Essay
African Philosophy: Myth and Reality
Sur la « philosophie africaine ». Critique de l'ethnophilosophie
Paulin J. Hountondji · 1977
Synopsis
The essay attacks a way of writing about Africa illustrated by the missionary Placide Tempels and by Alexis Kagame: seeking in languages, religions and myths a system of thought that a people would have collectively preserved, and calling it philosophy. The author names this approach ethnophilosophy, an ethnological enquiry with philosophical pretensions that confuses the methods of anthropology with those of philosophy. He sets against it a requirement: philosophy cannot be collective, nor merely oral, nor unconscious.
Context
The book was published by François Maspero, in the Textes à l'appui series; the reference works hesitate between 1976 and 1977. It first targeted Tempels's La Philosophie bantoue, hailed in its time as foundational. The thesis triggered a bitter controversy, in which the author and his Cameroonian friend Marcien Towa were accused of Europhilia. Translated into English by Henri Evans and Jonathan Rée, the essay appeared in Bloomington in 1983, then in a second edition in 1996. Later, the author sought a synthesis between traditional thought and rigorous philosophical method, without renouncing his critique.
Who it is for
About two hundred pages of tight argumentation, for readers interested in the debate on what philosophy is in Africa.
Prizes and reception
Selected among the hundred best African books of the twentieth century, it led to its author being regarded as a major figure of African philosophy.