olivier
independent both of the thing it refers to and any particular act of speech. In fact, any
particular object carries in itself ideally the meaning it could have for all possible
subjects. As Hountondji says:
The object is no longer a mere thing in itself, independent of the subject and locked in itself.
Every object became a sign. (SM 58)
Such ideal meaning turns the meaning something has for me into what it means
for us. Even in the soliloquy of individual experience, there is already a supposed
other who might interpret the meaning of such experience. Ultimately, the origin of
meaning cannot be merely located in the individual act of sense-giving, but rather,
the sense-giving act anticipates an intersubjective genesis of meanings. Ideally, the
meaning of the first person singular “I experience” coincides with the first-personal
plural “we experience.”
Hountondji does not point this out, but this notion of the first-personal plurality or
intersubjective genesis of experience anticipates Husserl’s idea of intersubjectivity
as he develops it in later works, for instance, in his Cartesian Meditations (fourth and
fifth Meditation) and Nachlass of 1921–1928, entitled Zur Phänomenologie der
Intersubjektivität (On the Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity). The idea is that
meanings are both grounded in subjectivity and exist intersubjectively independent
of individual subjects. My experience of an object is always accompanied by the
possible meaning it could ideally have for others (Zahavi 2005: 166ff.). Such ideal
meanings of things permeate our experience also in the absence of the things we
experience. As Hountondji says, “All in all, the human universe is from end to end a
universe of meaning where things announce themselves without ever becoming truly
present” (SM 59).
Ultimately, it belongs to a phenomenology of language to employ logic to prove
the truth of ideal meanings on a level that is universally justified (SM 64/5).
Hountondji follows Husserl by rejecting the metaphysical notion of the existence
of ideas that are in themselves true. Rather, truth is the result of an act of thought, of
judgement (SM 53). More precisely, truth is based on the intersubjective formation
and justification of what is known today as prepositional attitudes, of S believing
that P, with P expressing the meaning of the intended object, and as such the content
or prepositional matter of the belief. As such epistemic truth consists in the corrob-
oration of sense-giving acts expressed in terms of shareable beliefs (prepositional
attitudes) of propositions (prepositional contents), which hold universally. Conse-
quently, one can say, the logic of experience ultimately aims at a universe of true
meanings.
Hountondji’s Critique of Husserl’s Universals
Hountondji worries that in his Logical Investigations Husserl leans towards empha-
sizing the notion of ideal meanings at the cost of the reality of first-personal
experience. He argues that Husserl’s universe of ideal meanings at the end gives
way to the metaphysical notion of a universe of meanings-in-themselves. This is

how Hountondji puts it:
It appears to me that this notion of ‘meaning in itself’ concludes a constant attempt,

throughout Investigations, to exclude the subject, after its initial consecration as the condi-
tion and the primary source of meaning. If the proper object of a phenomenology of
language, as of any phenomenology in general, is to show the subject at work behind the
production which, at first sight, hides it, the clearest result of Husserl’s analyses in the First
Investigation is, paradoxically, to reveal the subject at the end of the journey and to
subordinate it to a necessary and intemporal order that precisely establishes it as subject
by giving it the task of carrying this pre-existent order to the expression. In this manner,
experience is taken seriously only long enough to be transcended, relativized, and subordi-
nated to a presubjective a priori that grounds it. (SM 62)
Hountondji does not deny that Husserl takes seriously the subject at work behind
the production of ideal meaning and subjective experience as its primary source.
Unlike Kant, Husserl does not submit experience to universal metaphysical catego-
ries to unify it and, in doing so, to give it meaning. Rather, Hountondji admits that for
Husserl: “The unity of experience takes care of itself through a progressive and
horizontal articulation, in an open, unfinishable process” (SM 62). In this regard,
Hountondji appreciates the way “. . .Sartre also pushed Husserl’s analyses to their
most radical limits by emphasizing the uncontrollable spontaneity of prereflexive
consciousness” (ibid.). It is consequently easy to see, so Hountondji says, how “such
an approach led to the existentialist position and all the issues relating to Heidegger’s
analytics of the Dasein, of ‘being-there’” (ibid.). Thus, Hountondji concedes that
Husserl recognizes the spontaneity of lived experience, of what Sartre described in
terms of the prereflective freedom of experience, and what Heidegger would call,
Dasein, being there in the world, with its open horizon of meaning. Hountondji
refers, of course, to Sartre’s Being and Nothingness (1958) and Heidegger’s Being
and Time (1962), but he does not explore these works in any further depth. In any
case, what Hountondji finds missing in such scholarly expansion on Husserl’s work
is “. . .a clear understanding of the logical motivations of Husserl’s method,” and his
primary interest in the idealization of “logical experience” (ibid.). In short,
Hountondji cautions one to see how Husserl ultimately lends towards subordinating
lived experience to logical experience.
My intention is not to make an assessment of whether Hountondji’s critique of
Husserl is justified or not. What is more important is that he gives an indication of his
own particular approach to phenomenology. Hountondji is wary of any metaphysics
of ideal universal meanings that does not account for the experiential reality of the
subject, more precisely, the subject’s first-personal, sense-giving, and sense-fulfilling
experiential act of signification. Thus, his strong phenomenological appeal to return
to the subject, and to the things themselves as they are first personally experienced
and expressed.
Notably, Hountondji’s critical appeal has a political dimension in the sense that it
pertains specifically to a critique of the imposition of colonial categories on the
African lifeworld and lived experience of the African subject. One can say that this
520 A. Olivier
distinguishes his phenomenology in particular as African phenomenology. There are

in African philosophy notorious examples of such colonial imposition. Hountondji
refers particularly to the Rwandan ethnophilosopher Kagame, who attempted to
translate Aristotle’s metaphysical categories into his own language, Kinyarwanda,
“even if it meant later proposing a table of correspondences between his four
categories and the standard list of Aristotle’s ten categories established by scholas-
ticism” (SM 200). Recall Kagame’s four categories pertain to categories of Ntu
(Being) and include Mu-ntu (Being with Intelligence), Ki-ntu (Being without Intel-
ligence or Thing), Ha-ntu (the Being of Space and Time), and Ku-ntu (the Modality
of Being) (Kagabo, 2004: 235). Hountondji argues that Aristotle’s mistake was to
take categories owed to the Greek language to be universally valid. This is an
“entrapment in the particular” (ibid.). He concludes that, “Aristotle fell into this
trap unwittingly. Kagame, in his turn, fell into it, knowingly and freely” (SM 200).
Hountondji importantly points out that “What was in question here, in fact, were
the shortsighted language policies of our neocolonial states” (ibid.). Against the
neocolonial trend to sustain colonial languages, Kagame’s motive was actually to
introduce indigenous concepts of thinking (SM 201). Kagame’s attempt could be
considered a strategy to decolonize language. However, his failure was to sneak in
neocolonial concepts through the backdoor. This demonstrates the failure of an
entrapment in the particularity of false universals. One can thus say the struggle
for meaning is as much as it is a semantic quest for logical objectivity also a political
fight to decolonize spurious universals. At the heart of this struggle for meaning is,
however, a phenomenological struggle – the struggle to express meaning that
simultaneously accounts for the particularity of contextualized first-personal expe-
rience and its possible universality across such contexts. This brings us to the next
section on the tension between particulars and universals, specifically, a comparison
of Hountondji and Wiredu.
Hountondji and Wiredu on Particulars and Universals
In his reflection on his past works in The Struggle for Meaning, Hountondji appeals
emphatically for both taking particular lived contexts of experience seriously, and
aspiring for universality as foundation of all thought. Aristotle and Kagame fell into
the trap of the particular purported to be universal. Hountondji draws a lesson from it:
This lesson was clear: the particular exists, and it must be recognized. However, rather than
shutting up oneself in it, it should be acknowledged the better to live through, contextualize,
relativize, and, if possible, transcend it. From this point of view, Wiredu’s approach seemed
healthier to me. (SM 200)
Hountondji thus takes recourse to Wiredu’s approach, specifically his notion of

linguistic and cultural particularity and universality. Hountondji’s recourse to
Wiredu calls for a closer look at the latter’s view of language, conceptual and
cultural universals, and its relation to the former’s own notion of it.
Conceptual Universals
Wiredu’s Cultural Universals (Wiredu 1996 - henceforth referred to as CU) starts with
two opening chapters on communication, paving the way for his view of cultural
particulars and universals. The first chapter opens with the statement of a paradox.
There is something paradoxical going on in discourse among cultures. While, on the one
hand, there is an unprecedented intensification of informational interaction among the
different cultures of the world, there is, on the other hand, increasing skepticism regarding
the very foundation of such discourse; namely, the possibility of universal canons of thought
and action. (CU 1)
Wiredu refers to the skepticism of the way the discourse of Western culture
dominates intercultural communication, through ongoing colonization. Such domi-
nation flouts, wittingly or unwittingly, the possibility of respectful dialogue, which is
a vital condition of the possibility of intercultural communication (CU 2). Africa in
particular is a victim of such malpractice. Wiredu calls for African philosophers to
think about their use of Western languages, and the question whether or how their
vernacular can be conceptualized in such languages. They also have to think about
whether they sustain a colonial mentality by using such concepts without thinking
critically about their imposing character and forced conceptualization of vernacular
material (CU 3). Hence, Wiredu’s plea to exercise “conceptual decolonization” and
in this way unmask “spurious” universals (CU 5). The decisive test is to see if
concepts of a “metropolitan” nature can be translated into “vernacular” language
(ibid.). If not, then they lose their claim to be universally meaningful – as Kagame
discovered with his translation of Aristotle’s concepts.
But what, exactly, is a concept? This brings us to a decisive linguistic distinction
that Wiredu makes between signs, signifiers, the act of signification, and the referent.
These distinctions, so I show, are strikingly similar to the ones Hountondji makes.
Consider the following passage:
Suppose, for example, that a certain flag flying over a house signifies that a king is present
there. It would be idiomatic to say that the flag signifies the king. But, strictly, what is
signified is not the king but the thought that the king is present. In fact, in every use of a
meaningful symbol or sign, whether it be a word, a variable, or an entity such as a flag or a
gesture, what is signified is a thought, never an entity. It is true that symbols do frequently
refer to objects, entities. The point, however, is that when a symbol refers to an entity, the
entity can never be said to be the signification or the meaning of the symbol. The entity is the
referent, not the signification, and it is the signification that directs us to the referent. (CU15)
Wiredu thus distinguishes between the signifier (a word or symbol like a flag),
signification (the thought of a king’s presence), and the referent (the king). The
signifier, the flag, does not refer to the king but to the thought, or meaning, or
signification of the king’s presence. The signifier can only refer to the king because it
conveys the thought of a king. In another passage in an essay entitled
“Empiricalism,” Wiredu gives another helpful account of these distinctions:
522 A. Olivier
In communication we have to use signs. These are purely physical existents, signifying
nothing. It is by means of our own semantical conventions that we associate with the sign
meanings, conceptions, or connotations. By this process the sign becomes a word, or, in
company with other words, a sentence. Let us call what is thus associated with the sign its
signification. Then it is natural to ask with regard to a given word whether there is something
to which it refers (by virtue of its signification). (Wiredu, 2011: 26)
The similarity with Hountondji is striking. Wiredu takes a sign as such to signify
nothing – Hountondji would say, it is just an indication. Only if a sign expresses
meaning does it signify something. A sign signifies in terms of signifiers such as
words or symbols. To use Wiredu’s example: the word house is a signifier, however,
it can only signify an actual entity such as a house, if it expresses meaning, a thought,
or a concept of a house (ibid.). A signifier needs a concept or meaning to be capable
of signification. If the referent is absent, it can still signify meaning. For instance, a
unicorn has no referent but carries meaning, for it is a concept of fiction (ibid.). Thus,
Wiredu maintains a distinction similar to Hountondji’s between a signifier (word,
symbol), signification (meaning, concept, thought), and actual referent (entity).
It is furthermore striking that also Wiredu’s focus is not on the signifiers of
language but on the act of signification and communication. More precisely, he
also holds that acts of signification manifest socially through communication. The
capacity to conceptualize is learned and developed through communication. This
begins already at the most basic levels. Human communication is in fact “only a
development and refinement of the capacity to react to stimuli in a law-like manner
which is present in even amoebic forms of life.” (CU 23) Wiredu takes the instinc-
tually uniform gestures and noises in the most elementary forms of life as an
analogue to conceptualization and the “humble origins of the rules of conceptuali-
zation and articulation which are distinctive of human communication.” (ibid.) It is
through communication with others that subjects learn to signify, to express their
experiences in shareable thoughts (CU 19). Thus, the capacity to signify, to concep-
tualize, “. . .unfolds in communication and communication is learned.” (ibid.) All
humans share this social capacity to learn to express and communicate their expe-
riences conceptually. This is what Wiredu refers to as conceptual universals.
Wiredu’s view thus is that the universal capacity to conceptualize and communi-
cate experience is socially learned and shaped. Notably, this reading of Wiredu goes
against Eze’s and Janz’s objection that Wiredu presupposes as metaphysical category
a priori conceptual or cultural universals (Eze, 1998; Janz, 2009). In any case, in this
reading, Wiredu’s view seems to relate fairly well to what Hountondji calls the
phenomenology of language. Recall Hountondji’s view is that conceptualization
(signification) is a sense-giving act that anticipates an intersubjective genesis of
meaning. His view does look compatible with Wiredu’s idea that subjects develop
socially through communication the capacity to conceptualize experience. This
again seems to match with Fanon’s concept of “sociogeny” in Black Skins, White
Masks (Fanon, 1967: 4) in its basic sense that consciousness, and its capacity of
concept formation, is developed through social interaction (Gordon, 2008: 84;
Henry, 2006: 11ff). Hence, one could say that Hountondji, Fanon, and Wiredu
basically share a phenomenological concern with the social conditions that make
possible consciousness.
Wiredu’s notion of conceptual universals is the basis of what he famously called
cultural universals. This brings us to the next subsection.
Cultural Universals
It is well known, says Wiredu, that concepts differ from culture to culture (CU 20).
Consequently, he asks: “Is there any scheme of concepts which can be shared by all
the cultures of humankind?” (CU 21). In other words, is there “anything about which
all the different cultures of the world can communicate?” (ibid.).
In response to this question, Wiredu introduces his well-known concept of
cultural universals. It is worthwhile going into some detail here as, I think, Wiredu’s
conception of conceptual, epistemic, and cultural universals can be read as a
valuable supplementary to Hountondji’s view of universal meanings.
Wiredu famously introduces his argument for cultural universals with a reductio
ad absurdum argument in the opening passage of the third chapter of Cultural
Universals:
Suppose there were no cultural universals. Then intercultural communication would be

impossible. But there is intercultural communication. Therefore, there are cultural univer-
sals. (CU 21)
Wiredu bases his view of cultural universals on his notion of conceptual univer-
sals. As before, conceptual universals manifest as the socially developed capacity of
signification, of forming and communicating concepts. Again, the capacity to
conceptualize already starts with instinctually uniform gestures and noises that are
the humble origins of conceptualization and articulation, which are distinctive of
human communication. (CU23) However, human behavior is “governed by both
instinct and culture.” Because of instinct there will be a uniformity in human actions
and reactions. And because of culture, which Wiredu takes to be characterized by
“habit, instruction and conscious thought,” there will be variation. (CU 23) Notably
he then says:
The point, however, is that what unifies us is more fundamental than what differentiates
us. What is it that unifies us? The beginning, at least, of an answer is easy. It is our biologico-
cultural identity as homines sapientes. (ibid.)
At the minimum level, biologico-cultural unification means that humans are

“organisms that go beyond instinct in the drive for equilibrium and self-preservation
in specific ways, namely, by means of reflective perception, abstraction, deduction,
and induction.” (ibid.) What does that mean?
Wiredu explains. Reflective perception means “a kind of awareness that involves
the identification of objects and events through the conscious application of concepts
524 A. Olivier
and which entails, consequently, the power of recall and re-identification.” (CU 23)
Abstraction refers to the capacity to bring particulars together under general concepts
and these again under still more general concepts. Inference again refers to both
deductive and inductive logical capacities, which are already presupposed in rudi-
mentary forms in reflective perception. For instance, induction pertains to the
capacity to draw from the perception of particulars general concepts and to envisage
hypothetical situations such as the consequences of one’s actions (ibid.). This again
presupposes the deductive capacity, for instance, not to take the perception of X for a
non-X, by application of the fundamental principle of noncontradiction (ibid.).
Importantly, Wiredu concludes that the capacity to conceptualize (to perceive
reflectively, to abstract and infer) is what all humans share regardless of their cultural
context:
. . .being a human person implies having the capacity of reflective perception, abstraction,
and inference. In their basic nature these mental capacities are the same for all humans,
irrespective of whether they inhabit Europe, Asia, or Africa. (ibid.)
As humans have this as a defining capacity, they can ideally communicate across
cultures. But are some concepts not untranslatable?
Wiredu argues that all languages share at least the aspect of the conceptualization of
directly perceived objects in the environment, which all humans deal with by using
their capacities of abstraction and inference. What one can conceptualize one can also
translate. “This is what ensures that all human languages are, at bottom, inter-learnable
and inter-translatable.” (CU 26) More complicated issues of abstraction and inference
are not only a challenge inter-culturally but also, in fact, intraculturally (CU 26).
Consequently, Wiredu is skeptical of any claim of untranslatability.
In this, Hountondji once again agrees with him. Wiredu, so Hountondji shows,
distinguishes between “tongue-relative” (tongue-dependent) and “tongue-neutral”
statements. Tongue-relative statements are propositions that are only meaningful
within the conceptual space of a particular language or family of languages. Tongue-
neutral statements are propositions whose meaning exceeds the limits of particular
languages. African philosophers typically think in European languages. They lend
towards giving credence “to notions, problems, and positions that, in some cases,
would be untranslatable in their own languages.” (SM 201) Translation thus
becomes a decisive test of universality. European concepts which cannot be trans-
lated by tongue-relative languages are taken to be universal. However, so Wiredu
objects, “the untranslatable is the false universal, the relative that masks itself as
universal under cover of the particularities of a language.” (SM 201).
Wiredu is certainly aware of the obstacles of cross-cultural communication. As
Hountondji helpfully notes, he distinguishes between culture in its narrow sense
of contingent customary forms, beliefs, and practices in the context of a specific type
of physical environment and in its broader sense of conceptualization by means of
language. In its narrow sense “. . .what defines culture, or to be exact, a culture, is the
humanly contingent, not the humanly necessary.” (SM 28) The humanly necessary is
culture in its broader sense, thus the possibility to conceptualize by means of

language; in short, the possession of language. Thus, Wiredu says,
. . .the fact of language itself, i.e., the possession of one language or another by all human
societies, is the cultural universal par excellence. (CU 28)
Wiredu thus argues that all human societies, irrespective of their cultural partic-
ularity, possess language. This means, on the one hand, language is what all societies
have, it is an intracultural universal. In other words, within all cultures people have
the universal linguistic capacity to conceptualize, that is, to perceive abstractly, to
abstract and infer. On the other hand, language makes it possible to communicate
cross-culturally and is in this sense an intercultural universal. Thus, conceptual
universals are the foundation of intra- and intercultural universals.
Once one grants conceptual universals, more precisely, the universal capacity of
perception, abstraction, and inference, then one must also grant the universal capac-
ity of understanding truth, that is, to be able to justify the truthfulness of one’s
perception, abstraction, and inference. It is inconsistent to say people can understand
each other across cultures and deny that they can share truth. Thus, conceptual
universals and epistemic universals go together. (CU 28).
Nevertheless, as is to be expected, Wiredu rejects any metaphysical notion of the
existence of universals that are in themselves true. This is clear, for instance, from
Hallen’s defense of Wiredu’s notion of truth against any such metaphysical charge
(Hallen, 2004). Hallen shows that Wiredu argues that whatever is called the “truth” is
always someone’s truth (Hallen, 2004: 107). For a piece of information to be
awarded the appellation “true,” it must be discovered by, known by, and defended
by human beings somewhere, sometime. Furthermore, what human beings defend as
“true” can prove to be false from an alternative point of view. Therefore, whatever is
called “truth” is more starkly described as “opinion.” Consequently, Wiredu argues
that societies have their own notion of logic that dictates what they take to be truth.
This means, one can only critique the notion of truth from within the logic of the
language and culture of a particular society. Therefore, he rejects a metaphysical
notion of truth as a mind-independent property of timeless information. Truth does
not derive from a mind-independent reality but from intersubjective human endeavor
of rational inquiry. Truth is, however, not a matter of subjective opinion, but of
intersubjective interpretation. “In his (Wiredu’s – AO) view, such intersubjectivity
becomes a sine qua non to truth and is responsible for his enduring opposition to
both subjectivity and relativism.” (ibid. 107).
Wiredu’s conception of truth matches with Hountondji’s view. For Hountondji, as
was shown, it belongs to a phenomenology of language to employ logic to prove the
truth of ideal meanings, thus the truth of meaning beyond its first-personal, or one
can add, cultural formation. Again, Hountondji follows Husserl by rejecting the
metaphysical notion of the existence of ideas that are in themselves true. Truth is the
result of an act of logical analysis and conceptualization expressed in propositions
and their justification through intersubjective corroboration.
526 A. Olivier
To conclude this section, one can say, both Hountondji and Wiredu produce what
one may call an analytical African phenomenology. On the one hand, they pay
phenomenological respect to the particularity of African experience, on the other
hand, they advocate its expression and clarification in terms of universal concepts.
As Hallen points out, Wiredu criticizes analytic philosophy to remain on the level of
conceptual clarification of given beliefs instead of being engaged in developing
beliefs from a particular cultural context of experience (Hallen 2004: 110).
A remaining worry, one that Hountondji himself holds against Husserl, is if
Hountondji’s and Wiredu’s analytical emphasis on conceptual universals ultimately
happens at the cost of the particularity of cultural experience. Is there no better
midway between particulars and universals? This question leads to the next section,
Masolo’s midway.
Masolo’s Midway to Phenomenology
In his Self and Community in a Changing World (henceforth SC), Masolo (2010)
takes both Hountondji and Wiredu on board in advocating a phenomenological
midway between cultural particularism and universalism. The following section
has its focus on Self and Community in a Changing World; however, some
precursors of his midway are found in his African Philosophy in Search of
Identity. In African Philosophy in Search of Identity, Masolo gives a critique of
an exclusively linguistic approach that removes concepts from the lived context
from which they arise. His critique is specifically directed at analytical philoso-
phers who follow the approach of ordinary language philosophy (Masolo, 1994:
95–102). Masolo points out that a danger of linguistic philosophy is that the
philosopher might end up creating universals removed from and misrepresenting
the ordinary meaning and particular context, which these words bring to
expression.
Masolo consequently argues that the philosopher’s interests in meaning go
beyond the limits of the linguist (Masolo, 1994: 102). The philosopher needs to
steer a midway between the universalists, who argue for conceptual analysis that
supersedes common sense, and the pluralists or relativists, who argue in favor of
the diversity of the variant modalities of human experience and systems of repre-
sentation (Masolo, 1994: 247). He proposes a “middle ground” by arguing for
rational procedures that account for rather than disregard the “variant modalities of
experience,” including the “disorderly life of the body and the emotions” (ibid.
248). Masolo thus wants to navigate between universalism and particularism.
However, he would only give a more detailed account of his position in Self and
Community in a Changing World. Here he suggests a phenomenological midway
with recourse to both Hountondji and Wiredu. In the following, the focus is on two
aspects: first, his argument for a return to and reflection on the particularity of
subjects’ cultural situatedness, and, second, his advocacy of intersubjectivity as
possible universal.
The Return to the Indigenous Lifeworld
In a notable passage in Self and Community in a Changing World, Masolo writes:
African philosophy will benefit from the midway instead of committing itself to a single
culturally universalist or culturally particularist methodological approach. This will leave the
discipline space to take seriously both the particularity of our historical cultural situatedness
and universality of our common capacity to reflect about and beyond our cultural situation
on an individual level. (SC 21)
Masolo’s midway starts with his adoption of and expansion on Hountondji’s idea
of the return to the subject, by exploring what he calls the return to the indigenous
African subject. In this way, he broadens Hountondji’s scope by representing more
strongly than the latter Husserl’s later work on the “lifeworld.”
Masolo begins his analysis by “revalorizing” the colonial notion of the indigenous.
More particularly, he “brackets” the “oppositional colonial categories of traditional
and modern,” “local and imported,” and the imposition of such colonial categories on
the African context. In his view, Hountondji accuses ethnophilosophy exactly of such
colonial imposition of binary categories. Masolo argues that the core of Hountondji’s
critique of ethnophilosophy is that it sets out to describe basic intuitions of African
people (myths, songs, sages) and then markets these descriptions as philosophy of an
exotic sort to serve Western interests and prejudices (SC 24ff). Indigenous accounts of
experience remain on what Hountondji takes to be the descriptive level of prereflective
intuitions. These intuitions (doxa) must be critically submitted to conceptual analysis
before they can be converted to proper philosophy (episteme) (SC 35). To call it
philosophy carries a Western prejudice that Africa is capable only of folk philosophy
of a primitive, irrational, emotional, and collective nature. A phenomenological
analysis must therefore start with a critical suspension of intuitions, especially in the
form of their ethnophilosophical rendition. In other words, a critical analysis needs to
dismantle the myth of the given, specifically, the ethnophilosophical myth that the
African world is given in the form of ethnic myths.
This does not mean, however, that intuitions are not to be taken seriously. On the
contrary, Masolo endorses Hountondji’s basic adoption of Husserl’s view that the
world is intended also on the lowest level of intuitions, and that this is where all
critical thought – philosophy, logic, science – starts. As he says, Hountondji
“. . .appears to argue that critical thought emerges when individuals think of the
world as already intended at a lower level, as in the form of common beliefs,
meaning that our relationship with the world as an object of intention is grounded
in understanding and dialectically seeks to make sense of our senses of it, our
noemata, or meanings of it.” (ibid.) A critical analyses aims to examine how such
meanings arise. This requires a careful analysis of the intentional structure of
experience and acts of consciousness.
Masolo consequently endorses Hountondji’s basic phenomenological approach.
In the following notable passage, he offers a succinct account of the primary links
between Husserl’s and Hountondji’s phenomenological approaches:
528 A. Olivier
It seems that the goal for both Husserl and Hountondji was, first, to recognize the role of the
active structuring of consciousness that enables it to intend its object. Second, Hountondji
seeks to show, again (or still) working within the Husserlian scheme, how the world of
intentionality is the locus of our everyday experiences. Our consciousness is directed at
(intends) this world and forms a relationship with it. (SC 33)
As Masolo points out, Hountondji follows Husserl’s basic phenomenological

view of phenomenology as the study of the intentional structure of conscious
experience with its original locus the everyday lifeworld. In the first two extensive
chapters of Self and Community, he shows in detail Hountondji’s adoption of
Husserl’s view that the venture-point of any reflection – philosophical or scientific –
is a critical examination of its situatedness in everyday experience, specifically, in an
indigenous African context. This indigenous context includes “the whole sociocul-
tural realm that defines or constitutes certain basic elements of our consciousness.”
(SC 35)
Masolo clearly sees a strong “constitutive” relation between the realm of the
indigenous, the “whole sociocultural realm,” and the nature of subjectivity, including
consciousness and selfhood. In fact, as the title of his book suggests, this relation is at
the bottom about the way the self is intentionally directed at its community in a way
that shapes its character. In short, subjectivity is shaped by its community, and
constantly so in a changing world. In this regard, Masolo reflects Husserl’s late
view about the constitutive effect of the “lifeworld” on subjectivity. Consider the
following quote from Husserl’s text, entitled Zur Phänomenologie der
Intersubjektivität, (Towards Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity):
What I generate from out of myself (primarily instituting) is mine. But I am a ‘child of the
times’; I am a member of a we community in the broadest sense – a community that has its
tradition and that for its part is connected in a novel manner with the generative subjects, the
closest and the most distant ancestors. And these have ‘influenced’ me: I am what I am as an
heir. (Husserl, 1973: 223)
This passage amply reflects Husserl’s shift of focus in the 1920s, as it were, from
the “world of logic” to the “lifeworld.” One can view it as a succinct account of what
one could call a sociogenesis of sorts, that is, of the shaping effect of community life
on subjectivity. As is pointed out in section “Hountondji and Wiredu on Particulars
and Universals,” the idea of “sociogenesis” finds some reflection in Hountondji’s
view that any subjective sense-giving act anticipates an intersubjective genesis of
meanings, a social act of meaning formation, so that, ideally, the meaning of the first
person singular “I experience” coincides with the first-personal plural “we experi-
ence.” In other words, the intersubjective genesis of meaning makes possible the
formation of consciousness and its capacity to grasp meaning; it is its enabling
condition. Hountondji thus subtly introduces a radical social phenomenology found
only in the later Husserl. Once more, the notion of sociogenesis also relates to
Wiredu’s idea that the capacity to conceptualize the meaning of experience is a
product of social learning.
Masolo cites Wiredu extensively in agreement in his third chapter (CS 245). The
idea of sociogenesis is one that Husserl, Hountondji, Wiredu, and Masolo seem to
share despite their differences. However, it is Masolo who devotes the most exten-
sive analysis to this idea. The result is his Self and Community. His basic contention
is that the self is an heir of its community. “I” have been together with and have
learned from others as long as “I” can recall. My community has its own tradition
and conventions, customs, and language and wittingly or unwittingly “I” am its heir.
In allusion to Wiredu’s essay on Anton Wilhelm Amo (Wiredu, 2004), one can say, if
one is an Akan in an African village in Ghana, one shall become another Akan than
an Akan such as Anton Wilhelm Amo, who grew up and taught philosophy in
Germany. No matter where one is, one’s experience of the world and oneself will be
structured in accordance with the experience of other members in the community in
which one is reared. As Wiredu says, to be, in Akan, wo ho, means to be at some
place, and this means to be a product of such place (CU 49).
This notion of cultural heritage makes it sound rather rhetorical when Masolo’s
asks, How do African people think differently from other people and what are those
differences? What do they stem from? Or do they differ at all? (SC 51) It seems
obvious: subjects do differ and this difference goes back to their sociocultural
lifeworld experience. But then, how about cultural universals? What is Masolo’s
midway? The next section tries to show that it consists in “lived intersubjectivity.”
Lived Intersubjectivity
Given its sociocultural plurality and contingency, the African indigenous lifeworld
poses a challenge to its cross-cultural representation in philosophical concepts,
especially in non-African contexts. Masolo reiterates that a major issue in this regard
is the danger of false representation, including “misinterpretation, misrepresentation,
or even total misconceptualization of African meanings, indicating lack of mastery
of African languages by many scholars of African knowledge systems.” (SC 38) The
problem of misconceptualization particularly has been a theme of postcolonial
discourse and the quest for a decolonized mind (ibid.). However, so Masolo argues,
“Concepts are not necessarily made clearer or easier to apprehend because we have
expressed them in the native tongue of our interlocutor.” (SC 39). There may be
multiple reasons for such a difficulty; however, the core reason is the fact that it is
hard to be precise in relating words to their meanings (ibid.). Masolo agrees with the
distinction both Hountondji and Wiredu make between words and the concepts that
carry their meaning. Sometimes, so he says, subjects have no specific words or terms
for these concepts. This forces us to “strategize, to choose and select words in order
to hit as closely as possible to the meanings we intend to pass on to others regardless
of the medium we use.” (ibid.) This makes the transmission of concepts between
languages a particular challenge. Nevertheless, Masolo holds that “. . .it is not
impossible to express any concept in any language.” (ibid.) Consequently, he agrees
with both Hountondji and Wiredu:
530 A. Olivier
Can we, then, use English or French words to transmit African meanings? I believe that the
answer to this question is yes. (SC 39)
The philosophical worry remains “. . . .whether we can preserve the core of our
cultural integrity, our conceptual or theoretical representations of the world—when
we use other languages.” (ibid.) This problem, so Masolo agrees with Hountondji
and Wiredu, is not limited to the contrast between African and non-African lan-
guages, as the debate tends to suggest within the contexts of postcolonial discourse
(SC 41). He concedes that problems of colonial mistranslation and the need to use
African languages to express indigenous knowledge in Africa is an enigmatic
problem, nonetheless, he holds reasonable conceptual translation to remain a definite
possibility. Ultimately, Masolo agrees with Wiredu, and one should add,
Hountondji, that:
. . .concepts are language-free characteristics of the mind, as Wiredu argues, but also that
language is an elastic phenomenon that we can bend, twist, weave and stretch in any
direction and to any lengths in order to accommodate or to communicate the concepts we
have in our minds. (SC 41)
Masolo takes as an example of how languages can be stretched to communicate

concepts the way they continue to borrow from other languages across the globe,
especially in the professional disciplines such as law, medicine, chemistry. Indeed,
philosophy itself is characterized by such conceptual bending and lending.
However, bending, lending, and sharing practices do not appease the underlying
worry that it may not do justice to the particularity of some local sociocultural
meanings, for “it is often difficult to determine the exact sense that a term delivers
when it is used for a concept or theory from a different system of thought.” (SC 41).
At its core, this difficulty reflects the most basic phenomenological concern, which is
“. . . .to take our local experiences seriously and to examine the world along the lines
of our experience of it.” (ibid.)
This core difficulty, so Masolo cautions, calls for careful phenomenological
analysis of subjectivity and what is really shared. As he puts it:
One cannot simply take a collective set of intuitions to be a form of subjectivity, but rather,
an analysis is required to find out what is really shared (eidetic variation). What is really
shared among humans is that they are endowed with subjective consciousness, such that a
plurality of subjects cannot be simply reduced to the anonymous chorus of a crowd (like
ethnophilosophy and totalitarian discourses do). (SC 83)
Masolo criticizes once again the ethnophilosophical mistake to reduce subjectiv-

ity to a collective set of intuitions. Simultaneously, he sustains the phenomenological
claim that subjective consciousness is the most basic human endowment that all
subjects share throughout all personal and cultural plurality. Similar to Hountondji
and Wiredu, he claims that at the heart of what all subjects really share are their
thoughts – the significations or concepts or meanings that express their experiences
(SC 83). Reverberating Hountondji and Wiredu, he says:
Our thoughts are the basic significations and confirmations of our being and of our lives;
they are our bridges to the outside world. (SC 83)
Masolo thus prizes communication through shared thoughts to be the “bridges”

for every subject to its outside world, including the world of the other, both
intraculturally and interculturally. Thought expresses the intersubjectivity of shared
meanings, including intuitions, perceptions, abstractions, and inferences. As such,
thought is no a priori metaphysical category, independent of subjective experience,
but rather it establishes itself through intersubjectively shared experience. The fact
that subjects share the capacity to express their experience, to abstract and infer, thus
to have “logical experience,” is subject to what Masolo calls, after Husserl “eidetic
variation.” This means a careful intersubjective reflection and corroboration of the
really shareable and in this sense objective contents of subjects’ experiences – their
intuitions, perceptions, and emotions. All subjects share the capacity of thought. As
such, thought does not belong to a metaphysical realm independent of experience,
but rather, it is a capacity subject to and shaped by experience. In this sense, the
plurality of the lifeworld and lived experience is always ahead of a subject’s capacity
to think about it and to share their thoughts universally. If one thinks of the lifeworld
as an indigenous lifeworld, so Masolo emphasizes, one should not mistake it to be a
static historical sociocultural space, “fossilized and unchanging,” but rather, “the
indigenous is constantly being transformed, always negotiating its form” (SC 36).
As such it is a “lifeworld” in its real sense, one that makes intersubjective –
intracultural and intercultural – and ultimately universal thought an ongoing chal-
lenge and something to keep striving for. Thus, one can say the lived particularity of
indigenous intersubjectivity as what is shared between all possible subjects is always
ahead of its possible universal expression through conceptual analysis. Masolo’s
midway, it seems, is to take the sociocultural plurality of subjectivity to be a subject’s
lived reality and to think of the universality of intersubjectivity as a lived possibility.
Masolo’s midway finally indicates how a phenomenological focus on the partic-
ularity of the lived experience of intersubjectivity can be combined with rigorous,
universally shared conceptual analysis. One could say, he offers an analytical
African phenomenology of lived intersubjectivity.
Conclusion
The aim of this chapter has been to introduce some of the central issues and theorists
of the field of African phenomenology. As the subtitle of this chapter indicates, its
scope is limited to what is called introductory perspectives in African phenomenol-
ogy. The idea has been to outline for further investigation some thematically related
contributions to African phenomenology with specific reference to the grounding
work of Hountondji as related to works of Wiredu and Masolo. Hountondji’s
classical Husserlian approach offers a broad, foundational scope, which makes it
particularly suitable for a basic introduction to African phenomenology. Therefore,
532 A. Olivier
the focus here is on his classical approach rather than on ones with a narrower scope,
for instance, Serequeberhan’s hermeneutical and More’s existentialist approaches.
Moreover, the focus has been on a seminal (African) phenomenological issue, the
particularity of sociocultural experience and its rendition in what is claimed to be
universal, but often criticized as colonial, concepts of philosophical thinking. The
discussed authors demonstrate ways in which the phenomenological focus on the
study of experience can combine with the critical analytical focus on its conceptual
rendition. In this sense, one can speak of an analytical African phenomenology.
A brief recap of the discussion and comparison of Hountondji, Wiredu, and
Masolo is in order.
Section “Hountondji and the Struggle for Meaning” explained how Hountondji
endorses Husserl’s phenomenological appeal to return to the subject, and to the
meaning of the things themselves as they are first-personally experienced and
intersubjectively shared through speech. Hountondji argues that the pursuit of
meaning is ultimately not merely philosophical, or logical, or scientific, but political.
In the African context, it is a struggle to decolonize deeply entrenched neocolonial
categories of concepts purported to be universal, and to ideally find meaning that
simultaneously accounts for the particularity of contextualized first-personal expe-
rience and its possible universality across such contexts.
Section “Hountondji and Wiredu on Particulars and Universals” argued that a
comparison of Hountondji’s and Wiredu’s views of universals shows striking sim-
ilarities. Both Wiredu and Hountondji argue for the intersubjectively shared mean-
ings of personal and cultural contexts of communication. Linguistic analysis plays a
pivotal role in clarifying the nature of such communication. However, Wiredu
criticizes analytic philosophy to remain on the level of conceptual clarification
instead of being engaged in the social genesis of concepts from within particular
sociocultural contexts. Both Hountondji and Wiredu take the particularity of socio-
cultural contexts of living as point of departure to advocate the notion of
interculturally shared concepts as possible universals. Both concentrate on lived
sociocultural experience within the African context and simultaneously its
decolonized, conceptual analysis in universally shareable terms. In this sense, they
both produce what one could call an analytical African phenomenology. A
remaining question was if Hountondji’s and Wiredu’s analytical emphasis on con-
ceptual universals might be at the cost of the particularity of cultural experience, and
if there is no better midway between particulars and universals. Masolo’s view was
proposed as possible midway.
Section “Masolo’s Midway to Phenomenology” showed how Masolo’s midway
to phenomenology expands on Hountondji’s idea of the return to the subject,
specifically by focusing on the sociocultural constitution of African subjectivity.
Given its constitutive sociocultural plurality and contingency, the African indige-
nous lifeworld poses a challenge to its cross-cultural representation in philosophical
concepts, especially in non-African contexts. Making strong both Hountondji’s and
Wiredu’s ideal of intercultural conceptual communication, Masolo develops the
notion of lived intersubjectivity as the underpinning of the possibility of universally

shared meaning. His focus on lived intersubjectivity and its expression appears to be
less idealistic than Hountondji’s and Wiredu’s notions of conceptually shared sub-
jectivity. His focus is on the careful critical conceptual analysis of concretely lived
African intersubjectivity as possibly shared universal. One could say he offers an
analytical African phenomenology of lived intersubjectivity.
One might still ask at the end of this introduction: but what exactly is African
phenomenology? The focus here has been on a primary issue in African phenom-
enology, the tension between experiential particularity and conceptual universality,
which offers a good basis for a working definition, one closely related but signif-
icantly different to the standard encyclopedic definition of phenomenology as the
study of the essential structures of experience. If pressed to give a kind of working
definition, then one could take Hountondji’s lead as related to Wiredu and Masolo,
and perhaps say the following tentatively and without the pretension to be com-
plete. African Phenomenology is a critical conceptual analysis of the sociocultural
conditions and intercultural shareability of subjective experience, with its inclusive
focus being the African context. Because of its emphasis on both experiential as
well as conceptual analyses, one can call it analytical African phenomenology.
There is a specific methodological focus on the sociocultural and linguistic con-
text, but as in the case of phenomenological methods in general, this is open to the
approach of its proponents. The same goes for its thematic focus. The examination
of the tension between experiential, cultural particulars and conceptual universals
covers a major, comprehensive issue, relating themes of language, knowledge,
subjectivity, culture, community, oppression, and decolonization. Such examina-
tion serves well to offer a basic introduction to African phenomenology. However,
this introduction is but one perspective of many others awaiting further exploration
in this emerging field.
Acknowledgment I am indebted to M. John Lamola and Justin Sands for helpful comments on a
first draft of this chapter. I also received fruitful comments from several colleagues, when presenting
a shortened draft of it at The Third Biennial African Philosophy World Conference, October 28–30,
2019, University of Dar es Salaam. I thank Elvis Imafidon for the invitation to contribute to this
collection.
References
Cloete, M. (2019). Steve Biko: Black consciousness and the African other – The struggle for the
political, in Olivier A. (ed), The African other: Philosophy, justice and the self. Angelaki:
Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 24(2), 104–115.
Eze, E. (1998). What are cultural universals?, in Cultural universals and particulars by Kwasi
Wiredu. African Philosophy, 11(1), 73–82.
Fanon, F. (1967). Black skins White masks. Pluto Press.
Gordon, L. (Ed.). (1997). Existence in Black: An anthology of Black existential philosophy.
Routledge.
534 A. Olivier
Gordon, L. (2000). Existentia Africana. Understanding Africana existential thought. New York.
Gordon, L. (2008). An introduction to Africana philosophy. Cambridge University Press.
Hallen, B. (2002). A short history of African philosophy. Indiana Press.
Hallen, B. (2004). Contemporary anglophone African philosophy: A survey. In K. Wiredu (Ed.), A
companion to African philosophy. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time (J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson, Trans.). Oxford: Blackwell.
Henry, P. (2006). Africana phenomenology: Its philosophical implications. Worlds&Knowledges
Otherwise, https://globalstudies.trinity.duke.edu/sites/globalstudies.trinity.duke.edu/files/file-
attachments/v1d3_PHenry.pdf
Hountondji, P. J. (2002). The struggle for meaning: Reflections on philosophy, culture, and
democracy in Africa. Ohio University Press.
Husserl, E. (1973). Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass.
Zweiter Teil: 1921–1928, Iso Kern (Ed.). Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
Husserl, E. (2001). Logical investigations (J. N. Findlay, Trans.). London: Routledge.
Janz, B. (2009). Philosophy in an African place. Rowman & Littlefield.
Kagabo, L. (2004). Alexis Kagame (1912–1981): Life and thought. In K. Wiredu (Ed.), A
companion to African philosophy (pp. 231–242). Blackwell.
Lamola, M. J. (2020). Ramose and the ontology of the African: An existentialist unveiling of
moônô. In H. Lauer & H. Yitah (Eds.), The tenacity of truthfulness (pp. 21–40). Mkuki na
Nyota.
Lamola, M. J. (2023). A post-Sartrean reflection on being black in the world: Reading Steve Biko
through Slavoj Žižek. In A. Olivier, M. J. Lamola, & J. Sands (Eds.), Phenomenology in an
African context. SUNY Press, forthcoming.
Maart, R. (2015). Decolonizing gender, decolonizing philosophy. Radical Philosophy Review,
18(1), 69–91.
Mbembe, A. (2017). Critique of Black reason (Laurent Dubois, Trans.). Durham: Duke University
Press.
Moran, D. (2000). Introduction to phenomenology. Routledge.
Moran, D. (2005). Edmund Husserl: Founder of phenomenology. Polity.
More, M. (2008a). Biko: Africana existentialist philosopher. In A. Mngxitama, A. Alexander, &
N. C. Gibson (Eds.), Biko lives!: Contesting the legacies of Steve Biko (pp. 45–68). Palgrave
Macmillan.
More, M.P. (2008b). Gordon on contingency: A Sartrean interpretation. The CLR James Journal,
14(1), Special Issue on Lewis Gordon (Spring 2008), 26–45.
More, M. P. (2018). Looking through philosophy in Black: Memoirs. Rowman and Littlefield
International.
More, M. P. (2023). Chabani manganyi: The lived experience of difference. In Olivier A., Lamola,
M.J., & Sands, J. (Eds.). Phenomenology in an African Context. Albany: Suny Press,
forthcoming.
Olivier, A. (2023a). Enframing and transformation: Reflections on Serequeberhan and Heidegger.
In F.-X. de Vaujany, J. Aroles, & M. Pérezts (Eds.), Phenomenology and organisation studies
(pp. 534–556). Oxford University Press.
Olivier, A. (2023b). African phenomenology – What is that. In A. Olivier, M. J. Lamola, & J. Sands
(Eds.), Phenomenology in an African context. SUNY Press, forthcoming.
Outlaw, Jr. L. T. (2017). Africana philosophy. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer
2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (Ed.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/
africana/
Sartre, J-P. 1958. Being and nothingness (J. J Barnes, Trans.). London: Routledge.
Serequeberhan, T. (1994). The hermeneutics of African philosophy: Horizon and discourse.
Routledge.
Serequeberhan, T. (2015). Existence and heritage. SUNY Press.
Smith, D. (2018). Phenomenology. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2018
Edition), Edward N. Zalta (Ed.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/
phenomenology/
Wiredu, K. (1996). Cultural universals and particulars: An African perspective. Indiana University
Press.
Wiredu, K. (2004). Amo’s critique of Descartes’ philosophy of mind. In K. Wiredu (Ed.), A
Wiredu, K. (2011). Empiricalism. In H. Lauer, N. A. Appiah, & A. J. A. Anderson (Eds.), Identity
meets nationality: Voices from the humanities (pp. 18–34). Sub-Saharan Publishers.
Zahavi, D. (2005). Subjectivity and selfhood. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Part IX
Philosophy of Religion
Toward a Philosophy of African
Endogenous Religions
Lawrence Ogbo Ugwuanyi
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540
Theoretical and Conceptual Justification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541
A Summary Discourse on the Principal Tenets of African Endogenous Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . 543
Locating the Endogenous Philosophy of African Religions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554
Abstract
This work sets out to engage African endogenous religions with the view to
articulate the philosophical principles that will account for the wisdom around
which endogenous African religious beliefs are anchored. The work aims to
locate how it can be held that there is distinct wisdom that defines endogenous
religious practices in Africa. The work will engage African endogenous religious
belief(s) as they are practiced in several parts of Nigeria and distill the key
features of the practice to abstract from them and articulate what can be held to
be the philosophy of this religion. To achieve this aim, I (i) provide some
theoretical and conceptual justification of the work by discussing how philosophy
(written or unwritten) animates religion. Thereafter, I interrogate the extent to
which it is proper to refer to the religion as traditional and for its replacement with
the concept “endogenous” and how it serves a more relevant gain. Next, I
(ii) apply selected examples of these endogenous religions in Nigeria and explain
their basic tenets. Finally, I (iii) abstract from the key dimensions of this religion –
*This work is a modified edition of a paper presented at the Global Africa Symposium on Africa’s
Indigenous Religions held at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, August 8–13, 2016.
The author wishes to express his gratitude to those who organised the symposium.
L. O. Ugwuanyi (*)
Department of Philosophy, University of Abuja, Abuja, Nigeria

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_30
540 L. O. Ugwuanyi
such as belief in the supreme being, belief in divinities, belief in the ancestors, and
belief in the spirit world – and apply this to locate what could be held to be the
philosophy suggested by this religion. The method applied is textual research,
speculative hermeneutics, and critical analysis.
Keywords
African · Endogenous · Religions · Philosophy
Introduction
This work aims to locate how it can be held that there is distinct wisdom that defines
endogenous religious practices in Africa. The work applies African endogenous
religious beliefs as they are practiced in several parts of Nigeria to do this. It abstracts
from them to articulate what can be held to be the philosophy of African endogenous
religion. To achieve this aim, the work will attempt to go beyond what can be called
philosophy as a general worldview to look at philosophy as an interpretation of a
worldview. By applying philosophy this way, it will locate the philosophical char-
acter that can be applied to characterize African endogenous religion.
Some scholars have attempted to carry out similar project by way of engaging
African traditional religion in relation to its philosophy. Apart from pioneering
inquiries of scholars John Mbiti (1969) and Bolaji Idowu (1973), other works such
as Ekeke and Ekeopara (2010), Izidory (2014), and Kofi Johnson (2004) have
attempted to address this need. However, a major limitation of these efforts is that
they attempt to discuss African traditional religion within the broader context of the
African worldview. The appeal to the philosophical method in these but their appeal
favors the application of philosophy broadly as a worldview – that is, philosophy in
the first order. They do not engage African traditional religion through philosophy as
a second order – that is, as a critique of this worldview. By this, I mean that these
works do not engage the idea of African endogenous religion from the point of view
of such dialectical and/or critical questioning that will reveal the cardinal principles
and values that African Endogenous religion defends. Thus, in a way, nobody has
made the search for the underlying philosophy of African Endogenous Religion a
primary concern as this work has set out to do.
What my work has set out to do is to attempt to address this gap. To do this, the
work favors the application of the word endogenous instead of the word traditional.
The reason for this is that the traditional is always evolving but the endogenous
connotes that which has a local origin but can be found relevant outside its context of
origin. The word endogenous which is a conceptual innovation from the word
indigenous suggests a more socially valuable concept that adds relevance to African
religion since it illustrates that these religions were also adopted from other localities
and adapted to communities according to their peculiarities. My work will provide
an interpretation of African Endogenous religion through an effort that will illustrate
the key principles that direct the religion. It will then proceed to discuss the extent to
Toward a Philosophy of African Endogenous Religions 541
which African Endogenous Religion can be held to be philosophically African-

interpreted to mean the extent to which it represents a variant of religious practice
with a different philosophy in the sense of providing for an idea of religion that
should have a different philosophical underpinning arising from African experience.
Thus this discourse of the philosophy of African endogenous religion is unique in
that it examines the philosophy of a given religion through paradigms different from
what is usually applied to study philosophy of religion, such as the problem of
religious language, the question of immortality of the soul, and the question of the
existence of God. I look at the philosophy of African endogenous religion to see how
or whether it defends African worldview. My concern is to see how a distinct
philosophy of religion can be attributed to Africans, which will lay a foundation
for the study of African philosophy of religion. In brief, the effort amounts to a
discourse on the meta-religious foundation of African endogenous religion.
The work will proceed by (i) providing some theoretical and conceptual justifica-
tion of the study and how philosophy (written or unwritten) animates religion and why
it should be seen to be the case with endogenous religions in Africa. Thereafter, it will
interrogate the import of the word “traditional” when applied to this religion, make a
case for its replacement with the concept “endogenous” and state how it serves a more
relevant gain. The chapter will next (ii) articulate the different dimensions of belief in
African endogenous religion such as belief in the Supreme Being, belief in divinities,
belief in the ancestors, and belief in the spirit world. I illustrate this with the instance of
the religion of the Igbos, the Ggagyi, and the Urhobo, all of which are ethnic groups in
Nigeria. The choice of these groups stems from the fact that they are not as widely
discussed as other ethnic groups (in particular, the Urhobo and the Ggagyi) and the
author of this piece is considerably familiar with the religious practices among these
ethnic groups. Thereafter, it will then abstract from these modes of worship and this
belief pattern and apply these to articulate the goal or philosophy of this religion by
locating and conceptualizing fundamental principles that define and direct this reli-
gion. The work will then (iv) conclude by mapping out the gains of the study and
directions through which other researches can improve on this effort.
Theoretical and Conceptual Justification
Philosophy has repeatedly played roles in the evolution and consolidation of reli-
gious beliefs and practices the world over. Either as theoretically articulated posi-
tions – in its second-order form or as inscribed in the worldview of a people –
philosophy has been involved in the shaping of religious thought. Strong evidence to
this claim is the case of Christianity and Islam, which have applied philosophical
traditions of the medieval and Arabian world to advance their cause and justify their
positions. The two most important scholars of Christianity in the medieval era,
namely Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine of Hippo, are known to have applied
the works of Aristotle and Plato significantly to interpret and justify Christian beliefs
and convictions. These can be glimpsed through such literature as Summa
Theologica, De Ente et Essentia of St. Thomas, and the Confessions and City of
542 L. O. Ugwuanyi
God of St. Augustine. Other prominent religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism
also harbor strong philosophical content. Indeed, Oriental philosophy and religions
are strongly intertwined. Several positions can be applied to explain the long-
standing relevance of the philosophy of religion. The first is to locate the fact that
religion affects the whole structure of a people’s thought and their conception of
reality. Samuel Huntington in his work The Clash of Civilization (1993:25) supports
this claim and locates people’s concept of God as one the marks of their civilization.
According to Huntington:
Civilizations are differentiated from each other by history, language, custom, tradition, and
most important, religion. The people of different civilizations have different views on the
relations between God and man, the individual and the group, the citizens and the state,
parents and children, husband and wife, as well as differing ways on the relative importance
of rights and responsibilities, liberty and authority, equality and hierarchy.
On the strength of the above claims, Huntington recognized eight major civilizations
of the world, namely: Western, Islamic, Orthodox, Latin America, Indic, Japanese, and
African. A reading of this view suggests that answers to such issues as “perception of
the other, the non-visible, the forces that impinge on man’s life” (Nwoga, 1984: 8), etc.,
depend on the influence of religion on the worldview of a people. Thus even if religion
cannot be held to be the only force that drives human interaction, no one who is
interested in capturing the worldview of a people can reasonably be indifferent to
engaging the religious aspect of the society or afford to ignore it.
A clear illustration of this can be found in Western modernity. When modernity in
its Western tradition attempted to relegate religion in favor of a man-centered
worldview, it was the extent to which the philosophy of religion then had made it
difficult for reason to develop unrestrictedly. Yet even the effort to disregard religion
did not succeed completely as the question of God has remained an aspect of this
modernity. The classical illustration of this is in the works of the Western modernist
philosopher Baruch Spinoza whose idea of God can be held to be religious and
irreligious at the same time or variously held to be theistic, atheistic, or even
agnostic. A closer reading of this idea in his remarkable book Ethics (2001) would
justify this claim. This submission does not amount to a claim that the idea of God
amounts to religion. God is clearly more than religion but no religion can function by
alienating the idea of God completely.
The second explanation why religion would often appeal to philosophy to advance
its cause is that the two faculties of man that promote the ethics of belief and reason
namely will and intellect and which define the two categories of human practice both
arise from the same source. Hence, philosophy at once amounts to an effort to achieve
a rational explanation of those ideas that are admissible to the human mind, while
religion on the other hand seeks to submit the mind to those mysteries that are believed
to lie beyond man but which make sense to the human spirit.
The third explanation why religion demands philosophical justification is that it
helps to locate the socio-cultural nature of religion as a result of which it must insert
itself within some culture or, at least, be seen to make sense within a culture. By this it is
meant that even if religion as a belief transcends culture, religion as a practice is culture-
dependent. Thus it is often difficult to explain religious practice without an appeal to
some cultural convictions. Of religious belief in its fundamental appeal to human nature
is how to be transcultural, that is, how or whether it can transcend the originating
culture of the religion and allow itself to be inculcated by another culture. While some
religions have addressed this need, some religions have not been able to address this
need and it is for this reason that they have fallen victim of imperial or colonial ethics.
After the effort to spell out why it is important to engage the African Endogenous
Religion from the point of view of philosophy, it demands this study to explain why
the term “endogenous” is found more cogent than the word “traditional” in relation
to locally evolved religions in Africa. The concept “endogenous” is an advanced
form of the word “indigenous,” which means that which grows out of a local
environment. Paulin Hountondji, the Beninoise philosopher and one of the promi-
nent scholars of endogenous knowledge in Africa, applies this concept in his work
Endogenous Research Trials (1987) where he suggested that the concept “endoge-
nous” connotes that which grows out of a local setting, but whose relevance
transcends that setting. Thus endogenous transcends the indigenous in the sense
that it allows for an external infusion and interaction with other belief patterns and by
so doing makes it relevant. Properly understood, therefore, applying the concept to
religion in the African context empowers it to perform such functions as religious
socialization and/or religious development more than the concept of indigenous or
traditional. Whereas traditional “indicates that it is undergirded by a fundamentally
indigenous value system . . . with its own historical inheritance and tradition from the
past” (Opoku 1976 cited in Johnson, 2004), it does not imbue the religion with
civilizational values nor does it emphasize the transitional and developmental value
of religion. Thus to call African Endogenous Religion (AER) another name such as
African traditional religion robs it of its status. Indeed it gives it the status of a closed
belief even when by all standards such religion may not be so. For instance, the
variant of this religion as practiced the Igbo area of Nigeria – e.g., the Omabe or Odo
cult/religion – was often copied or adapted from one part of Igbo land to the other
and this very cultural potential of attracting the interest of communities outside its
origin is an evidence of a trans-communities potential. Indeed the term religious
complexity can be applied to characterize the nature of this religion, owing to the
various modes of enculturation and acculturation it undergoes among different
groups of adherents. After an engagement with AER from a theoretical and concep-
tual background, let me next proceed to discuss the basic tenets of this religion.
A Summary Discourse on the Principal Tenets of African

Endogenous Religion
At least four dimensions of belief define African Endogenous Religion (AER)

wherever they are practiced. These are belief in God, belief in Divinities, belief in
the Spirit World, and belief in the Ancestors. The Igbo, a major ethnocultural group
in the southeastern part of Nigeria, calls God Chukwu, or Chineke, meaning one who
544 L. O. Ugwuanyi
sustains the world. Chi is a sort of “Igbo alter ego” (Oguejiofor, 1996: 52). Chukwu
translates to the Great Chi that accounts for what there is in this side of eternity.
Chukwu also translates to Chineke, which means the Chi that creates. There is
however a debate in contemporary scholarship on whether it is proper to hold that
there is a supreme being in Igbo thought or whether what is held to be a supreme
being should merely be seen as one of the deities in Igbo religion who has been given
the identity of supreme being due to Christian intervention in Igbo life. The
argument here is that deities are the effective agent for supernatural intervention in
Igbo life and that “Chi-ukwu” that is today upheld as God in Igbo thought is actually
one of the deities in Igbo life and thought (Nwoga, 1984). What these views tend to
suggest is that the Igbo world is fundamentally the material world and that any
conception of supreme being must be grounded on the pre-eminence of the material
world in Igbo thought. The other argument is that reality in the Igbo world is not one
and cannot even be one in relation to the supreme. Thus the idea of one being that has
no complimentary or supplementary aspect is not Igbo and cannot be inserted in the
Igbo scheme. The claim here is that since everything has a dual counterpart, then
even the deity should be read this way. For instance, the Igbos have Igwe na Ala (the
Sky and the Earth); Madu na Chi ya (The person and the spirit); Nwoke na Nwanyi
(Man and Woman). In a similar manner God is supposed to have a counterpart. In an
interview with the Igbo sage Rev.Fr. Raymond Arazu (26/6/21), he suggested that
the correct designation for the supposed God in Igbo thought is Chukwu na Ala.
While the controversies do not constitute the major focus of this work, it is important
to highlight this to widen thoughts on the notion of God in an aspect of African
endogenous religion.
The concept of God as Osebuluwa is usually common among the Igbos west of
the Niger, and this is believed to arise from the corruption of the word oricha which
is believed to have an Edo origin and also stands as God (Oguejiofor, 1996: 52).
Apart from this general designation of God among the Igbos, some dialects may
have peculiar ways of referring to God. Among those who live in the northern part of
Igbo land – Nsukka, Isi-Uzo, Uzo-Uwani, etc. – concepts or praise names such as
“ezechitoke” (the king that holds creation) or “ugwuanyi agama eriri ji obene (the
one that ties the calabash to the palm tree) are also used as praise names for God.
They possess nominal values as Chukwu, “the great Chi.”
The Gbagyis or Gwari (found in the central part of Nigeria in Kaduna, Kogi,
Niger, Nassarawa States and Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (see endnote)) call
God Shekwoyi, meaning “one who is greater than we all” (Umaru, 2006). To them
Shekwoyi is the creator of visible and non-visible things in the world. The name the
Gbagyis call the Supreme Being is descriptive of his nature and character. M.I. Kure
(as cited in Je’adayibe, 1996: 7–8) points out that the Gbagyi concept of God was
derived from three syllables – “Oshe,” “Okwo” and “eyi.” Oshe literally means
heaven, sky above or up. “Okwo” signifies “old” or “elder,” stronger, big or bigger,
greater or greatest, and “eyi” stands for the word “we,” that is the Gbagyi as a people.
Thus the word Shekwoyi literally means, “The heavens or the sky, above or up, is
greater than we are.” Kure contends that Shekwoyi denotes eternity, omnipotence,
and the immensity of God. The Urhobo people found in the Niger Delta call God
Oghene. They also call him Uku, Agbadagburu, Osonobruwhe, Obe odeotakpo-
narhurhu, which qualify Him as the Omnipresent, Almighty, Majestic, and benev-
olent God (Ubruhre, 2001: 23). Indeed: Obe odeotakponarhurhu translates to “the
plantain leaf sufficiently big to shelter the whole world.” Following the effort to
account for the supreme deity in the AER, let us consider a second aspect of the
worship of AER.
The second aspect of African Endogenous Religions is belief in Divinities.
Aspects of belief in divinities holds that divinities are offspring of the Supreme
Being, and that they emanate from Him and share most of the attributes of the
Supreme Being. Divinities report back to the Supreme Being and are held to be mere
messengers that take orders from God. Some believers of AER hold that the
divinities are the Children of the Supreme Being while some see divinities as the
deputy to the Supreme Being.
Divinities can be broadly grouped into three categories: (i) The divinities in
heaven – this category of divinities are believed to have been with God in heaven
and have been with him since the creation of the universe. According to this aspect of
belief in AER, these divinities are part of the creative work of God. Man does not
know their origin. The second group of divinities are (ii) Deified ancestors: These are
human beings who had lived extraordinary lives while here on earth and after their
death, the human community where they lived, decide to give them a place among
the divinities. The third group of divinities are (iii) The personification of natural
forces and phenomena associated with spirit in AER. These are awesome creatures
such as animals, trees, stones, rivers, etc., that are deified and worshipped. Indeed in
AER “whatever people consider to be home of spirit is usually set apart as sacred
places, and there people offer worship to the particular spirit” (Awolalu & Dopamu,
1979: 73). It could be hills, mountains, rocks, trees, thick forests, etc.
Divinities function under different names in AER. Among the Igbos there are
several divinities which include the Ani or Ala deity, the Okike deity, the Anyanwu
deity, the Amadioha deity, etc. Ala also known as Ani, Anu, Ana, Ale Ali in different
Igbo dialects is an arch-deity in Igbo life and thought. Ala is believed to have a
husband which is Anyanwu – the Sun god but the Sun god is hardly invoked as much
as Ala. Two other deities are associated with Ala in a special way. They are Ufojoku
and Mbari. Ufojoku or Ifejioku is the deity worshipped during and after plantation
season in Igbo world while Mbari is the god of creativity – which is believed to
inspire and direct all forms of creativity. Some of the best-known writers of Igbo
extraction such as Christopher Okigbo were known to have associated with Mbari
club to inspire and advance their creativity. Ala is presided by a priest but there are
also instances of where Ala may have a priestess called Agbala. The worship of Ala
deity varies. In some aspects of Igbo land there are shrines dedicated to Ala deity. In
some other aspects of the Igbo world there is no shrine Ala and other deities
mentioned above perform different functions in the sense that they carry out the
duties that would ordinarily be reserved for God.
Similarly, among the Gbagyis, there is also a belief in the divinities. Apart from
the belief in Shekwoyi, they believe that Ashna (lesser gods or divinities) exist. To
them, the lesser gods (divinities) were given power to partake in their affairs. The
546 L. O. Ugwuanyi
divinity could be personal, family divinity, or community divinity. Amawamwa is a

popular divinity among the Gbagyi, which helps to maintain morals, social and
economic stability in the community. When there is poor harvest, the Amawamwa
divinity is usually consulted and thereafter sacrifices are offered to appease him.
Divinities among the Gbagyi group include Azyiba, Bwagyi, Kudamyiyi, etc.
Among the Urhobos, divinities are known as edjo or erha. Unlike other ethnic
components of Nigeria, the Urhobo are held to have no common divinities. Their
divinities are representative of the twenty-two socio-political units of Urhobo land.
The belief is that these divinities provided spiritual support for these clans during the
periods of migration conquests and counter-conquests (Ubruhre, 2001: 26). Divin-
ities are intermediaries between them and the Supreme Being. They are representa-
tive symbols of their belief in one true God (Ajayi, 1981: 14). The divinities are
called gods but smaller gods are different from God the Supreme Being. These
divinities are considerably large and have nearly all aspects of human needs desig-
nated to them.
Another aspect of belief in AER is the belief in spirits. Spirits are powers that we
may or may not see but have great influence upon the lives of the living. They may
take the shape of a human being in which case they may be extraordinarily tall or
short. They have the power to be everywhere and that is part of why they are called
spirits. The Igbos, for example, hold a strong belief in the spirit world. In the Igbo
world, the spirit world, literarily known as ala muo, is inhabited by three spiritual
forces: the supreme gods, supreme ancestral gods, and supreme personal gods (Nze,
cited in Oguejiofor, 1989: 57). The Igbos hold a world of dualism in which the two
worlds interact with each other and influence the actions of each other. The Igbo
world is an anthropocentric world where human life is under the influence of each of
the forces of life believed to have material/natural and spiritual/supernatural dimen-
sions. The spiritual/supernatural dimension is dominated by interaction with the chi,
translated to mean “spirit,” “god,” “guardian angel,” “co-creative agent,” or “super-
natural agent.”
Chi supervises the affairs of the individual and is the central functional agent in
Igbo worldview. Hence, it functions as “the most potent of lesser spiritual beings
invested with supernatural powers as far as the affairs of the individual are
concerned” (Opata, 1998: 150). Chi is so fundamental to Igbo ontology that it has
a higher status than the other deities and divinities in Igbo belief (Opata: 159) and is
believed to arise from the same ontological principle that gives birth to the human
being. While “deities and divinities that prove inefficient for the cause for which they
have been acquired can be destroyed by the Igbo, no person dares think of destroying
his or her own chi” (Opata: 159). This goes to demonstrate the depth of respect at
which the Igbo holds for chi who is the embodiment of the spirit world.
The Gbagyi also hold a strong belief about Spirits and the spirit world. Human
spirits, according to the Gabgyi, are grouped into two, namely, the ghost Spirits and
the ancestral spirits. The ghost is called “nyasibwi.” They are the spirits of those that
die a bad death and are hence denied entry into the company of the ancestors. Hence,
their spirits reincarnate in animals. Hunters who kill such animals end up becoming
possessed by such spirits. The Gbagyi often narrate the experience on how they saw
the spirit of a person that died. Some nunwola (sorcerers) reappear as nyasibwi after
death to haunt the living. This is held as evidence of bad life in consequence of which
they were rejected entry into the land of the ancestors. In fact, families where the
“nyasibwi” phenomenon is popular are avoided even in marriage. This is because to
die and come back is a stigma among Gbagyi but to die and rest in peace is a thing of
joy and pride to the Gbagyi people (Umaru, 2006).
The Azokwoyi (ancestors) is the second group of spirits. Azokwoyi are those that
lived a good life here on earth and also died a good death. Such people are rewarded
with a good abode after death. They later appear to members of their surviving
families for friendly visits to inquire about family affairs. They also warn them of
impending dangers. Sacrifices and offerings are made to these spirits out of goodwill
because they are regarded as good. Azokwoyi can also possess human beings and
make them their mouthpiece. This could lead to the revelation of things that
happened in the distant past or things that are about to happen. They can, therefore,
be likened to the Holy Spirit that speaks through Christians (Umaru, 2006).
Ancestor worship obtains among the Gabgyi people. Among them, ancestors are
called Azokwoyi and are worshipped by family members at the ancestral shrine.
Members of the family arrange stone serially; each of the stones represents members
of the family, beginning with the eldest who died to the least. The stone represents
the departed soul. During the festival of Zhibaje, an akuta (stone) is brought out.
Ancestors are believed to reincarnate into some subsequent generations. Hence, it is
believed by the Gbagyis that a child born when an elder dies bears a certain
resemblance to the dead relative. This is usually discerned after divination.
Locating the Endogenous Philosophy of African Religions
In this part of the work, I attempt to glean out the underlying philosophy of African
endogenous religion. I apply the features of the religion to suggest the underlying
ideology behind this mode of worship and what it would look like if someone
wanted to read meaning in the African endogenous religion from a philosophical
standpoint. My focus is to see what the faith in African endogenous religion suggests
in the sense of the philosophy of theology of African endogenous religion. To do
this, I shall attempt to abstract views through the notion of divinities, ancestors and
spirits as outlined above.
It is very common to come across texts that provide positions that capture the
philosophy of major religions in the world – the philosophy of Christianity, the
philosophy of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc., but nobody (at least, from the
available literature) has undertaken the task of articulating the philosophy of African
Endogenous Religions (AER). By philosophy, in this instance, is meant the wisdom
that defines and directs AER and how this wisdom directs the practices of AER. For
instance, while Christianity recommends belief in Jesus Christ as a basic requirement
for heaven, it also requires that this belief is manifested through a college of people
548 L. O. Ugwuanyi
of the same faith. This belief also has some basic principles which explain the
religion. One of this is that at the beginning of creation, the human being was pure
and sinless. However, this state of purity was defiled by the first parents of humanity
who disobeyed God and were then condemned to live in sin. Sin in turn brought
death and condemnation which Jesus Christ has come to rescue man from. This
ideology is different from the ideology of Hinduism. In Hindu belief, man is trapped
in tanha-desire, and it is by liberation from this desire that nirvana-eternal peace and
joy, can be achieved. Hence, the ethics of renunciation is a demanding feature of
Hinduism such that Yoga, which is a prominent feature of this religion, aims at both
physical and spiritual cleansing of adherents. Ideological interpretations such as this
are yet to be strongly articulated for AER. In relation to AER, the question arises,
what are the underlying principles of life and thought upon which adherents of AER
find it cogent to worship their ancestors? Which understanding of life or the nature of
the human person/community directs such practice?
To address this aspect of the work it is important to note that African endogenous
religion is a natural religion which mode of worship basically arose from a people’s
encounter with their environment. As a result of this, much of the positions
volunteered in this part of the work fall within what can be called speculative
hermeneutics, that is a reading of African endogenous religion based on the practice
and an effort to glean or filter some meaning from this practice. Thus the effort here
is basically to suggest what can be designated as the philosophy of AER based on a
hermeneutics of AER.
To answer these questions and articulate the philosophy of African Endogenous
Religion, this part of the work will provide some idea of man that can be abstracted
from the modes of practicing this religion from where the paper will suggest what
could be held to be the philosophy of AER. As a step toward this, some relevant
descriptive observations on the features of the religion are hereby articulated. The
first observation comes from the view of Dominique Zahan (cited by D.I. Nwoga
(1984: 8) on the ideology of AER:
It is not to please God or out of love for God that the African “prays”, implores or makes
sacrifices, but rather to become himself and to realize the order in which he finds himself
implicated.
Man is the supreme and irreducible reality, the divinity itself enters his affairs in the same
way as do the other beings which he is close to and uses. . .In addition, when man venerated
the divinity, it is not for the glory of God but for his own personal development. Religion is
thus essentially a function of the human element and of its domain, the earth (ibid: 8).
The second observation that provides the ground for our philosophical intuition
on AER comes from the Ghanaian philosopher Kwame Gyekye (2004: 5) who
holds that:
Despite the existence of religious commonalities, it must be noted, however, that each
religious system is limited to the people from whom that particular system emerged and
who practice that system from generation to generation.
The third position relevant to the effort to achieve the philosophy of AER comes
from the view of Oso, a scholar of religion, who submits that in AER:
Co-worshippers of one and the same deity are bound to be good to one another, to avoid
harming one another in mind, body or state. . . Yet the same co-worshippers may not think it
as obligatory to extend such beyond the circle of their fellow worshippers of the same
divinity (Oso, 1979: 23).
The fourth position can be cited from L.O. Ugwuanyi (2005) who argues that
within the provisions of African social and religious ethics people could condone
some immoral acts committed against them by someone within their world or invite
the punishment of a benevolent god on the offender, but when the same offense is
committed by a son or daughter of a distant community, the wrath of a malevolent
god would be invoked on the offender. Thus, it makes sense to read the African
endogenous religion from the point of view of the role it plays among the believers
and the sense that people make out of these roles. A reading of these views would
suggest that the religion served some functions which are grounded on the cosmol-
ogy and ontology of African worldview. In other words that religion in its endog-
enous form and practice in Africa had a grounding in the social-ontology of the
people and was basically a utilitarian project meant to confirm and consolidate the
fundamental assumptions of the people. It would also serve to indicate the human-
istic philosophy that defines this religion (defined as a belief that centers reality in,
around and for man and man as a being whose meaning, value, and worth can and
should be measured by the quality of life that is manifested).
To support the claim that AER has a huge ethics that appeals to man or human
nature, it should be noted that major dimensions of AER often arise from the culture
of a people and therefore regulate their culture. In many instances, the divinities arise
from the historical and cultural history of the people. For instance, at Ogbodu-Aba in
the northern part of the Igbo land, there is the Emukpe deity which is believed to be
one that protected them during the period of migration. Consequently, there is the
myth that the deity also protected the community against the Nigerian Army during
the Nigeria-Biafra War. Similarly, as cited earlier, the Urhobo divinities represent
their progenitors or those who are believed to have aided their migration and
settlement. Among the Benins, Queen Idia who is today worshipped as a prominent
divinity is believed to have been a warrior who fought for the cause of the people
during the period of Benin wars. She is so revered that her symbols of conquest
represent Benin culture and civilization. It is this underlying faith that directs the
African endogenous religion. These are evidence of the historical origins of AER.
A second general reading of AER suggests that the worship is built around people
who have lived in their communities and died meritoriously at old age. These
ancestors are the departed souls of prominent men and women in a particular locality.
Some regard them as the “living dead.” This is because perhaps it is believed that the
spirit of these departed men and women are still very active and somehow influence
the lives of those who are alive. The ancestors are highly respected because they are
believed to be present in the family where they watch over their family members and
550 L. O. Ugwuanyi
close relatives and protect the people from misfortune and illness and adjudicate in
disputes through messages divined by special seers. They punish personal or com-
munal offenses through personal and group failures, drought, fires, and other
catastrophes.
A third possible reading that explains African endogenous religion is that the
divinities are rooted in the cultural legacies found among the people. While those
who cultivate yam would normally offer sacrifice to the divinities with yam, those
whose occupation are fishing offer sacrifice with fish, just as palm oil forms an item
of sacrifice for those who cultivate palm oil. There was never a case of believers
having to import their items of worship from another culture, apparently because the
divinities should be offered what they give or what they have provided the believers.
This further demonstrates that these religious patterns arose from the social and
cultural history of the people.
These characterizations have deeper implications of AER, and I apply them to
locate what can be called a cohesive philosophical interpretation of AER. The view I
advance here is that AER is fundamentally a utilitarian religion that functions for the
enhancement of individual welfare, social cohesion, communal welfare, and com-
munal wellbeing. This utilitarianism could be interpreted in terms of the protective
humanism, pragmatism, and utilitarian communalism. I, therefore, apply these views
to argue that one can locate endogenous philosophy of African religion in terms of
the need to protect and enhance human existence on earth, and to keep the life of the
world itself on course. In line with this, four principles are implied or implicated in
the desired outcome of this faith in relation to human beings. These are (i) the
Principle of Vitalism, (ii) the Principle of Connectivity, (iii) the Principle of Regen-
eration, (iv) the Principle of Cyclical/Corporate Harmony.
By (i) vitalism is meant the idea of the vital force, that is, the view that whatever
the African does or does not do is geared toward acquiring or achieving this force or
power, something akin to vitalism or vitalist ontology. The claim here is that the
AER serves the function of achieving this goal for the African. This theory holds that
the principle of vital force is desirable, both for the social group and for the
individual because they reinforce each other. Placide Tempels articulated this
claim in his influential work Bantu Philosophy (1954), in which he inferred from
the ethics of the Baluba people of Congo to suggest that Bantu people speak, act, and
live as if, for them, being were force. He averred that for the Bantu “force is even
more than a necessary attribute of beings: force is the nature of being, force is being,
and being is force” and concluded of the Bantu that “[t]heir purpose is to acquire life,
strength or vital force . . .”. Benezet Buto (1998: 16) also supports the notion of vital
force as the underlying philosophy of force in Africa. He calls it “a kind of
interaction” that leads to “the increase of vitality within the clan.” Polycarp Ikuenobe
(2006: 63) interprets it in terms of a “harmonious composite of various elements and
forces” that directs the African communal world.
In view of the values identified with African endogenous religion, it makes much
sense to suggest that vital force is the philosophical principle that defines AER. This
is because from the claims available in this work, AER fundamentally serves the
goal of leading to the actualization and realization of the worshipping individual one
that makes the individual feel safe, secure, and fully self-actualized. The focus of this
self-actualization is the measure of how much the individual is able to acquire the
capacity to relate with other beings in a manner that will increase the beingness of the
entity in question which amounts to raising the life force of the entity in question.
Thus the claim that is being made here is that AER fundamentally serves to protect
and increase the vitality of the individual.
The second philosophical principle that can be applied to locate a theory of
African Endogenous Religion (ii) is the principle of connectivity (defined as the
capacity and ability to bring and bind together). The binding ethics of the religion, at
least from the Igbo experience of the religion, is such that one can hardly function
among the adherents of this religion without identifying with the adherents of this
religion. Indeed deities in AER often function to bind a human group together such
that it is difficult to belong to these communities and attempt to worship a different
deity outside the one institutionalized by the community. While an individual might
go to another community to offer sacrifice to a deity in a distant deity in order to
achieve a desire or obtain favor, in AER, it is not common to witness a member of
one community seeking to go to another community to belong to or worship a
different deity permanently or members of the same community worshipping deities
that function in a distant community. Similarly, the adherents of AER do not
proselytize to the extent of seeking to spread the gains of worshipping a particular
deity to another community. The deities and indeed the religion in any particular
setting are held to be a privilege which those who belong to that community. Thus,
believing that they should have privilege over others or should have over others such
that anyone who does not identify with the religion is held to be anti-communal or
even disadvantaged. Indeed fines and duties that are levied to appease deities are
often seen as communal obligations such that all members of the community are
expected to fulfil such communal obligations. As a result of this, all members of the
community belonged to any form of AER practiced in the community and it was
difficult to see the case of a non-religious and agnostic member of an African
community at least prior to the advent of Western modernity in Africa. In several
parts of Igbo land, after the arrival of Christianity, this principle of connectivity as an
item that defines AER has suffered havoc as those who opted for Christian belief
refused to fulfill common AER obligations to the community, and this has led to
bitter quarrels between adherents of AER and members of the new faith. It is also in
this regard that deities play the role of the moral guardian of a community such as
when they appear at night to address a social or moral evil (Ezenwa Ohaeto, 1996) to
re-assert their force and moral authority.
The third principle that accounts for the philosophy of AER is the principle of
regenerativity (defined as the ability to cause more life and sustain the principle of
life and birth, one in which the human beings are seen or believed to be human
because they fall within a chain of beings – one whose actions and inactions are
capable of extended consequences beyond them – one in which historical connec-
tivity forms a part of the vital item that defines them as a person and a vital part of his
humanity). In recent times the Nigerian philosopher Innocent Asouzu (2007: 15) has
been trying to apply this notion of life in Igbo thought scheme to formulate some
552 L. O. Ugwuanyi
ideas with the view that “reality is an all-embracing whole in which all units form a
dynamic play of forces” and that the human person represents this paradigm because
the “permanent and transcendent flow of consciousness connects the present life
to the former life of the ancestors and to his own afterlife in the land of the spirits.”
But the regeneration implied by the metaphysics of AER is in terms of the force and
power of Ancestors. This also explains why AER has a prominent place for the
ancestors and favors the institution of what can be called Ancestoricism, that is the
ancestors as a principle and a value. The ancestors who are believed to be the living
dead are held to have the capacity to protect the living spiritually. For this reason,
sacrifice is offered to them to gain their favor and maintain a living and arm
interaction with them. Through this process, AER suggests a form of renewal
whereby a group reintegrates the dead and makes them a member of the human
family with force and power over humans.
The fourth principle that explains the wisdom behind AER is the Principle of
Cyclical /Corporate Harmony. By this is meant the principle that there should be a
balance of forces (i) between various levels and grades of beings in the universe
and (ii) the different vital forces that regulate and control these beings. The African
concept of reality rests much on the view that much is spiritual in the material or
that the spiritual forces have many causal causes for or claims on the material.
A famous saying from a priest in the southern part of Igbo land illustrates this
claim. The priest had gone to offer sacrifice to his deity and pleaded that the deity
fights and prevents the wrath of evil people on his behalf and not that of evil spirits,
for while evil spirits can be appeased by the sacrifice of a goat or cow, it is not easy
to appease evil people. This position is a demonstration of how much AER (at least
inferring from the Igbo instance) recognizes the different spiritual forces at work
and how emphasis is placed on achieving spiritual harmony with these forces. This
aspect is also evident in the principle of causality suggested by the African
worldview where things are often meant to have both physical and spiritual
explanation, with the latter being privileged over the former. Thus one of the
core principles that explain AER is the need to regulate competing forces that
affect African social life.
Conclusion
The nature of reality in the African thought scheme significantly provides the
understanding that defines AER. In Africa, it is valid to hold that “reality is an
all-embracing whole, in which all units form together a dynamic play of forces”
(Asouzu, 2007: 15) and that the human person represents this paradigm because his
“permanent and transcendent flow of consciousness connects the present life to the
former life of the ancestors and to his own afterlife in the land of the spirits”
(Asouzu, ibid). I submit that it is within this context that idea of African endogenous
religion would be understood from a philosophical perspective. This understanding
can lead to the form of connectivity that can influence the birth of positive norms and
values that direct the society.
This work has tried to locate what can be called philosophical foundations or
explanations for the practice of AER. It articulated arguments that justify a paradigm
shift to determining this religion as AER rather than African Traditional Religion.
The work then went ahead to locate some principles that animate the religion and
how this explains the wisdom behind the practice of AER. A number of wisdom
ethics can be achieved through this engagement with AER. One of them is to locate
the humanistic ideology that foregrounds AER. By this is meant the pragmatic
character of AER and its predominant character of moderate supernaturalism and
apply it in the effort to re-instate African civilizational values. The claim being made
here is that drive to secularism is not hugely demanded or desired in the African
world, if it is recognized that the African endogenous religion favors a form of
pragmatic humanism and that there is a clear connection between this belief ethics
and the practical demands of life in the African world. The second relevant value that
is embedded in this religion is communal autonomy that this religion advertises
through which it makes each community autonomous in her belief ethics. This
autonomy makes it such that there were likely no cases of wars arising from belief
in AER.
The implication of this is that through AER, Africans should be challenged to
harmonize the ethical provisions of this religion and apply it in the reconstruction of
African modernity to enable some of the principles implied by the religion to register
in modern African consciousness. The instance of this is the concept of justice/
injustice implied in this religion. Justice in AER aims to restore ontological balance
and that is why it is considerably firm. If this notion of justice were to achieve a space
in modern African thinking it will go a long way to re-design modern Africa. In
modern African society, there is the acute demand for justice that it makes sense to
engage the AER to see how or whether the ethics of justice therein can serve to
modify this aspect of African life. For inferring from the Igbo illustration Iwuagwu
suggests that “Deity in Igbo tradition is a God of righteous wrath. For the deity to be
right and just, he should show no mercy to the “spoiler of the land” (cited in Nwoga,
ibid.: 18). This quality of justice is considerably in short supply in modern African
life. Given the quality of life in the pre-modern and pre-colonial African social world
where this religion reigned supreme and where justice is held with very high respect,
it makes sense to say that the case among the Igbos could be extended to other
societies in the African world.
It is hoped that the effort to engage AER will lead to more interest in the study of
AER. All religions attempt to lead to or connect man to the divine but these belief
patterns are anchored on a philosophy of what human existence on earth is like. Thus
religion as an institution always has its human roots and foundations in terms of
which it is held to be a worthier root to the divine than another. This work has
attempted to locate how this AER functions in response to communal ethics of the
African society and how the practices lead the metaphysics of generation and
regeneration that regulate the spiritual forces that shape the African life. It is
hoped that more efforts to engage AER would address such issues as the nature of
the soul in AER, the nature of evil in AER, the question of life after death in AER,
etc., all of which will serve to uncover the philosophy of AER. This effort has the
554 L. O. Ugwuanyi
potential of animating African philosophy and theology for, even as AER is consid-
erably weak in the face of strong imperial religions in Africa, there are some
principles inherent in this religion that might have some relevance for the social
and moral (re)engineering of the African world.
References
Ajayi, A. (1981). 50 questions and answer on West African traditional religion. Standard Press and
Bookshops.
Asouzu, I. (2007). Ibuanyidanda. New complementary ontology. Beyond world-immanentism,
ethnocentric reduction and impositions. Zurich.
Awolalu, J. O., & Dopamu, P. A. (1979). West African traditional religion. Onibonoje Press and
Books Industries.
Buto, B. (1998). The ethical dimension of community: The African model and the dialogue between
north and south. Paulines.
Ekeke, E. C., & Ekeopara, C. A. (2010). God, divinities and spirits in African traditional religious
ontology. American Journal of Social and Management Sciences. https://www.researchgate.net/
publication/313275144_God_divinities_and_spirits_in_African_traditional_religious_ontol
ogy [Accessed 25 Oct 2018].
Gyekye, K. (2004). Beyond cultures: Perceiving a common humanity. Washington D. C.: The
Council for Research in Values and Philosophy.
Idowu, B. (1973). African traditional religion: A definition. Orbis Books.
Izidory, A. (2014). African philosophy and religion are the two sides of the same coin. https://www.
academia.edu/7162034/african_philosophy_and_religion_are_the_two_side_of_the_same_
coin (Accessed October 2018).
Je’adayibe, G. D. (1996). Gbagyi names, religion and philosophical connotation. Gbagyi Vision
Publication University of Jos.
Johnson, K. (2004). Understanding African traditional religion. Thinking About Religion, 4.
Mbiti, J. (1969). African religions and philosophy. Heineman.
Nwoga, D. I. (1984). The supreme god as stranger in Igbo religious thought. Hawk Press.
Nze, C. B. (1989). Aspects of African communalism. Onitsha.
Oguejiofor, J. O. (1996). The influence of Igbo religion on socio-political character of the Igbos.
Fulladu Pub. Company.
Ohaeto, E. (1996). The Voice of the Night Masquerade. Kraft Books Ltd.
Opata, D. U. (1998). Essays on Igbo world-view. AP Express Pub.
Oso, C. S. (1979). Lecture on West African religion. Bamgboye Press, Ltd.
Ubruhre, J. O. (2001). Urhobo traditional medicine. Spectrum Books Ltd.
Ugwuanyi, O. (2005). Africa, humanism and African development imperatives for cultural renewal.
Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2(2).
Umaru, E. (2006). “Spirit worship among the Gbagyi people of Kaduna state”, B.A. Thesis
submitted to the Department of Religions, University of Ilorin.
God’s Existence and the Problem of Evil
in African Philosophy of Religion
Ada Agada
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 556
African Philosophy of Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 557
God’s Existence: Transcendence and Immanence in African Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560
Omnipotence, Evil, and the Search for an African Theodicy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 562
Oladipo and Wiredu’s Challenge to African Philosophy of Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567
Responding to the Challenge of Wiredu and Oladipo: Outline of a Possible Theodicy . . . . . . . 569
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 572
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573
Abstract
Traditional African societies tend to favor a theocentric and anthropocentric
conception of the universe, with God at the top of the hierarchy of being, in
which the human sphere is a major center of influence and meaning. God is
sometimes conceived in the traditional theistic sense and attributed with superla-
tive qualities of omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence. On the other hand,
a more critical study of oral sources of African traditional religious thought
constrains the traditional theistic interpretation and presents the idea of a limited
God. This chapter will provide an overview of the issues and questions that have
driven debates in African philosophy of religion. Specifically, this chapter will
critically engage the question of the existence of God and the problem of evil
from the perspective of African philosophical thought. This chapter will highlight
the strengths and weaknesses of the approaches to the problem of evil adopted by
African philosophers. In the process of reconciling the transcendental and imma-
A. Agada (*)
Centre for Leadership Ethics in Africa, University of Fort Hare, Alice, South Africa
e-mail: adaagada@gmail.com

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_31
556 A. Agada
nent conceptions of God in African religious thought, this chapter will provide an
outline of an African theodicy as a basis for further explorations of African
theodicies formulated beyond the limit of traditional African thought.
Keywords
God · Evil · Omnipotence · Theism · Theodicy · African philosophy
Introduction
This chapter will present the issues and debates shaping the evolving field of African
philosophy of religion and critically examine the question of God’s existence in
relation to the problem of evil. Africans are said to hold a strong belief in the
existence of God (see Awolalu & Dopamu, 1979; Chuwa, 2014; Gyekye, 1995;
Idowu, 1973; Mbiti, 1970; Metuh, 1981; Njoku, 2002; Parrinder, 1969; Senghor,
1964; Tempels, 1959; Wiredu, 2010) even while conceiving Him as so remote as to
necessitate access to Him through lesser divinities and deities (Bewaji, 1998; Idowu,
1962; Mbiti, 1969). Chuwa, for instance, has asserted that traditional African
worldviews favor God-centered and human-centered perspectives, with the former
taking a vantage position. Scholars of African traditional religion (ATR) like Idowu
and Awolalu have advanced the theocentric perspective and promoted theistic
interpretations of God. More critical philosophers of religion like Oladipo (2004)
and Wiredu (2010) have questioned the theistic interpretation of African traditional
religion and thought. The second group of scholars, incidentally mostly philoso-
phers, believe that the God of traditional African religion is a limited God.
One immediately sees a conflict here. Out of this conflict emerges contradictions
that are certain to further drive future debates in the fledgling field of African
philosophy of religion. The conflict arises because of the tension between transcen-
dentalism and immanentism, between the traditional understanding of God as a
Supreme Being who is omnipotent, omniscient, and good, or just, and the critical
interpretation of God as in one way or the other limited in power, knowledge, and
goodness, or justness. The contradictions include reconciling God’s omnipotence
and justness with the reality of evil in the world if He is conceived in the transcen-
dental sense and accounting for how God can be the creator of the world and
controller of lesser deities if He is conceived in the immanent sense of a being
limited by preexisting matter.
While much of the early literature on God in African philosophy appears to
support the position that the basic African conception of God is one of a transcen-
dental Being who is supreme, just, good, omnipotent, and omniscient, more recent
critical literature argue in favor of a basic African conception of a limited immanent
God burdened by the materials with which He works (see O.A. Balogun, 2009;
B.J. Balogun, 2014; Bewaji, 1998; Oladipo, 2004; Wiredu, 1998, 2010).
The problem of evil arises basically because traditional theism affirms the
existence of a God who has the complete powers of an omnipotent potentate and
creator of the universe, even in the face of the incompleteness of the universe as
God’s Existence and the Problem of Evil in African Philosophy of Religion 557
exemplified by the glaring reality of evil. Some African scholars endorse the idea of
God’s omnipotence and point to the superlative names Africans give to God which
clearly capture the essence of tradition theism, the belief in a personal God who is
omnipotent, omniscient, and good. Given the obvious conflict between the transcen-
dental and immanent conceptions of God, a possible theodicy that reconciles the
clashing conceptions of God is one which regards God as so great that He brings into
existence the good and the bad, such that it will be a limitation of His greatness if He
is not the author of everything in the world, including evil (see Bewaji, 1998). This
line of thought further interprets the reality of evil (suffering) as a consequence of the
abuse of free will, or, put simply, punishment for transgression against the moral
order instituted by God and sustained by His might through the instrumentality of
divinities, deities, the ancestors, and even the living.
But if moral evil, the abuse of free will, is easily accounted for in terms of due
deserts for transgressions, it becomes harder to explain away the reality of physical
evil which is evident in the occurrences of natural disasters, for which humans
cannot be blamed, nor any mind-possessing entity not endowed with omnipotence.
The problem of evil persists for the African philosopher investigating traditional
African religious thought since most African societies conceive God as a creator,
whether limited or not, a being in one way or the other responsible for the existence
of human beings.
While primarily constituting a survey of issues in African philosophy of religion,
this chapter will advance African philosophy of religion by pursuing Wiredu and
Oladipo’s hypothesis of a limited God in the direction of a possible theodicy beyond
traditional African thought. The first section is the general introduction. The second
section presents an overview of issues and trends in African philosophy of religion,
highlighting the questions that have driven debate in the literature. The third section
presents the conflict between the transcendental and immanent conceptions of God.
The fourth section discusses the problem of evil in an African context. The fifth
section examines Wiredu and Oladipo’s submission that Africans for the most part
conceive God as a skilled (but not supremely skilled) workman of cosmic pro-
portions rather than the omnipotent and omniscient necessary being of traditional
theism. The sixth section puts up a defense of theism from the African philosophical
space and argues that a conception of God as contemporaneous with the world can
advance the skeptical trajectory of Wiredu and Oladipo without the repudiation of
the theistic claim of God’s transcendence.
African Philosophy of Religion
African philosophy of religion, like African philosophy itself, is still very much an
evolving field. Unlike in Western philosophy of religion where the question of God’s
existence has generated a great array of arguments purporting to demonstrate God’s
existence, the demand for a proof, or proofs, of God’s existence has been largely
muted in African philosophy. The main concerns of African religious thinkers
initially revolved around what Wiredu (1998) labelled the decolonization of African
religion. Scholars like Idowu, Mbiti, Awolalu, Dopamu, and Metuh with a
558 A. Agada
background in theology took it upon themselves to debunk the racially informed

theses of early European missionaries and anthropologists like Samuel Baker and
Richard F. Burton about the African’s incapacity to comprehend an elevated con-
ception of divinity. These missionaries and anthropologists formed a very low
opinion of African Traditional Religion (ATR), consigning it to the category of the
most primitive animism. Baker had declared with otiose assurance that:
Without any exception they [Africans] are without a belief in a Supreme Being, neither have
they any form of worship or idolatry, nor is the darkness of their minds enlightened by even a
ray of superstition. The mind is as stagnant as the morass which forms its puny world. (cited
in Ray, 1976: 2)
In a similar vein, Burton asserted that: “The Negro is still at the rude dawn of faith-
fetishism and he has barely advanced to idolatry...He has never grasped the idea of a
personal deity” (cited in Njoku, 2002: 8; cf. Burton, 1864: 199). Indeed, no less a
European philosopher than Hegel held the view that Africans lacked any discernible
conception of a supreme being distinct from the world (cited in Njoku, 2002).
Later it was argued that the missionaries and anthropologists did not properly
interpret the religions of the colonized people of Africa they investigated from a
Eurocentric and Christian perspective, having achieved little more than transplanting
Christianity onto an African soil. For instance, Igbo religious scholars have argued
that the name Chukwu is a European imposition on the Igbo and that the name Chi
better reflects the Igbo term for God. The kernel of the debate is that a section of
the Igbo ethnic group, the Aro, imposed their local deity Chi-Ukwu or Big Chi on the
Igbo to give them an edge in business. Later, the European missionaries endorsed the
name Chukwu as the general Igbo name for God (see Ezekwugo, 1987; Metuh,
1981; Nwala, 1985; Nwoga, 1984). Scholars like p’Bitek (1971) and Kato (1975) are
convinced that African scholars like Idowu and Mbiti, who bought into the decol-
onization project, did not go far enough in their challenge of the theses of early
European missionaries and anthropologists, as their Christian beliefs prevented them
from faithfully interpreting authentic African views about God.
The themes that gained prominence in African philosophy of religion include the
question of the belief in God’s existence, the question whether African religion is
monotheistic or polytheistic, the status of divinities and the ancestors, the relation of
the divinities and the ancestors with God as the supreme being, theocentricism in
relation to anthropocentrism, God’s transcendence and immanence, and the question
of theodicy in the face of the reality of evil in the world. While a first examination of
the literature clearly brings out elements of transcendence and the presentation of God
in the tradition theistic sense of an omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent creator, a
more critical reading shows that Africans conceive God in another dimension as a
limited being. The latter discovery prompted philosophers like Wiredu, Oladipo,
Sogolo, Balogun, and Fayemi to either present claims of a limited God who is only
excellent relative to humans or argue that the problem of evil, and the consequent
search for theodicies, does not arise in traditional African religious thought.
Taking a rigid stance on the question whether the African God is immanent (and
therefore limited) or transcendental (and therefore unlimited) appears incapable of
doing justice to the duality that characterizes African religious thought. The idea of
a transcendental God comes out clearly in the oral traditions of African societies
side by side with notions that, paradoxically, curtail the flight of transcendence. It
will then appear that African societies, like Western societies, grappled with the
question of a God that can be, and has been, conceived as both infinite and finite,
unlimited and limited. This point will seem to refute Fayemi’s position contra
Oduwole that the problem of evil has no urgent importance in Yoruba traditional
thought. According to Oduwole (cited in Fayemi, 2012), Yoruba religious thought
allows the understanding of Olodumare in essentially transcendental terms.
Fayemi accuses Oduwole of falling into the error of religious scholars like
Idowu and Dopamu who were so concerned with batting away the accusation
that Africans lack a coherent conception of God that they introduced European
categories into African religious thought.
Fayemi argues that God in Yoruba cosmogony is a limited Being who is capable
of ibi, or evil. He notes that: “Unlike the Supreme Being of the Christian religion,
Olodumare and the other gods are never regarded as perfect beings that cannot be
malevolent” (Fayemi, 2012: 11). Fayemi’s stance is echoed by Balogun (2009: 15)
who asserts that since the Yoruba conceive Olodumare basically as a high deity it is
impossible for Olodumare “to possess the absolute attribute of all-loving,
all-knowing, all-powerful, all-merciful that led to the philosophical problem of
evil.” The very idea that Olodumare is limited as a creator implies a cosmic tragedy
that warrants further investigation, which ultimately leads one to the search for a
theodicy. The problem of evil persists because the Yoruba God is powerful enough to
create or co-create a world. A creator or co-creator has a moral responsibility to
ameliorate the evil in the world that it has created.
Even if traditional Yoruba-African thought conceives God as imperfect
(cf. Kasomo, 2009: 146, 149), one is still justified in asking why a (co)creator has
to be imperfect. How did this impotent creator come into existence? Is he prior to the
world and self-creating or is he contemporaneous with the world and, therefore, a
universal principle of existence or is he posterior to the world and, therefore, just
somewhat greater than an ancestor? In answering these germane questions, the
problem of evil and the need for a theodicy rear their heads even when one is
philosophizing completely within an African philosophical framework, without
recourse to Western categories. Fayemi (2012: 12) himself admits that Olodumare
and the divinities subject to His will “are blameworthy and cannot be rationally
defended in the face of physical and spiritual [divinities-instigated] evils.” What can
be firmly gleaned from Fayemi’s claim is that it has become necessary for the
African philosopher to look beyond traditional African thought and wonder why a
creator should in the first place be so limited as to indulge in evil. This chapter will
critically examine the question of God’s existence and the problem of evil in African
philosophy.
560 A. Agada
God’s Existence: Transcendence and Immanence in African

Thought
Most scholars of African religious thought agree that the African world is to a large
extent God-centered. God is regularly invoked in everyday activities as a source of
inspiration, consolation, help, etc. Elaborate arguments for God’s existence are
virtually absent in traditional African religious thought. The very suggestion that
the human being should devise ingenious arguments to prove God’s existence would
attract incredulity in a traditional African setting as it is widely held that no one
needs to teach a child that God exists (Njoku, 2002: 154). The rationale for this
assertion is that God’s existence “is not based on pure reason (a priorism) but on
reflections regarding this partly empirical world and/or human experiences”
(Majeed, 2016: 80). God becomes a real presence as the structure of the world and
human spiritual experience guide the African towards the formulation of a teleolog-
ical vision of the universe with God at the very pinnacle of the hierarchy of being,
majestic to the point of absolute transcendence, yet immanent in the world.
For Africans, God is at once transcendent and immanent, remote in His ineffable
majesty, yet near to humanity in His benevolence towards His creation. The term
transcendence, from the Latin transcendere (meaning to go beyond, to surpass), has
evolved conceptually over the centuries, with the concept itself increasingly indis-
tinguishable from the idea of immanence which implicates spatiotemporality. Tran-
scendence can be understood in purely anthropocentric terms as self-transcendence,
the capacity of the individual to independently pursue her goals and be the master of
her destiny as a being in the phenomenal world (see Mondin, 1985: 195–211).
The march of secularism that began with the Enlightenment saw the eclipsing of
the theocentric worldview of the Middle Ages, and with it theological transcendence,
the idea that a supreme creator of the world subsisting outside time and space
manifests its effects in time and space and determines human destiny. Immanence,
which implicates spatiotemporality, favors a conception of God as so involved with
the world as to be a part of the world-series. African philosophers who have argued
that traditional African religious thought is incompatible with tradition theism favor
an immanent conception of God (see Balogun, 2009; Oladipo, 2004; Sogolo, 1993;
Wiredu, 2010). While the concept of transcendence strongly supports the claims of
traditional theism that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent, the notion of
immanence –which is this-worldly in focus – diminishes traditional theism, such that
a possible deduction from the commitment to immanence is atheism, the complete
denial of the existence of a God not accessible to the senses that structure the
phenomenal world (cf. Kosky, 2004). This is the case since making God a part of
the world-series not only limits His power but also renders Him causally redundant
as explanations about the ordering of the world are sought in scientific knowledge.
The idea is that if scientific knowledge suffices, then a limited God who is part of the
world-series but not accessible to humans is as good as nonexistent.
The dual transcendental and immanent conception of God in African traditional
thought is on display in the names and titles that describe God in African languages.
This conception of God also comes out clearly in wise sayings and proverbs.
Traditional African societies conceive a transcendental God as all-sufficient,

all-powerful, all-knowing, remote and near (see Bewaji, 1998; Gyekye, 1995;
Idowu, 1973). Among the Akan people of Ghana, God is the omnipotent and sole
creator of the world (Majeed, 2014: 15). Gyekye (1995) identifies the following names
and titles given to God in Akan language that underline His transcendence: God is
Odomankoma – the Infinite, the Boundless, the Eternal. He is also Brekyirihunuade –
the All-knowing, and Otumfo – the Omnipotent. The Akan have this saying, wope
asѐm aka akyeré Onyame a, ka kyerē mframa (If you want to say something to
Onyame, say it to the wind). The wind whipping the face or blowing against the
body can be felt, yet it cannot be seen. This Akan saying aptly captures the quality of
God’s transcendence and immanence. God is so great and majestic that He is hidden
from the human gaze, yet He is so near that His effects can be felt. His effects are the
visible things in the world, revealed nature, and their psychological and logical
implications for belief in a supreme maker of that which is empirically given.
The Idoma of Central Nigeria call God Owoicho, or Lord of the Sky (Anyebe,
2015). The sky is seen as a symbol of infinity and transcendence. The force that
rules the sky is, consequently, supreme. As the lord of the sky, God is omnipotent.
His transcendence does not, however, rule out His involvement with the world He
created. He is Owoicho Manchalla, the Lord of Mercy who guides and protects
what He has created. Parents routinely give their children the name Owoicho, a
clear indication that God’s awesome majesty is approachable. He can be
approached through human agents such as the obochi, or medicine man, the
individual guardian spirit or fate called owo, the living-dead or ancestors who
may play the role of intercessors, and nonhuman agents like divinities. A similar
conception of God can be found among the Igbo of Eastern Nigeria. As Chukwu,
God is the Great One. He is Chineke, the Creator, Osebuluwa, Sustainer of the
Universe, Obasi di n’elu, Lord of the Sky, Eze bi igwe ogodo ya ana-akpu n’ala,
The Heavenly King whose robe flows down to the Earth, Onye ike nkwumu-oto,
the Just Judge, Ogbara igbo gharii, the Incomprehensible, Ama-ama, Amasi-amasi,
the Known, yet Unknown (Njoku, 2002: 149). These names and sayings capture
God’s transcendence and immanence even as they simultaneously implicate the
problem of evil. God is conceived as omnipotent, just, and benevolent; yet there is
suffering in the world.
Njoku (2002: 147) writes that:
For the Igbo, to be existent in the way God is, is to be involved practically and realistically:
to answer petitions and to say that He is around whenever, wherever and in whatever
circumstances. ...If Chukwu does not answer accordingly, he is queried whether he is
asleep...However ‘Chukwu’, ‘Chineke’ is a wonderful God – ‘Itununya’ – and not fully
comprehensible...Humans know God in an insignificantly obscure way.
Njoku accounts for the Igbo dual conception of God by referring to the necessity of
taking God out of the sphere of the profane and fully surrounding the very concept of
God with sacred symbolism. For him, Chukwu’s hiddeness shows that “He is not a
household property to be toyed with at will. Chukwu is outside the manipulations of
562 A. Agada
men...the wholly otherness and ‘hiddeness’ or concealment of Chukwu is an essen-

tial attribute of his being” (Njoku, 2002: 147–148). What is not in doubt is that God
[I]s, in most cases, regarded as the maker of the world and its sustainer and ruler; the origin and
giver of life who is above all divinities and man; a supreme judge and a controller of human
destiny. These attributes show that the Supreme Being in African cultures is regarded as the
ultimate reality...the Supreme Being, called Onyame by the Akans, Chukwu by the Igbos, and
Olodumare by the Yorubas, to cite a few examples, can be regarded as the ultimate point of
reference in whatever may be called African traditional religion. (Oladipo, 2004: 357)
The suggestion by Njoku (2002: 147) that “If Chukwu does not answer accord-
ingly, he is queried whether he is asleep” and that “Humans know God in an
insignificantly obscure way” lays bare the tension between transcendence and
immanence in African conceptions of God, a tension that suggest that the traditional
understanding of omnipotence as absolute power does not resonate deeply in African
religious thought. This tension becomes all the more philosophically relevant when
we try to understand how the concept of evil fits into a God-ordered world, where
this God is imbued with the superlative qualities considered above.
Omnipotence, Evil, and the Search for an African Theodicy
While there are points of convergence between the Christian and African concep-
tions of God – for example, the presentation of God as the supreme creator of the
world, who is just and demands goodness from humans – there are also areas of
conflict between both conceptions that affect our approaches to the problem of evil in
the world. One notable point of divergence involves the concept of creatio ex nihilo,
or creation out of nothing. The Yoruba of Southwest Nigeria believe that God created
the world from preexisting materials (Oladipo, 2004: 359; cf. Wiredu, 1998).
“Preexisting” in the context under consideration may mean “eternally existing” or
“antecedent to God’s existence” or “coexistent with God.” The obvious implication
of the claim that God created the world from materials that had always existed is that
God is in some way limited, that He is not omnipotent in the traditional sense.
Oladipo (2004: 360) writes that:
If omnipotence implies ‘infinite powers,’ then to say that Olódùmarè is omnipotent is to say
that He is almighty in the sense that He is not subject to any constraints in the exercise of his
powers. However, it is doubtful that Olódùmarè can be said to be all-powerful in this sense.
A crucial consideration in this regard is the acknowledgment, by the people, of other powers
and principalities – divinities, spirits, magic, witchcraft, and so on. Some of these powers
and forces are treated as ends in themselves. Hence, the people endeavor, through sacrifice,
to be on good terms with them in recognition of their powers to aid or hinder human
activities.
Before we delve deeper into this dimension of African religious thought, let us see
how the transcendental conception of God magnifies the problem of evil.
If God is all-powerful, everywhere present, all-knowing, and good as the various

names for God in African languages directly imply, why is there evil in the world?
Why is there so much suffering for humans who are God’s children by reason of
being His creation (cf. Gyekye, 2010: 115). A tentative answer is to suggest that
Africans attribute the evils that befall humans to the activities of avenging and
wicked spirits or divinities like Esu (Yoruba), Alekwu (Idoma), and Obonsam
(Akan) (see Balogun, 2014; Dopamu, 2000; Majeed, 2016) or to regard these evils
as punishment for the contravention of moral codes instituted by God, to which the
whole of nature bears testimony (see Bewaji, 1998; Oduyoye, 1997).
According to Mackie (1955: 200), the reality of evil constitutes a philosophical
problem largely for someone who “believes that there is a God who is both
Omnipotent and wholly good.” This initial problematization of the question of
God’s existence in relation to the reality of evil in the world resonates in the African
thought-world given the superlatives that describes God in African languages.
Mackie’s scheme is straightforwardly applicable to the traditional theistic con-
ception of God. Mackie’s scheme loses some level of coherence when applied to
African understanding of God as a limited being who is yet the creator of the world,
with controlling powers over lesser deities (both the benevolent and the malevolent).
The very idea of a creator implies the possession of immense powers by the creator.
These powers may not be great enough for one to describe the creator as omnipotent,
but they are still immense powers. Going by Mackie’s scheme, it is not very clear
whether a creator with immense creative powers should be regarded as in some way
omnipotent and whether such a being is powerful enough to create a world
without evil.
If such a God is described as limited, yet powerful enough to create worlds and
control lesser deities, a contradiction arises because the powers imputed to this
creator indicates something of the vast powers that will normally be attributed to
an omnipotent creator. One way of removing the contradiction without necessarily
emasculating the creator-God is to speculate that while this God is able to create
worlds, He is not a wholly good God. And if He is not a wholly good God on account
of an existential deficiency that caused the category of power to fall short of the
category of all-powerfulness, then the category of omnipotence cannot apply to Him.
In this way, Mackie’s scheme survives the challenge of the powerful creator who is
yet not all-powerful. If this resolution of the contradiction is admissible, then one can
argue that the amount of evil in the world is compatible with the proposition that God
exists. Even with this solution, it is still necessary to provide a more complete
metaphysical description of the relation between a powerful God who is not
all-powerful and the reality of evil in the world. It will be necessary to determine
whether such a God is completely powerless to reduce the amount of evil in the
world. If this God is considered blameworthy by virtue of creating a world where
suffering is real and abundant, the question of the compatibility of evil with power
(no longer omnipotence) persists and challenges the African philosopher of religion
to seek creative answers to the problem of power and evil in the world. Currently,
there is a dearth of metaphysical frameworks that adequately address the problem
highlighted above.
564 A. Agada
Since traditional theism asserts the existence of an all-powerful God who is

all-knowing (omniscient) and benevolent, the reality of evil in the world casts
doubt on the idea of omnipotence. The theist’s dilemma is that given the reality of
evil it is either God is omnipotent but not benevolent or He is benevolent but not
omnipotent. Again, the theist is faced with the difficulty of navigating between
transcendence and immanence with the stubborn question of evil remaining in the
foreground. If God is transcendental, He must be indifferent to the affairs of the
world since He is outside the world-series. If He is indifferent while being omni-
scient, He cannot be benevolent because He must be aware of the evil that generates
pain for humans in the world. If transcendence is absolute, God cannot exist from the
perspective of human beings because He is simply not a factor. At most, He is an
indifferent, if not impotent, principle of the universe. If God is immanent, then He is
either limited in power or He is wicked outright. He is limited in power because He
cannot eliminate evil or create a world without evil. He is wicked because He permits
evil and suffering in the world.
The problem of evil and the search for an adequate understanding of the relation
of God with the world and the implication for the question of evil have stretched the
philosophical ingenuity of philosophers over the centuries (see Spinoza, 1910;
Mackie, 1955; Plantinga, 1967, 1975; Rowe, 1978; Swinburne, 1979; Reichenbach,
1982; Hick, 1985; Yaran, 2003). A thing should be considered evil if it grossly
violates generally accepted moral standards or if it brings reasonably unjustifiable
pain and misery to humans. Of course, moral relativists like Spinoza have argued
that nothing is inherently bad or evil; it is our “interests,” our psychological, logical,
cultural, etc., conditioning that persuade us that a thing or a state of affairs is evil.
Spinoza (1910) specifically argues that if we understand the whole of nature as
rigidly determined, with every existent thing functioning as a necessary part of the
furniture of the world, we will no longer be presumptuous and regard a thing or a
state of affairs to be evil. The very notion of evil, then, becomes invalid in the eternal
context of a rigidly ordered system. Unfortunately, this way of approaching the
matter is ineffective in accounting for the lived reality of human beings. The
evidence for pain and suffering is overwhelming. Consequently, there is moral
evil, the outcome of the exercise of the human power of choice, and natural or
physical evil, negative occurrences, and outcomes beyond human control brought
about by the way the world is structured (Yaran, 2003: 97–106). Examples of moral
evil include murder, cruelty of all kinds, greed, envy, and stealing. Natural evil
includes diseases, floods, hurricanes, falling asteroids, and earthquakes.
If God is the able sustainer of the world, just and good (benevolent), He is under a
moral obligation to eradicate suffering from the world into which He has thrown
beings that He has created of His own free will. A free-willing God who acts in
accordance with the rational laws of His nature would reconcile free will with
determinism in His non-capricious acts. African societies tend to believe in predes-
tination, a variant of determinism which regards God as fixing the life history of an
individual before the individual’s birth, such that it is not within the power of the
individual to create her fortune and reverse misfortune. This conception of destiny
adds a strand of complexity to the problem of evil. Who is the author of evil? Is it
God or the lesser deities who work for Him? Why can God not reconcile determin-
ism with freedom in His rational act of world-creation? Or is He a limited God? Is the
concept of destiny as found in traditional African cultures contradictory? In his study
of the Yoruba understanding of destiny, Gbadegesin (2004) notes that God
(Olodumare) bestows destiny jointly with a lesser divinity, Obatala. He notes too
that the Yoruba conception of destiny is not rigid, implying that there may be a place
for free will and responsibility. Gyekye (1995), working within Akan cosmogony,
firmly attributes destiny to God and affirms that destiny bestowed by God is always
good. His undeveloped theodicy attributes evil to the actions of wicked human
beings. But this attribution burdens the traditional theist since the question of
God’s omnipotence surfaces once again.
One way of absolving God of any blame for the suffering that abounds in the
world is to attribute evil to the activities of wicked spirits. Attributing evil to wicked
divinities, however, undermines God’s transcendence as this attribution questions
the claim that He is all-powerful. If God is the creator of everything, including the
divinities, He should be able to call the rogue divinities to order. If He cannot, then
He either did not create them or His powers are severely limited. Either way, the
claim of omnipotence collapses. In view of the undeniability of evil and given that
African conceptions of God make Him the creator of the divinities, another way of
defending the claim of omnipotence, which involves the quest for an adequate
theodicy, is to appeal to the idea of what we may call plenitudo potestatis, or the
fullness of power. If God commands the fullness of power, then He is so great that
He can create anything, including evil; in this sense, He creates evil and grafts it onto
the structure or furniture of the universe with such consummate skill that evil
becomes a necessary component of being, the absence of which renders being less
complete. Variants of this claim can be found in Western philosophy, in the thought
of St Augustine, Spinoza, and Leibniz, for example. Bewaji (1998: 8) came close to
defending the claim when he writes that:
The evidence that Olodumare is the creator of everything is displayed in virtually all
accounts of the relationship between Olodumare and the Universe. Where He did not
directly cause or create, He instructed the divinities to create and He supervised the creation
work. So, He created both the good and the bad, the well-formed and the deformed, the rainy
season and the drought. Through Him must be sought the cause of all things. And everything
there is has a rationale and can be understood and used by the thoughtful and gifted like the
herbalists and medicine men.
He adds that, “[i]n fact, to say that God does not or cannot do evil is to unnecessarily
circumscribe His power” (1998: 8).
Bewaji further appeals to an eternal moral order sustained by God to strengthen
his theodicy. His argument goes thus: the reality of evil in the world by no means
casts a slur on the concept of God considered in superlative terms – only in terms of
absolute omnipotence and omniscience. Evil exists as a form of punishment for those
566 A. Agada
who break the eternal moral code to which nature itself bears testimony. Olodumare
is not the merciful God of Christianity; He is a just God who punishes wrongdoing
with commensurate suffering in this world. The main source of evil is human abuse
of free will, which invites punishment. In the final analysis, however, evil is a mystery
which even the greatest philosophers could not grasp adequately. Bewaji’s invoca-
tion of a Spinozistic eternal context of things merely begs the question. The appeal to
an eternal moral order and the willingness to find solace in the invocation of mystery
reveal that there is a big problem. In his study of the Yoruba approach to the problem
of evil, Balogun appeals to a fatalistic strain of mystery which compels humans to
accept everything that befall them as part of a cosmic plan known only to God.
About objective good and evil, he writes that “some things appear evil, but in reality
they are good. It is in recognition of this that the Yoruba say...when God is doing
good, we often think he is doing evil” (Balogun, 2014: 64).
Metaphysical and ethical grandstanding is humbled in the face of the eviden-
tial problem of evil which casts doubt on the claims of theism, notwithstanding
the logical consistency of positing God’s existence side by side with the reality of
evil. The suffering in the world is real, and if Bewaji has addressed moral evil he
has overlooked physical evil. In any case, his assertion that God is the creator of
everything seems to contradict his claim that this universal sovereignty imputed
to God is compatible with the proposition that where God did not create directly
He created through proxies, or the lesser divinities. Traditional theism comes
under threat even as the notion of a creator, which should ordinarily indicate
some kind of omnipotence, becomes complicated and less transparent. Despite
the dilution of the notion of omnipotence with the introduction of the idea of
co-creatorship, the problematic category of omnipotence is not lost as the idea of
a creator-God dominates African religious thought. The weakened notion of
omnipotence remains threatened by an immanent perspective that cannot rule
out atheism.
Fayemi (2012: 7) puts this threat more clearly when he writes that: “By being the
creator, it does not mean that He unilaterally creates everything without the support
of and consultation with other divinities.” Odumuyiwa is even less ambiguous,
asserting bluntly: “It is the deities who control the universe, in all circumstances of
life, all its changing scenes, its joys and sorrows” (cited in Fayemi, 2012: 7). Sogolo
is even blunter when he asserts that God’s excellencies are superlative only in
relation to human limitedness. For him, God can do evil and therefore cannot be
all-good and transcendental (Sogolo, 1993: 14). Notwithstanding the constraining of
transcendence between Bewaji, Fayemi, Odumuyiwa, and Sogolo, it is instructive
that immanence never assumes an absolute status in the proclamation of the triumph
of atheism, as the God-element remains in the center of the discourse.
Obviously, the world is not complete. The reality of evil is an eloquent reminder
of this incompleteness. The problem the reality of evil poses for theism persists. The
surest way of lifting the burden of proof which Mackie claims to rest heavily on the
theist is to revisit the idea that Africans do not have a conception of God that places
Him in a position of unconstrained omnipotence.
Oladipo and Wiredu’s Challenge to African Philosophy of Religion
Oladipo (2004: 359) notes that if God created the world out of something, some kind
of preexisting materials, “then it follows that He had always been part of the world-
order. And, if this is the case, He cannot be said to exist beyond the world.” He
expatiates by recalling Yoruba mythology which suggests that Olodumare has His
abode in the sky. The argument goes that if Olodumare lives in the sky and the sky is
part of the world, then He cannot subsist outside the world. If this is the case,
immanence trumps transcendence. Oladipo notes that in Yoruba mythology, there
was a historical time of constant intercourse between human dwellers of the earth
and the spiritual entities of the sky, when humans could visit the sky-abode of
Olodumare at the drop of a hat.
Oladipo seems to have taken the Yoruba myth literally in arguing for immanence.
The sky merely symbolizes the realm of nonlocal phenomenon. The sky identified in
Yoruba myths cannot be the spiritual realm where Olodumare has His abode.
Making this point does not obscure the fact that in traditional African thought the
spiritual and the physical constitute a continuum where borders can be transgressed.
The point being made here is that the unified framework of physical and spiritual
phenomena which sustains the African universe cannot be invoked to support
absolute immanence. Clearly, African conceptions of God make Him both transcen-
dental and immanent.
Nevertheless, the idea that God did not create the world out of nothing is a
compelling one and worth investigating. Wiredu has put forward a strong argument
in support of this thesis from the perspective of Akan traditional thought. In Akan
traditional cosmology,
God is the creator of the world, but he is not apart from the universe: He together with the
world constitutes the spatio-temporal ‘totality’ of existence. In the deepest sense, therefore,
the ontological chasm indicated by the natural/supernatural distinction does not exist within
Akan cosmology... The notion of creation out of nothing does not even make sense in the
Akan language... In the most usual sense creation presupposes raw materials. A carpenter
creates a chair out of wood and a novelist creates fiction out of words and ideas. If God is
conceived as a kind of cosmic architect who fashions a world order out of indeterminate raw
material, the idea of absolute nothingness would seem to be avoidable. (Wiredu, 1998:
29–30)
Clearly, the idea of a creation out of nothing is problematic. But so is the notion of ex
nihilo nihil fit, or out of nothing nothing comes, which is Wiredu’s major platform
for absolutely rejecting the doctrine of creation out of nothing. That a thing already
exists indicates two things, basically, that this thing’s emergence followed the path of
complete novelty or that it has a foundation in something preceding it. Both possi-
bilities are problematic given that what things are in themselves and why they are we
do not know although we can discern and quite accurately describe their physical
properties and behavior. This epistemic lacuna has implication for the concept of
determinism which states simply that every event has a cause by virtue of an absolute
necessity connecting effects with causes. But it is not clear why necessity should be
568 A. Agada
by its very nature absolute and where this absoluteness springs from. If we appeal to
laws of nature, one can counter that these laws are to a large extent human
impositions on nature in its barest form and therefore mind-dependent. According
to this stance, one can only talk about the absoluteness of natural laws if these laws
are grounded in reality.
To assert that the doctrine of creation out of nothing makes no sense as Wiredu
claims is to fall back on the notion that something has always existed. Yet, the idea of
an infinite regress suggested by Wiredu’s preferred concept is just as puzzling as the
notion of creation out of nothing. It is possible to imagine and then think a beginning
that sprang into existence from an absolute nil. Whether such a spontaneous emer-
gence amounts to a miracle or not cannot be debated here; what is obvious in the
context of African religious philosophy is that the traditional notion of omnipotence
cannot be defended. God must be somehow limited both by the world into which He
falls to bring about creation and the necessity that compels the falling into world-
time. It does not appear that it is the notion of creatio ex nihilo that puts the
possibility of a limited God in stark relief since the notion itself is no fuzzier than
the idea of ex nihilo nihil fit. Since African philosophers reflecting within the
boundaries of traditional African thought are not denying the existence of God, it
seems that what magnifies the limitedness of God is the suggestion that He falls into
world-time to fashion an incomplete world by some kind of inescapable necessity.
The limitation on omnipotence is all the more obvious when one takes the problem
of evil into consideration.
If God is limited, then He is not to blame for the reality of evil, both physical and
moral. Wiredu (2010: 195) seems to think that this is the Akan position when he
writes: “On the Akan understanding of things, indeed, God is good in the highest; but
his goodness is conceptually of a type with a just and benevolent ancestor.” Compar-
ing God to an ancestor enables Wiredu to avoid resorting to the freewill theodicy
invoked by another illustrious Akan philosopher Gyekye (1995) who wanted to
preserve the prima facie transcendental qualities attributed to God in African lan-
guages. The freewill argument, which has a venerable history in Western thought,
submits that moral evil is a consequence of the human being’s power of choice which
God guarantees to ensure that humans freely choose between good and evil. The
underlying rationale for this stance is that God will come across as an irrational tyrant
if He compels humans to choose only one course of action, the right course. While this
rationalization meets the challenge of why God does not use His powers to ensure that
humans always make the right decision, there seems to be no good reason for God not
creating humans in such a way that they will only act right. The human will can still be
free if its expression follows an unbranching path that meets the strict demand of
goodness and morality in general since the outcome of willing in this situation is a
perfect outcome. A situation where willing and acting always culminate in right
conduct best characterizes freedom given that there will then be no need to even talk
of a “free will.” A right will that invariably produces right conduct is a perfect will and
contains within its structure the absolute spontaneity that equates freedom.
As Wiredu (1998: 40) insightfully notes, the freewill alibi is not sufficient to
buttress the claim that it is necessary for God not to use His powers to ensure humans
use their free will only to produce good. Wiredu suggests that if there are conceptual
problems with the idea of God using His powers to ensure humans do not act
wickedly, the freewill argument cannot be one of them. Still searching for a theodicy,
Wiredu mulls over Helaine K. Minkus’ submission that the Akan regard evil as
intimate with the furniture of the universe just like good. While acknowledging the
strength of this proposition, which removes the puzzle of evil existing in the world,
he notes that one has still not arrived at a convincing theodicy. Wiredu is left with no
choice but to seriously consider the circumscription of omnipotence as the only way
to meaningfully approach the problem evil poses to theism. Still thinking within the
Akan conceptual scheme, he writes:
[The Akan] seem to operate with the notion of the power of God implying rather less than
absolute omnipotence. That power is still unique in its extent, but it is conceptually not
altogether unlike that of a human potentate. Indeed, correspondingly, God himself comes to
be thought of on the model of a father who has laid well-intentioned plans for his children
which are, however, sometimes impeded not only by their refractory wills but also by the
grossness of the raw materials he has to work with. (Wiredu, 1998: 41)
He finds support in Danquah who notes that “physical pain and evil are revealed as
natural forces which the Nana [God as the principle of good]...has to master,
dominate, sublimate or eliminate” (cited in Wiredu, 1998: 41). Nevertheless, it
should be noted that Wiredu flirts with the possibility of an African theodicy but
does not take up the challenge of developing one, content as he is with demonstrating
the variety and sophistication of African conceptions of God and His relation with
the world.
Given the transcendental and immanent conceptions of God in African religious
thought, which highlight the problem of evil and in view of the limitation on
omnipotence imposed by the view that God is a part of the world-series, a search
for an African theodicy is desirable. The problem now is presenting an argument that
is at once theistic and informed by the inadequacy of traditional theism, how to
defend theism in the face of the seeming consensus that the “doctrine of a basically
demiurgic God,” if not universal, is at least “widespread in West Africa” (Wiredu,
1998: 42). In the next section, an outline of a theodicy that draws inspiration from the
Wireduian trajectory will be explored and an agenda will be set for African philos-
ophy of religion.
Responding to the Challenge of Wiredu and Oladipo: Outline of a

Possible Theodicy
Excluding transcendence from the African view of God and endorsing a robust
immanent conception of God fails to take into consideration the intuitive first-level
understanding of God as transcendental which comes out clearly in African names
for God, myths, and wise sayings. Indeed, some scholars believe that certain African
ethnic groups like the Neur, Banyarwanda, and the Shona affirm the notion of creatio
570 A. Agada
ex nihilo, which weighs heavily on the side of transcendence (see Wiredu, 1998: 42).
The intuitive transcendental conception of God makes as much claim to philosoph-
ical relevance as the immanent conception that a more critical study of oral traditions
unveil. This section will attempt the reconciliation of the transcendental and imma-
nent conceptions of God by transcending traditional African thought. The section
will invite African philosophers to go beyond traditional thought in individually
engaging the question of the relation of God with the world and the implication for
the problem of evil.
Consolationist ontology will provide the framework for realizing the objective set
out above. Consolationist ontology is the doctrine of being explicated within the
system of consolationism, a twenty-first century intellectual tendency in African
philosophy (see Agada, 2015, 2018). This ontology accounts for the universe as a
totality of mood. Consolation philosophy views mind and matter as elements that
developed out of a primordial stuff that implicates all unities and all opposites –
intelligence and emotion, good and evil, freedom and determinism, chaos and order.
This primordial stuff is called mood and can also be understood as originary mind to
the extent that it is fundamental and mentalistic. Since mood carries within itself the
inchoate and unfolding structure and content of intelligence the activities that it
produces through the freedom of spontaneity are goal-directed. The differentiations
or determinations we perceive as advanced consciousness (for instance, human
consciousness), critical mental activities like thinking, emotional states and
responses like joy and sadness, and the many psychological orientations of subjec-
tivity arise when undifferentiated mood engages itself in an internal dialectic, which
happens by a necessity of yearning. This necessity is fatalism. Fatalism follows a
causal pathway not rigidly faithful to the traditional cause-effect sequence.
The consolationist doctrine of fatalism submits that a fatal existence is that which
“has no reason to be what it is beyond the fact that yearning characterizes it” (Agada,
2015: 62). Yearning is the innermost logic and outward orientation of mood.
Yearning is the perpetual quest for the realization of freedom conceived as perfect
willing, perfect acting, and perfect realizing. The existent which is characterized by
yearning indeed seeks this freedom but never attains it, being burdened by the
fatality of its nature which is its fate to seek that which is impossible but which
can be recovered in degrees that fall short of the target of consummation or
perfection in the process of the endless quest.
It is immediately obvious that the fatal existent, that which has mood as its
essence – and according to consolation ontology mood is the essence of all things –
is at once an intelligent and emotional entity or an entity capable of evolving the
structures of intelligence and emotion. Consolationist ontology, therefore, views the
emotional and the intellectual as two orientations of one basic phenomenon – mood.
God is the first principle of mood. He is not prior to mood, otherwise transcendence
will completely eclipse immanence, such that we can never come to terms with the
idea of a God who is concerned with the affairs of the world since this God will have
a nature not subject to yearning. He is not posterior to mood, otherwise He will be the
God Wiredu describes as just somewhat higher in power and general excellence than
an ancestor. Such a God will not have transcended the dialectic within its
intellective-emotional unity that makes possible the emergence of personality out
of the impersonality of mood as first principle, nor will this ancestor-God be able to
transcend the yearning of its own fatalistic essence to become a being of power and
glory precisely by reason of this God being a creator. The God that consolationist
metaphysics throws up is one contemporaneous with mood, existing simultaneously
the very moment that mood sprang into existence as the yearning for freedom. God’s
contemporaneity with mood means He is the constitutive principle of mood.
Without God there is no mood and without mood there is no God. The world
always existed in mood and creation means its unfolding from mood. Thus, there is no
real conflict between the doctrines of creatio ex nihilo and ex nihilo nihil fit. The
moment of the spontaneous emergence of intelligence and feeling implicates
undifferentiated space and time which becomes physical space and time at the moment
God creates or rather unfolds a world out of His essence, which is mood. Thus, God
worked with preexisting materials, as Wiredu has contended and is a demiurgic God.
But He is more than a workman to the extent that He is a being of power and glory
even while not possessing the superlative qualities of omnipotence and omniscience.
A being of power like God works with preexisting materials while an omnipotent
being does not since the latter must be anterior to the materials with which a world is
built. The materials God works with are, however, not something physical or some-
thing that is anterior to Him. The materials are the logic of mood (yearning) and its
content. A being of power and glory is one that can create a world or worlds out of
materials which are contemporaneous with His age, materials which He can manip-
ulate but out of which, by the law of fatalism, perfection cannot be conjured. Yearning
carries the emotional burden of its quest for a freedom beyond absolute realization,
although realizable in degrees that yet fall short of the desired absolute.
Consequently, God is limited, but not by the materials He works with; His
limitation is imposed by His very nature as mood, as at once intelligence and
emotion. The world that God creates is, unsurprisingly, imperfect, manifesting
physical and moral evils in the shape of natural disasters, diseases, and the many
wicked capabilities in humans that human history has documented in abundance.
The claim of consolationist theodicy is that God is not to blame for the evil in the
world because the principle of evil is part of the constitution of mood. Evil arises
from the emotional essence of mood and actualizes itself in the course of its quest for
freedom. One may ask: why does God create at all given that a fatalistic sequence is
already guaranteed with evil as one of the outcomes? According to the law of
fatalism, which states that an event or a state of affairs happens because it is
inevitable as mood unfolds in its quest for freedom, God could not have refrained
from creating an imperfect world. His own fatalistic essence demands it because it is
in the creative act that He becomes a being of power and glory, a being that
overcomes the emotive burden of mood. God is good in that He desires a perfect
universe, but the universe He wills falls short of perfection.
Since mood defines every existent thing, nothing existent is utterly guiltless, not
God, not humans, not animals, and not even inanimate things. The theory just outlined
572 A. Agada
is a panpsychist theory since it posits the fundamentality of mood, or primordial mind,

which informs the basic constitution of all things, both what is alive in the sense of
possessing mobility, sentience, and internal purposiveness and what seems not to be
alive but which has the potentialities of aliveness, for instance, a stone.
The profoundly difficult question of how God came into being together with the
mood-stuff of which He is its principle will always harass the consolationist. This
question is the age-old question of how God came into being. While the
consolationist position allows God to be contemporaneous with the world and
reconciles the conflict between transcendence and immanence, it fails to show
where God and the world sprang from beyond the simple assertion of a spontaneous
beginning. A closer examination of this most perplexing problem is, however,
beyond the scope of this chapter. At the very least, the consolationist is able to
propose that God emerges spontaneously with mood.
Conclusion
This chapter introduced some of the questions and issues dominating debates in
African philosophy of religion. The chapter highlighted the question of God’s
existence and the problem of evil. The chapter showed that the transcendental and
immanent conceptions of God put the problem of traditional theism in the front row
of questions deserving critical investigation in African philosophy of religion. The
chapter advances the emerging consensus that Africans conceive God as a limited
being by appealing to consolationist metaphysics and arriving at the concept of God
as a benevolent being of power and glory rather than a benevolent being who is
omnipotent and omniscient. This conception of God as benevolent and powerful, but
not omnipotent, advances the African understanding of a limited God while, at the
same time, embracing the idea of God’s transcendence.
African philosophers of religion are turning their attention to the interrogation of
the prima facie transcendental conception of God in traditional African religious
thought. This interrogation has shown that Africans do not conceive God in the
traditional theistic sense. Nevertheless, not enough attention has been paid to the
tension between the immanent and transcendental conceptions of God. This tension
invites African philosophers of religion to individually systematize African theodicies
that help reconcile the concepts of immanence and transcendence. The tension is
particularly significant because it highlights the problem of a powerful but not
all-powerful God who creates a world in which evil is real. If we conceive God as a
being of limited powers, how is He still powerful enough to create a world? If such a
God is not wholly good, can He be absolved of guilt over the reality of evil in the
world He creates? What is the relation between the categories of power and omnip-
otence (all-powerfulness)? These are some questions that African philosophers of
religion will need to address in view of the shift from a traditional theistic conception
of God to an understanding of a limited creator-God in contemporary African philos-
ophy of religion.
References
Agada, A. (2015). Existence and consolation: Reinventing ontology, gnosis and values in African
philosophy. Paragon House.
Agada, A. (2018). A truly African philosophy. Aeon. https://aeon.co/essays/consolation-
philosophy-and-the-struggle-of-reason-in-africa. Accessed 12 Aug 2019.
Anyebe, T. (2015). Reincarnation in ritual display: A discourse of the Alekwu mythopoeia in Idoma
traditional dramaturgy. International Journal of Social Science and Humanity., 5(6), 578–582.
https://doi.org/10.7763/IJSSH.2015.V5.521
Awolalu, J. O., & Dopamu, P. A. (1979). West African traditional religion. Onibonoje Press.
Balogun, O. A. (2009). The nature of evil and human wickedness in traditional African thought:
Further reflections on the philosophical problem of evil. Lumina, 20(2), 1–20. http://lumina.hnu.
edu.ph. Accessed 16 Jan 2018
Balogun, B. J. (2014). Ibi: An examination of the Yoruba traditional-existentialist conception of
evil. Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya, 6(2), 55–73.
https://doi.org/10.4314/tp.v6i2.5
Bewaji, J. A. I. (1998). Olodumare: God in Yoruba belief and the theistic problem of evil. African
Studies Quarterly, 2(1), 1–17. http://www.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v2/v2i1a1.pdf. Accessed 16 Jan 2018
Burton, R. F. (1864). A mission to Gelele king of Dahomey (2nd ed.). Tinsley Brothers.
Chuwa, L. T. (2014). African indigenous ethics in global bioethics: Interpreting Ubuntu. Springer.
Dopamu, P. A. (2000). Esu: The invisible foe of man. Shebiotimo Publications.
Ezekwugo, U. M. (1987). Chi: The true god in Igbo religion. Mar Matthew Press.
Fayemi, A. K. (2012). Philosophical problem of evil: Response to E.O. Oduwole. Philosophia:
International Journal of Philosophy, 41(1), 1–15.
Gbadegesin, S. (2004). Toward a theory of destiny. In K. Wiredu (Ed.), A companion to African
philosophy (pp. 313–323). Blackwell.
Gyekye, K. (1995). An essay on African philosophical thought: The Akan conceptual scheme (rev.
ed.). Temple University Press.
Gyekye, K. (2010). Person and community in African thought. In K. Wiredu & K. Gyekye (Eds.),
Person and community: Ghanaian philosophical studies, I (pp. 101–135). The Council for
Hick, J. (1985). Evil and the god of love. Macmillan.
Idowu, E. B. (1962). Olodumare: God in Yoruba belief. Longmans.
Idowu, E. B. (1973). African traditional religion: A definition. SCM.
Kasomo, D. (2009). An investigation of sin and evil in African cosmology. International Journal of
Sociology and Anthropology, 1(8), 145–155.
Kato, B. H. (1975). Theological pitfalls in Africa. Kenya.
Kosky, J. L. (2004). The birth of the modern philosophy of religion and the death of transcendence.
In R. Schwartz (Ed.), Transcendence: Philosophy, literature, and theology approach the beyond
(pp. 13–29). Routledge.
Mackie, J. L. (1955). Evil and omnipotence. Mind, 64(254), 200–212.
Majeed, H. M. (2014). Religion and the problem of rationality: Insight from Akan religious thought.
Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya, 6(2), 1–22. https://
doi.org/10.4314/tp.v6i2.2
Majeed, H. M. (2016). God and the demon in Cartesian and Akan philosophies: A comparative
analysis. Ilorin Journal of Religious Studies, 6(2), 75–90.
Mbiti, J. S. (1969). African religions and philosophy. Heinemann.
Mbiti, J. S. (1970). Concepts of god in Africa. SPCK.
Metuh, E. I. (1981). God and man in African religion. Geoffrey Chapman.
Mondin, B. (1985). Philosophical anthropology (M. A. Cizdyn, Trans.). Theological Publications
in India.
Njoku, F. O. C. (2002). Essays in African philosophy, thought and theology. Owerri.
Nwala, T. U. (1985). Igbo philosophy. Literamed Publications.
574 A. Agada
Nwoga, D. I. (1984). The supreme god as stranger in Igbo religion. Nigeria, Hawk Press.
Oduyoye, M. A. (1997). The African experience of god through the eyes of an Akan woman.
CrossCurrents, 47(4), 493–504.
Oladipo, O. (2004). Religion in African culture: Some conceptual issues. In K. Wiredu (Ed.), A
p’Bitek O. (1971). African religions in Western scholarship. Nairobi.
Parrinder, G. (1969). Religion in Africa. Penguin Books.
Plantinga, A. (1967). God and other minds. Cornell University Press.
Plantinga, A. (1975). God, freedom and evil. Allen & Unwin.
Ray, B. C. (1976). African religious symbols, ritual and community. Englewood Cliffs.
Reichenbach, B. R. (1982). Evil and a good god. Fordham University Press.
Rowe, W. L. (1978). Philosophy of religion: An introduction. Wadsworth Publishing.
Senghor, L. S. (1964). On African socialism. Praeger.
Sogolo, G. S. (1993). Foundations of African philosophy: A definitive analysis of conceptual issues
in African thought. Ibadan University Press.
Spinoza, B. (1910). Ethics (A. Boyle, Trans.). Dent.
Swinburne, R. (1979). The existence of God. Clarendon Press.
Tempels, P. (1959). Bantu philosophy (C. King, Trans.). Presence Africaine. www.congoforum.be/
upldocs/TempelsBantuPhilEnglish1959.pdf. Accessed 14 Feb 2017.
Wiredu, K. (1998). Toward decolonizing African philosophy and religion. African Studies Quar-
terly, 1(4), 17–46. http://africa.ufl.edu/asq/v1/4/3.pdf. Accessed 16 Jan 2018.
Wiredu, K. (2010). The moral foundations of an African culture. In K. Wiredu & K. Gyekye (Eds.),
Person and community: Ghanaian philosophical studies, I (pp. 193–206). The Council for
Yaran, C. S. (2003). Islamic thought on the existence of god. The Council for Research in Values
and Philosophy.
Part X
Philosophy of Education
A Sketch of an Ubuntu Philosophy
of Education
Chikumbutso Herbert Manthalu
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578
The Contextuality of Philosophy of Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579
Educational Aims and Human Nature Conception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 580
African Philosophy and Ubuntu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583
Principles of Ubuntu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 584
Implications of Ubuntu on Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587
Ubuntu Education and Local Situatedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 590
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 591
Abstract
This chapter sketches an African Philosophy of Education. It advances the
argument that the Ubuntu conceptualization of human nature in African philos-
ophy demands that education aims must fundamentally center other-regarding
values just as they are committed to self-actualization virtues. The argument
builds on the position that assumptions of a human nature conception of a
particular society’s philosophical orientation generally determine the form and
substance of the aims of its education. Upon showing how a particular human
nature conception anchors and determines the form of educational aims, the
chapter draws out the fundamental implications of Ubuntu principles on educa-
tional aims, by highlighting the kind of knowledge, skills, attitudes, capacities,
and values the education aims would necessarily require. With its framework
stringently centering other-regarding virtues just as it does self-regarding ones,
Ubuntu-grounded philosophy of education would require that education aims
should as much achieve individual well-being and self-actualization, as it culti-
vates attitudes, knowledge, capacities, and skills for collective life. An Ubuntu
C. H. Manthalu (*)
School of Education, Chancellor College, University of Malawi, Zomba, Malawi
e-mail: cmanthalu@cc.ac.mw

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_23
578 C. H. Manthalu
education will simultaneously promote self-regarding virtues and other-regarding

virtues. The other-regarding virtues are promoted based on the normative worth
of human relations as being constitutive of what it means to be a complete human
being.
Keywords
Other-regarding · Self-regarding · Ubuntu · Educational aims · Humanness ·
Connectedness
Introduction
This chapter sketches an African Philosophy of Education. It advances the argument

that the Ubuntu conceptualization of human nature in African philosophy demands
that education aims must fundamentally center other-regarding values just as they
are committed to self-actualization virtues. This assertion is motivated by the fact
that different societies have particular metaphysical and ethical outlooks through
which they actualize universal ethical ideals. Furthermore, it is contended that
educational aims whether explicit or implied are an indispensable foundation for
education, in that any form of education is necessarily expected to be directed
towards achievement of some sort of ends. The argument particularly builds on
the position that assumptions of a human nature conception of a particular society’s
philosophical orientation generally determine the form and substance of the aims of
its education.
The case this chapter submits is made through an analysis of how the prevalent
Eurocentric epistemological orientation of much of the education in Africa is largely
founded on a (neo-)liberal conception of human nature that understands the self as
detached, transcendent, autonomous, and rational chooser who is primarily driven
by maximization of self-interest. For such a self, social cooperation and human
relations have only extrinsic value as they are a mere means of serving self-interests.
As such the aims of modern education reflect such self-regarding virtues by the
nature and content of curriculums, pedagogical approaches, and educational poli-
cies. Upon showing how a particular human nature conception anchors and deter-
mines the form of educational aims, the chapter draws out the fundamental
implications of Ubuntu principles on educational aims, by highlighting the kind of
knowledge, skills, attitudes, capacities, and values Ubuntu education aims would
necessarily require.
With its framework stringently centering other-regarding virtues just as it does
self-regarding ones, Ubuntu-grounded philosophy of education would require that
education aims should as much as achieve individual well-being and self-
actualization, as it cultivates attitudes, knowledge, capacities, and skills for collec-
tive life. This is grounded in the Ubuntu conception of human nature as being
interconnected and tending to achieving humanness. An Ubuntu education will
simultaneously promote self-regarding and other-regarding educational aims. The
A Sketch of an Ubuntu Philosophy of Education 579
other-regarding virtues are promoted based on the normative worth of human

relations as being constitutive of what it means to be a complete human being.
In the immediate next section, the chapter discusses why education is necessarily
informed by a philosophical ideology. The later section makes a case as to why
foundationally philosophy of education particularly educational aims are and ought
to be grounded in an ontological or ethical conceptualization of human nature. The
next section discusses the principles of Ubuntu. Later on, the discussion draws
implications of Ubuntu conceptions on human nature on educational aims. This
involves describing the nature of the roles of education, pedagogy, curriculum, and
educational policy that Ubuntu educational aims would demand.
The Contextuality of Philosophy of Education
Among its main mandates, philosophy of education is expected to apply ethical and
philosophical standards to prevailing assumptions about the model education in a
society. This includes examining the philosophical nature of the curriculum and the
learning processes (Hirst & White, 2001: 6). It is instructive to note that philosoph-
ical reflection does not occur in a vacuum. A particular social object such as
education raises questions, creates conflicts and dilemmas that become the object
of philosophical wonder. What this entails is that philosophical examination is an
endeavor to help make the actual practice of education for a particularly situated
society, meaningful, just, and responsive to different (individual or collective) needs.
The cardinal thing is that educational philosophical reflection is arguably triggered
by a particular context and also largely aims at bringing clarity and understanding for
guidance to that particular social context. Thus, philosophical outputs in practical
disciplines such as education are generally at least initially motivated by the need
for context-responsiveness.
The problems and concepts that (educational) philosophy attempts to answer and
analyze, respectively, “are linked indissolubly with the social life of a group” (Hirst &
Peters, 2001: 33). Philosophical problems particularly of the sort found in applied
philosophy such as philosophy of education are directly connected to a people’s lived
experiences. The philosophical answers are part of incessant efforts to improve the
human condition of people in a particular society. A critic may hold that philosophy is
expected to question the assumptions of the foundations upon which a particular
society’s way of life is grounded. Philosophy should therefore not seem to be preserv-
ing and replicating society. However, this corrective role of philosophy ultimately still
serves as a tool for the improvement of the particular way of life of a particular society.
It is in this sense that transcendent philosophical truths are acknowledged but are
appropriated by particular societies upon being vernacularized (Benhabib, 2011) in the
context of social, cultural, and historical situatedness of the people. Furthermore,
particular societies place different emphasis on different ethical or philosophical values
owing to their historical, social, and cultural situatedness, without necessarily
disregarding or undermining the other values.
580 C. H. Manthalu
Educational Aims and Human Nature Conception
The previous section has shown that education theory and practice are intricately
linked to the particular philosophical ideologies that generally underpin a particular
society. The proposition being advanced in this section is that particular models of
education are grounded in ontological or ethical ideologies of communities. More
particularly, the argument is that education aims or goals are not only (explicitly or
implicitly) grounded in particular philosophical ideologies, but are rather more
importantly anchored in a particular conceptualization of human nature that domi-
nates and underlies the social life of that given society. Ultimately what this entails is
the ontological assumptions, ethical norms, and values anchoring the education
models borrowed from one society by another need to be contextualized, locally
interpreted, or vernacularized (Benhabib, 2011) to include the ontological and
ethical perspectives of the adopting society. Unless this is done, the borrowed
education models risk not only being detached from the concrete articulations of
being human for the society, but more importantly such approaches in principle
undermine the normativity of the local ontological and ethical perspectives of being
human. Assumptions, as is prevalently the case in much of Africa, that because
certain moral ideals are universal, therefore, they must be concretely enacted in some
prescribed universal form by all peoples of the world irrespective of their varying
situationality are problematic.
Among others, education would arguably be said to be necessarily required to be
grounded in a framework of human equality whilst also among others aim at
achieving and enhancing human equality. However, different societies owing to
their cultural, social, historical, and philosophical orientations may actualize and
enact the ideal of human equality differently. Conversely, such unique philosophical
orientations towards the same ethical ideal may result in education models whose
form and aims are different across human communities of the world.
The argument is that since ontological and ethical conceptualizations of human
nature shape the education of the society, as a matter of justice, borrowed education
models need to be vernacularized to render the borrowed education just. Put
differently, education in Africa is founded on a Eurocentric conceptualization of
human nature that not only marginalizes normative values central in African ontol-
ogy and ethical thought, but due to lack of venularization, impose a particular
ontological and ethical perspective on African education. This chapter therefore
argues for grounding education in Africa in the distinctive ontological and ethical
conceptualization of human nature of Ubuntu. This is done by discussing the
assumptions and form of educational aims grounded in Ubuntu.
It is worth bearing in mind that it is not only education aims (explicit or implicit,
particular or general) that are founded on a particular conception of the self and only
make sense at least from this perspective. One can also infer that the selection of
curriculum content and pedagogy are all informed by a particular type of conceptu-
alization of human nature. Such an understanding of what it requires to be human
informs the sort of capacities that students at a minimum should possess through
education.
While it is widely held that having education aims leads to narrow-mindedness

and limits self-actualization, the notion of explicit or implicit aims in education is
foundational, inevitable, and indispensable. The enterprise of education involves
very diverse people with competing and contrasting interests. While one would
agree with most education theorists who argue against articulation of educational
aims as promoting narrowness and at worst closed-mindedness, it remains incon-
ceivable how such an endeavor as education that brings together different parties to
cooperate would be possible without having at the bare minimum certain generally
agreed goals. In any society, the question of what metaphysical outlooks and ethical
values to imbue public institutions and life is always a subject of contention.
Whether overtly or covertly stated in a syllabus or curriculum objectives or
whether they are principles that must be achieved by teaching and learning pro-
cedures, education cannot be divorced from aims whether as objectives or general
aims (White, 2010: 5). However, aims of education are inseparable from the shared
values of a particular society (Winch, 1996: 40). One of the fundamental and
inevitable aims of education is preparing the young ones for adult life. In other
words, it is about acquisition of capacities, skills, and knowledge for effective
participation in the indispensable public life. However, such a general indispensable
aim of education immediately raises ethical and ontological questions: which ethical
values should the diverse society consider important for the aims to articulate? and
founded on what shared conceptualization of human nature (Winch, 1996: 35)?
As argued earlier, the discipline of education should necessarily be generally
guided by overt or covertly articulated minimum aims. Ideally, the education should
be anchored in a framework of outlooks and values that, at a minimum, is meaning-
ful and relatable to the society. Unless this is done, it is inconceivable how sure the
parties that have diverse and at times conflicting interests in a society would be
guaranteed that the education is not systemically detrimental to them and their
particular values contrary to the initially agreed upon or assumed shared values
(Winch, 1996).
One can draw that the role of philosophy of education should be to reflect on the
ideal nature of aims of education, highlighting the distinctive features of such aims
(their form) and the conditions ideal for the realization of such aims. Philosophy of
education should reflect on how these different aims should be interrelated and how
they should be prioritized (White, 2010: ix). It is inconceivable as to how determi-
nation of the nature of the aims, how they should relate, and what priorities there
should be among them can be made without taking into account the society’s explicit
or implicit conception of human nature shaping the construction of the aims.
The position that the ends of education are rooted in a particular conceptualization
of human nature is both an ideal position of what ought to be the case, as well as one
inferred from educational practice. From a philosophical perspective, it should
logically follow that construction of the ends of education must be in relation to
who a human person is or should be. On the other hand, education ends are shaped
by social and political elements (Gutmann, 2003; Standish, 2003). Ultimately,
political authority influences decisions regarding what should be the conceptualiza-
tion of the ideal educated person and what should be taught in schools to cultivate the
582 C. H. Manthalu
attributes of such a person. It is worth highlighting here that the political influence
when combined with a strong economic stature has the tendency of assuming a
globalist form and tacitly imposes its preferences on other societies beyond the
nation’s borders. This is the experience with most developing nations of Africa for
whom the global economic structure has placed different epistemological imposi-
tions the countries are now fighting to decolonize themselves from (Waghid &
Manthalu, 2019). In this sense, the global structure imposes not only a different
education ideology, but more importantly a particular (paraded as universalistic)
conceptualization of human nature.
Modern education is largely informed by Eurocentric paradigms (Manthalu &
Waghid, 2019; Masemula, 2015; Mbembe, 2016; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015). There
is no inherent problem in having one society’s philosophical ideology shape the
education of another society. What is problematic is when the borrowing or
so-called hybridization in principle and practice undermines, devalues, and mar-
ginalizes local epistemologies, metaphysical outlooks and ethical orientations.
Today for example, much of the aims of education, curriculum content and
pedagogical strategies, across the world emphasize skills, knowledge and attitudes
that cultivate virtues of individual well-being such as self-actualization and indi-
vidual autonomy. However, the idea that education should promote individual
autonomy and well-being (while also necessarily actively developing a strong
sense of suspicion and mistrust of virtues of collective life) does not necessarily
imply that this is the only or fundamental framework for educational aims across
communities of the world today (White, 2010: 17). Besides individual-centric aims
of education, there are also other-centered aims that center interest of others as
having legitimate normative worth.
The notion of individual liberty has been the central drive of Western educational
thought largely influenced by the analytic philosophy tradition (Hirst, 2001: 124). In
general, education is understood to aim at developing and promoting an individual’s
good life as a whole (Hirst, 2001: 124). Human beings are understood to be “entities
capable, by virtue of certain naturally given [rational] capacities, of making sense of
themselves and their world and of engaging in autonomous action” (Hirst, 2001:
124). Such a conception of human nature regards a good life as one that is
autonomously determined by reason (Hirst, 2001: 124). The existence of the auton-
omous person is understood to be prior to and indeed independent of social relations
(Hirst, 2001: 125). The centering of individual liberty as the fundamental educa-
tional aim is apparently achieved through “the development of rational autonomy
[that] is clearly grounded in particular doctrines about human nature and about the
character of reason” (Hirst, 2001: 125). Human nature conceptualization shapes
educational aims.
The nature of human needs of the peoples of the world (which education must
consider or help fulfil) are as many as they are complex. There is a real danger when
only one aim of education is unduly elevated above all the possible others. Obses-
sion with individual actualization whilst almost undermining social belonging and
its demands may ultimately ruin the very project of self-actualization as the enabling
and supporting conditions for the self-actualization are dismantled. In this regard, if
education is to be just and meaningful, it is imperative that its educational aims or

content must at a minimum be relatable to the general conceptualization of human
nature for a particular society (Wilson, 2010). This, as the next section shows has
been the deficit in the African educational context. The education has for a long time
been grounded in and promoting virtues of a Eurocentric conception of human
nature. This has rendered the education alienated from African lived experiences
and from meaningfully addressing challenges of the African situationality. Particu-
larly, this has resulted in the marginalization of African epistemologies, metaphysics,
and ethics among others as subaltern and an impediment to modern life anchored on
Eurocentric understanding of human nature.
African Philosophy and Ubuntu
The development of conventional African philosophy is largely traceable to reac-

tionaries to the denigrations that Western philosophy made about African existence
(Kayange, 2020). Such denigrations by European scholars and explorers were such
as those that African people have no culture or philosophy, nor rational capacities,
and were therefore primitive (Masolo, 1994). Colonialists and some European
missionaries had the civilization of Africans as one of their main agendas which
largely employed education as the tool for making Africans embrace the “civilized”
ways of European life.
For the most part, African thinkers were essentially committed to dismissing the
denigration and its foundation. Much of modern African philosophy draws from the
legacy of reaction against denigration by colonialism. The philosophy has generally
been committed to amplifying, affirming, and celebrating indigenous African expe-
riences as a source of a credible, though different, philosophy. As Kayange (2020: 2)
observes, the pre-occupation with celebrating indigenous African experiences has
arguably resulted in a reductionism of African philosophy, essentializing the priority
of the community. there is need to further develop Ubuntu philosophy into a more
comprehensive theory that does not surreptitiously elevate preferred ideals while
summarily dismissing ‘other’ ideals. A further consequence is that applied philos-
ophy branches such as philosophy of education that generally draw from and depend
upon mainstream theories have lacked the theoretical building blocks to develop
African philosophy of education theories. Recently, most African philosophy
scholars have been proposing different sorts of African philosophy. This chapter
attempts to sketch such a philosophy of education by particularly focusing on the
implications of an Ubuntu conceptualization of human nature and ethics on the basic
nature of education aims, curriculum, and pedagogy.
It is worth clarifying that sub-Saharan African experiences are diverse. As such
they cannot be reduced to a single ontological or ethical perspective. Furthermore,
the claim that an Ubuntu philosophy is representative of largely most sub-Saharan
societies needs to be understood in arguable general terms other than in essentialist
terms. More so because there are different and sometimes contrasting Ubuntu theory
versions. Making a case that education in Africa should be anchored in philosophical
584 C. H. Manthalu
frameworks that center Ubuntu ideals should not be understood in puritan terms or
terms exclusive of other non-African perspectives. No single society has self-
sufficient, complete, and uncontestable ontological or ethical perspectives. It is
imperative to be cognizant that cultural and philosophical hybridity are inevitable
and necessary aspects of human life. However, the hybridity should still be respon-
sive to (not necessarily dominated by) the historical context of denigration and
marginalization. Such denigration and marginalization have partly resulted in the
prevailing hegemony by the Eurocentric ontological and ethical perspectives across
African education and public institutions.
Principles of Ubuntu
The concept of education is one that is constructed by historical and political

contexts (Standish, 2003). Education is grounded in particular philosophies. For
education to be normatively acceptable and achieve the relevant social transforma-
tion, it must be founded on a philosophy of education that is connected to the ideo-
logical foundations of its ontological and moral thought context; relatable to the
lived experiences of the people (Venter, 2004: 155).
There is a significant difference between the value of society/community between
the Eurocentric social contract person and that of Ubuntu philosophy. In much of
Western philosophy, following the heritage of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and
Immanuel Kant, the value of the society to the self is instrumental because of its
ability to offer security and the minimum guaranteed grounds for expectation for
cooperation as the major determinant for the possibility to pursue self-interest
(Drucilla Cornell & Muvangua, 2012). In this context, social cooperation is valuable
insofar as it is an enabler for actualization of self-interest. However, Ubuntu is in
principle double-edged in that it prizes both individual self-determination and the
social bond (Cornell & Muvangua, 2012).
The social contract tradition from Hobbes to Rawls understands the individual as
largely self-interested and in competition with the other over resources of nature
which are the foundation of private property ownership. Such thought greatly
shapes the prevailing neoliberal ideology that is definitive of modern life (Steger
& Roy, 2010; Vázquez-Arroyo, 2008). However, Ubuntu conceives being human as
being a unit in a world of intertwined existential and ethical relations and obligations
(Cornell & Muvangua, 2012). As such the social bond one has with others is not only
instrumental as an enabler of social cooperation. Rather, individual well-being is
inextricably connected with the well-being of the other.
Unlike the atomistic conception of the transcendent detached self of Western
philosophy, in Ubuntu, relations with others and the subsequent other-regarding
virtues the relations generated are neither abstract nor “merely contingent, voluntary
and optional” (Gyekye, 2003: 353). While the centering of the community in Ubuntu
is mostly regarded as a threat to individual agency, Kayange’s (2020: 7) auto-centric
virtue theory of Ubuntu holds that in Ubuntu thought self-regarding and other-
regarding virtues are equally cardinal because Ubuntu “is rooted in (i) the reciprocal
value of an individual and the community as they define the ultimate human good,
(ii) virtues of character (self-regarding and other-regarding virtues), and (iii) virtues
of the intellect.”
The Ubuntu ontology acknowledges both auto-centric and relational capacities as
being cardinally constitutive of being human. Sometimes, exponents and opponents
of Ubuntu tend to rank individual-centric and other-regarding virtues in a hierarchy,
forcing Ubuntu to adopt the neo-Kantian binary approach of according primacy to
either auto-centric virtues or communitarian ones. Such perspectives derive from a
hangover neo-Kantian ideology. There should be no reason to rank these two virtues
and be forced to value one over the other because they are distinct capacities that
distinctively drive human action.
The Ubuntu self-regarding dimension takes care of issues of self-preservation.
This encompasses virtues for self-preservation and self-realization (Kayange, 2020).
Self-realization is achieved through acquisition of certain traits of character (virtues)
that are both self-regarding and other-regarding (Kayange, 2020: 7). Self-
actualization is guided by phronesis, which is a set of intellectual virtues such as
intelligence, knowledge, and techne (craft or art), all of which pertain to reason
(Kayange, 2020: 7). Self-regarding virtues promote individual agency and self-
awareness so that the individual optimally achieves self-determination (Kayange,
2020: 7). On the other hand, other-regarding virtues aim at the well-being of the
other motivated by shared identity, goodwill, and mutual well-being (Kayange,
2020; Metz, 2007).
Earlier versions of Ubuntu theories faced the criticism that Ubuntu thought
prioritizes community well-being at the expense of the individual, who in Western
thought is regarded as the ultimate unit of moral concern. However, according to
Kayange (2020: 8), in Ubuntu theory, the principle of phronesis
is the intellectual capacity to deliberate or calculate the right course of action that leads to
human well-being in a particular situation. This deliberation is aimed at determining the kind
of virtue (self-regarding or other-regarding virtue) that is required with reference to well-
being in a particular context. The virtues of character and practical wisdom work together
towards well-being (Kayange, 2020: 8). Phronesis is the intellectual capacity where through
practical rational judgement the subject determines the appropriate course of action or
character in a particular situation that will lead human well-being.
Thus Ubuntu does not undermine nor stifle human agency. This is because human
action involves an intellectual deliberation to determine which sort of virtues
(self-regarding or other-regarding virtue) are primary and appropriate in a given
context to achieve humanness or human well-being (Kayange, 2020: 8). No
particular kind of virtue is immutably set to always transcend the other type.
Rather, moral action in a particular context depends on rationally determining
how the two types of virtues should relate and which ones should be prioritized.
Human action is expected in this sense, to spring out of human agency but in a
context of human connectedness or humanness (Cornell & Van Marle, 2012;
Ramose, 2003). Achievement of this type of moral balance largely depends on a
kind of wisdom.
586 C. H. Manthalu
It is worth highlighting that other-regarding virtues also serve mutual well-being.

However, the mutuality is not reducible to a requirement that self-interest should
merely measure up against some abstract static immutable moral law, as a form of
negative duty to others to avoid violating their entitlements. In other words, the well-
being of others is not served merely by the permissibility of my action. Rather, it is
about exercising my agency in a framework that considers and cares for the
condition of the other with whom there is an interconnectedness. In this sense, I
sometimes cannot perform certain generally permissible actions merely because they
are permissible. Regarding others would sometimes compel me to refrain from
performing certain actions that I am entitled to, on the condition that they are
practically insensitive to the condition of the other or to humanness. This is why
determination of the morally appropriate action requires the self to engage in a
rational deliberation to consider how concretely agency and humanness will be
served by the action in a particular context.
Some critics and exponents of Ubuntu alike would insinuate that the Ubuntu
other-regarding virtues are motivated by a sense of mutual reciprocity where, for
instance, I attend a funeral so that others attend to me when I am bereaved. Such
reductionism of connectedness and humanness is problematic and undermines the
very nature and motivation of the virtues of care that underlie such commitments.
Care is not always driven by benefit (Held, 2006; MacIntyre, 2002; Taylor, 2003). In
a strict sense, caregiving mostly involves some cost on the caregiver without any
guarantee of reciprocal benefit in the future (Held, 2006; MacIntyre, 2002). Thus, in
Ubuntu, concern and care for the other in the exercise of agency are driven by the
recognition of the worthiness of humanness and the context-dependent obligations it
places on the individual’s exercise of agency.
In Ubuntu, humanness must be constantly endeavored at because it is “the sort of
thing which has to be achieved, the sort of thing which individuals could fail
[to achieve]” (Menkiti, 2004: 326). Humanness is beyond the individ-
ual merely possessing rational capacities for exercising agency. Humanness is rather
about a moral balance one must achieve not by conforming to certain static immu-
table laws but rather through practical wisdom where one will reflect on a reasonable
mode of consideration of both individual interests and the communal interest.
Holding that in Ubuntu thought personhood is also relational does not entail that
the self is a prisoner of community expectations and that the self cannot assume
positions that are critical of dominant communal expectations and standards
(Gyekye, 2003). On the contrary, Ubuntu entails respect for the exercise of individ-
ual agency which recognizes capacities for the individual to affirm, revise, or even
reject shared values and conceptualizations of the common good (Gyekye, 2003:
358). A pursuit of self-interest that ignores and disregards the interests of others may
be an expression of individual autonomy but fail to achieve the completeness of
being human (Gyekye, 2003: 358). Thus the principle of Ubuntu is an articulation of
“our inter-connectedness, our common humanity and the responsibility to each that
flows from our connection” (Letseka, 2012). The harmony that Ubuntu centers is
one that is grounded in a recognition of the common identity that humanity shares
and is “grounded on good-will” (Metz, 2007: 338).
Implications of Ubuntu on Education
It has been shown in previous sections that Ubuntu values both agency and con-
nectedness in a noncompetitive type of relation. Rather than understand its ideals as
a choice between individual interest and the common good, in its true form Ubuntu is
not reducible to such a choice. Rather, it is about exercising agency in a framework
that also recognizes the well-being of the other. As such it is reasonable to expect an
Ubuntu-inspired education to aim at capacitating the learner with tools that will on
the one hand enhance self-actualization and freedom. On the other hand, the
education should cultivate in students knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values that
develop a sense of togetherness, concern, and care for others in a community.
Community in this case can be both social-culturally, historically, and geographi-
cally immediate as well as the human community of the world. An Ubuntu education
would promote self-actualization and pursuit of self-interest against a background
that is concretely mindful of other-regarding virtues such as deliberation, together-
ness, kindness, compassion, respect, and care (Murove, 2014: 37).
Ubuntu education would aim at making students as members of particular
societies and the wider human community to be mindful that being human is not
conditioned upon detaching oneself from others. Rather, humanness requires the
self to be practically and constantly taking into consideration the well-being of the
other and whatever is an obstacle to the achievement of the other’s well-being. The
worth of relations one has with others in a community is not grounded on the
extrinsic support role the relations provide for one’s self-actualization. Rather, as
the common African assertion states “I am because we are” or “we are therefore I
am,” individual flourishing that is somehow built on the oppression of others or
indifferent to the suffering and limitations of the other fails to achieve humanness. It
is inconsistent with the fundamental maxim of interconnectedness where humanity
shares aspirations for flourishing, such that the failure of the other to flourish should
be a concern to me even though I am in no way part of its causative agents.
Ubuntu Education and Local Situatedness
The homo economicus conception of human nature as primarily committed to

maximizing rational choices that maximize economic self-interest as earlier shown
is grounded in the liberal conceptualization of the self as being detached and
autonomous. It is in this vein that since the industrial revolution, education has
inhered and centered maximization of economic interest for the self, pushing out to
the peripherals of relevance humanistic values (Oviawe, 2016). This centering of
capitalist values understood as individual liberty values has resulted in humanistic
interests being replaced by “market-driven, mechanistic and commercialist bench-
marks for measuring educational success. As a result, education is seen as an
investment that must yield economic returns” (Oviawe, 2016: 5–6). The nature of
such an education is that it is futuristic. The education largely aims at what job roles
the individual will assume once she or he successfully completes the educational
588 C. H. Manthalu
processes. The education endeavors are reducible to a process of pursuit of self-

interests. Under such an approach, collective interests are assigned instrumental
value. The assumption is that in the pursuit of self-interests, inevitably the individ-
uals will serve just for extrinsic purposes, the collective interests.
The learning endeavor is thus a competition to bring out the optimum best from
the individual for self-accumulation and security. The “other” is in this light not a
collaborating partner in ensuring the becoming of the self and humanness of the
other as Ubuntu would demand. Rather the other is an adversary, who must be
outpaced and outsmarted in the scramble for opportunities to be guaranteed of
personal success. In principle, the ‘other’ is not merely excluded but his/her exis-
tence is generally denied or is inconsequential (Ramose, 2010).
Guided by the principles of interconnectedness and humanness, an Ubuntu-
inspired education would require that among others education aims at care for
humanity particularly for the other. Modern education in its essentialist conceptual-
ization of human nature and human relations understands learners in generalized
terms of equality rather than in terms of an equality that takes into consideration their
constitutive concrete subjectivities. Such an understanding of students in generalized
terms, a heritage of the social contract self however, de-problematizes the actual
concrete obstacles that oppress others making it difficult for them to seize opportu-
nities apparently equally availed to all, such as that education ostensibly avails to all.
For modern education, conditions of equality are satisfied insofar as students come to
the same school, sit before the same teachers are given the same amount of work.
The differences that will emerge are attributable to personal choice.
An Ubuntu-grounded education, however, after ensuring all these entitlements
are met would go further to center care for and collaboration with the other among
both students and teachers. Mindful of the fact that in as much as there are certain
objective requirements and conditions necessary for education to successfully take
place, what actually determines progress or lack thereof pertains to the subjective
realm of being human. The obstacles pertaining to this realm however cannot be
addressed by objective categories. Care for the other would require of the students to
shed off the institutional adversarial attitude that renders the other invisible. Sharing
common humanness would require one to reach out to the other, to understand what
particularly limits the flourishing of the other, mindful of the fact that success of one
in the midst of the failure of the other is normatively less meaningful.
One consequence of the neoliberal conceptualization of human nature is that the
state is required to delineate selected primary individual rights to enforce through the
constitution for example. The state thus is compelled to “take a minimalist
[as opposed to a maximalist] stance in the realization of these rights” (Thomas,
2008: 50). The net effect of such minimalist conceptualization of human rights is that
the state has lesser or no compulsion to ensure that certain rights that ultimately
determine one’s prospects for a desirable life are ignored, left to the devices of free
market forces (Thomas, 2008: 50). The pivotal thing to note is that the lack of
“constitutionalisation and justiciability of socioeconomic rights” (Thomas, 2008:
53) only cements prevailing injustices and marginalization of those for whom it is
almost impossible to fairly compete with the rest.
An education founded on Ubuntu conception of human nature would, for

instance, ensure that access to education is not determined by one’s social-economic
or historical background as is currently the case with the alienating modern educa-
tion. Rather, access to secondary and higher education should be a basic right for
every individual. Endeavors that privatize education and fundamental aspects of
education would be intolerable under an Ubuntu education. This would be based on
the premise that if every person aspires for self-actualization and has a role to ensure
that public life achieves humanness, then no obstacle to the actualization of these
human aspirations should be rationalized. Education cannot thus be understood as a
good easily accessible by the privileged nor as a tool for consolidating personal gains
in a context of exclusion and marginalization.
Having education aims that cultivate a sense of care and collaboration with the
other are not only a means of having successful education processes. Rather, this
ought to be understood as a process of learning virtues that are paramount beyond
the school. These virtues ought to underlie all human relations in the wider society.
Humanness is not achieved only by epitomizing self-actualization. It must occur in a
context of care and concern for the other.
As highlighted earlier, the community to which one is interconnected is not
restricted to the local or national community. The other-regarding virtues demand
that that exercise of agency must not be to the detriment of the prospects of others
flourishing. Global interconnectedness today than ever before vividly concretizes the
reality of how humanity is interconnected. Today, it is imperative that education
necessarily helps students value a sustainable use of the global environment for
instance. The complexity of the different states of the world coming together and
agree on terms aimed at having a healthy global environment is how deeply
entrenched the competitive conception of the self-interest maximizing conception
of human nature, geared towards maximization of profit underlies not only modern
education but also global structures. Personal or national wealth is the primary
consideration rather than having a sustainable global environment. A world whose
education, domestic and global economic structures, politics and international rela-
tions are anchored in a human nature typified by adversarial competition and
systematic extinguishing of the interests of the “other” is not suited to manage the
global environment in a sustainable way.
Owing to the social contract heritage, democracies today conceptualize the
human subject in capitalist terms that reduce to either instrumental or market value
the worth of the relations the subject has with others s/he is in a community with
(Thomas, 2008: 42). Constitutions, economic and public policy are shaped by this
philosophical ideology characterized by minimum government interventions in
public well-being, liberalized markets, and privatization of institutions that provide
public services (Steger & Roy, 2010; Thomas, 2008). Such practices are informed by
a detached conceptualization of personhood and its attendant liberty that particularly
privilege individual (economic) rights and private property ownership both of which
necessarily relegate public well-being and common good to an extrinsic level. The
global environment pays the ultimate cost for this. An Ubuntu education should aim
at reimagining the value of human relations as having more than economic or mere
590 C. H. Manthalu
extrinsic value. The condition of the other should be my concern. I may exercise my
agency and achieve personal success. However, if I achieve it whilst being indiffer-
ent to the obstacles that adversely affect the well-being of the other, such success
though an embodiment of self-actualization nevertheless fails to achieve humanness.
In the name of being globally relevant and competitive, education today is
modelled on the human nature conceptualization of a detached self that seeks to
maximize economic self-interest. Ultimately this has led to a shift in the roles of the
university where knowledge production no longer primarily aims at local consump-
tion but rather achieving global competitiveness though at the cost of marginaliza-
tion of local interests (Divala, 2016: 100). It is not uncommon to read the aims of
universities articulated in their vision statements and mottos as aiming at being the
leading and competitive university in the world. The result is that owing to such
competitiveness university research agenda is almost exclusively driven by special
interest-funding institutions (Divala, 2016; Giroux, 2010; Ramose, 2010; Zeleza,
2009; Zyngier, 2016). Another result is the exclusion of localness in research and
epistemologies because of the ostensible lack of economic worth that attracts the
interests of funders. An Ubuntu education would thus demand that sources of human
connectedness that are mostly grounded in the people’s situatedness should neces-
sarily be centered in education. This is because they are the sources of the concrete-
ness of being human (Benhabib, 1992) as well as the framework for human relations.
Conclusion
At a foundational level, all education is ultimately a pursuit of some aim. More

particularly, the ontological and ethical conception of human nature largely deter-
mine the form of educational aims. Despite ethical ideals at a fundamental level
being universal, different societies have different ontological and ethical perspec-
tives through which they particularly actualize and enact the universal ideals.
In African philosophy, the Ubuntu conception of being human conceives human
nature as being both autonomous and relational. Out of this nature arise ethical
obligations to ensure both individual well-being and others’ well-being. Other-
regarding commitments and those of self-actualization, though directed at different
subjects, have the same moral stringency. Educational aims founded on the Ubuntu
ontological and ethical framework therefore require that at a minimum educational
aims (which determine the form and substance of the curriculum, pedagogy and
educational policy practice) should equally center self-interest as well as the interest
of the other. It is crucial to bear cognizance that self and other-regarding virtues
ought not to be considered in a hierarchical relationship. Each type has a particular
end yet has the same moral stringency.
While the deontological ethics of moral duties towards the other would in a
sense be said to consider the well-being of the other, Ubuntu centering of the well-
being of the other goes beyond the limitations of generally negative duties of deon-
tological ethics one has towards the other. Instead, well-being of the other is
constituted in possession of and acting according to other-regarding virtues such
as those of concern, engagement, deliberation, togetherness, and care for the other.
Looked at this way, Ubuntu educational aims seek to promote individual authentic-
ity, autonomy, and self-actualization without necessarily competing with community
interests. However, what an Ubuntu education demands is that exercise of individ-
ual agency in the pursuit of self-actualization should necessarily be contextualized
by virtues of concern and care for the well-being of the other.
An Ubuntu ethics goes beyond measuring against the moral permissibility of a
particular exercise of agency based on some immutable abstract duties. On the other
hand, Ubuntu exercise of agency is cognizant that the principles of connectedness and
humanness entail that indifference to the condition of the other that one is in commu-
nity with makes one fail achieve the completeness of being human in that I restrict
being human to myself only. Sharing of humanness and connectedness with the other
does not constitute in merely sharing certain rational capacities for agency. Sharing of
humanness and connectedness pertain to my relation with the other, taking into
account his/her concrete condition and how the condition affects his/her well-being
which is just like mine. Thus the other-regarding virtues call for more than fulfilling
certain general impersonal obligations towards the other. Rather the virtues demand
deliberation in order to engage with the other so as to particularly determine their care
needs. At a minimum an education with Ubuntu-inspired aims would thus require that
the curriculum, pedagogy, and education policy equally centers such relational values.
References
Benhabib, S. (1992). Situating the self: Gender, community and postmodernism in contemporary
ethics. Polity.
Benhabib, S. (2011). Dignity in adversity: Human rights in turbulent times. Polity.
Cornell, D., & Muvangua, N. (2012). Introduction. In D. Cornell & N. Muvangua (Eds.), Ubuntu and
the law: African ideals and postapartheid jurisprudence (pp. 1–27). Fordham University Press.
Cornell, D., & Van Marle, K. (2012). Exploring uBuntu: Tentative reflections. In D. Cornell &
N. Muvangua (Eds.), Ubuntu and the law: African ideals and post-apartheid jurisprudence
(pp. 344–366). Fordham University Press.
Divala, J. J. (2016). Re-imaging a conception of Ubuntu that can recreate relevant knowledge
cultures in Africa and African universities. Knowledge Cultures, 4(4), 90–103.
Giroux, H. A. (2010). Bare pedagogy and the scourge of neoliberalism: Rethinking higher educa-
tion as a democratic public sphere. The Educational Forum, 74(3), 184–196.
Gutmann, A. (2003). The authority and responsibility to educate. In R. Curren (Ed.), A companion
to the philosophy of education (pp. 397–411). Blackwell Publishing.
Gyekye, K. (2003). Person and community in African thought. In P. H. Coetzee & A. P. J. Roux
(Eds.), The African philosophy reader (2nd ed., pp. 348–366). Routledge.
Held, V. (2006). The ethics of care: Personal, political, and global. Oxford University Press.
Hirst, P. H. (2001). The nature of educational aims. In R. Marples (Ed.), The aims of education
(pp. 124–132). Taylor and Francis.
Hirst, P. H., & Peters, R. S. (2001). Education and philosophy. In P. H. Hirst & P. White (Eds.),
Philosophy of education: Major themes in the analytic tradition (pp. 27–38). Taylor and
Francis.
Hirst, P. H., & White, P. (2001). The analytic tradition and philosophy of education: An historical
perspective. In P. H. Hirst & R. S. Peters (Eds.), Philosophy of education: Major themes in the
analytic tradition (pp. 1–12). Taylor and Francis.
592 C. H. Manthalu
Kayange, G. M. (2020). Restoration of Ubuntu as an autocentric virtue-phronesis theory.

Letseka, M. (2012). In defence of Ubuntu. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 31, 47–60.
MacIntyre, A. (2002). Dependent rational animals: Why human beings need the virtues. Open
Court Publishing Company.
Manthalu, C. H., & Waghid, Y. (2019). Decoloniality as a viable response to educational transfor-
mation in Africa. In C. H. Manthalu & Y. Waghid (Eds.), Education for Decoloniality and
decolonization in Africa (pp. 25–46). Palgrave Macmillan.
Masemula, M. B. (2015). Whose knowledge is transmitted through public education in Africa? In
A. A. Abdi, L. Shultz, & T. Pillay (Eds.), Decolonizing global citizenship education
(pp. 173–179). Sense Publishers.
Mbembe, A. J. (2016). Decolonizing the university: New directions. Arts & Humanities in Higher
Education, 15(1), 29–45.
Menkiti, I. (2004). On the normative conception of a person. In K. Wiredu (Ed.), A companion to
African philosophy (pp. 324–331). Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Metz, T. (2007). Toward an African moral theory. The Journal of Political Philosophy, 15(3),
321–341.
Murove, M. F. (2014). Ubuntu. Diogenes, 59(3–4), 36–47.
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2015). Decoloniality as the future of Africa. History Compass, 13(10),
485–496.
Oviawe, J. O. (2016). How to rediscover the Ubuntu paradigm in education. International Review of
Education, 62, 1–10.
Ramose, M. (2003). The ethics of Ubuntu. In P. H. Coetzee & A. P. J. Roux (Eds.), The African
philosophy reader (2nd ed., pp. 379–386). Routledge.
Ramose, M. B. (2010). The death of democracy and the resurrection of timocracy. Journal of Moral
Education, 39(3), 291–303.
Standish, P. (2003). The nature and purposes of education. In R. Curren (Ed.), A companion to the
philosophy of education (pp. 221–231). Blackwell Publishing.
Steger, M. B., & Roy, R. K. (2010). Neoliberalism: A very short introduction. Oxford University
Press.
Taylor, C. (2003). The ethics of authenticity. Harvard University Press.
Thomas, C. G. (2008). The missing link in the rights discourse in post-apartheid transformation in
South Africa. International Journal of African Renaissance Studies - Multi-, Inter- and Trans-
disciplinarity, 3(2), 39–62.
Vázquez-Arroyo, A. Y. (2008). Liberal democracy and neoliberalism: A critical juxtaposition. New
Political Science, 30(2), 127–159.
Venter, E. (2004). The notion of Ubuntu and communalism in African educational discourse.
Studies in Philosophy and Education, 23, 149–160.
Waghid, Y., & Manthalu, C. H. (2019). Decoloniality as democratic change within higher educa-
tion. In C. H. Manthalu & Y. Waghid (Eds.), Education for Decoloniality and decolonization in
Africa (pp. 47–68). Palgrave Macmillan.
White, J. (2010). The aims of education restated (e-book). Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.
Wilson, J. (2010). Preface to the philosophy of education. Routledge.
Winch, C. (1996). The aims of education revisited. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 30(1),
33–44.
Zeleza, P. T. (2009). African studies and universities since Independence. Transition, 101, 110–135.
Zyngier, D. (2016). What future teachers believe about democracy and why it is important. Teachers
and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 22(7), 782–804. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2016.
1185817
Imfundo, Ubulumko, Nomthetho:
A South African Philosophy of Education
Siseko H. Kumalo
The conqueror writes history,

They came, they conquered and they wrote.
Now you don’t expect people who came to invade us,
To write the truth about us.
They will always write negative things about us,
And they have to do that because,
They have to justify their invasion.
(Miriam Makeba, 1969)
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594
Critically Reading Kai Horsthemke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595
A Contested Social Institution: From Rhetoric to Philosophy, as Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 600
Khangela Ubulumko: Duty as Ethics, Wisdom, and Responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611
Without Conclusion: Philosophizing About Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 616
Abstract
Education in South Africa has always been a contentious matter since the
inception of colonization and coloniality, which is rooted in two competing
conceptions of education. The first being colonial missionary education, framed
as uplifting the Black/Indigenous “savage” from the pits of backward, retarded,
and gradual life as detailed by Mudimbe in The Invention of Africa. The second
being Indigenous modes of education (along with their role and function) as
explicated by Gqoba in his Ingxoxo Enkulu Ngemfundo (A Great Debate on
S. H. Kumalo (*)
Philosophy Department, University of Fort Hare, East London, South Africa
e-mail: skumalo@ufh.ac.za

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_25
594 S. H. Kumalo
Education). These two competing conceptions continue to define the higher

education landscape in the country, as decolonial agitation was substantiated by
the student movements of #MustFall.
The chapter begins by analyzing Gqoba’s treatment of education. This treat-
ment contextualizes the contestation that defines a philosophy of education as
articulated from a South African vantage-point. In the second move, it analyzes
AC Jordan’s The Wrath of the Ancestors. Jordan’s novel reveals a textured and
layered interplay between western conceptions of education – as they necessarily
contend and compete with traditional/Indigenous ideas of education. The main
objective is to discern (the aims of education), i.e., what a South African philos-
ophy of education might entail in a context defined by colonial violence, contes-
tation, and erasure.
Keywords
WW Gqoba · AC Jordan · Philosophy of education · Coloniality · Imfundo
Introduction
Beginning with an epigraph adapted from Miriam Makeba seeks to underscore the
structure that the chapter will follow in developing a South African philosophy of
education. Two things must be said about this, which – in disclaiming them – will
hopefully aid in demonstrating the reasoning behind why there has been a delimi-
tation to South Africa, as opposed to a broader conceptual analysis that attempts to
style the chapter as one that applies itself to the issues of education as they relate to
the continent. In the first respect, upon receiving the invitation from the editors of the
collection to develop the work, there was an appeal to focus on the South African
context, owing to the authors discussed. Second, the contextualizing commentary on
Horsthemke will act as a rejoinder to the piece “African Philosophy and Education” –
published in the Palgrave Handbook of African Philosophy (2017) edited by
Adeshina Afoloyan and Toyin Falola. To focus on this piece, in the introductory
remarks, is deliberate owing to the kinds of misreading(s) that the reader will find in
Horsthemke’s chapter, while also demonstrating a continuation in the work devel-
oped by African Philosophy Handbook series across publishers. This comes as the
work of Horsthemke appears in the Palgrave collection, while this chapter is
published in the Sage collection.
Horsthemke (2017: 683) gives the reader a useful inquiry, in his opening remarks,
when he writes, “[at] the heart of these considerations resides the question whether
there is a (set of) perspective(s), a body of thought, and/or a particular way of ‘doing’
philosophy of education that can be called ‘African’.” This is called a useful line of
inquiry owing to the work that it inspires in terms of what is developed in this
chapter, with each of the questions that he gives us being a useful point of inquiry for
each section of the chapter, as it will develop. He proceeds to develop three questions
that are poignant when he inquires (Horsthemke, 2017: 682) “Are there uniquely and
Imfundo, Ubulumko, Nomthetho: A South African Philosophy of Education 595
distinctly African ways of philosophizing about education? Are there essentially or

characteristically African ideas, arguments about and approaches to education?
Are the component concepts, principles, and values of this philosophy sound?”
Methodically, the last question is the one with which the analysis will begin with,
by way of proving how it is that African concepts, principles, and values of
philosophy are sound. This will act as a response to Horsthemke himself. The
second section will take up the second question which considers an essentially or
characteristically African idea about, arguments about, and approaches to educa-
tion. The third section treats the first question about unique and distinct African
ways of philosophizing about education. To treat the questions in the reverse seeks
to demonstrate the point of a South African philosophy of education with more
veracity.
What follows is a close reading of Horsthemke (2017), demonstrating how his
project can get the reader closer to an understanding of a philosophy of education –
as it pertains to the continent and its variegated contexts, with South Africa as the
chosen example. Importantly, the chapter does not draw from an ubuntu conception
to frame education, as stated in Horsthemke’s own work as he reads and works
alongside Waghid (2014), with such a move calling for critical responses, as both
authors come to the philosophy of ubuntu without a clear linguistic conception of
what is intended in the philosophy as it originates from its progenitor groups
(cf. Kumalo, 2021b “Inkatha neButho: Linguistically Situating Ubuntu and its
Theorisation”). Moreover, the reading of Horsthemke (2017), presented in this
chapter, seeks to demonstrate the shortcomings of how Africans have been theo-
rized, historically. Resultantly, the chapter draws from Miller (1990) as a method of
demonstrating the point – as Miller does – of the importance of understanding a
group, even appealing to Anthropology, where one attempts to think with a tradition
that they are alien to. In such a critical reading, the chapter next holds Horsthemke to
the same standards that Africans, Asians, and Indigenous communities are held to
when working in western traditions. If such an exercise is foreign, this is itself
instructive of how the category of Africa has been treated in the project of knowl-
edge making, as a global enterprise. The critical reading of Horsthemke seeks to
substantiate the point of taking seriously African thought – and its histories, insofar
as Kumalo (2022) has already made the point of deferentially treating the categories
of Blackness/Indigeneity.
Critically Reading Kai Horsthemke
This line of inquiry, as it is inspired by Horsthemke, is premised on two things. First,

in looking to think with and through William Wellington Gqoba and Archibald
Campbell Jordan’s contributions, such a project is concerned with clarifying and
answering the questions that were found in Horsthemke’s (2017) questions. Second,
in the critical reading here, the analysis presented aims to demonstrate that while
Horsthemke starts off well, in his analysis, he betrays the very same principles that
he elects to apply himself to, by way of failing to answer these questions in
596 S. H. Kumalo
systematic format. All the while, he curiously makes uncomfortable claims from a
place that will generously be viewed as ignorance – for the chapter does not wish to
suggest that he speaks from a place of intellectual arrogance that so many
Europeans have always been accustomed to speaking from, in viewing their
systems of thought as both universal and true. It ought to be noted that they come
to make this judgment call on the premise of having established hegemonic modes
of thinking, through the use of colonial violence, genocide, whereas in fact – when
deeply interrogated – the reader will find the European speaks from a place of deep
ethnocentrism than he wishes to acknowledge. And the reason why he will not
acknowledge this position is premised on the reality that in said acknowledgment,
he will also have to acknowledge his part in the continuance of a system of violence
and epistemic injustice.
Horsthemke (2017: 684) starts off well in his acknowledgment that “[given] the
different historical, geographical, cultural, and social contexts and political circum-
stances of Africans and education on the African continent, it is reasonable to assume
that philosophical priorities differ in accordance with these.” In endnote 1, he makes a
useful qualifying statement (quoting from Siegel (2014) about the status of philosophy
of education in relation to philosophy as discipline or what he calls “pure” or “proper”
philosophy (Horsthemke, 2017: 684), when he further writes: (Horsthemke, 2017: 685
& 697) “Indeed, it would appear that philosophy of education has largely been
abandoned by ‘general’ philosophers, especially in the last decades of the twentieth
century. Philosophy students generally have no idea of philosophy of education, unlike
other forms or areas within philosophical inquiry.”
Such a qualifying statement follows on from the assertion that (Horsthemke,
2017: 684) “[part] of the explanation regarding the lack of consensus about the
nature of philosophy of education must surely be that the borders between philos-
ophy and other disciplines [. . .] have become increasingly porous,” a claim that is
substantiated in his argument, which is demonstrative of his reasoned thinking – so
far in the chapter. Moreover, it must be noted, as he does note (Horsthemke, 2017:
685) that “developing a theory of education does not necessarily amount to doing
philosophy.” The real problem in his analysis arises when he attempts to make a
distinction that he does not qualify sufficiently or back up with sound argumentation
and evidence, specifically in relation to said distinction and its application to the role
and function of philosophy of education vis-à-vis education on the continent. The
qualification reads as follows, and the chapter will implore the reader to allow the
latitude of quoting Horsthemke (2017: 688) at length, in this respect – so as to not be
misread as misconstruing his argument:
A further distinction might be made at this juncture between philosophy as “worldview” and
philosophy as “critical activity”. Ethnic philosophy and, to a large extent, sage philosophy
exemplify the former (the worldview in question being either divinely inspired, or by the
ancestors, or by the tribal elders). [. . .] “ethnophilosophy. . .sees African philosophy as the
collective worldview of specific African ethnic groups”, while “sage philosophy—com-
prises the thoughts of Africans who are not exposed to [w]estern-type education, but are
well-versed in their own cultural backgrounds, and adopt a critical approach to the culture.”
The thinking that is found in the work of Gqoba ([1885]/2015) and Jordan (1979) is
demonstrative of said proclivity toward “critical activity,” which is cited in the
quotation above here, for both writers apply themselves to the effects of colonial
education on the African continent, specifically as missionary education has
impacted the ontology – both existential and body/bodies of thought – of the
Indigene in the context of South Africa. Both Gqoba and Jordan are not only critical
but also highly aware of the changing world that they inhabit, and their awareness
extended to the critical consciousness that their readership was also aware of these
changes to the extent that the role of education played a crucial aspect in thinking
about the successes and failures of the colonial mission on this part of the world. To
claim, therefore, that theirs falls outside the purview of “critical activity” is not only
misguided but speaks volumes of the racialized modes of thinking that seek to
suggest that Africans lack rationality and systematic thought when it comes to
matters concerning their lived realities, to the extent that such work can only be
undertaken by the thinker of colonial euro-western descent. It is for this reason that
Kumalo (2020) interrogates the implicit suggestion that knowledge is knowledge
only insofar as it is developed by white scholars. This is to acknowledge the reality
that Horsthemke (2017) is writing from a tradition, one that is critiqued by Achebe
([1977]/2019: 11) in its racialized histories that frame “Africa as setting and back-
drop which eliminates the African as human factor. Africa as a metaphysical
battlefield devoid of all recognizable humanity, into which the wandering
European enters at his [sic, own] peril.” It is this history that would have us believe
that “critical activity” is reserved for Europe and European descendants wherein the
African is incapable of reason and coherent, cogent thought. For the reader who
reads such a claim as subjecting Horsthemke to an unfair critique, such an individual
is invited to engage with the work of Hegel, Hugh-Trevor Roper, and Placide
Tempels whom have all been critiqued for their engagement with and treatment of
African thought.
In endnote 15, which appears at the conclusion of the passage quoted and
examined above here, Horsthemke (2017: 698) notes that “Whether or not sage
philosophy could be placed in the rubric of ‘critical activity’ is somewhat contro-
versial.” To this end, the reader is not informed as to why such a placement would be
controversial; merely, they are told of the orientations of Oruka’s (1998) concerns
with respect to the distinction between ethnophilosophy and sage philosophy, which
give the reader no idea as to the controversy alluded to in the previous claim.
Moreover, Horsthemke takes it for granted that the philosophical traditions that
have the capacity of producing knowledge that is to be regarded as true and valid,
and not as relativistic or ethnocentric, are the traditions that emanate from Europe or
the west. In choosing to formulate his argument in this way, he loses sight of his own,
earlier claim in building up to this proposition wherein he suggests that
(Horsthemke, 2017: 687) “significantly more than philosophy elsewhere, African
philosophy has been marked indelibly by the colonial experience.” Inclined to be
convinced by his project, this chapter is also informed by Kumalo’s (2022: 5)
objection wherein he is critical of the treatment of Blackness/Indigeneity on the
reasoning that considerations of Blackness/Indigeneity are only worthy of
598 S. H. Kumalo
intellectual treatment after the arrival of colonialists on the continent. The thinking in
this respect is aligned with the work of Christopher Miller (1990) in his Theories of
Africans: Francophone Literature and Anthropology in Africa – in his demonstra-
tion of the point that Africans are themselves possessive of what Kumalo calls
ontological legitimacy, prior to this moment. Moreover, this criticism affirms the
critique found in Miller (1990: 50), in his objections to the notion propounded
through “Hugh Trevor-Roper’s characterization of African history as the
‘unrewarding gyrations of barbarous tribes in picturesque but irrelevant corners of
the globe.’”
While it seems that he is aware of the challenges that afflict Africa, with respect to
colonialism, it would also seem as though this awareness is selective insofar as it is
serving a particular purpose of allowing him to reach certain conclusions in his
argument, which denotes a jettisoning of the very same spirit of logic and truth to
which he seems to be wedded when addressing African philosophers, whom he
claims eschew this principle when advocating for communitarian thinking. To be
sure, this chapter is in no way making a defensible or justificatory argument for
communitarian thinking and philosophy, as the author is not exhaustively familiar
with this tradition in order to mount such a defense. Rather, the objective lies in
unearthing the dubious double standards that seem to be at play in the formulation of
the argument that the reader will find in Horsthemke (2017).
In this formulation, there is yet another conceptual move that aims at
delegitimating the role of education as it is developed in Africa, by way of equating
a philosophy of education with nationalist-ideological philosophy. To frame this
move as delegitimating rests on the disqualification of said philosophy from the
project of “critical activity” – a concept which is not sufficiently explained or
detailed in Horsthemke’s chapter. The reader will find this disqualification in the
figure that distinguishes between philosophy as particular/relative and philosophy as
universal (Horsthemke, 2017: 689) wherein nationalist-ideological (political) phi-
losophy is classed under the category of particular/relative activity, which is defined
as (687) “marked—if not determined—by the colonial experience. The writings and
documented speeches of politicians, statesmen, and prominent liberation movement
personalities [. . .] constitute political philosophy that often also has a nationalist-
ideological character.”
The reader might inquire as to why this mode of thinking and writing seems
problematic for the analysis developed here, and there is a simple response to this
question, which has a three-pronged reply. First, Horsthemke writes as if he is aware
of the conditions of the African continent with respect to the challenges that are a
historical fact, but are not necessarily predicated on what can be conceptualized as a
historical fact that was precipitated by an existential necessity – that being the fact of
colonial imposition and incursion. Second, while styling himself as conscious of
these realities, his work then takes on a form of mystification, wherein he reads the
function of an African philosophy of education through Waghid (2014), who himself
is not sufficiently familiar with the ethics of ubuntu, which ultimately creates a mode
of ventriloquism that casts aspersions on the rationality, thinking, and the ontology
of the Indigene/Black subject. Simply, there is a discomfort with the way his chapter
reads African philosophy and a philosophy of education that can be derived from
this, owing to how he is removed not only from context, but even in trying to read the
context through the writings of the locals, there continues to be a misreading that
perpetuates falsities and misconceptions. The suggestion, here, lies in a project of
tracing how Waghid (2014) understands ubuntu, with much of the philosophy that
has been developed in this area of scholarship divorcing the constitutive element of
corrective/curative violence that allows for the governance of the polity. Colin
Chasi’s Ubuntu for Warriors (2021: 181) aptly demonstrates this point, insofar as:
. . .to the extent that South Africans have been lulled by discourses of ubuntu that deny the
role of war or violence in peace making, the country and its societies and individuals have
lost a wide span of interventions and engagements that arise between the paradise of
harmony and the hell of nihilistic violence.
The third aspect, which explains the interest in such a reading seeks to demonstrate
how such readings create strawman arguments that are intended to style African
modes of thought as vacuous, in order to position euro-western traditions as the
savior of/to such traditions. There is a sense in which there are incredible mis-
representations of how Africans think, which act to legitimate colonial violence that
continues as coloniality in the contemporary age. It is no wonder then that Makeba
(1969) contends that “they have to do that because, they have to justify their
invasion.” Worst still is the proposition that seeks to muzzle Africans from writing
about their own realities, to the extent that many senior intellectuals will caution
students of philosophy from applying themselves, systematically to the conditions of
the country, on the premise that this creates a parochialism of their work that will
gate said students out of the international academy. Troubling, however, is the reality
that non-Indigenous and non-South Africans will create careers from writing about
the locals. Thus, one must inquire into the logics that underpin such modes of erasure
and epistemic violence.
In response to the objection that the reading found in this chapter, above here,
fails to appreciate the context under which Horsthemke is writing, the response is as
follows. As indicated, his work gives useful guiding questions with which to contend
as one develops an African philosophy of education. In the same thought, one holds
his writing to the scrutiny the reader holds anyone’s writing in any of the western
traditions (insofar as these traditions have clearly outlined methodologies that are
instructive on how the students of said traditions read, engage with, and write about
Euro-American thought).
This chapter, then, rests on the thinking that the reader will find in the writing of
Ali A. Mazrui (1978: 23) when he suggests that “it is worth accepting this distinction
between values, techniques and institutions when we are exploring what Africa has
borrowed from the [west]. The modern school itself is an institution so borrowed.”
This is to say that the analysis presented here does not seek to style or develop an
exceptionalism argument that proposes a return to the past, or a precolonial figuring
of the world that is not only illusive but also unobtainable, as the author will gladly
concede to the reality that there are institutions inherited from the colonial encounter
600 S. H. Kumalo
that continue to have bearing on the contemporary world. Additionally, the analysis
does not seek to suggest that these inheritances are to be razed to the ground, as such
an argument would be nonsensical. Instead, it is to appreciate that what the present
moment calls for is a mode of theorizing and thinking that creates conditions of
possibility that transcend colonial violence – allowing Africans the ability to write
and speak about their realities without the impositions that muzzle and silence them,
rendering the intellectuals of the continent as an audience, spellbound by the
mysticisms of euro-western inventions.
Moreover, and in keeping with this concession that is found in the thinking of
Mazrui, the analysis presented here also concurs with the writing of Sabelo Ndlovu-
Gatsheni (2018: 2), wherein he argues that “Africans were always present (‘presence
Africaine’). Africans were never absent. Africa was never a tabula rasa (Dark
Continent). Africans always had their own valid, legitimate and useful knowledge
and education systems.” Subsequently, “Epistemic justice is about liberation of
reason itself from coloniality” (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2018: 3) – reason as bound to
coloniality is what the reader finds in the curious conceptual moves encountered in
Horsthemke’s writing. However, this chapter is not a reply to Horsthemke, as that
would require and constitute a wholly different project on its own. The use of his
work, in introducing the thinking found here, seeks to clarify that there is a great deal
of correction that is still required vis-à-vis the African subject with respect to the
articulation and formulation of their Subjectivity, to tell their own stories and
narrative, as legitimate and warranting sufficient attention that is not subjected to
the ventriloquist moves seen in the misreading(s) of European thinking about Africa.
To this end, the chapter proceeds to demonstrate how Africa was, indeed, present and
not absent – how Africans have always had their own valid modes of knowing and
education systems, a move that will be demonstrated using the South African context
as a case of analysis. This is not to be read in a style that seeks to purport radical
newness, rather it is to suggest and offer up, to the discourses of philosophy of
education, how the experiences of a people of the Southernmost tip of the African
continent can inform both the aims and function of education, in the twenty-first
century.
A Contested Social Institution: From Rhetoric to Philosophy,

as Training
Focusing on the South African context will necessitate the use of material that is
available in some of the languages of the region, and most importantly languages
that the author is competent in. From this material, the chapter proceeds to extrap-
olate how a philosophy of education that is rooted in the thinking of the scholarship
of the chosen interlocutors can be used to think about a model of education that
values the ontology of Blackness/Indigeneity. Such a move does not seek to suggest
that these thinkers are speaking on behalf of all the constitutive identities that make
up the South African nation, rather it aims to demonstrate the historical realities of
the arrival of the press and the impact that this had on the lives of those who are
situated on the southernmost tip of the African continent. To be sure, the Lovedale
Press was first established in 1823 – 3 years after the arrival of the British colonial
settlers, whose arrival was memorialized – to this day – through the 1820 Settler’s
Monument in Makhanda (formerly known as Grahamstown), Eastern Cape
South Africa. This first iteration of the Press was set-up at the Missionary Station in
Tyhume Valley, 5 km east of the University of Fort Hare, which was to become another
one of South Africa and Africa’s proud and long-standing institutions serving the
educational desires of the Indigenous populations of the country and the continent,
producing leaders like Kenneth Kaunda, Nelson Mandela, Gatsha Buthelezi, and
many more. In its initial phase, the Press was under the directorship of Rev. John
Ross of the Glasgow Missionary Society and was unfortunately destroyed during the
Frontier War of 1834–1835 being reestablished in 1839. This second initiative was
also destroyed in 1846–1847 during the war of the Axe. An inference can be made viz
the destruction of the Press in moments of the anticolonial clashes between the
Indigenous communities and the colonial settlers, which is to say that in view of the
threat that the written word was seen to pose to the preexisting life of the Indigene,
prior to the establishment of a culture of letters, its destruction served the purpose of
attempting to preserve this mode of life. Irrespective of these setbacks that saw the
destruction of the Press previously, the final iteration came into being from 1861 and it
was this Press that was to survive into the twentieth century, giving us the works of
literati like Tiyo Soga’s Uhambo lo Mhambi (1867), SEK Mqhayi’s Ityala Lamawele
(1914), and RRR Dhlomo’s An African Tragedy (1928) – which was the first novella
written in English by a Black/Indigenous writer; after this title, the Press gave its
readership the work of A.C. Jordan’s Ingqumbo Yeminyanya (1939) – the subject of
analysis even in this chapter, in its English translation as The Wrath of the Ancestors –
which in the 1990s was adapted as a television series for the South African public. The
mentioned titles are but a small, widely known, selection of texts that the Press
produced in the late nineteenth – moving into the twentieth century.
Additionally, it might be useful to remind the reader that the chapter here deals
with the second question as posed by Horsthemke (2017: 682) when he thinks
through the existence of “essentially or characteristically African ideas, arguments
about and approaches to education?” In a later move, still in this section, the analysis
will tie this analysis back to the third question that he poses viz the soundness of the
concepts that are treated as characteristically African. Moreover, such a move is
intended to develop an African philosophy of education, using the questions that he
poses, which he undermines through the development of his argument.
The reader, who is inclined to read the ontology of Blackness/Indigeneity in ways
that perpetuate what Sithole (2020) conceptualizes as the “anti-black world that must
be destroyed,” will suggest that the opening remarks fall into the category of
nationalist-ideological (political) philosophy, as described in the categorization in
Horsthemke’s (2017) argument. Further still, it does not aid the defense of the
chapter that the material drawn on to support the argument is knowledge that
Horsthemke (2017: 687–688) disregards in his implicit castigation, when he writes
that “the hermeneutic trend and artistic or literary trend” are “subsumed by [. . . and
constitutive of] elements. . .identified previously [with] ethnic philosophy, sage
602 S. H. Kumalo
philosophy, and political philosophy.” As to the impropriety of these categories of

philosophy, the reader is not taken into the confidence of the writer – Horsthemke –
and it is rather ours to conclude for ourselves why we should jettison these modes of
philosophy/philosophizing. On these tenets alone, the reader who is inclined to agree
with Horsthemke will find this chapter misplaced in such a volume and worthy of
exclusion. However, such a thought is without justification, as has already been spelt
out above. The chapter becomes worthy of exclusion on the precondition that the
works chosen as the foundation of outlining such a philosophy of education are
poetic and literary resources.
To draw from such works is premised on the factuality of the exclusion of
Blackness/Indigeneity from formal spaces of education since the late nineteenth
century, with Opland (2015: 2) demonstrating the point historically when he
recounts:
Initially, under the principalship of William Govan, Lovedale offered its students, both black
and white, a non-discriminatory academic education that included the study of Latin and
Greek, geometry and mathematics – the standard Victorian education of the day. Gradually,
however, the implications of this educational philosophy dawned on the Scottish mission-
aries, and Govan was replaced by James Stewart in 1870. Stewart introduced a differential
system, with white pupils following an academic curriculum and black students pursuing
vocational courses such as agriculture, wagonmaking and bookbinding.
The use of the literary sources as that which guides the opining on a South African
philosophy of education – inasmuch as it is outlined from the perspective of Black/
Indigenous thinkers – is due to the fact that this was the option to which Black/
Indigenous intellectuals could turn once they were turned away from education – or
rather, formal sites of knowledge production in the form of academic disciplines, i.e.,
Latin and Greek, Geometry and Mathematics, under the logics that informed white-
ness. Importantly, this exclusionary logic was formalized under the nationalist
Afrikaner – apartheid – government, through the Extension of Higher Education
Act of 1959, which was preceded by the Bantu Education Act of 1953.
Of equal importance to note are the educational system(s) that existed on the
continent prior to the arrival of coloniality on the shores of the continent, systems
that were different to the mis-portrayal that the reader will encounter in
Horsthemke’s (2017: 690) writing when he writes that “In customary education,
children were equipped ‘with the skills appropriate to their gender, in preparation for
their distinctive roles in society.’” Mazrui (1978: 24) corrects this misrepresentation
by detailing that “The missionary school as a principal medium for helping Africa
towards a secular civilization was thus also the central medium for the propagation
of a new concept of the devout [and gendered] society. The best schools in colonial
Africa were often religious schools.” To describe these institutions as the best merely
aims to highlight how some regard western modes of education as the best mode of
education. Continuing in the spirit that this chapter is written in – however – in
seeking not to pass judgment in favor or against certain modes of education, the
objective, here, is merely to outline a philosophy of education from the historical
accounts of those who developed a counter historical narrative. The aim is not to
make a case of how viewing this mode of education as the best, or the discounting of
other modes of thinking about education, is symptomatic of a form of epistemic
racism that is underpinned by a colonial logic that is synonymous with violence. As
indicated in the introductory remarks to this section, here, the interest is in dealing
with the second question – concerning the inquiry into whether there exist
(Horsthemke, 2017: 682) “characteristically/essentially African ideas, arguments
about and approaches to education?” To be sure, he adds (Mazrui, 1978: 26) “This
is why the early missionaries, who were also the founders of Africa’s early schools,
were somewhat shocked at what they considered a rather loose sexual morality
among the Africans.” In correcting the moral laxity, “The missions regarded the
home environment as the greatest drawback, sufficiently bad in the estimation of the
one missionary to describe the school as an attempt ‘to save the girls of Uganda’”
(Mazrui, 1978: 26). Horsthemke (2017), insofar as he misreads and misunderstands
the context that he is writing about to the extent of misrepresentation, does not
account for the actual nature and form of education as it played itself out on the
African continent, prior to the gendered impositions of the colonial metropole. This
is troubling for a series of reasons, but the one most concerning is the reality of an
intellectual undertaking that continues to perpetuate misrepresentations about the
continent, and yet Horsthemke suggests that he is committed to a form of “critical
activity” – in line with traditions of philosophical inquiry developed and upheld in
the west.
His very own argument and modes of reasoning seem to be refuting this point,
and yet he chooses to see this – “critical activity,” as a form of formal/universal/
professional philosophy – as a component that is lacking only in African philosophy
and by implication the function of an African philosophy of education. The hypoc-
risy is bewildering to say the least, but the conscious subject will inquire as to the
alarm, for it is the nature of Europeans to “write lies about us” in according with the
opening epigraph, for the reader will remember that “they have to do that because
they have to justify their invasion.” But the chapter should not belabor the point;
rather the focus should be a return to the question of the cultivation of “critical
activity.”
This can be found in the oral cultures of the region. Here, the tradition of
storytelling becomes crucial, with Miller (1990: 70) detailing this so, “By speaking
and writing in the European languages, the African intellectual makes herself
incomprehensible to the majority of the people, who become an object in the
intellectual discourse.” As such, it is useful to bear in mind that “The opposition
between orality and literacy in [. . .] Africa is not, however, a clear distinction
between, on the one hand, a purely authentic precolonial mode of expression
preserved intact and, on the other hand, a fully westernised mode undifferentiated
from European culture.” And this observation is made in view of the reality that
(ibid.: 71) “The heat with which orality is debated among African intellectuals is
explained by the ambivalence they feel toward the prestigious but lost autonomy of
precolonial African society.” As such, and in answering the question of whether
there are characteristically African styles of approaching education, let the argument
appeal to the role of orature, oracy, and orality.
604 S. H. Kumalo
In telling and retelling the (t)old stories, critical questions emerge for the hearer,
for the task lies in discerning whether the story is logical, truthful, and subsequently
worthy of being ascribed the quality of validity in informing us about/of morality
and ethics. The iterative process becomes concerned with logic, truth, and validity
once rhetorical mastery has been achieved, which is what informs the hearer of the
embellishments, falsities, and/or truthfulness of the story at hand. The sophistication
of philosophical exercise and the “rules of logic” emerge from the secondary aspect
of considering prose insofar as one is already informed and aware of the rhetoric that
gives us good prose – to the extent that it is recited from one generation to the next,
giving us the (t)old stories, fables, and folklore from which the reader can derive a
taxonomy of ethics that informs our morality. So what are Gyekye (1997) and
Waghid (2014) getting at precisely? It is useful to remind the reader that the text
concerning Gyekye (1997) mentioned here is his Tradition and Modernity: Philo-
sophical Reflections on the African Experience, while the text of Waghid mentioned
is his African Philosophy of Education Reconsidered: On Being Human. The
folklore, fable, aphorism/axiom contains ethical and moral prescripts that are only
discernible to the hearer if the hearer is familiarly trained in the function and course
of discourse – through rhetoric – that Gyekye seems to be advocating for in his own
work. This is to say that the audience only get invested in the secondary questions of
logic, truth, and validity once they have established a foundational set of principles
from which to work, principles that are establish(ed)-able owing to a mastery of the
primary conceptual move, i.e., rhetoric. It is only possible to appreciate this fact,
once one understands that the system under consideration is situated in the tradition
of orature.
Consider Gqoba’s ([1885]/2015: 96, 97) composition, in the form of Bed’ –
Idlaba’s objection to how the land was governed, as a mode of demonstrating this
point:
Wa ziledi namanene
Kanicinge kenodele:
Ngelikete kut’wa apa,
Ngaba bebeteta apa,
Liyenziwa kuti aba
Baluhlanga olumnyama, –
Imibuzw’ endoyibuza,
Iyakuba yemubalwa.
[And so, dear ladies and gentlemen,/ reflect and consider closely/ the discrimi-
nation mentioned/ by those who have spoken here,/ that’s applied to us alone,/ the
nations of black people – / there are just a few questions that I would/ put to you.]
Gqoba’s ([1885]/2015: 96, 97) composition is instructive – even prior to getting
into the details of the fact of education, as institution. The function of education
displays the contests that are inherently definitive of its nature, contextually, which is
to say that prior to getting into an analysis that seeks to make judgment calls about
how precolonial education differed to the form of the colonizer’s, there is rhetorical
function at play that inaugurates systematic considerations about education. Simply,

rhetoric inspires inquiry that facilitates reflexivity with respect to the function of
education. To make such a claim is premised on the form that Gqoba deploys in his
poetic composition, which is to say that he curates a debate between a series of
speakers, who are to consider the function of education and its impacts on the
Subjectivity of the Indigene in our context, with education here denoting the forms
of education that were imported from the colonial metropoles. As a secondary, and
derivative, consideration, it is useful to note that while the author is inclined to think
that both Mazrui (1978) and Gqoba (1888) are rhetorically setting up debates, owing
to how each of them critiques the impact that colonial education had on the
continent, their treatment of this style of education in their writing and in their
thinking is curious in how it attempts to placate the colonial master and their tools.
An objection can be put against such a mode of reasoning, suggesting that the
temporal specificities under which they were writing necessitated that they take on
a reserved sense of criticism toward the settler. While this might be true, the author is
inspired by another contemporary of theirs, and that is SEK Mqhayi, whose writing
is unreserved when he considers the impacts of colonial settler identity in
South Africa.
The reader encounters a sense of guarded criticism, as both scholars are men of
education, specifically – colonial education. Their thinking is informed by the
prevailing cultures under which they both have been socialized to the extent that
one can draw from Richard Rorty (1999) when he writes about “Education as
Socialisation and as Individuation” wherein his analysis gives a better understanding
of what is seen in Mazrui and Gqoba. What is highlighted, is a form of socialization
that does not have the two scholars speaking critically about education – as imported
from the west. This is different to the tone that has defined contemporary debates of
education in Africa and South Africa since 2015. Insofar as they are critical, there is
a sense in which their training, in the western style, has them somewhat apologetic
for the problems that it has inaugurated. What is useful to note, however, is that with
the changing centuries these apologetics are critiqued and questioned, seen in the
changing tone from Gqoba in the nineteenth century to Mazrui in the twentieth
century.
Introducing and curating this debate – mentioned above – Gqoba ([1885]/2015:
84) suggests: “Kulamanene sizakukangela ingxoxo yawo, amadodana amatandatu
ab’ ete kwase sikuleni, akanela kuti atomalalise ezifundweni zawo zodwa,
aqeqesheka atamba, ati tsaka kwapela; akolisa ngento yonke kubafundisi bawo,
kubazali, kwizihlobo, nakwintshaba zemfundo, nezemibedesho; sapumelela
ngokutandekayo isiqamo sokufundiswa kwawo.” The translation of this quote
reads as follows:
Of the gentlemen whose debate we shall witness, six of the young men were not only
successful in their studies at school, they were disciplined and tractable, and fully qualified;
they gave satisfaction in every respect to their teachers, their parents and their friends, as well
as to the enemies of education and prayer; the fruit of their studies evoked a loving response.
606 S. H. Kumalo
Contrasting the views of those who revered the colonial position of education were
another set of young men, who had also been socialized through the mode of
education that came with the colonial settler to the continent. Theirs, however, was
a different approach to education, in its criticality and abjuring attitude toward it,
which is captured by Gqoba ([1885]/2015: 84, 85) in the following sentiments:
Entlanganisweni apo kwakuko esinye isitandatu samadodana. Nawo ebe kwase mfundweni
kuseloko wona ebete esawo isimilo, sapambanisa kanye kunesalawa matandatu okuqala.
Ngab’ehlala lemihla, kuko ntwana ngantambo zihlala ziteteka ngawo, nokuba kukukótama,
kukulibala akutunywa, kukukóhlisa, kukuhlala enesizatu sokuzilandula entweni zonke,
nokuba zezijanina. Kukúpisa ngokungeva, kukwapúla imiteto, kukuma ezihanqeni izwe
nezolo, kuteta izinto ezif’ amanqe. Ukuzincoma, ukugagamela izinto ezingawalingeneyo.
Ukuhlal’ eziranela izinto, nazifundiswayo, nokuba kusekufundeni amashishini, nokuba
kusezi klasini, nokuba kupina. Ahlala ezinto ezikangela ngeliso eligoso, enjalo nje
enobunxámo ezintweni, etanda ukuti lemihla afundiswe into entsha nokuba ezokuqala
akakaziqondi na.
At this meeting, there were another six young men. They had also attended school, but
they behaved quite differently, causing more trouble than the first six. They might have
stayed in school for an equal length of time, but there was a string of conversation, whether
for truancy, failing to deliver a message, cheating, or always finding excuses to avoid doing
things, whatever they might be. They refused to listen, broke the rules, stood before the
judge day after day, and talked a lot of nonsense. They praised themselves and exaggerated
their worth. They were cynical about everything, even what they were taught, in craft
lessons, in the classroom, wherever. They viewed everything askance and were always in
a hurry to learn something new every day without grasping even the basic lessons.
The reader who is inattentive to the forms of writing that constitute such a compo-
sitional strategy will be quick to argue that Gqoba derides the approach that this
second set of young men has to the debate on education, and the value that they
attribute to the institution of education. Yet the attentive reader will note the interplay
of the two worldviews that are under consideration, and their impact on the Indigene,
is what the reader witnesses Gqoba attempting to relay to his audience. For
Horsthemke (2017) to read Waghid (2014) and Gyekye (1997) in the ways that he
does – as cited above – is demonstrative of such a misunderstanding, one that fails to
appreciate the function of the mastery of rhetoric as an initial entry point into the
secondary and more useful stance of philosophical criticality and inquiry. Moreover,
the contribution that comes from Bed’ – Idlaba, which is cited above, comes from
one whom had received training from the colonial missionary education system but,
owing to his awareness of the world that existed prior to this system, seems to take a
critical stance toward colonial education – critical in the sense of evaluative assess-
ment, without prejudicial bias. Gqoba ([1885]/2015: 86, 87) makes this disclaimer
about him: “Lomnumzana ungu Bédidlaba, waye eyindoda endala, efundileyo
kunene; eb’ite kwase bukwenkweni yawafumana kunene amalungelo emfundo,
iwenzelwa ngabantu bolunye uhlanga. . .” “This gentleman Ungrateful was an
elderly man with a suitable education; from boyhood he had received the benefits
of study at the hands of foreign people; he had been completely liberated from the
bonds of darkness, of starting over and over again. . .” In view of the translation of
the name, seen in the collection by Opland, Kuse, and Maseko (2015), I should stress
that I follow in the recommendation and critique found in Kumalo’s (2021a: 166)
work when he writes:
My objection is predicated on the function of naming, in what can be understood as Black

ontology (but what we can zero in on, as Xhosa ways of naming, in the case of Ityala
Lamawele). . . .names are sacred and central, and their meaning ought not to be translated but
can possibly be interpreted. [. . .] . . . . our names might be derived from our clan name’s
praise poetry (which is a mode of encoding history by way of inflecting historical events with
the names of those whose actions are worthy of being remembered). In this case, the name
“Lucangwana” might have been given to the character as a way of recognising or informing
his moral character within the broader scheme of his lineage and ancestry. To translate the
name as “small door” (35) [as Hull 2020 does] misreads and ontologically obliterates the
context in which said name is given, while side-stepping the complexity that is engineered
by Mqhayi in his composition and writing of the dramatic novel.
This form of criticality found in the thinking of Bed’-Idlaba is further articulated in

his concluding remarks, prior to commencing with the adjudication of the said
debate, when he says: (Gqoba [1885]/2015: 88, 89) “Mna okwam nindibona nje
sendincamile, ingaba nini kambe madodana, nani mtinjana wakowetu eningaba
nisakolwa koko ningekabaqondi aba bantu kuba nisengabantwana.” “I’ve lost all
hope. I don’t know: you might still be satisfied because you’re young and don’t
know these people.” The people to whom he refers are the colonial missionaries,
whose mode of organizing the world – in Bed’-Idlaba’s view – is not only discrim-
inatory, but also highly prejudicial and the root cause of much of the contemporary
problems that the reader will encounter today, owing to these curatorial decisions
that were premised on violence and discrimination. As such, the reader is invited to
consider the distinction that takes place when the Principalship of Lovedale College
shifts from William Govan to James Stewart as detailed above.
For, the fact that Bed’-Idlaba is named “Bed’-Idlaba” by Gqoba ([1885]/2015) –
a name that is translated by the editors of the collection (Opland, Kuse, & Maseko,
2015) as Ungrateful – is itself instructive of the function of the rhetorical strategy at
play. Such a name portrays the character as constituted by the quality of ingratitude
owing to the criticality that he takes toward colonial missionary education. But the
contribution that he brings to the conversation/debate is one that chides those who
are critical of western missionary education. It would seem that the reader is pressed
to think about a coeval(ness) that ought to be established between historical and a
contemporary mode of education, something akin to the instruction that the reader
finds in Ntsikana’s exemplar life that according to Hodgson (1986) and Opland
(2015: 4) “was [. . .] able to be a Christian while remaining an African, and this was
his legacy to his disciples.” The instruction, then, is for one to pay due deference to
both systems of life and not privilege one above the other, and this is what one gets
from Bed’-Idlaba’s contribution, a contribution that is predicated on rhetorical
ingenuity to the extent that for the untrained reader, they will be unable to compre-
hend the complexity, parody, and irony that are engineered by Gqoba in the said
composition. For, it must be remembered, as found in Zoë Wicomb’s imploration,
that ([1993]/2019: 65) “we need a radical pedagogy, a level of literacy that will allow
608 S. H. Kumalo
our children to read works of literature that will politicize them into an awareness not
only of power, but also of the equivocal, the ambiguous, and the ironic that is always
embedded in power.” The point here lies in demonstrating the function of rhetoric, in
setting up a condition that leads to criticality and inquiry – as already stated above.
This is to say that in answering the question, of whether there exists a characteris-
tically African mode of education, here, the subtleties, discernible only to the eye
that is trained in the way oracy and orature work, become apparent. The rhetorical
format, if followed through thoroughly, demonstrates the tensions that exist within
the institution of education as each party, Indigene and colonial settler, is attempting
to influence which mode of education ought to prevail in the land. The criticality that
the reader encounters in Bed’-Idlaba’s predisposition is articulated as follows in the
poetic composition penned by Gqoba ([1885]/2015: 100, 101).
Umonile yena kanye,

Ngokusuke amuraule;
Ngemfundwana encinane,
Wonakele ugqibile.
Ezigxeka ezindawo
Zonke ezifundisayo;
Yen’uyis’u Soligoso
Uyakolwa zezo zenzo.
Endaweni yokumyala
Uyambonga emkutaza;
Wancamisa ngakumbi ke
Ukupatsha esangene. [. . .]
[With this superficial education/ his father made a mess of him,/ restraining and
undercooking him,/ shattering him completely,/ slanging all the places/ where
education’s offered;/his father Cockeye for his part/ is comfortable with such
behaviour./ Instead of scolding him/ he offers him praise and encouragement;/ then
he backs him even further/ with his idiotic contribution [. . .]]
The critique continues in these terms, which in itself is meant to hold up the mirror
of education to all who would question both its quality and usefulness – moreover a
questioning that seeks to demonstrate the role of education insofar as the institution is
meant to create, of individuals, virtuous people. There is an interesting interplay,
however, in that such a virtuosity does not distinguish between those who are
committed to the historical mode of life that existed prior to the colonial imposition
of incursion, and those who embraced these modes of imposition. Neither system is
privileged or denigrated. Both are reflected upon, with the question of which aids us in
the process of cultivating human virtue. The reader, resultantly, finds a debate that is
curated on the terms of which system of education is more superior, in that the debates
range between what mode of life is created by the system of education found in each of
the worldviews that characterize what the world was becoming. What Bed’-Idlaba is
suggesting is the requisite need to think of education for the purposes for which it is
intended, which brings up the aims of education. He draws out the principles that the
process of education and educating ought to create of the individual, an upstanding
and righteous being, whose mode of relationality with the world rests on said
righteousness. It is for this reason that he is critical of the ways in which the
missionaries are acting, for in their professed aims and objectives, this is their
intention, which is unmatched by their actions, whereas the educational system that
existed prior to the imposition of British colonial incursion aligned both action and
deed with that which was intended or instructed. Mazrui (1978: 29) captures this
disjuncture between the professed objectives versus the reality of what was happening
as a result of colonial education thusly: “Most schools taught the virtues of obedience
instead of the ethos of initiative; they taught the fear of God instead of love of country;
they taught the evils of acquisition instead of the strategy of reconciling personal
ambition with social obligation.” It is necessary for the colonialist to create such a
condition, however, as a mode of enslaving the African subject with the kinds of
education that they are subjecting them to. This mode of education is aligned with the
aims of colonial incursion insofar as it creates a docile timidity that is unquestioning
and uncritical, to the extent that said timidity continues – as exhibited by Africans – to
have western scholars writing “lies about us, [. . .] because they have to justify their
invasion.”
In this respect, the institution under consideration can be both praised and critiqued
within the same breath, which demonstrates something that was found in the writing
and analysis developed by Mazisi Kunene (1992: 28) when he writes about the ways
in which the individual is trained in this style of rhetoric by way of being both praised
and critiqued using the concept of “ukubonga.” The ambiguity of the concept “[uku]
bonga” aids in the process of relaying the thinking that ought to be discerned by the
child in their formal skills acquisition that sharpens their faculties and how they come
to understand the world. Such a way of seeing the world rests on the function of
discourse within the traditions that abound on the African continent, which were
largely orally based, prior to the introduction of the written form. Kunene (1992: 28)
continues to stress the point thusly, “This type of educational training is regarded as
successful only if the child ‘genius’ thoroughly learns the virtues of humility. As the
Zulu saying goes: a person must learn from children and madmen.” For the reader
must note, as Kunene (1992: 27) does, that “. . .language was not language but
‘Words’ – their meaning, their correlation to reality, and their prophetic and magical
substance. Reality itself could not be ‘real’ until it had been named.” The function of
language encountered in the thinking of Kunene demonstrates the importance rhetoric
and the oral tradition in the South African context, which was itself a mode of training
the individual insofar as they aspired to become an upstanding member of society.
Moreover, this function of language underscores how Gqoba uses it with a similar
understanding, that is to say that the theoretical articulations of Kunene are exempli-
fied in the use of language encountered in the work of Gqoba.
Consider Gqoba ([1885]/2015: 100, 101–102, 103) when he speaks as the
character of Bed’-Idlaba still:
Makavele az’ agxeke,

Ot’ umntwana emusile
Emfundweni iminyaka,
Wanyinatwa, wagqityelwa,
610 S. H. Kumalo
Wafunyanwa nangu MOYA

Wezo nceba zo SOMANDLA
‘Ze wapuma ezizonda
Nabazali sebelila
[You’re free to raise objections/ if you’ve sent your son to school/ for a substantial
period of time,/ to be patched and properly trained/ permeated by the SPIRIT/ of the
ALMIGHTY,/ and he then emerges dissatisfied,/ with his parents all in tears.]
Central, to Bed’-Idlaba’s opining is a mode of thinking about education that takes
seriously the virtues it is meant to inculcate in those who are its subjects.
To return to Horsthemke (2017: 683), I will treat both the third and second
questions first with respect to the analysis that has been presented to this point,
when he asks “Are the component concepts, principles, and values of this philoso-
phy sound?” The work of Gqoba ([1885]/2015) demonstrates two things with
respect to this question. In the first instance, if the reader and the philosopher pursue
truth, the reality shows up that the aspects ascribed to western/universal philosophy
by Horsthemke, i.e., “critical activity,” are ascribed and appropriated on a curious
foundation, while that which is left out of this schema as particular and relative is
categorized as such without sufficient cause and justification. Gqoba, if one takes
seriously his project as one that can give us the foundation of outlining an African
conception of a philosophy of education that is locally situated, simply presses us to
ask why it is that Horsthemke chooses to exclude African philosophy from the realm
of critical activity, while demonstrating that he comes to make this comment without
having sufficiently canvassed the developments that define African philosophy. In
simple terms, there are conflations that happen with respect to how Horsthemke
reads Gyekye (1997) and Waghid (2014) to the extent that his misreadings lead him
to curious conclusions that have neither sound foundation nor logic. In the intro-
ductory section of this chapter, the disclaimer was given that these modes of writing
would rather be seen as a form of ignorance as opposed to an exhibition of euro-
western arrogance on his part. While the analysis might do good to stick with this
form of reading Horsthemke, it is also pressed to stress the point of epistemic hubris
as found in the western tradition(s), insofar as they aim to read and determine all
modes of thinking to the point of not being able to admit to the reality of being
ignorant of certain realities.
The secondary point on which Gqoba is informative, and which helps in answer-
ing the question that Horsthemke poses, demonstrates that if one follows the
philosophy and its modes of inquiry on the basis of the philosophical underpinnings
that determine it, and not a system whose logic is borrowed from elsewhere, such a
treatment will reveal a system whose component concepts, principles, and values are
both sound, while challenging the imposed thinking that is inherited from colonial
thought. That is to say that if the reader follows the first conceptual move, which lies
in an appreciation of the function of rhetoric, in the process of training – which itself
already gives the reader an answer to the second question, concerning characteris-
tically African modes of reasoning – then they will also understand how one moves
from this initial conceptual framing into the second and more important
philosophical mode of inquiry – giving the reader the philosophical. In moving from
the first to the second conceptual stances, understanding these moves, as they are
developed internally, means that there is no imposition of one mode of knowing from
one part of the world into another, and while Horsthemke seems to be aware of this
when he suggests that there will be differences in Africa, owing to the situational
context, when conducting the evaluation it seems as though he is unable to transcend
his own ethnocentric trappings. In this respect, one must appreciate that the contri-
bution of this chapter begins to apply itself to the question of aims in education –
specifically when thinking about aims in the context of a philosophy of education
that is articulated from the southernmost tip of the African continent.
In keeping with this line of reasoning, the chapter now turns to the second
question found in Horsthemke’s (2017: 683) work, and which must be treated as a
secondary question with respect to the work done in this chapter. That is the question
concerning the reality of whether there are “essentially or characteristically African
ideas, arguments about, and approaches to education.” In answering this question,
the author will choose to turn to the work of AC Jordan when he writes The Wrath of
the Ancestors. It must be said that the author will engage the text as it is translated
into the English language and not in the original which is Ingqumbo Yeminyanya,
which is to say that in this context, the author will not be making use of isiXhosa
which is the original language in which the text was written.
Khangela Ubulumko: Duty as Ethics, Wisdom, and Responsibility
To answer the question of whether there are characteristically unique ways of

thinking about education on the African continent, and to be exact, in the
South African context, it might be useful to begin the exploration of this question
using Mazrui. He observes a critical aspect that has defined the characterization of
education on the continent when he avers (Mazrui, 1978: 35) “Modern education in
Africa has been charged, again and again, with being irrelevant to African conditions
and incapable of preparing the young for ‘what they are to practice when they come
to become men [sic].’” In the opening lines of the chapter that lead Mazrui (1978:
24) to this conclusion, he contends that “a profound incongruence lay at the heart of
the imported education system in Africa. The wrong western values were being
provided as an infrastructure for the set of western skills introduced. . .” It is under
these observations that the notion of ubulumko comes into play in this analysis,
which is a concept that can loosely be translated as wisdom.
For the reality that there exists the disclaimer of an imported conception of
education, this should tell us that there were modes of education that existed prior
to the arrival of the colonial settler. As the arguments have already been recited about
the problematic nature in which colonialism and contemporary coloniality style
themselves as the only and correct ways of being in the world – seen even in the
argument that is developed by Horsthemke – the analysis will not continue to recite
this here. It is important to think about, however, the question of ubulumko as a
mode of answering the second question found in the analysis that is developed by the
612 S. H. Kumalo
good colleague Hosrthemke (2017). Primarily, the concept denotes wisdom, to the
extent that ubulumko can be a quality that is possessed by those who have attended
either the western form of education or those who are knowledgeable and skilled in
their own epistemologies and ways of being in the world. To this end, let it be
recalled (Kumalo, 2022) that in defining the concept of amaqaba (which denotes the
plural of iqaba) the author writes:
The concept of iqaba (which is singular for amaqaba) has two meanings. In its original sense,
it means those who smear red ochre on their faces (ukuqaba imbola). This group of Black
people clung to their systems of political organization, legal frameworks and a moral code
that differed from the colonial settler. Mqhayi’s ([1917]/2015: 131) discussion of the lawsuit
between a ‘white man and a slave’ demonstrates this point when he writes: “[pambi kokuba
litethwe ityala u Mhlekazi uMaqoma uvakalise indawo ethi: ‘Ke apá ema-Xoseni, asinto
ikóyo ikóboka, ke ngoko wosel’ esiti elityala alionge njenge tyala lamadoda amabini
amangaleleneyo.’” [“Before the case proceeded, His Majesty Maqoma made this point:
‘Here in Xhosaland there is no such thing as a slave, so we would regard the case as one
between two men who had made a bargain’”]. In its secondary meaning, which was as a
result of this sect of society rejecting colonial modes of being and education, the concept
became associated with those who were considered ‘illiterate’, in the colonial modes of
education. Illiteracy as associated with amaqaba is predicated on their rejection of mission-
ary colonial education, which was embraced by amagqobhoka (those who rejected
pre-colonial epistemic frameworks) and became amakholwa. The popular and contemporary
meaning of amaqaba has come to be associated with illiteracy and replaced the first (read
original) meaning.
To suggest that this gives a mode of understanding the world that is uniquely African
rests on the example that is used in the case of SEK Mqhayi detailing that there is no
concept of a slave in African modes of being and understanding the world. More-
over, it should be stressed that under the systems of understanding and organizing
the world, the world of amaqaba was able – without the aid of any other from any
part of the world – to dispense justice, in the course of legal arbitration eNqileni –
constitutive of the peers of both the plaintiff and the accused, to administer medicine
to the sick, to code systems of ethical frameworks of existence, and to train younger
populations in how to uphold a socially viable system of governance and coexis-
tence. This reality that existed prior to colonial imposition gives the reader the inter-
relationality that defines the three categories that title this chapter, i.e., Imfundo,
Ubulumko, and Nomthetho. This is to say that:
Angeke uwazi umthetho ungena mfundo

Angeke ulumke, ungena mfundo
Angeke ufunde, ungalumkanga[You will not know the law without education/ You will not know
wisdom without education/ You will not know education without wisdom].
In this framework, law and wisdom rest on an appreciation of education, while

education rests on the cultivation of wisdom, which is to say that one only comes to
appreciate the function of education, having applied themselves to the benefits that
they derive from it. To be sure, this is not to suggest education as a western
conception that is imported or more aptly imposed – owing to colonial incursion.
Rather this is education insofar as it gave us a legal system, premised on an ethics of

moral virtuosity, a system of education that is uniquely developed in the
South African context. This education system was also that which cultivated systems
of governance for the ruling elites, to the extent that there existed nations with
principles of rulership and an underpinning ethics, seen in the case of the exposition
that the reader will find in Chasi’s (2021) detailing of the function of Inkatha among
the Zulu nation, a concept that is further expounded in Kumalo’s (2021b) exposition,
which is encountered in his review essay of Chasi’s book.
These concepts, owing to the human exchange that defines the colonial encounter,
shift and change, to the extent that in the novel The Wrath of the Ancestors – Jordan
(1979: 18) writes as follows: “Though Zanemvula had no formal education, he had a
subtle mind and was progressive in outlook. [. . .] Dingindawo on the other hand,
was always opposed to anything progressive, and surrounded himself with illiterate,
ignorant men whose outlook was rooted in the past.” Progress as associated with
those who are educated using the framework of the western style is instructive about
the role that western education plays in the perception toward African systems of
education – from the nineteenth century onward. To remark in this way acts as a
rejoinder to the earlier matter raised in the chapter concerning African intellectuals
and how they treated the category of education that existed prior to the one
introduced by the colonial missionaries. While the earlier thinkers, as reports Opland
(2015: 9), were not oppositional to the modes of living that existed in our contexts,
for example, consider Soga’s reply to those who were suspicious of Christianity
“[a reply that was] in harmony with Ntsikana’s philosophy: Soga does not denounce
belief in the ancestors, but demonstrates how the Christian message might be
accommodated, absorbed and assimilated into the Xhosa way of life. The two
systems are not antithetical.” The second generation of intellectuals, however,
seems to take on a derisive attitude, with the distinction being that the first generation
of intellectuals was committed only to spreading the colonial missionary vision and
not wholesale conversion, which for its part is instructive about the collaborations
between native and settler in the creation of the contemporary conditions, against
which one writes. To bring up the point of derision of custom, law, tradition, and
beliefs – a matter that is so, to the extent that Gqoba in his 1885 address to the
Lovedale Literary Society took on a derisive attitude – is premised on the attitudes
that inform the writing of – even – Black/Indigenous intellectuals insofar as some
were wedded to the colonial mission, even as they decried some of the conditions
that were created by this mode of governance. It is this embracive attitude toward the
colonialist and their vision of how the world ought to be not only governed but also
curated that gives rise to the recession of the authority of a uniquely African idea
about, argument about, and approaches to education. The Black/Indigenous intel-
lectual, for their part and complicity in aiding coloniality, is also responsible for the
death of uniquely African conceptions of education, but this must be understood
against the backdrop of the lies that Makeba contends are told about Africans, in
order to justify invasion. To be sure, there is an intricately complex mode of
existence that requires our attention when treating the role of Black/Indigenous
614 S. H. Kumalo
intellectuals in the colonial project, modes of being that I do not have the sufficient
time and space to expound upon here.
The point of bringing up Jordan’s treatment of this category of education, even as
he does so under the guise of a fictional tale in the literary achievement that was
Ingqumbo Yemnyanya – later translated into The Wrath of the Ancestors – is
predicated on the fact of tensions that he demonstrates between the conception of
education that was, and the reality of a changing world that was, embracing a
western style of education. In the figure of the protagonist – Zwelinzima – we see
a tussle between duty, duty being the requirement that he fulfill his role as the
paramount Chief of the Mpondomise people, and his desire to be an educated man –
educated in the western style. This matter vexes him to the point where he implores
the Bishop and head of Fort Hare – in the story – for advice on the matter, to which
the Bishop responds with a sense of council that tugs on the cords of duty: a moral
sense of duty, ubulumko
Remember that when your father made you cross so many noted rivers to find sanctuary at
Sheshegu, he did this in order that your health might be restored and that you might learn and
acquire that wisdom [ubulumko] necessary to a chief who must one day serve his people.
Remember also, that your father’s wishes were fulfilled by those men to whose care he
entrusted you. And now that the time has come for you to play your part, do you think it
would be right for you to deny this duty by saying that you don’t even know this chief
Zanemvula? (Jordan, 1979: 38)
The Bishop continues in a way that tells us something about the nature of the world
that existed prior to the preponderance and hegemonic hold of the colonial world-
view in our part of the world, when he says, (Jordan, 1979: 38) “My son, though I am
a White man, I have lived among Africans for a long time and I have a deep respect
for some of their customs. I know that among your people the wishes of the dead –
especially a parent – are sacred.” Zwelinzima comes to seek out the Bishop’s advice
owing to the tension that exists within him, with respect to his ambition for a western
style of education, to the extent that Jordan (1979: 36) writes, “It gave him a pang to
think he would never attain his ambition like other students, and all because, from
the very day he was conceived in his mother’s womb, his destiny and duty had been
shaped out for him.” In short, there are characteristically African ideas about,
arguments about, and approaches to education, ideas that shift and change owing
to the arrival of an educational system that styles itself as far more conducive to
development than the one that prevailed prior to the arrival of the western form. In
the case of Jordan’s depiction, this distinction is seen in the case of Zanemvula –
Zwelinzima’s Father, who had an inclination toward the western style, while
Dingindawo represents the African modality, with both culminating in the figure
of Zwelinzima, in his ambition to be an educated Black/Indigenous being, an
ambition that competes with his duty to his people. The competing nature of these
modes of education is seen in the calamity that the reader encounters in the novel,
with the root cause of the said calamity being at the heart of Zwelinzima’s ambition
to bring about development for his people, while shunning the old ways of the past.
What Zwelinzima fails to appreciate is the instruction seen in both Tiyo Soga and
Ntsikana’s preaching and advice, a mode of existence that allows for both world-
views to coexist with one another, insofar as they are informative of each, specifi-
cally in the case of the Indigene. Subsequently, and in answering the question found
in Horsthemke’s theorization, the answer is in the affirmative, which is to say that
there are uniquely African (or in this instance, South African) ideas about, arguments
about, and approaches to education, to the extent that the axiomatic phrase devel-
oped above arises, wherein:
Angeke uwazi umthetho ungena mfundo

Angeke ulumke, ungena mfundo
Angeke ufunde, ungalumkanga
Without Conclusion: Philosophizing About Education
As this analysis has been developed from the characteristically South African
perspective, and in that respect without yet fully exhausting the contributions
found in the writing and thinking of Black/Indigenous intellectuals, it would be
unwise to conclusively conclude about a philosophy of education. There are three
things to say as a way of inspiring further considerations and questions in this area of
investigation, however. First, as the reader will recall in the first section of this
chapter, rhetoric plays a crucial element in how the reader comes to think about the
philosophical principles that inform an African conception of education. As spelt
out, and systematically detailed above, the rhetorical aspect is the first entry point
that subsequently leads into a secondary and more sophisticated aspect of philo-
sophical principles and reasoning. However, as both Kunene (1992) and I have
attempted to demonstrate, rhetoric is a crucial aspect that must be upheld as a mode
of training that facilitates a deeper engagement at the philosophical level. One cannot
get to the philosophical without the mastery of rhetoric, in our modes of training.
Second, the axiomatic phrase that the reader finds developed, owing to the
conception that the Indigene has toward education, is indicative of the inter-
relationality between education, wisdom, and the law. Put simply, these three
components create a conception of education that is rooted in a unique and distinct
[South] African way of philosophizing about education in that the moral character
that is cultivated of the individual – giving the said individual a predisposition
toward moral virtuosity – ought to account for how the individual relates to the
self and the other, in line with an understanding of education as instructive of law,
wisdom, and knowledge. Here, education has a foundational element in our context,
which is that of the acquisition of practical skills that facilitate coexisting with
others, but there is a secondary and deeper inclination toward education which is
rooted in a deeply contemplative life, one that is always in pursuit of moral virtuosity
insofar as such virtuosity aligns one with wisdom and the law.
Lastly, there is a need to think critically about what is being said about education
in the African context. While there might be some good intentioned commentators
who are not familiar with African modes of being and understanding the world, who
616 S. H. Kumalo
engage Africans through the written form, which for all intent and purposes is itself
already limited owing to the reality of having to translate concepts from our mother
tongue to the English language, which for many on the continent is not our mother
tongue, there is a caution to stress about who gets to write about Africa and what it is
that they say in so doing. As has already been argued, since the twentieth century,
there is a danger in allowing people who know nothing about us to write about us, for
their writing will always portray us in ways that contort our systems and ways of life,
to fit a pregiven mode of seeing the world. Whether this happens by mistake, or
whether it is intentional and aligned with the aims of always subjecting African
Subjectivity to the gaze of western modes of seeing and knowing, there is a critical
need to think about who writes about African experiences and what it is they say
when writing about us.
While this examination has ostensibly not been a prescriptive framework of a
South African philosophy of education, as positing something akin to this would be a
tad bit too ambitious, even for those who have been working in this area of
scholarship far longer than I have, I have attempted to demonstrate how we think
about education on the southernmost tip of the African continent, a preoccupation
with thinking that distinguishes between the system of education that was imported,
versus a system of education that is inherently born of this place of the world.
Moreover, it is useful to note that in framing this chapter in this way, the objective
lies in demonstrating what philosophy of education – as an area of scholarship – can
glean from the axiomatic phrase that throws itself up, as a result of the analysis
conducted here. Education as it is concerned with the human, and the way in which
the human relates to other human beings in their surrounding environs, becomes a
project of inculcating moral virtue within the subject of the Subject. Resultantly,
education becomes a tool that attends to the problems of society and becomes a tool
by which education practitioners heal society, as opposed to an instrument of
individual acquisition and self-distinction. This is the orientation that a precolonial
conception of education undertook to inculcate in its subject, in our context. An
awareness of the law, as it is informed by wisdom and discernment, rests on the love
of said wisdom and knowledge, through the process of education itself. This, it can
be argued, is a South African philosophy of education, one that does not rest on the
importations of western modernity.
References
Achebe, C. (2019). Hopes and impediments: Selected essays. Penguin Books.
Chasi, C. (2021). Ubuntu for warriors. African World Press.
Dhlomo, R. R. R. (1928). An African tragedy. Lovedale Press.
Gqoba, W. W. (1888). Ingxoxo Enkulu Ngemfundo: Umzekelo: A great debate on education: A
parable. In J. Opland, W. Kuse, & P. Maseko (Eds.), William Wellington Gqoba: Isizwe
Esinembali – Xhosa histories and poetry (1873–1888) (pp. 84–209). UKZN Press.
Gqoba, W. W. (1885). The native tribes, their laws, customs and beliefs. In J. Opland, W. Kuse, &
P. Maseko (Eds.), William Wellington Gqoba: Isizwe Esinembali – Xhosa histories and poetry
(1873–1888) (pp. 210–231). UKZN Press.
Hodgson, J. (1986). Soga and Dukwana: the Christian struggle for liberation in mid 19th century
South Africa. Journal of Religion in Africa, 16(3), 187–208.
Horsthemke, K. (2017). African philosophy and education. In A. Afolayan & T. Falola (Eds.), The
Palgrave handbook of African philosophy (pp. 683–701). Palgrave Macmillan.
Jordan, A. C. (1979). The wrath of the ancestors. Lovedale Press.
Kumalo, S. H. (2020). Curriculating from the black archive – Marginality as novelty. Critical
Studies in Teaching and Learning, 8(1), 111–132. https://doi.org/10.14426/cristal.v8i1.252
Kumalo, S. H. (2021a). Distinguishing between ontology and decolonisation as praxis. Tydskirf vir
Letterkunde, 58(1), 162–168. https://doi.org/10.17159/tl.v58i1.10361
Kumalo, S. H. (2021b). Inkatha neButho: Linguistically situating Ubuntu and its theorisation.
International Journal of African Renaissance Studies – Multi, Inter- and Transdisciplinarity.,
16, 169. https://doi.org/10.1080/18186874.2021.1993076
Kumalo, S. H. (2022). Amaqaba nama Gqobhoka?: Working through Colonial Derision of Black
Ontology. Theoria, 69(173), 1–28.
Kunene, M. (1992). Problem in African literature. Research in African Literature, 23(1), 27–44.
Makeba, M. (1969). YLE Interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wONkMpbl7N8.
Accessed on 21 June 2019.
Mazrui, A. A. (1978). Political values and the educated class in Africa. Heinmann.
Miller, C. L. (1990). Theories of Africans: Francophone literature and anthropology in Africa.
University of Chicago Press.
Mqhayi, S. E. K. (1914). Ityala Lamawele. Lovedale Press.
Mqhayi, S. E. K. ([1917]/2009). U-Maqoma/Maqoma. In J. Opland (Ed.), Abantu Besizwe:
Historical and biographical writings, 1902–1944 (pp. 123–144). Wits University Press.
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. (2018). Epistemic freedom in Africa: Deprovincialization and decolonization.
Routledge.
Opland, J. (2015). Introduction. In J. Opland, W. Kuse, & P. Maseko (Eds.), William Wellington
Gqoba: Isizwe Esinembali – Xhosa histories and poetry (1873–1888) (pp. 1–37). UKZN Press.
Opland, J., Kuse, W., Maseko, P., (eds) (2015). William Wellington Gqoba: Isizwe Esinembali -
Xhosa HIstories and Poetry (1873–1888). Scottsville: UKZN Press.
Oruka, O. (1998). Sage philosophy. In P. H. Coetzee & A. P. J. Roux (Eds.), Philosophy from Africa
(1st ed.). Oxford University Press.
Rorty, R. (1999). Education as Socialization and as Individuation. In his Philosophy and Social
Hope (pp. 114–126). London, UK: Penguin Books
Siegel, H. (2014). Philosophy of education and the tyranny of practice. Paper presented at the
International conference on Bildungsphilosophie: Gegenstandsbereich-diszziplinare Zuordnung –
bildungspolitische Bedeutung [Philosophy of education: Topics, disciplinary identity, and its rele-
vance for educational policy], April 3–5, held at Katholische Universitat Eichstatt-Ingolstadt,
Germany.
Sithole, T. (2020). The black register. Polity Press.
Soga, T. (1867). Uhambo lo Mhambi. Lovedale Press.
Waghid, Y. (2014). African philosophy of education reconsidered: On being human. Routledge.
Wicomb, Z. ([1993]/2018). Culture beyond culture? A South African dilemma. In A. van der Vlies
(Ed.), Race, nation, translation: South African essays, 1990–2013 (pp. 58–65). Wits University
Press.
Part XI
Future Considerations
African Philosophy and the Question
of the Future
Bruce B. Janz
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 622
What Has African Philosophy Said About the Future? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 623
Time and Temporality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 623
African Philosophy’s Contribution to the Future of Africa: Philosophy in Early National
Postindependence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 625
What Are the Concepts in African Philosophy Connected to the Future? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 626
Divination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 626
Destiny . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 628
The Future of the Individual After Death (Immortality, Reincarnation) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 629
The Environment and the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 630
What Are Some Proposals for Moving into the Future, in Philosophy and Beyond? . . . . . . . . . 631
Afropessimism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 632
Africanfuturism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 633
African Renaissance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 634
Ubuntu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635
What Is the Future of African Philosophy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635
What Does the Fact of Futurity Have to Say to How We Might Do Philosophy in Africa?
Becoming-African . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 637
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 640
Abstract
African philosophy has used the concept of the future in a wide range of ways, but
these ways have not been surveyed. This chapter does that by considering five
broad types of questions. The first is to ask about what African philosophy has
said about the future. This will take us into a discussion of African theories of
time, as well as into thinking about the places where African philosophy has
contributed something to the question of Africa’s future, particularly in early
B. B. Janz (*)
University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA
e-mail: Bruce.Janz@ucf.edu

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8_46
622 B. B. Janz
postindependence in various countries. The second question is about the concepts

which necessitate some understanding of the future in African philosophy. These
include divination, destiny, immortality, and the environment. The third question
has to do with philosophy’s part in some proposals for Africa to move into the
future. These include a brief look at Afropessimism, Afrofuturism and
Africanfuturism, African Renaissance, and Ubuntu, inasmuch as they assume or
advocate for a future. The fourth question has to do with proposals that philos-
ophers have made for African philosophy’s own future as a discipline and as an
intellectual component to African life. And finally, the fifth question has to do
with how we might think of futurity as an integral component of philosophy itself,
as part of “becoming-African.” How might the doing of philosophy be seen as
facing the future, and how would that change the way it is engaged?
Keywords
Future · Time · Divination · Destiny · Afrofuturism · Afropessimism · African
Renaissance · Ubuntu
Introduction
There are several challenges to thinking about the question of the future in African
philosophy. For one, it is a concept that has had relatively little explicit and sustained
attention in the field. Much attention has been focused on the past (i.e., recovering a
“real” Africa buried under the edifices of colonialism) and the present (i.e., describ-
ing the nature of Africa now and addressing current challenges), while the future
remains an implication of these, a moral and political outcome of past structures and
present actions. Second, the concept is often embedded in a set of related concepts
that might disguise its presence. And third, the “question of the future” is really
several questions, each of which needs to be approached differently.
The goal of this chapter will be to tease apart these questions and briefly explore
some of the related concepts, in order to give a sense of what has been said about the
future, and then, given the relative paucity of work on the concept currently, sketch
out what might be said. This chapter moves through many concepts and texts in what
follows, and the goal is not to discuss them in any detail, but rather to isolate how the
concept of the future plays a role in that concept or text. The hope is that the
cumulative effect of considering many appearances of the future in African philos-
ophy will enable us to see the differences among them, and also the differences all of
them have with the way the future is used or assumed in other traditions, particularly
those in the West.
The question of the future can be approached in at least five ways (there are
certainly more questions we could ask, but we will use these as the doorways into
the concept). The first is to ask about what African philosophy has said about the
future. This requires a discussion of African theories of time, as well as thinking
about the places where African philosophy has contributed something to the
African Philosophy and the Question of the Future 623
question of Africa’s future, particularly in early postindependence in various

countries. The second question is about the concepts which necessitate some
understanding of the future in African philosophy. These include divination,
destiny, immortality, and the environment. The third question has to do with
philosophy’s part in some proposals for Africa to move into the future. These
include a brief look at Afropessimism, Afrofuturism and Africanfuturism, African
Renaissance, and Ubuntu, inasmuch as they assume or advocate for a future. The
fourth question has to do with proposals that philosophers have made for African
philosophy’s own future as a discipline and as an intellectual component to African
life. And finally, the fifth question has to do with how we might think of futurity as
an integral component of philosophy itself, as part of “becoming-African.” How
might doing philosophy require facing the future, and how would that change how
philosophers engage in it?
There is not a single approach to the future or understanding of it across
philosophers working on African questions, even at the conceptual level. Concepts
are not singular but multiple, and it is fair to say that any concept comes not as one
thing but as linked and contrasted to other concepts. Every concept has an ecology.
Every concept also has its own level of activation. In other words, it might make a
major difference in the larger ecology to which it belongs, or very little difference.
And, as soon as one starts exploring concepts we could keep going endlessly (see,
for instance, the list of concepts in Critical Terms in Futures Studies, Paul, 2019, or a
separate list in Future Theory: A Handbook to Critical Concepts, Waugh & Botha,
2021). An encounter between African philosophy and most of these concepts would
be a rich one. In this chapter, though, the task will be to look at the work that already
exists and the concepts that have already been engaged by African philosophy, in
relation to the future.
What Has African Philosophy Said About the Future?
Time and Temporality
The place to start, in order to understand part of the ecology of the concept “future”
in African philosophy, is with the major theories of time and temporality. Most
influential is that of John Mbiti, as sketched out in African Religions and Philosophy
(Mbiti, 1969). Mbiti presents his theory of time in the third chapter and uses it
throughout the book as a lens to think about African experience and, ultimately,
argue for the importance of Christianity.
His evangelistic program aside, it is worth thinking about how Mbiti lands on his
depiction of African temporality. He is best known for the pair of concepts, the
Kiswahili words Sasa and Zamani, which delineate African time. These two con-
cepts are meant to reflect spans of time, Sasa having a sense of “immediacy,
nearness, and ‘now-ness’” (21), extending into the near future, while Zamani is
“the graveyard of time, the period of termination, the dimension in which everything
624 B. B. Janz
finds its halting point” (23). What is important in this model is that the future is
relatively absent.
This may well be because that is what Mbiti observed, both in talking with people
and in analyzing language (and he takes pains to give examples from a variety of
groups), but it is important to note that this model also reflects the Western image of
time in Africa, at least from the Enlightenment well into the twentieth century. What
distinguished Africans from Westerners, so they believed, was that Africans had
little or no sense of the future, and therefore were not interested in long-term plans
and built culture. It was part of the racist view that equated Africans with children,
which implied that they needed a strong patriarchal presence in order to “grow up.”
Mbiti’s initial work on a theory of time was in his doctoral dissertation, done at
Cambridge University (Moreau, 1986: 40). His audience for that account was, in
other words, the Western academy. This is important because it is easy to see it as a
kind of response to some Western depictions of Africans as having little or no sense
of the future, as living mainly in the present, or as having a cyclical view of time that
does not progress. This kind of account can be seen as far back as Hegel’s account of
Africa in the Philosophy of History that it has “no movement or development to
exhibit” (Hegel, 1956: 99), or in Lucien Lévy-Bruhl’s connection of the “primitive”
sense of the future as being linked to occult powers:
Primitive mentality does not trouble to ascend or descend the series of conditions which are
themselves conditioned. Their mentality, like ours, starts as a rule from the direct data
afforded by the senses, but it immediately abandons what we call objective reality, in
order to try and discover the mystic cause, the occult invisible power manifested by a
change in the sense-impression. Very often, indeed, this occult power is indicated to it in
advance by the preconnections between its representations. The lack of capacity to conceive
of a future which is regularly arranged, and indifference to the search after secondary causes,
are but two aspects of the same mental condition. (Lévy-Bruhl, 1923: 124)
Mbiti, in other words, could be seen as dignifying and nuancing but not essentially
changing this view that Africans do not have a sense of the future. In the hands of
Western scholars such as Hegel and Lévy-Bruhl (and there are many others who could
be cited), this is a reason to see Africans as at best children in need of training, and at
worst little better than animals who live only in and for the present. Mbiti’s goal is to
give an account of time that dovetails with religion, and especially Christianity.
So this sets the stage for the contemporary discussion of the future in Africa, the
idea that Africans have a different sense of the future (or no sense at all) compared to
the West. Mbiti grounds his case not in the dubious anthropology of the nineteenth and
early twentieth century, but in personal observation and linguistics, but in doing so he
sets in place a view of the future that remains in conversation with those racist
depictions of time.
This was not, of course, the last word on the subject. There have been many
critics of Mbiti (e.g., Moreau, 1986; Masolo, 1994: 108–111; Gyekye, 1995:
169–177). There have been many other versions of African time (for one survey
of these, unfortunately in an unpublished dissertation, see Kezilahabi, 1985: 113ff;
for a summary, see Janz, 2022: 72–74). Some of these, for instance, Masolo and
Gyekye, make a case that there is indeed a sense of the future in African culture and
language.
All of these might be thought about as a project of representation, in other words,
a project of trying to accurately represent what actually exists within the thought
structures of African people. This representational project is important, but it is far
from the only way that the question of the future has become relevant in Africa or in
African philosophy. Such representation can also be seen in many early postcolonial
nationalist projects.
African Philosophy’s Contribution to the Future of Africa: Philosophy

in Early National Postindependence
To the extent that the theories of earlier national leaders in Africa can be seen as
forms of philosophy (as Oruka suggests), another stance toward the future has
played a part in African philosophy, this time less representationally (usually) and
more aspirationally. In many cases, the rhetoric of building for the future is present.
There may not be an explicit theory of time embedded in these projects, but there is a
sense that with independence there can be a new day. When it comes to the question
of the nature of the future, that early optimism often was predicated on the assump-
tion that once the colonial powers had left governance in the hands of Africans, the
Indigenous African spirit would take over and Africa would resume its development.
The variations on state-level philosophies with implications about the future were
vast, but there was relatively little philosophical focus on the question of the future
itself. So, for example, in Kwame Nkrumah’s philosophy of Consciencism, the focus
was on decolonization. Once that task had sufficiently taken hold, the door would be
opened to a bright future, but that future was indeterminate. For Nkrumah, once the
proper ideology was in place, it would “forge . . . a strong continuing link with our
past and offer to it an assured bond with our future” (Nkrumah, 1970: 105). This
assured bond is a matter of hope and trust, though, not one of knowledge or setting
the causal conditions in the present that will guarantee a future.
Another example is the first president of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, who argued for a
form of socialism called Ujamaa. He too focuses much more on decolonization than on
the specific nature of what the future will look like once the colonial masters have lost
their power and their structures have been dismantled. He does speak to the question of
“What kind of society are we trying to build?” (Nyerere, 1968: 50ff). His answer to this
question is simple: a socialist future. Putting it in these terms, though, is not utopian
(at least, nor for Nyerere) – he is more interested in the steps that need to be taken to
move the entire society toward egalitarianism. Much of that move, though, is tied up
with overcoming the damage done by colonialism. Nyerere’s socialism is grounded in
some fundamental principles which prioritize life together over individual advancement
(hence, “ujamaa,” or familyhood). These are values which are worth having not just
because they produce a desirable future, but because they work in the present.
A third example is Kenneth Kaunda, first president of Zambia. His philosophy was
one of African humanism. He addressed the question of a humanist’s view of the future
626 B. B. Janz
(Kaunda, 1973: 130–135). He does not think that there is an inexorable movement of
progress in history – the problem, as one might expect from a humanist, is with humans.
Kaunda’s approach to the future stresses the clarification of intention and vision (“Man’s
fundamental problem is an internal one”: 131). What is remarkable, in a section titled
“The Humanist’s View of the Future,” is that there is very little specific vision or
information about the future. Kaunda’s entire discussion is about the kinds of qualities
that will bring about a positive (albeit vague) future. As with other early leaders, Kaunda
also sees decolonization as an essential part of Africa moving into its own future, but the
future also requires this individual transformation or evolution as well.
In most cases, though, that early promise was not realized. And so, some decades
after that, there might be disillusionment, unrest, or pessimism. This is in part a
pessimism about the prospects in the future for Africa. Those might be because the
hopes of dismantling colonial and racist assumptions have proven much more difficult
than it first seemed. They might, on the other hand, come from a pessimism about the
leaders Africans produced in the early years, and the prospects of anyone better
coming along. If these figures who had the best intentions and the loftiest rhetoric
could not bring Africa out of the hole that colonialism dug for it, could anyone?
What is important to recognize in these nationalist projects is that they do not
proceed from Mbiti’s seeming skepticism toward the future, nor do they assume that
history is cyclical and that our job is to just keep the circle going. They are all
decolonial projects, but they are also progressive in some sense, with an optimistic
view that stretches beyond the next few months. Seeing decolonialization as the
precondition to the future continues to be a strong thread in philosophy and politics
in Africa (see Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015, but many others as well). To the extent that
philosophical theories of politics undergird these nationalist projects, the decolonial
imperative foregrounds a more linear or progressivist (or perhaps antiregressivist)
version of the future.
What Are the Concepts in African Philosophy Connected

to the Future?
Almost any concept could conceivably have an element of the future involved with
it. For a few in African philosophy, though, the future seems integral to understand-
ing the concept. And, for the purpose of this chapter, these concepts seem like they
offer a perspective on how the future is thought, within African philosophy, and so
are worth considering. While this chapter cannot go into any great depth with any of
these, it can highlight the role that the future plays. These concepts are divination,
destiny, and the future of the individual after death (e.g., immortality, reincarnation).
Divination
Divination has been widely studied in anthropology but has been paid less attention
in philosophy. One who has discussed it is Olúfémi Taiwo (2004), in his discussion
of Ifá. He goes into significant detail about the procedure of divination, most of
which is not relevant to our question of the future here. There are several aspects of
interest, though. For one, Ifá is omniscient, and “not bound by the time-space
constraints of human knowing” (305). There is, in other words, no future (or for
that matter, no past) for Ifá. Everything is present. Therefore, any question of the
future in this process will be in the hands of the humans, who are not omniscient.
Since this is divination, people consult Ifá in order to know what to do. Between
Ifá and the one coming for answers is the babaláwo. The questions brought to Ifá
through this person vary, from general ones (the path of a newborn’s life, for
instance) to much more specific ones (whether a prospective venture will turn out
well, or what kinds of treatments there might be for an illness).
There is a question about agency in this process. Is the future unwritten, and so, is
the goal to get some direction on making decisions in order to make favorable
outcomes as likely as possible? Or, on the other hand, is the future written but just
unknown by humans? This is the classic problem of freedom and determinism, of
course, but in the case of divination it takes on a somewhat different character. It is
not just metaphysical, but rather it is narrative. In other words, the connection
between Ifá and the babaláwo is a narrative one, and the connection between the
babaláwo and the person bringing the question is also narrative. There is no sense
that someone could ask “will this happen or will it not happen?” and expect to get a
binary answer. In many divination systems, this convinces skeptics that there is no
real prediction happening, and that divination is not to be trusted. But this takes a
stand on the nature of the future, which is that there are discrete things that happen
outside of our agency and we stand as observers wanting to know how things will
turn out. Another stand would be that the future is not yet written, and that the
omniscience of Ifá does not imply that a future will be predicted accurately. More
likely the divination is meant to enable the supplicant to position themselves in the
face of a future.
Emmanuel Ofuasia gives some further context to Ifá divination (Ofuasia, 2019)
by arguing for a kind of deconstruction happening in the divination process. He does
not take up the question of the future in this context, but his portrayal of Ifá suggests
a version of the future. The divination process is mediated by a corpus of knowledge
recorded in 16 major and 240 minor chapters or cantos. Ofuasia walks the reader
through one of the divination processes (the ikin) in which palm nuts are cast to
produce a sign, and then the babaláwo recites the cantos and the seeker recognizes in
one of them a situation or narrative that matches up with the question being asked.
The issue about the future in all of this has to do with the nature of the insight on the
part of the seeker about their future. There is a moral component to all this – it is not
just about finding one’s own personal advantage in a competitive environment.
Furthermore, as Ofuasia sees it, it is not about propositional knowledge about the
future at all, but rather how one should act in the future. He argues that religions such
as Christianity and Islam are competing propositional systems, whereas Ifá is not. It
does not matter whether one believes in it or not: The divination can still occur. This,
he argues, is different from a system in which belief ensures a particular kind of
future.
628 B. B. Janz
And so, there is a narrative basis to this vision, but there is also a kind of affect
that divination is meant to produce. It is a way of facing the future; neither it is
propositional knowledge about the future, nor is it a statement of faith in the future
meant to produce a particular version of the future or to ensure one’s place in an
upcoming cosmic order. The salient question about the future is, how do humans live
well together in it?
Ofuasia might not actually need deconstruction to make his case. Those who
might need deconstruction are those who come to a system like Ifá with the
assumption that the secrets of the future will be unlocked, esoteric knowledge will
be revealed, and the individual will be able to control that which comes. Ifá itself
never made the claim that it was going to provide that, but with a different
understanding of the future, from other traditions, one might think that that is what
is happening.
Destiny
If this account of divination is correct, that has some implications for an account of
destiny. Destiny might be thought as a collective future, or as an individual one. It
might be thought narratively, that is, as a story in which one is a character that is
being played out, or it might be thought as an end state or even a place, where one
ends up. The question of the future again looms large here – depending on how one
understands the concept, the idea of destiny will look quite different. For instance, in
a determinist world, destiny is fixed. The metaphysics is settled, but the human
ability to know the results of the causal connections into the future might not
exist (see Okolo 1991 for more).
Segun Gbadegesin (2004), working from the Yoruba context, poses a number of
questions about the nature of destiny. He notes the points of tension over one’s stance
toward the future in various versions of destiny. Is destiny, once known through
divination, alterable? If someone is shown a destiny that is mostly unfavorable (it is
never completely negative, he says), will an optimistic outlook allow that person to
change it, or at least minimize the negative parts? And, how do the destinies of
people who have close connections to each other relate to each other?
These questions lead to others. If one is faced with two options about the future –
that it is fixed or it is malleable – how could these coexist? Must there be only one,
and the other is at best an illusion? Gbadegesin ends his chapter with the vexing
question of how a belief in destiny can coexist with the fact that in practice, people
do not give themselves over to resignation (322). They continue to strive for the life
they want. This seems like a contradiction for a theory of destiny, but it is perhaps
more a question about the nature of the future. (It is worth noting that these questions
are not unique to the Yoruba context – Kwame Gyekye comes to some of the same
conclusions for the Akan context, Gyekye, 1995: 104ff.)
Barry Hallen (2001) echoes some of Gbadegesin’s approach to destiny. He takes
up the question of those who are said to have “missed the road” or strayed from the
path that their destiny has laid out for them (58ff). If one’s destiny is predestiny, that
is, fixed in place, what would it mean to stray from a path that is fixed? And what
does this mean for any question about the nature of the future in an African context?
For Hallen, the crucial thing to remember is that the person’s path is embedded in
the social world. If the reason that someone thinks they have strayed from the path is
that there are misfortunes or difficult times, this could be not because the person has
strayed, but because the path just has those times. But why are there misfortunes?
Hallen reports that the onisegun have two kinds of explanations: first, that there is
something wrong with the person, and second, that there are others who do not have
the person’s best interests at heart (59–60). In the first case, the person simply has a
bad destiny, but in the second there is a social element at work. In other words, the
social world is not just a collective good to which the individual belongs. It is a
complex space in which, even if there is an overall collective good, the destiny of
individuals might be thrown off track by actions of others. The future, then, must be
a complex space, even though there are also diviners who are able to help people
understand their destinies.
The Future of the Individual After Death (Immortality, Reincarnation)
One kind of question about destiny has to do with what happens after death. Some,
such as A. F. Uduigwomen (1995), describe an African approach to immortality as
being remembered as the “living-dead” by those still in this world, and as continuing
their legacy through procreation (79).
This is not, of course, what everyone means by immortality. This might be seen as
a kind of social memory form of immortality – one is immortal through the sustained
memory of one’s progeny and through the effect of one’s actions. Immortality for
many means something else – either a personal conscious continuation of existence
after death, or reincarnation (that is, a break in consciousness and memory but a
continuation of oneself, however that is understood). The pressing concern in these
versions of immortality might be about what they should do, or what their future is
going to be like, or where they go after death. That is certainly part of the question of
the future, but the issue is not so simple.
But Uduigwomen’s approach does include one aspect of life after death that is
important even in these more subjective versions of immortality, which is the idea of
ancestors. Whereas in many Western accounts of the afterlife the focus is on an
individual’s experience of bliss (or in the case of an unworthy life, damnation),
ancestorhood raises the possibility that there is still a connection between the
afterlife and this present one. This connection is always seen from the context of
those still living – the ancestor embodies wisdom, either individually or as a
collective presence that can guide people through the present life.
Kwasi Wiredu (2010) gives a good example of this perspective of the living. In
his description of ancestorhood, he does not speculate on what the future brings for
those who are ancestors, just how they should be honored by those still living. He
does contrast Western versions of the afterlife with African ones and establishes that
traditional African ones generally do not have a sense that the afterlife comes with a
630 B. B. Janz
day of judgment which ushers in the next phase, either some version of heaven or
hell. This is relevant to the question of the future because in the African model, the
future does not stand as an incentive for present action. There is no “be good or else
you’ll go to hell” sense to the ancestors. It is, rather, the other way around – the
future stands as a resource to the present, not a judge of it. One acts in the present not
because of incentives from the future, but because the present is inherently difficult
and unclear, and the living need all the help they can get to navigate it. As we have
already seen in other versions of the future, this is an inherently social sense, rather
than an individual one. The living person acts in a social world, and ancestors are
part of that social world. The future is part of the present.
One of the running issues between these three concepts that use the future as
central is what in the West might be seen as the problem of free will and determinism.
Whereas in the West this problem might be seen as having solutions that either affirm
one or the other of these and see its opposite as an illusion or, on the other hand, mix
them in some compatibilist manner, the approaches we see in the African context do
not seem to take these routes. The reason for this is the presence of the community, or
rather, the recognition that individual action does not simply emerge from inside a
biological individual who is assumed to be prior to or beyond the relations with
others, but instead that individual is embedded within a community from the
beginning. Because of this, the future does not just consist of either the deterministic
results of past and present action or is a blank canvas ready to be given form.
Divination does not predict the future but gives a narrative about the future that
assumes that any individual is always already embedded in a community, and that
while there might be trends based on character and position in society, no narrative is
set in stone.
The Environment and the Future
There was a time in African philosophy when environmental questions were largely
ignored. That, happily, has changed, starting with Odera Oruka’s attention to envi-
ronmental questions (e.g., Oruka, 1994) and extending into much more work in
recent years (e.g., Behrens, 2014; Kelbessa, 2014; Horsthemke, 2015; Chimakonam,
2018; Chemhuru, 2019). With this increased attention comes greater attention to the
fate of future generations as well as the future of the planet. Questions about the
future related to the environment revolve around whether it is a primarily human
future that is of concern, and how the future can be engaged as a future, in all its
uncertainty, rather than attempting to capture and control it.
On the first question, we might think about the difficulty in moving from an
ethical framework of community, which has often privileged human well-being, to
one which includes the environment. Is Ubuntu capable of this move, for instance?
Horsthemke (2015: 97–98) points out that Ukama, a concept from the Shona,
already includes a relationship to the natural world along with (as Ubuntu does)
other humans and ancestors, but that it might not be functionally very much better in
helping us to understand how to live with nature facing the future. The strength of
these extensions of African ethics may be that they leverage relationality further than
a purely anthropocentric ethic might, but the limitation is that it is still difficult to
know how we can make decisions when there is uncertainty.
This author argued (Janz, 2018) that the missing part of the problem of how one
might think about the environment as an element of the future is to see philosophy’s
encounter with the environment as the encounter with nonphilosophy. Just as one
does not solve the problem of philosophy’s engagement with the environment in the
present by widening the moral circle, one does not solve the problem of philosophy’s
engagement with the environment in the future by simply framing the future in terms
of the needs of humans not yet born. That future is part of relationality in a wide
variety of ways and resists being captured by philosophical rationality. In other
words, African philosophy arguably has a powerful tool to think about the future
and the environment, which is the relationality we already see in a wide range of
places in Africa. Behrens (2014) works this out in part: “However much Western
philosophers may have agonized and debated over whether we can have moral
obligations to future generations, it is almost a non-question in African thought.
Intergenerational moral accountability is intrinsic to African thought” (80). And, it is
a short step to seeing interspecies and inter-life responsibility as intrinsic as well.
What Are Some Proposals for Moving into the Future,

in Philosophy and Beyond?
The question of the future might be one of how Africa or Africans might move into
the future, and how philosophy might play a part in that. There are, of course, plenty
of proposals for what Africans, either individually or collectively, ought to do. Those
proposals might claim to be philosophical, or they might be political, literary,
esthetic, religious, or something else. The point is that thinking about the future is
not necessarily in itself philosophical. But philosophy lies in its questions, not its
claims or texts, and so that means it is possible to question these proposals, using
philosophical concepts, and see what might be created. Philosophy is not a label for
something, or something we find as already formed, but it is something we do. It is
the work of thinking through particular kinds of questioning about elements of the
lifeworld. In this section, therefore, we will look at some representative proposals
that are either directly about the future or have strong implications for the future and
see what philosophical questions are raised by them.
If there was space, it would be useful to look at visions of the African future that
are in the past, to see what their philosophical assumptions and implications were.
The easiest of these to analyze are not African at all but involve Africa as the subject
in someone else’s imagination of the future. Much has already been done to describe
the vision of the future implicit in the “civilizing mission” of colonialists and the
eschatological tales of missionaries. More interesting, though, would be the visions
of the future of Africans themselves. Contra Mbiti and also contra cyclical versions
of time in which the future is seen as a repetition of the past, we can find ways of
thinking about the future in the African past. The idea that non-Western cultures are
632 B. B. Janz
unchanging and do not think about the future is just as likely to be the shadow of
Western modernity as it is to be about anything within the cultures themselves. So,
instead of asking whether there is a concept of the future in traditional Africa, it
would be just as reasonable to assume there is (indeed, to recognize that philosophy
as the establishment of a space of thought for becoming-human requires reflection on
the future) and then ask how it is expressed, explored, and embodied. We will briefly
consider some of these ways in what follows here.
Afropessimism
Boulou Ebanda de B’béri and P. Eric Louw succinctly sketch out the perspectives on
Afropessimism in their introduction to a special issue of Critical Arts (de B’béri &
Louw, 2011). They see five ways of understanding it: (1) that Africa is “mis-
represented by racists,” which requires Africans to attack these false portrayals;
(2) that Africa is misrepresented by Western media, which requires that Africans
need a rebranding with more positive images; (3) that Africa is in trouble due to
being client states in neocolonial structures, which requires that new African leaders
be found who can create better governance; (4) that Africa is badly run because
Africans are incapable of governing themselves, which means that Africa should be
recolonized; and finally (5) that Africa is hopeless and cannot be fixed because of
Africa’s own ungovernability, and the rest of the world should leave them to
themselves.
The pessimism is, in other words, distributed over several very different targets.
The pessimism might come from the continuing racism and colonialism that Afri-
cans have to deal with in various ways, or it might come from a kind of despair about
the political and bureaucratic structures within the continent, thus laying the core
problem at the feet of Africans themselves.
Afropessimism might not have a specific disciplinary home, but it could be seen
as raising disciplinary questions. For philosophy, one issue is that of affect. How do
we face the future? Has facing the future been rendered impossible by the history of
racism and colonialism against Africans? What right or justification do Africans
have to face the future? One might imagine the opposite of Afropessimism, perhaps
an attitude of bullishness toward Africa that one sees in statements like “Africa is the
continent of the future” (Delapalme, 2019). This might be an assessment based on
demographics (i.e., the relative youth of Africa as compared to other continents, and
its subsequent growth rate). What justifies any affect toward the future in Africa?
As Lewis Gordon points out (Gordon et al., 2017: 108), both optimism and
pessimism are connected to nihilism. “Optimists expect intervention from beyond.
Pessimists declare relief is not forthcoming. Neither takes responsibility for what is
valued” (108). Gordon concludes from this that what is at stake is epistemic: “Facing
the future, the question isn’t what will be or how do we know what will be but instead
the realization that whatever is done will be that on which the future will depend.
Rejecting optimism and pessimism, there is a supervening alternative: political
commitment.” This commitment is, in a broad sense, what I am referring to here
as affect. Facing the future means facing an unknown, and both pessimism and
optimism suggest not only nihilism, but also some kind of established knowledge
that supersedes our narratives about it. And the effect of facing the future is always
an effect of narrative, a willingness to write what is not-yet, and in so doing bring it
into being. This affect presents itself at all levels, from the large-scale collective and
social to the individual ability to choose salient facts in the present that will help
positively position the self in an uncertain future.
Africanfuturism
Nnedi Okorafor makes a case for “Africanfuturism” rather than “Afrofuturism,” in

order to prioritize visions of the future from the continent of Africa rather than from
the diaspora (Okafor, 2019; Hodapp, 2021). Africanfuturism is “concerned with
visions of the future, is interested in technology, leaves the earth, skews optimistic, is
centered on and predominantly written by people of African descent (black people)
and it is rooted first and foremost in Africa. It’s less concerned with ‘what could have
been’ and more concerned with ‘what is and can/will be.’ It acknowledges, grapples
with and carries ‘what has been’” (Okafor, 2019). She is not a philosopher, and as
with Afrofuturism her vision is worked out aesthetically and literarily.
Africanfuturism does, though, raise questions for African philosophy as to what
kind of future can be imagined, and what kind of language, both literal and
figurative, can be used to speak about that future.
While Okarofor’s Africanfuturism specifically pushes back against the erasure or
mythologization of Africa itself in Afrofuturism, it is the “future” part that we are
interested in here. If the future in Afrofuturism is based in the identity of the actors,
in Africanfuturism it is based in a sense of the authentic past. “Africanfuturism
(being African-based) will tend to naturally have mystical elements (drawn or grown
from actual African cultural beliefs/world views, not something merely made up)”
(Okafor, 2019). Leaving to the side the question of whether an authentic African past
must have mystical elements, it is worth noting here that whatever future is imagined
will be an extension of the past. Even though Okarofor explicitly wants to prioritize
Africa in the vision of the future, she is not imagining that this is exclusive of the
diaspora. “Africanfuturism is rooted in Africa and then it branches out to embrace all
blacks of the Diaspora, this includes the Caribbean, South American, North Amer-
ican, Asia, Europe, Australia. . .wherever we are. It’s global. Africanfuturism is not a
wall, it’s a bridge.”
So, the point is to recenter Africa in the imagination of the future, based on a
sense of authenticity rooted in Africa’s past. For the artist, this gives some direction
in the creative process while leaving it wide open for invention. For the philoso-
pher, it raises the question of the libidinal. What kind of energy is directed at
creating a future? Where does the desire actually lie, to create a future, and what are
the implications of that desire? If Africanfuturism redirects that energy, not toward
a general project of Blackness but toward a project of Africanness first, how does
that move clarify and distill that energy and desire or, perhaps at the same time,
634 B. B. Janz
constrain or pre-/proscribe its narratives? And, how does or how could this
libidinal energy bring into reality a past and a present sufficient to support a future
project?
African Renaissance
Another potentially future-related way of thinking about Africa is African Renais-

sance. This is a conception of the future that had its heyday in the 1990s, after the fall
of apartheid and the institution of the first free constitution in South Africa, peaked in
about 2001, and since Thabo Mbeki’s government ended in 2008 has been used
much more sparingly (see Google Ngram for data on the use of the term). Pieter
Boele van Hensbroek traces the use of the term further back than the 1990s (van
Hensbroek, 2001), in order to give it some context. He looks back to Edward Blyden
and the promise of Liberian independence and ties it to Blyden’s proto-Afrocentrist
thought. As such, he sees claims about African Renaissance as they appeared in the
early years of the South African postapartheid state as grounded in a kind of
culturalist logic, and it offers a future based on a kind of national consciousness, a
position critiqued by Fanon in his essay “The Trials and Tribulations of National
Consciousness” (Fanon, 2004: 97–144).
So, the project of African Renaissance might be seen as one that looks back to a
culturally fixed definition, and posits a future based on that. It is a renaissance, a
rebirth, which implies a previous life that provides the standard for the new life to
meet or surpass. It might, though, give us more than just a future based on the
success of the past or based on fixing the problems of the past. Ineke van Kessel
(2001) points out that Thabo Mbeki’s version of African Renaissance was quite
different from the calls for nation-building from earlier eras, in that it was not based
on some version of African uniqueness that leads to various forms of nationalism
(47). His was a form of universalism, which at the same time was skeptical of
Western-dominated forms of globalization.
Mabogo More (2002) suggests something more interesting about this rebirth than
Mbeki’s revised universalism. He argues that there is indeed a recovery of the past,
but one which provides the basis for a future which can be a “return to the source.”
This is not a neotraditionalism which supposes that if only Africa could be put back
onto its traditional structures all would be well. A return to the source does not mean
a denial of the present. It means that the emancipatory move of return is also the
potentiality of creating a future not necessitated by the questions which come from
elsewhere. It is, rather, a “genuine attempt to transcend Africa’s dark ages” (74). In
this sense at least, it is much like the Western Renaissance, in that it recovers ancient
wisdom, but resolutely looks to the future. Sylvia Wynter (2015) gives us one of the
best models of this, as she makes the case for a version of the Renaissance that does
not overcome the Dark Ages by putting into place what she calls “Man1,” the white
“rational” male landowner as the new model of the future. That version of the
renaissance set up barriers to creation, rather than enabling it. A true Renaissance
that recovers the past does not simply set up a new model for the future that
substitutes for the old one. It makes possible a becoming-African, a creative spirit
finally freed to create itself (for more on this, see Janz, 2022: Chap. 1).
Ubuntu
Most versions of Ubuntu are past-oriented, in the sense that they focus on the values
and practices of community established in the past and passed down in tradition, and
how they might direct, suggest, or authorize action in the present. The future, in this
version of Ubuntu, is an effect of the past. Ubuntu is often invoked when a community
has not held on to its tradition and in some sense lost its way. It is an expression of
traditional wisdom, embedded in community, that might bring communities back from
the distractions caused by colonialism and other non-African values.
Put in these terms, the discussion of the future seems minimal and fairly
uninteresting. But those are not the only terms we might think of Ubuntu in. It
might instead be seen as a kind of narrative, one that not only leverages a version of
tradition which might be seen as restrictive but which also opens up the tradition into
a new set of possibilities. But as was seen earlier with the concept of the African
Renaissance, this is not the only way that the future can relate to the past.
The question of the future in Africa is addressed by Mogobe Ramose (1999) and
others (e.g., Mangena, 2016; Janz, 2022) by seeing Ubuntu as a space of thought.
Ramose’s specific way of addressing this is to speak of “Be-ing,” which he sees as
the meeting of being and becoming. His version of Ubuntu is not just nostalgia for
tradition, and because of this it is less susceptible to being captured by political or
class interests. His inclusion of becoming makes the commitment to the future
explicit, and it also provides a way of thinking about what it means to face that
future as a human space. This does not mean that there is any specific future, or for
that matter any specific political or social theory implied by Ramose’s version of
Ubuntu. But his account of Ubuntu inherently recognizes that the future is unwritten,
and that we are in the process of writing it through our decisions, both individual and
collective. People in the present are not controlling it, despite what they think, and
despite what colonial powers might have tried to convince Africans actually hap-
pened. The supposed control of the future that resulted in the “great civilizations”
also resulted in rampant climate change, devastating world war, and rapacious
capitalism that widened the wealth gap. Ubuntu, on the other hand, treats the future
as something humans engage, and also react to.
What Is the Future of African Philosophy?
The question of the future might be asked more specifically about African philoso-
phy itself. In some cases, the question of the future is simply a way of outlining the
difficulties of doing philosophy in Africa. For Moses Akin Makinde, for instance,
the future is bleak because every supporting structure for philosophy has been
compromised or withdrawn (Makinde, 1998). With almost a quarter century since
636 B. B. Janz
the publication of Makinde’s eulogy, it is safe to say that things have turned out
better than he might have feared. It is always difficult to predict the future.
Others set forth an agenda for future research and an assessment of how present
trends in research might extend into the future (e.g., Ekechi, 1987). Others still (e.g.,
Matolino, 2015) present a normative future, based on existing deficiencies in African
philosophy and the efforts to correct them.
Aga Agada asks the question “Is African Philosophy Progressing?” His answer is
no, or at least not much. “African philosophy has failed to make remarkable progress
or gain universal recognition in the four to five decades it has existed as a philo-
sophical tradition for reasons ranging from poor attitude towards research, prefer-
ence for Western philosophy on the part of African philosophical scholars, the
seeming absence of original thinkers, among others” (Agada, 2013: 239–240).
Agada returns to the question of the future of African philosophy, a couple of
years later, and extends his earlier argument to narrate a future based on successes or
failures of the past (Agada, 2015). In particular, he is skeptical of the ability of
ethnophilosophy to provide a foundation for future philosophy. He sees Oruka’s sage
philosophy as also unable to pave the way for a future in African philosophy, mostly
on the basis that it has not to this point done so. He makes the case for Consolation
philosophy, building on work by Segun Gbadegesin, because it builds on a concept
of freedom. The question of the future at this point is about where the innovative
scholars and key concepts will come from, so that the work in African philosophy in
the future will not just be a rehash of the past. Freedom, therefore, is necessary for
this to happen or, rather, is a necessary but perhaps not a sufficient condition for it.
And so, Agada returns again to the question of the future, this time through the
past (Agada, 2022a). In his contribution to his edited book on ethnophilosophy
(Agada, 2022b), his view of ethnophilosophy is more positive. He sees
ethnophilosophy as a wellspring of philosophical concepts and turns to Asouzu
and Ramose for examples (for another turn to Ramose in a similar manner, see Janz,
2022). While the question of the future is implied rather than addressed here, it is
clear that he sees this recovery of a source of concepts as the way that the future will
be reached in African philosophy.
Others likewise see ethnophilosophy as the key phenomenon that must be addressed
in order to move into the future. Pascah Mungwini (2014) follows Sanya Osha in
arguing that “postethnophilosophy” enables African philosophy to move out of the past
preoccupation with the nature of African philosophy, to a space in which multiple forms
of knowledge can coexist. Mungwini does not spend much time on what that future
would look like, and so like Agada a revision of ethnophilosophy is the precondition to
the future in African philosophy. He does expand on what this future might look like,
though, in more recent work (Mungwini, 2022). In this work, he maintains his sense that
the future will be a space of multiple forms of knowledge, but instead of post-
ethnophilosophy he leverages Ubuntu, particularly Mogobe Ramose’s version of it, to
ground an emancipatory philosophy that will make this space possible.
These perspectives on the future of African philosophy raise a question about
how one might think the future of philosophy at all. The overwhelming majority of
African philosophers would, if asked about the future, most likely point to the
importance of emancipatory, anticolonial, antiracist work, and they would be correct

to do so. But this raises the question of how that work relates to the future. Is it that,
once Africa is freed from its brutal past, individuals will then be free to engage in
philosophy, in whatever way they see fit, and will then produce an array of ideas and
theories about the world? Is it that freedom from that domination is in fact freedom to
see, understand, and promote ideas from Africa itself, perhaps as embedded in the
cultural and intellectual past, perhaps as produced by those who are authorized to
speak from and about Africa, in whatever way we think that authorization should
happen? If looking to the future means freeing thinkers to be individuals and act
individually, there might simply be a version of liberalism, African-style, in which
the marketplace of ideas has been cleared of impediments and encumbrances, and
those engaging in market action can now do so freely. That kind of future cannot be
written in any specificity, of course, because the market is a complex system, and
therefore can only be predicted in a fairly short term.
But perhaps the future is not thinkable only as a kind of release from the encum-
brances of past colonialism and racism. It is possible, for instance, that one needs to
theorize the future even if the hope of shedding the effects of these brutalities is slim.
This is what we see in Achille Mbembe’s On the Postcolony (Mbembe, 2001: 2015).
He asks what it means to live in the postcolony if that is a “space of proliferation that is
not solely disorder, chance, and madness, but emerges from a sort of violent gust, with
its languages, its beauty and ugliness, its ways of summing up the world” (Mbembe,
2001: 242). In that space, he agrees with Nietzsche that “We must first learn to enjoy as
complete men” and that means “a way of living and existing in uncertainty, chance,
irreality, even absurdity” (242). In other words, there is a sense of the future here that is
not lived with the precondition of a solution to the problems of the past, even as it
robustly supports the project of emancipation.
Another way to think about the future in African philosophy, though, would be to
see it as something that is directly shaped, rather than something for which we set the
preconditions by clearing away the obstructions to its emergence. Such a future might
be willed by fiat, based on what someone thinks that philosophy ought to be doing. Or,
it might be indexed to nonphilosophical imperatives such as improving society, thus
making some version of practicality a guiding principle for the future of philosophy
(for more on this, see Oruka 1997; Matolino, 2018; Janz, 2009: especially Chap. 7).
The point is this: It is one thing to describe, mourn, prognosticate, or recommend
a future for African philosophy, and another thing entirely to reflect on the future as a
concept, and think about how that concept relates to the practice of philosophy. That
is what we turn to next.
What Does the Fact of Futurity Have to Say to How We Might Do

Philosophy in Africa? Becoming-African
Disciplines outside of philosophy have sometimes considered what it might be like

to orient their work toward the future (e.g., in anthropology, see Pels, 2015, in
African literature see Okoro, 2022, and in history see Koselleck, 2004). This is more
638 B. B. Janz
than just speculation on what direction a discipline might or should take, or an

attempt to extrapolate future directions from current trends. It is, rather, the question
of how an orientation toward the future might shape the way a discipline produces
knowledge. It is therefore an orientation toward the unknown, presuming that one is
not committed to a deterministic universe in which the future is just a necessary
result of the present, and this result is knowable by humans.
Orientation to the future also assumes something about the nature of change.
Fabien Eboussi-Boulaga (2000) takes up this question in relation to the assumption
among some Westerners that no change happens in Africa, that is, that there is at best
a cyclical system of repetition of life and practice, and change requires that people
break out of that pattern. Eboussi-Boulaga mostly focuses on past change (how to
deal with political or economic upheaval, for instance), but he does also give us a
mechanism for thinking about the future, in the form of emergence (196ff). He uses
insights from complexity theory in biology and dynamic systems in general to
suggest a theory of change that is not linear, but in which emergence is the result
of random interactions of networks. This emergence might be seen after the fact as a
set of causal connections, but the history of causation cannot reliably be used to
predict the future.
He applies this to African life. African politics and plans for development proceed
along modernist (i.e., linear causal) terms, which means that they fail to understand
complexity. “We were content to fabricate slogans to extract a variable and to make
of it the theme of an annual 5- or 10-year campaign. We have been worn out by this
game, which continues” (204). He concludes: “Intuition and spontaneous good sense
are not adapted to the situation that Africa faces. We must give them a formulation
which reinvents them at the level of the problems of modern times and of a world
which is simultaneously inexhaustibly diverse and yet singular” (212).
Eboussi-Boulaga does not apply complexity to African philosophy as such, but
he does make clear that for African philosophy to reflect on lived experience in
Africa, it will have to think about change and causation using the tools of complex-
ity. In a recent book, I have taken this a step further (Janz, 2022) by arguing that
African philosophy itself is oriented toward a complex future, one that cannot be
predicted from either the past or the present, but which must be grappled with both
individually and collectively. This is less a question about how philosophers might
understand the concept of the future, and more about how that concept might be
relevant to what philosophers do. It might be supposed that the philosophical task is
a timeless one, that the concepts we analyze have no location in place or time, and
that philosophers are simply describing those concepts and making judgments about
which ones are most likely to be true. Understood in these terms, though, philosophy
is like a skill or a method wielded by a subject who is not affected by the activity of
philosophy, at least not in the moment of philosophizing. The philosopher can stand
back or stand above that which is analyzed, a transcendental observer and an
acquirer of veridical propositions.
This model of philosophy may well describe much of what happens when we
philosophize, but what if it misses something? What if it misses the cognitive
activity of philosophizing, the coming-to-know moment when we ourselves are
the subject of inquiry? Philosophy has a place (Janz, 2009), or more accurately, it
faces its place and responds to it. Does it also face its own temporality, in particular
its futurity? What would that mean?
This has the stance that we find in many places in the texts of African philoso-
phers. It is not only in African philosophy, but also in the elements already identified
in this chapter for seeing the future as part of a complex space, as the result of both
individual decisions and communal knowledge, and as a striving for creation and
fecundity rather than just a working out of first principles. If the future is important to
philosophy itself, we move from describing and judging to creating, specifically
creating concepts for becoming-African. And this is something we see throughout
African philosophy. Even simply considering one concept, that of the future, has
taken us from describing places where Africans have used it, to seeing that is at the
center of doing philosophy in an African place.
Conclusion
The goal of this chapter has been to put the concept of the future within its
conceptual ecology in African philosophy and explore the ways it has been assumed
or deployed by African philosophers. It does not have a single sense or a single use,
but its varied senses have connecting threads. If it is possible to move from seeing it
as a concept to be analyzed to thinking of it as an integral part of the act of
philosophizing in Africa, it is possible to add a crucial dimension to philosophical
thought. More than that, though, this chapter has been about how to think with
concepts from a place and with a place. “The Future” can be an object of thought,
defined and delineated by philosophers. It can be an assumption, part of the furniture
of thought that is needed to activate other concepts but is not in itself worth
reflection. It can be an agonistic space, the place of the not-yet, the unsettled and
contested. And, it can be a space of thought, a concept that makes it possible to ask
specific kinds of questions both by what it affords and what it does not afford.
African philosophy, in all this, is not just a flavor or subfield that puts its own twist
on this concept. It is a space of thought itself, able to raise its own questions and
shape concepts in response to those questions. “The Future” as a concept is not a
single same thing in every culture. It is, like any concept, a multiple. African
philosophy brings the ability to ask the following questions that are left unasked
elsewhere, or are seen as inconsequential:
• Whereas the future for some in Western traditions might look like Blake’s Albion,
the bright new day with new possibilities, the African question cannot afford the
luxury of pretending that the past is gone and the future is in the hands of whoever
has the power to shape it.
• Whereas some might think that the future is individualized, and the fundamental
question about the future is about my future, as we have seen here the future in
African philosophy is a complex, shared space, and it makes no sense to ask about
the future of the individual apart from the community.
640 B. B. Janz
• Whereas some in the West might imagine a utopian distant future in which all the
social ills of today have disappeared, the African question about the future cannot
afford to ignore the difficult but necessary questions about how we live between
now and then.
• Whereas some might think that the future is simply caused by the past, the
African question about the future includes mechanisms of individual and social
deliberation that rarely posit such firm determinism.
• And, whereas some in the West might suppose that the future is something to be
controlled and dominated, those who themselves have been controlled and
dominated throughout history can neither afford nor desire any such illusions.
In other words, the specific place in which the question of the future is posed
shapes the contour of the discussion and determines the kinds of conceptual ecology
that concept lives in. This is philosophy-in-place.
And of course, “the African question” is not just a single space of thought, even
though there are questions that must be raised at the continental and diasporic level.
There are futures, not just a future, as we recognize that everyone lives in multiple
places at once. Indeed, those futures interact with each other as projects which
sometimes work at cross purposes (e.g., a desired future of nation-building, which
requires people to agree on some basic things and work toward shared goals, vs. a
desired future for women or LGBT people or diverse ethnic groups, which require a
diversity of possible futures which might impinge on that political project, at least in
some peoples’ minds). Sometimes, though, the emergent properties of multiple
futures do not end up as unproductive.
References
Agada, A. (2013). Is African philosophy progressing? Filosofia Theoretica, 2(1), 239–273.
Agada, A. (2015). The future question in African philosophy. In J. O. Chimakonam (Ed.), Atuolu
Omalu: Some unanswered questions in contemporary African philosophy (pp. 241–267). Uni-
versity Press of America.
Agada, A. (2022a). Ethnophilosophy and the search for the wellspring of African philosophy.
Springer.
Agada, A. (2022b). A wellspring of African philosophical concepts? The what and why questions in
the context of interculturality. In A. Agada (Ed.), Ethnophilosophy and the search for the
wellspring of African philosophy (pp. 17–38). Springer.
Behrens, K. (2014). An African relational environmentalism and moral considerability. Environ-
mental Ethics, 36(1), 63–82.
Chemhuru, M. (Ed.). (2019). African environmental ethics: A critical reader. Springer.
Chimakonam, J. O. (Ed.). (2018). African philosophy and environmental conservation. Routledge.
de B’béri, B. E., & Louw, P. E. (2011). Afropessimism: A genealogy of discourse. Critical Arts,
25(3), 335–346.
Delapalme, N. (2019). Africa is the continent of the future. Are democracy and governance up to the
challenge?. OECD Development Matters, 23 Sept. https://oecd-development-matters.org/2019/
09/23/africa-is-the-continent-of-the-future-are-democracy-and-governance-up-to-the-chal
lenge/. Accessed 1 July 2022.
Eboussi-Boulaga, F. (2000). The topic of change. In I. Karp & D. A. Masolo (Eds.), African
philosophy as cultural inquiry (pp. 187–214). Indiana University Press.
Ekechi, F. (1987). The future of the history of ideas in Africa. African Studies Review, 30(2), 63–82.
Fanon, F. (2004). The wretched of the Earth (trans: Philcox, R.). Grove Press.
Gbadegesin, S. (2004). Toward a theory of Destiny. In K. Wiredu (Ed.), A companion to African
Gordon, L., Menzel, A., Shulman, G., & Syedullah, J. (2017). Critical exchange: Afro pessimism.
Contemporary Political Theory, 17(1), 105–137.
Cambridge University Press.
Hallen, B. (2001). The good, the bad, and the beautiful: Discourse about values in an African
culture. Indiana University Press.
Hegel, G. W. F. (1956). The philosophy of history. Dover.
Hodapp, J. (2021). Fashioning Africanfuturism: African comics, Afrofuturism, and Nnedi
Okorafor’s Shuri. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 13, 1–14.
Janz, B. B. (2009). Philosophy in an African place. Lexington Books.
Janz, B. B. (2018). Peripherality and non-philosophy in African philosophy: Womanist philosophy,
environmental philosophy and other provocations. In J. O. Chimakonam (Ed.), African philos-
ophy and environmental conservation (pp. 9–23). Routledge.
Janz, B. B. (2022). African philosophy and enactivist cognition: The space of thought. Bloomsbury
Academic.
Kaunda, K. (1973). Letter to my children. Longman.
Kelbessa, W. (2014). Can African environmental ethics contribute to environmental policy in
Africa? Environmental Ethics, 36(1), 31–61.
Kezilahabi, E. (1985). African philosophy and the problem of literary interpretation (Unpublished
dissertation). University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Koselleck, R. (2004). Futures past: On the semantics of historical time. Columbia University Press.
Lévy-Bruhl, L. (1923). Primitive mentality. George Allen & Unwin.
Makinde, M. A. (1998). Whither philosophy in Africa?. In The Paideia Archive: Twentieth World
Congress of Philosophy, 23. https://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Afri/AfriMaki.htm. Accessed
23 June 2022.
Mangena, F. (2016). Ramose’s legacy and the future of African philosophy. Philosophia Africana,
18(1), 53–65.
Matolino, B. (2015). The place of South African philosophy in the future of South African
philosophy. Social Dynamics, 41(3), 399–414.
Matolino, B. (2018). The shaping of the future of African philosophy. In E. Etieyibo (Ed.), Method,
substance, and the future of African philosophy (pp. 335–353). Palgrave Macmillan.
Mbembe, A. (2001). On the postcolony. University of California Press.
Mbiti, J. (1969). African religions and philosophy. Heinemann.
More, M. P. (2002). African Renaissance: The politics of return. African Journal of Political
Science, 7(2), 61–80.
Moreau, A. S. (1986). A critique of John Mbiti’s understanding of the African concept of time. East
African Journal of Evangelical Theology, 5(2), 36–48.
Mungwini, P. (2014). Postethnophilosophy: Discourses of modernity and the future of African
philosophy. Phronimon, 15(1), 16–31.
Mungwini, P. (2022). African philosophy: Emancipation and practice. Bloomsbury Academic.
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2015). Decoloniality as the future of Africa. History Compass, 13(10),
485–496.
Nkrumah, K. (1970). Consciencism. NYU Press.
Nyerere, J. (1968). Ujamaa: Essays on socialism. Oxford University Press.
642 B. B. Janz
Ofuasia, E. (2019). Ifá divination as an exercise in deconstruction. South African Journal of

Philosophy, 38(3), 330–345.
Okafor, N. (2019). Africanfuturism defined. Nnedi Wahala Zone Blog. http://nnedi.blogspot.com/
2019/10/africanfuturism-defined.html. Accessed 30 June 2022.
Okolo, O. (1991). Tradition and destiny: Horizons of an African philosophical hermeneutics. In
T. Serequeberhan (Ed.), African philosophy: The essential readings (pp. 201–210). Paragon
House.
Okoro, D. (Ed.). (2022). Futurism and the African imagination: Literature and other arts.
Routledge.
Oruka, H. O. (1994). Philosophy, humanity and ecology: Philosophy of nature and environmental
ethics. ACTS Press.
Oruka, H. O. (1997). Practical philosophy: In search of an ethical minimum. East African
Educational Publishers.
Paul, H. (Ed.). (2019). Critical terms in futures studies. Palgrave Macmillan.
Pels, P. (2015). Modern times: Seven steps toward an anthropology of the future. Current Anthro-
pology, 56(6), 779–796.
Taiwo, O. (2004). Ifa: An account of a divination system and some concluding epistemological
questions. In K. Wiredu (Ed.), A companion to African philosophy (pp. 304–312). Blackwell
Publishing.
Uduigwomen, A. F. (1995). Traditional African solution to the problem of personal immortality. In
A. F. Uduigwomen (Ed.), Footmarks on African philosophy (pp. 75–81). Obaroh & Ogbinaka
Publishers Ltd.
van Hensbroek, P. B. (2001). Philosophies of African Renaissance in African intellectual history.
Quest, 15(1–2), 127–138.
van Kessel, I. (2001). In search of an African Renaissance. Quest, 15(1-2), 43–52.
Waugh, P., & Botha, M. (Eds.). (2021). Future theory: A handbook to critical concepts. Blooms-
bury Academic.
Wiredu, K. (2010). Death and the afterlife in African culture. In K. Wiredu & K. Gyekye (Eds.),
Person and community: Ghanaian philosophical studies I (pp. 137–152). Council for Research
in Values and Philosophy.
Wynter, S. (2015). The ceremony found: Towards the autopoetic turn/overturn, its autonomy of
human agency and extraterritoriality of (self-)cognition. In J. Ambroise & S. Broeck (Eds.),
Black knowledges/black struggles: Essays in critical epistemologies (pp. 184–245). Liverpool
University Press.
Index
A African humanism, 432, 434–436, 449, 450

Abortion, 169 African intelligentsia, 140
Abstracted theory, 35 African knowledge systems, 7
Abstraction, 34, 524 African languages, 4, 443, 449, 451
Acholi language, 272 African logic
Àddina, 445 and African metaphysics, 273–276
Aesthetics, 285, 288, 289, 291 trivalence in, 272–273
African communitarian epistemology (ACE), African mathematics, 206
224 African metaphysics, 498
knowledge in, 233–238 African modernity, 553
meaning and nature of, 231–233 African moral philosophy, 122–124
testimony, oral tradition and knowledge animal ethics, 135–136
acquisition in, 238–241 character and achievement, 130–132
African cosmologies, 432, 438 ethical humanism, 126–127
African cultures, 19–21 ethics of dignity, 127–130
African Endogenous Religions (AER) partiality and impartiality, 133–135
African modernity, 553 theory of right action, 132–133
principal tenets of, 543–547 African phenomenology, 9, 510
principle of cyclical /corporate harmony, 552 Hountondji, P.J., 513
principle of vitalism, 550 Masolo’s midway to phenomenology, 526
African epistemology ontology, 9, 79
beliefs and customs, 203 Serequeberhan, 512
epistemic injustice, 247 African philosophy, 4–9, 202–204, 215, 286,
epistemic resistance, 248, 262, 263 288, 289, 291
future concern of, 216–218 development, 381–384
hermeneutical injustice, 254–256 history of, 6
ignorance, 258–262 postcolonial, 4
injustice/prejudicial marginalization, religion (see God’s existence, problem of evil)
African knower, 256, 257 African philosophy, question of the future,
knowledge claims, 246 635–639
past discourse, 209–213 Africanfuturism, 633–634
present focus, 213–216 African Renaissance, 634–635
testimonial injustice, 251–253 Afropessimism, 632–633
traditional belief systems, 204 destiny, 628–629
African ethics, 9, 106–108, 110, 118 divination, 626–628
definition, 107, 111 early national post-Independence, 625–626
and intercultural philosophy, 115–117 environment and the future, 630–631
and religion, 112–115 future of the individual after death
Africanfuturism, 633–634 (immortality, reincarnation), 629–630

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25149-8
644 Index
African philosophy, question of the future human rights and justice in religious life,
(cont.) 342
personhood, 183 human rights and justice principles in
time and temporality, 623–625 traditio, 333
Ubuntu, 635 social life, 336–338
African physics, 206 Akrasia, 343
African political ethics Ala muo, 546
Botho/ubuntu, 291, 292 Al-Inkishafi, 433, 434, 437–439, 442, 443, 445,
African Political Philosophy, 9, 285 447, 449, 451
definition, 285 Amadioha deity, 545
African relational environmentalism, 174, 176 Amawamwa, 546
African Renaissance, 634–635 Ancestorhood, 41
African research ethics, 145–146 Ancestoricism, 552
classification, 146–147 Ancestors, 151, 275–276
risk assessment in, 147–150 worship, 170
sharing research benefits, 155–156 Ancestral revenge, 338
African Traditional Religion (ATR), 203, 342, Ancestral world, 338
556, 558 Androcentrism, 462
African traditional societies, 398, 399 Anglo-Saxon tradition, 211
African women, 415, 420, 421, 423–426 Animal, African Philosophy
Afro-communitarian argument, in eldercare aesthetic and symbolic value, 464
eldercare robots, 98–101 animal sacrifice, 466
human dignity, 94–98 attitudes, 467
Afro-communitarianism, 8, 32, 71–75 benefits, 460
exclusion challenge, 36–39 conflicts of interests, 461
criticism of, 33 culture and customs, 465
hierarchical communing and participatory epistemology, 460
challenge, 41–42 human-animal relationships, 459
moderate, 42 languages, 458
normativity of being and difference moral anthropocentrism, 461
challenge, 39–41 moral knowledge, 466
personhood, 59–62 non-human animals, 458
radical, 42 ontological hierarchy, 459
relational dwelling and autonomy, 42–44 ontology and metaphysics, 459
theory-praxis gap, 34–36 paintings, 463
values system, 62 relationality, 458
Afro-personhood theories research and laboratory animals, 465
heteropatriarchy in, 397–400 rituals and ceremonies, 461
normative conception, 394–396 song and poetry, 463
ontological conception, 393, 394 spirits, 459
race, 401–404 thought and practices, 458
separating the theory from society, 404–408 traditions and cultural practices, 465
Afropessimism, 632–633 treatment, 459
Afrophone texts, 436 Animal ethics, 124, 132, 135–136
Agbala, 545 Anocracy, 310, 318, 320, 321
Ageism, 42 Anormal values system, 50, 63–65
Age of Enlightenment, 246–250, 257 Anthropocentrism, 558
Akan conceptual scheme, 569 Appiah, K.A., 367, 371
Akan ethics Applied ethics, 117–118, 142
human rights and justice in Akan economic Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, 9,
life, 340, 342 88, 89
human rights and justice in Akan politics, Arusha Declaration, 442
339 Ashanti Empire, 342
human rights and justice in Akan traditional Ashe, 204
legal system, 342 Ashna, 545
Index 645
Assistive robots, 89, 92 Communitarian epistemology, 230–231

Auto-centric virtue theory, 584 Communitarianism, 432
Autonomy, 42–44 Community, 15–26, 29
Ayittey, G., 379 Community of fate, 77, 81
Aymará logical system, 269 Communocracy, 294
Azokwoyi, 547 Companion robots, 90, 92, 94
Conception of right, 335
Concept of time, 25–27
B Conceptual decolonization, 521
Balanced capabilities approach, 173 Conceptual/epistemic decolonisation, 207
Bantu language, 116, 433 Consciousness, 418, 419
Bantu philosophy, 18, 209, 477, 550 Consensual democracy, 298
Bewitchment, 151 Consolationist metaphysics, 572
Bill of Rights, 339 Consolationist ontology, 570
Bioethics, 141, 142, 145, 182 Consolationist theodicy, 571
theories of autonomy in, 187–189 Contemporary cluster view, 492
Biological determinism, 400 Cosmological humanisms, 435, 436, 439
Bio-prospectors, 156 COVID-19, 332, 344
Bivalent logic, 267–268 Creative energy, 476
Blackness/indigeneity, 390, 403, 597, 600, 601 Crisis of identity, 475, 481, 486, 488
Black tax, 164 Critical activity, 597–598, 603
Blackwomxn, 390, 391, 396, 397, 400–403, Culture
407, 408 in Africa, 439
Bolelelwa, 297 community, 186
Boolean logic, 267 epistemologies, 150
Botho ethics, 291, 292, 294, 295, 298–301, 304 reorientation, 53
Botho politics, 294, 296 theory, 376–378
universals, 523
Cybercrimes, 351
C Cyclical /Corporate Harmony, 550, 552
Capabilities approach (CA), 88, 93, 172
Capitalism, 289
Care robots, 88, 89, 101 D
Co-authorship, 76, 78, 82 Danda (ants), 304
Cogito ergo sum, 401 Death and Dying, 438
Colonial existential epistemology, 416–418, ancestors, 170
420, 424–426 nameless dead, 170
Colonialism, 414, 415, 417, 418, 420–427 Decolonization, 415, 425–427, 625
Coloniality, 599, 600, 602, 611 Deep ecology, 177
Coloniality of knowledge, 207, 209 Deified ancestors, 545
Colonial language, 419 Democracy, 301, 330–333, 340, 343, 344, 380
Colonization, 5, 6, 414–416, 418–424, 426 Democratization, 330, 332, 333, 341
Common humanity, 391 Dependency theory, 373–376
Common Moral Position (CMP), 111 Destiny, 476, 477, 480, 487, 488, 628–629
Common property, 336 Development, 330
Communal ethics, 553 African philosophy of, 381–384
Communalism, 14, 15, 17–21, 24, 28, 29, 338 cultural theory, 376–378
Communalistic, 14, 17, 23, 28 definition, 364
societies, 338 dependency or liberation theory, 373–376
system, 336 modernization theory, 368–373
Communality, 500 problem of, in Africa, 365–368
Communal norms, 63 reconstructionist theory, 378–381
Communal participation and mutuality, 303 Difference, 39–41
Communal responsibility, 182, 185 Digital colonialism, 357
Communal spirit, 14–16, 18, 21, 24, 28 Digital freedom, 354–355
646 Index
Digitalization, 349 Ethical decision-making, 143

Digital sovereignty, 351–354 Ethical humanism, 126–127
Dignity, 88–101, 124, 125, 127–136, 392 Ethical values, 335
Diop, Boubacar Boris, 439, 443–446, 450 Ethnocentrism, 38
Disaster-Avoidance Rationality, 337 Ethno-epistemology, 217
Disjunctive moralism, 65 Ethnophilosophy, 636
Distributive justice, 337 Eurocentric, 434, 435, 437
Divination, 146, 626–628 hegemony, 250
Divinities, 541, 543, 545–547, 549, 550 theories, 260
Doomi Golo, 444 Eurocentrism, 248, 260, 263
Douglas, Thomas, 57 European Enlightenment, 434
Dunia, 440 Exclusion, 36–39
Dunia Uwanja wa Fujo, 441 Existential epistemology, 414–417, 420, 421,
Dunia Yao, 440 423–426
Existentialism, 474, 484, 485, 488
Existentiality of suffering, 483
E External impediments, 333
Ecology through Ubuntu, 435 Externalist theory, 215
Economic activity, 27, 28 Extrasensory perception (ESP), 215
Economic Community of West African States Ezechitoke, 544
(ECOWAS), 332 Ezumezu logi, 273
Economies of relationality, 71, 82
Edjo, 546
Education, 416, 420, 421, 425, 426 F
Egalitarianism, 397, 406, 407, 625 Fair competition, 341
Eldercare robots, 89–94 Feminist African existential epistemology,
Elderly care, 192 420–422, 424, 426
Emukpe deity, 549 Feminist ethics, 163
Enlightenment, 248, 415, 416 Formal education, 420
Entitlements, 335 Formidable obstacles, 333
Environmental Philosophy Fujo, 441, 452
African relational environmentalism, 174, Fundamental human right, 341
176
anthropocentric views, 174
climate change, 176 G
emerging infectious diseases, 177 Gabgyi people, 546, 547
environmental Philosophy, 166 Gender-neutrality, 390, 391, 396, 400, 401,
Kantian ethics, 174 403, 406, 407
metaphysical animism, 177 Generic Africanness, 418
sentient nonhuman animals, 175 Global Expansion of Thought (GET), 115
solidarity, 177, 178 Global philosophy, 8
utilitarianism, 175 God, 541–546, 548, 549, 553
Epistemic de-superiorisation, 209 God’s existence, problem of evil
Epistemic injustice, 207, 209, 250, 256, African religious thinkers, 557, 559
262, 297 conflict, 556, 557
Epistemic interface, 208, 212 divinity, 565
Epistemic justification, 207, 208, 215, 216 immanence, 560–562
Epistemic normativity, 217–219 Mackie’s scheme, 563
Epistemological tyranny, 249, 263 metaphysical, 566
Epistemology, 285, 288, 289, 291, 294 Oladipo/Wiredu’s, challenge, 567–569
Epistemology of the internet, 202 omnipotence, 562, 563, 566
Equalization scheme, 288 pre-existing, 562
Erha, 546 theodicy, 565, 568, 569, 571
Index 647
transcendence, 560–562, 564, 565 I

transcendental/immanent conceptions, 557 Ibuanyidanda, 303
transgression, 557 Identity, 21–24, 28, 29
God’s purpose theory, 477, 492 Igwebuike, 304
African philosophers, 495 Imfundo, 612
Akan, 495 Immanence, 560
anonymous traditional African Immortality, 629
philosophers, 495 Immunity principle, 335
cluster view, 502 Impartialism, 134
communality, 501 Imperialism, 369
destiny, 495–497 Indigenous African
metaphysics, 495 communities, 15, 16, 20, 23, 24, 26,
relationality, 498 27, 29
Gyekye, Kwame, 339 culture, 14, 21, 23, 24
epistemology, 224
societies, 14, 15, 28, 29
H values, 462
Habitual intelligence, 211 Indigenous knowledge, 150
Hermeneutical injustice, 254–257 Indigenous languages, 419
Heteropatriarchy, 397–400 Individual liberty, 182, 187, 189
Hinduism, 542, 547, 548 Individual responsibility, 336
Horsthemke, K., 595–600 Individual rights, 336
Hountondji, P.J., 513 Indo-European languages, 450
critique of Husserl’s universals, 518 Informed consent, 182
phenomenology of language, 515 In-group marginalization of Blackwomxn, 391,
subjectivity problem, 513 397
universality of meaning, 517 Intertextual continuities, 439
and Wiredu’s approach, 520 Intragroup recognition, 406
Hountondji’s criticism, 227 Intrinsic dignity, 131, 132, 134, 136
Human communication, 522 Intuitive (or native) method, 212, 285
Human dignity Isilwane (Book), 458
Afro-communitarian conceptions of, 94–98 Islam, 541, 547
balance condition, 173
capabilities approach, 172
communal/social nature, 171 J
Kant, 172 Janus logic, 270–271
Human enhancement, 56 Jordan, A.C.
Human existence, 474–479, 481, 484 education style, 614
Humanism, 124–127, 130, 136 Gqoba, W.W., 597
Humanness, 585, 586 The Wrath of the Ancestors, 601, 611, 613
Human relationships, 440 Jurisprudence, 335
Human rights, 330–333, 335 Justice, 334
in Akan ethic of social life, 336–339
and justice in Akan economic life,
340–342 K
and justice in Akan politics, 339, 340 Kafoo didi, 341
and justice in Akan traditional legal system, Kalu, K.A., 381
342 Kanga cloths, 440
and justice in religious life of Akans, 342 Kant, Immanuel, 391–393, 396
protection, 349–350 Kaunda, Kenneth, 625
traditional Akan ethics, 333–335, 344 Kenyan politics, 38
Hunhu, 291 Kezilahabi, Euphrase, 439, 441–443, 452
Hybridity, 488 Kgosi ke kgosi ka batho, 294, 295, 304
648 Index
Kgotla, 296, 297 Morality, 112

Knowledge acquisition, 232 Moral
Kyadee ntu bi, 336 enhancement, 56–58
neocolonialism, 150
partialism, 134
L philosophy, 122–127, 132, 133, 135, 136
Languages, 450, 475, 481 relationism, 168
Law of excluded middle, 268 zombies, 64, 65
Law of identity, 267 Moral personhood, 15, 21, 24, 28, 29
Law of (principle of) non-contradiction, 268 abortion, 169
Legal right, 334 Akan ethics, 166
Legitimisation, 150 ancestors, 170
Leys, C., 375 moral relationism, 172
Liberal democracy, Africa, 331–333 normative component, 166
Linguistic-cultural schemes, 227 ontological component, 166
Locke’s epistemology, 246 personhood, 169
Love view, 492, 493 rights, 171
Western bioethics, 167
Muntu, 18
M
Mackie’s scheme, 563
Manjaco people, 42 N
Marginalization, 416, 420, 421, 424, 426, 427 Nagona, 452
Masolo, D.A., 526 Nativised Africanness, 418
Maximal conception of personhood, 61 Natural cognitive mode, 214
Maximizing Utility Principle, 337 Natural philosophy, 432, 450
Meaningful life, 478–481, 485 Negative moralism, 65
Meaninglessness of life, 474, 477, 482, 484 Negative rights, 337
Meaning of life, 475, 476, 479, 480 Negritude, 210
communality, 500, 501 Neo-Marxist analysis of underdevelopment, 374
communal view, 492 Neo-positivist perspective, 215
death and, 482, 483 Nested relatedness, 300
existentiality of suffering and, 483 Ngaka, 153
relationality, 481, 482 Nigeria, 348
Shona, 493 19th-century philosophical primer, 437–439
socio-cultural milestones, 493 Nonhuman, 432–439, 447, 449–452
theories of meaning, 492 Non-indigenous African languages, 4
vital force, 498, 500 Non-recognition of Blackwomxn’s personhood,
Yoruba Cluster view, 502 391, 396, 397, 408
Medical decision making, 166–167 No-party political system, 320
Menkiti, Ifeanyi, 50, 60–62, 66 Normal values system, 50, 63–65
Mensah, J., 378 Normative personhood, 50, 62, 64–66, 130–132
Metaphysical animism, 177 Norm creation, 77, 78
Metaphysics/ontology, 291 Ntu, 204
Micclleland, D., 370 The Nuremburg Code, 165
Miller, C., 598 Nyama, 205
Minimal conception of personhood, 61 Nyasibwi, 546, 547
Mituki dimension, 26
Moderate anthropocentrism, 461
Modern Africa, 486–488 O
Modernization theory, 368–373 Object-oriented ontology, 451
Monitoring robots, 90, 92 October Revolution, 322
Monopolize, 154 Odo cult/religion, 543
Index 649
Ofamfa-Matemasie epistemology, 209 human nature conceptualization, 590

Oghene, 545 humanness, 586
Oladipo, O., 380 interconnectedness/humanness, 588
Omabe, 543 neoliberal conceptualization, 588
Omanhene, 342 other-regarding virtues, 586, 589
Ongoing-ness, 299 self-actualization virtues, 578
Onisegun’s testimony, 238 self-regarding virtues, 585
Ontological personhood social context, 579
ethical humanism, 126–127 social contract tradition, 584
ethics of dignity, 127–130 Philosophy of education, 595
Open anocracies, 321 role and function of, 596
Open-endedness, 299 status of, 596
Oppression, 416, 417, 423, 424 with nationalist-ideological philosophy, 598
Osabu-Kle, D., 379 Platonic dichotomy, 423
Ought-onomy, 193–194 Political culture, 332
Political ethics, 291, 292, 294–296, 301
Postcolonial African philosophy, 4
P Postcolonial literature in African languages,
Participation, 41–42 443
patriarchal politics, 42 Posthumanism, 81
Peirce, C.S., 271–272 Post-modernist, 285
Personal autonomy Post-Structural Adjustment Africa, 145
in African socio-cultural contexts of Power relations, 391, 397, 400, 402, 404, 405,
healthcare, 191–192 409
value of, 189–191 Pre-colonial political structures, 422
Personal identity, 5 Predominant egoism, 336
Personal ought-onomy, 193 Pre-given destiny, 495
Personhood theory, 16, 19–24, 28, 29, 50, Principle of connectivity, 551
59–62, 183–187, 475, 479, 501 Principle of regenerativity, 551
animal ethics, 135–136 Principles in Akanland, 335
character and achievement dignity, Processual personhood, 184
130–132 Psychological egoism, 336
ethical humanism, 126–127
ethics of dignity, 127–130
partiality and impartiality, 133–135 Q
theory of right action, 132–133 Queen mother, 339
Pessimism, 332 The question of method, 207, 216, 217
Phenomenology Qur’an, 440
African, 510 Qur’anic law, 342
analytical tradition, 510
definition, 510
intersectional modalities, 510 R
language, 515 Race, 401–404
Philosophy and an African Culture, 213 Radical moral enhancement, 58
Philosophy of African endogenous religion, Rational choice theory, 337
540–543, 547, 548, 550, 551, 554 Reciprocal rights and duties, 337
Philosophy of education, Ubuntu Reconstructionist theory, 378–381
African philosophy, 583 Reflective perception, 523
auto-centric theory, 585 Regulations, 141
community, 587 Reincarnation, 629
connectedness/humanness, 591 Relational autonomy, 188
educational aims, 578, 580, 582, 583, 590 Relational dwelling, 43
human nature conceptions, 578–582 Relational ethic, 110
650 Index
Relationalism, 460 Socio-cultural nature of religion, 542

Relationality, 475, 481, 485, 488 South African Journal of Philosophy (SAJP),
Religion 492
and African ethics, 112–115 Spirits, 546, 547, 552
Research integrity, 143 Status dignity, 131, 132
Responsible Conduct of Research, 141 Stigmatisation, 149
Retributive justice, 338 Structural marginalization, 145
Ritual murders, 343 Subjugation, 297, 414, 416, 423,
Rituals of incorporation, 390, 398 424, 427
Robots, 88–90, 93–95, 98 Subordinate chiefs, 342
Afro-communitarian evaluation, 98–101 Sub-Saharan African
assistive, 89, 92 bioethics, 162
companion, 90, 92, 94 ubuntu, 162
monitoring, 90, 92 Suffering, 483–486
Rwanda, 364 Sufi Islam, 433, 443, 445
Sufi Muslim, 439, 447
Sufism, 440, 442, 443
S Supernatural path to knowledge, 214
Sagacity, 30 Supreme Being, 340
Sage philosophy, 29 Swahili, 433, 436, 437, 439–441, 443, 445,
Scientific validity, 152 448, 449, 451
Sesotho/Setswana, 435
Shared identity, 109, 110
Shared knowledge, 302 T
Shekwoyi, 544, 545 Techno-communal beings, 71
Shona culture, 117 Technological enhancement, 62
Shona language, 114, 116 Technologized moralism, 63, 64
Simunye, 298 Technologized personhood, 62–64
Sin, 548 Technology governance
Skepticism, 626 challenges, 359
Slavery, 343 digital freedom, 355
Social and political philosophy and human rights, 348
African heritage and legacy, 314, 315 Techno-relationality, 70
African people, 325 Temporality, 623
African scholars, 311, 312 Tene period, 26
anocracy, 320–322 Testimonial injustice, 251, 252
challenges, 310 Textual cultures, 432, 436, 437, 439, 449
civil disobedience, 311, 313, 314, 322, 323, Textually subliminal gaps, 390, 396
326 Textual traditions, 432, 433
democracy, 310, 325 Theism, 557, 560, 564, 566, 569, 572
democracy in Africa, 318, 319 Theocentrism, 558
desuperiorisation, 316 Theodicy, 557–559, 565, 568, 569
heritage, 317 Theory of right action, 132–133
liberal philosophers, 324 Theory of ubuntu, 462
philosophical field, 310 Theory-praxis gap, 34–36
Pineda’s analysis, 323 Therisanyo, 297
structural racism, 313 Thingification, 512
Sudanese civilians, 324 “Third wave of African protests”, 322
Western philosophy, 316 Third World countries, 332
Social equilibrium, 113 Tikologo, 435
Social ethics, 117 Time, 623, 624
Social robots, 70 Tongue-neutral statements, 524
humanity, uniqueness and, 78–82 Tongue-relative statements, 524
nature of moral community, 76–78 Totemism, 177
relationality in afro-communitarianism, 71–75 Toxic relationality, 80, 82
Index 651
Traditional Akan, 335 Unanimitarian democracy, 298

Traditional Akan ethics, 333 UN Charter of human rights, 337
Traditional legal system, 342 Underdevelopment, 290, 295, 369, 372–375
Traditional medicine, 149 Unethical behaviour, 294
Transcendental idealism, 234 US Foreign Affairs Newsletter, 332
Trans-cultural system of values, 406 Utilitarianism, 108, 175
Transformative suffering, 484
Transhumanism, 50–58
Tribalism, 38 V
Trivalent logic, 266 Vaccines, 436
African, 272–273 Venda philosophy, 16
Aymará system, 269 Verhelst, T., 377
and bivalent logic, 267–268 Vernaculars, 419
Charles Sanders Peirce system, 271–272 Vijiji vya Ujamaa, 441
Janus system, 270–271 Vital force theory, 475–478, 480, 492,
Truth, 293, 294, 297, 298, 525 498, 500
Tyranny, 297 Vitalism, 550
U W
Ubuntu, 16, 21, 40, 45, 124, 598, 635 Wellman, Carl, 334
definition, 163 We-ness, 300
ethics, 291–293, 298–301, 304 Western counterparts, 335
‘an excellent African quality’, 163 Western ethics, 106, 111
feminist ethics, 163 Western ethos, 337
normative component, 166 Western modernity, 542, 551
ontological component, 166 Western-oriented epistemology, 218
personhood, 164 Wiredu, Akwasi, 339
Ubuntu and bioethics Wolof, 436, 439, 443–448
“African” bioethics, 162 Women in politics, 422
autonomy, 165 Wrangling’ over the price, 28
challenges, 165 The Wrath of the Ancestors, 601, 611, 613
environmental philosophy, 166 Wrong-making characteristics, 143
human dignity, 166
moral personhood, 166
padiatrics and geriatrics, 178 Y
strategy, 166 Yoruba belief system, 215
“Western” bioethics, 162, 164 (Yoruba) Cluster view, 492, 502
Ubuntugogy, 292 Young, C., 378
Ubuntuism, 481, 488
Uhuru, 442
Ujamaa, 15, 21, 441, 442, 625 Z
Umhlaba, 452 Zhibaje, 547
Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu, 16 Zuhdiyya, 437

Handbook of African Philosophy Handbooks in Philosophy 1st Ed 2023 3031251482 9783031251481 Compress

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Handbook of African Philosophy Handbooks in Philosophy 1st Ed 2023 3031251482 9783031251481 Compress

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Handbooks in Philosophy

• Offers collections of emerging topics that discuss cutting-edge research and

ISSN 2524-4361 ISSN 2524-437X (electronic)

Paper in this product is recyclable.

interrogation in its chapters of Afro-communitarianism as a longstanding, overarch-

London, United Kingdom Elvis Imaﬁdon

Part I Introduction ....................................... 1

The Meaning of African Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Part II Afro-communitarian Philosophy ...................... 11

African Philosophy of Communalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Part III Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

African Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Personal Autonomy and Shared-Value in Bioethics: An African

Part IV Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

African Epistemology: Past, Present, and Future ................. 199

Knowledge and Testimony in African Communitarian Epistemology . . . 223

Exploring Ignorance and Injustice in African Epistemology . . . . . . . . . 245

Trivalent Logic, African Logic, and African Metaphysics . . . . . . . . . . . 265

Part V Political Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

African Political Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Doing Contemporary African Social and Political Philosophy

The Philosophy of Human Rights: The Akan Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

Technologies of Human Rights Protection, Sovereignty,

African Philosophy of Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363

Part VI Feminist Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

Gender and Afro-personhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389

An African Feminist Interrogation of Existential Epistemology:

Part VII Philosophy and the Nonhuman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429

The Nonhuman in African Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431

Part VIII Existentialism and Phenomenology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471

Key Concerns in African Existentialism ........................ 473

Part IX Philosophy of Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537

Toward a Philosophy of African Endogenous Religions ............ 539

Part X Philosophy of Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575

A Sketch of an Ubuntu Philosophy of Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577

Part XI Future Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 619

African Philosophy and the Question of the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 621

Elvis Imaﬁdon (PhD) lectures in the Department of

Mpho Tshivhase is a senior lecturer in the Department

member of the Moralities Research Group at Bayreuth

Björn Freter received his doctorate with his thesis “On

Kenneth Uyi Abudu Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, Ambrose Alli

Faculty of Philosophy and Education, Katholische Universitaet, Eichstatt-Ingolstadt,

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 3

of self-deﬁnition and of existence as well as related questions such as that of the

A dominant answer to this question of the ownership of philosophy is that philos-

What Is Meant by an African Place?

In the words of Bruce Janz (2009: 1–9):

Janz aptly captures a fundamental question in African philosophy: What place do

creation and construction of this physical, epistemic, philosophical, social, and

This handbook of African philosophy is an invaluable and important addition to the

nature of Afro-communitarianism and its major challenges as a theory. This part

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 13

distinction. The chapter goes on to illustrate some of these differences whilst

One noticeable characteristic of indigenous African societies is the integral commu-

A Person Is a Person Through Other Persons

In indigenous African experience, the notion of communalism characterizes the

reduced existence to perception (“to be is to be perceived”), in African indigenous

Personhood in African Cultures

In order to understand and fully appreciate the nature of communalism in African

Identity and Moral Personhood

metaphysical account of a person as the thinking, rational, autonomous, free indi-

In contrasting the African and Western perspectives regarding the relationship

in that they emphasize equal distribution of communal goods, equality of communal