TJP, 7, 1 (2015), 1-16

ISSN 0975-332X│doi:10.12726│tjp.13.1

Dimensions of Epistemology and the Case

for Africa’s Indigenous Ways of Knowing

Amaechi Udefi*

Abstract

African philosophical practice has taken a new turn since

it survived the large scale problems and debates which
characterized its early beginnings in an African
environment and intellectual community. The
metaphilosophical issues then concerned about its status,
relevance and methodology appropriate or usable for
doing it. Although the issues that troubled African
philosophers then may have subsided, yet some of them
have and are still expressing reservations on the
possibility of having Africa‟s indigenous ways of
knowing, just as they deny the possibility of „African
physics‟ or „African arithmetic‟. Paulin Hountondji, a
leading African philosopher, is reputed for denying
African traditional thought as philosophy, which he
prefers to type as ethnophilosophy, simply because it
thrives on orality and other ethnographical materials like
proverbs, parables, folklores, fables, songs etc. For him,
the piece, at best can qualify as ethnographical or
anthropological monographs as opposed to philosophical
work which relies on written texts and documentation on
the basis of which “theoretical knowledge and significant
intellectual exchange and innovation can” be achieved in
Africa. Hountondji‟s position is, to say the least,
exclusionist, since it denies and debars African modes of
thought and heritage a position in the on-going
philosophical conversation or discourse.

* Department of Philosophy, University of Ibadan, Nigeria;

[email protected]
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Tattva- Journal of Philosophy ISSN 0975-332X

The paper shares Hountondji‟s vision of adoption of an

attitude of critical, scientific and skeptical orientation in
African societies. However, it rejects the views of
Hountondji and other scholars who deny African
intellectual and cognitive systems and argues that their
position rests on one sided conception or dimension of
epistemology. The other intention of the paper is to show
that philosophical practice is as old as the history of
mankind in Africa, though Hountondj has expressed the
view that philosophy as an academic discipline started in
African Universities only in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

Keywords: Epistemology, African Philosophy,

Ethnophilosophy, Indigenous Knowledge, Culture.

1. Two Senses of the Word Epistemology

As it is familiar, the introduction and establishment of African

Philosophy as part of the curriculum in Nigeria‟s higher education
was marked or preceded by a long debate centering but not
exclusively on its methodology and status as an academic
discipline. As the debate continued, African philosophers and
scholars were torn into different camps. On the one hand, there
were some who took a skeptical position arguing that African
philosophy was still in the making. On the other, some took a
cultural position and were prepared to concede that African
philosophy was continuous with African culture.
Paulin Hountondji, one of leading African philosophers typed the
position of the latter group as ethnophilosophical, which he takes
to be an attempt to “define a specific African philosophy, a world-
view common to all Africans, past, present and future, a collective,
immutable system of thought in eternal apposition to that of
Europe”1. This way of understanding African philosophy,
according to Hountondji, prompts some African philosophers to
see it as a matter of duty to “reconstruct the thought of his
forefathers, the collective Weltanschauung of his people”2. He avers
that ethnophilosophy has as its main objective;
…to reconstruct a particular Weltanschauung, a
specific world-view commonly attributed to all
Africans, abstracted from history and change and
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Amaechi Udefi Dimensions of Epistemology

moreover, philosophical through an interpretation

of the customs and traditions, proverbs and
institutions in short, various data-concerning the
cultural life of African people3.
Hountondji would not have been worried by the
anthropologisation of African philosophy and this kind of
scholarship if it had identified itself as a form of cultural
anthropology,” and not, as its proponents would want us to
believe, as representing African Philosophy and as the proper
methodological rendering of African philosophies‟4. The
assumption here is that philosophy cannot exist as „implicit,‟
„collective‟, and „communal thought,‟ which characterizes all
Africans. Neither can philosophy be masked in the form of poems,
myth, legends, etc, since these, according to Hountondji, are
“artistic literature as distinct from scientific literature.”5
Hountondji, like the members of the Analytic African philosophy,
understands philosophy in the active sense that it is a rational and
critical study of which argumentation and clarification are its
essential hallmarks,” persistently “questioning the untiring
dialectic that accidentally produces systems and then projects them
towards a horizon of fresh truths.”6 The key points in Hountondji‟s
denunciation of ethnophilosophy include;
i. Orality
ii. Myth of unanimity
iii. Collective or communal thought as opposed to
individual thought
iv. Unconscious, spontaneous and implicit world-view
v. Cultural uniqueness
Based on his uncompromising acceptance of philosophy as defined
or understood in a Western context, it is natural that he would
reject as tribal world-view, terms like Igbo philosophy, Yoruba
philosophy, Dogon philosophy, Akan philosophy etc. In the same
manner, he would discountenance the idea of African theory of
knowledge for the same reasons and arguments, even though
African philosophers and scholars in and around Africa have
sufficiently demonstrated with argumentative skills the existence of
such philosophy and epistemology as found amongst indigenous
African people. Perhaps, an explication of the two senses of the
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word „epistemology‟ would dispel Hountondji‟s anxiety and

vexation about the potentials and reality of ethnophilosophy
and/or collective epistemology which is the concern of this essay.

1.1 Ordinary or Broad Sense of Epistemology

Epistemology or theory of knowledge is that branch of philosophy,
which studies the nature of knowledge especially the question of
how we know what we claim to know and the extent to which we
know it.7 But epistemology is susceptible to another sense, where it
is taken to mean the communal beliefs of a people because any
group of human beings will certainly have to have some world
outlook, that is, some general conceptions about the world in which
they live and themselves both as individuals and as members of
society.8
Indeed in talking about traditional African philosophy, „we do not
need to assume that there is any kind of metaphysical or mythic
unity among Africans with respect to their conceptions of nature,
the human, existence, society, etc. It is also not necessary to suggest
that these conceptions are unique to them. We do not have to make
any of these suggestions because of the diversity of the cultures
and traditions in Africa and the possibility that these cultures and
traditions might share some of their essential attributes with those
of other societies. The point however, is that in spite of the
diversity, we can still identify some deep underlying affinities
running through the various African cultures and traditions in
virtue of which we can establish their unity‟. The point we are
making here is well stated by Anyanwu when he says:
…a skeptic may doubt whether what I have
described as the basic assumptions of African
culture refer to all black African cultures or to
specific or particular cultures of certain groups of
people in Africa. I would say that it makes no
difference whether one speaks about the philosophy
of a particular ethnic group in Africa or the
philosophy of African culture in general,…The
underlying principles inherent in all African cultures
are applicable in any form in which one may
formulate African (traditional) philosophy9
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Amaechi Udefi Dimensions of Epistemology

Thus on the basis of this illuminating insight by an African

philosopher, we can say that there is a certain underlying identity
even in the face of plurality of African traditions and heritage.10 Let
us therefore admit that there is a traditional African philosophy.
This philosophy is certainly not a stock of metaphysical notions
common to all Africans. Rather, it is „an abstraction standing for
those interrelated conceptions of nature, human, society, morality
etc.

It is important here to distinguish between objective and subjective,

or the material conditions that enable one or other philosophy and
the vehicles for its expression to come into being. This point is
taken by Joseph Dietzgen, when he writes:

Just as the reformulation was conditioned by the

material base of the 16th century, so the theory of
human intellectual operations just like the discovery
of the electric telegraph is conditioned by the
material base of the 19th century. Accordingly the
contents of this tract are not the product of an
individual mind, rather they are a plant born on
historical soil… 11

What emerges from this would be, that there is no apparent link of
necessity between the existence of philosophy and the effort of the
individual since every philosophy that finds expression after, as it
were, a period of gestation is always informed through the channel
of one or more individuals. The vital point in a debate about the
existence or non-existence of mode of thought cannot therefore be
the emergence of an individual philosopher. Rather it must be what
Dietzgen has rightly called „the material base.‟ The point here is
that philosophy like history in general, cannot be conceived as the
work of geniuses. For there is abundant evidence in African
traditional thought to show that indigenous thinkers are capable of
reflective philosophical thinking and on the basis of which we can
say that such a world-view is characteristic of a people‟s communal
outlook upon the universe. It would be said then that any attempt
to reject this in preference to „the theoretical effort of the individual‟
is to say the least an intellectual fraud appropriating the fruits of
the work, both manual and intellectual of the mass of the people.12
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These scholars, especially Hountondji, who reject African

traditional thought because according to them, it is a collective
philosophy which is known by every Tom, Dick and Harry in the
community failed because it ignored the relevance and impact of
culture on the reflections of the individual thinker. Because they
believe that philosophizing is a wholly individualistic affair, they
also fail to realize that their so-called individual thinker must draw
as his/her raw data the communal ideas and belief systems
preponderant in his community. In other words, we cannot
possibly divorce the philosophy of an individual thinker from the
ideas current among the people, because such philosophy of the
individual thinker is rooted in the beliefs and assumptions of the
culture. Here, the term culture is taken from its Latin roots, cultura
meaning cultivating or tilling the land. It was taken by Cicero and
others as the cultivation of the soul or mind since the human spirit
will not achieve its proper result if it is not trained or educated.13
However, we shall define culture following E. B. Tylor, to be “that
complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law,
customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired by the
human as a member of society.”14 It is argued that we are justified
in saying that Greek philosophy and British philosophy refer to the
ideas of Socrates, Plato and Locke, Berkeley receptively simply
because such philosophy has its roots or basis in the culture,
traditions and mentalities of the societies of these people.
The point being made so far is that philosophy (epistemology) is
the product of a culture because it is inconceivable to say that a
culture can exist without those elements of thought that are shared
in common. Hence, we can say that all individualized philosophies
stem from the general experience and problem confronting a
particular people in a given cultural environment. On this
Anyanwu says:
The philosophies of individuals are still subordinate
to public philosophy, and in the ultimate analysis
public (collective) philosophy.15
In order to corroborate the point we are canvassing here, it may be
instructive to examine, however sketchily, some of the
philosophical doctrines of some individual thinkers in the Western
philosophical tradition to see how they appropriated the dominant
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Amaechi Udefi Dimensions of Epistemology

ideas of their culture to formulate their doctrines. In ancient

philosophy both Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes were
credited for explaining natural phenomena in purely systematic
and scientific terms, thereby carrying, in a manner of speaking, a
kind of „Copernican Revolution‟ that changed the thought pattern
of the ancients from interpreting natural phenomena in terms of
supernatural and human agencies to doing so in scientific and non-
human agencies. It is important to note that the main pre-
occupation of these philosophers was to discover the ultimate
principles that underlie the various things in the physical world. It
is argued that Thales, for example, founded all things in the world
on „water.‟ Also, it is contended that Aristotle is known for saying
that the idea that water subsists all things in the universe was
common in the mythological traditions of the Greeks and the
peoples with whom they come in contact.16 The issue here is that
the notion of water and the beliefs and practices associated with it
were already embodied in the Greeks‟ conception of natural
phenomena. The philosopher merely draws for his analysis the
ideas or raw data embedded in the communal world outlook of his
people.
As a matter of fact, the minds of the philosophers are not like
„tabula rasa‟ (in Locke‟s phrase) where ideas are imprinted, but are
already furnished with the ideas, beliefs, and thoughts of their
society. Based on this, we can argue that philosophical discussion
in any given epoch is determined by a set of assumptions which are
the groundwork of current conceptions shared by all men of a
given culture.17 Thus, it can be argued that Greek philosophy or
any other arises out of the minds of the people and is in fact a
component part of that culture. This fact is obvious when we
consider what Bertrand Russell says:
My purpose is to exhibit philosophy as an integral part of social
and political life, not as the isolated speculations of remarkable
individuals.18

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1.2 Technical or Strict Sense of Epistemology

What we attempt here is to examine epistemology in its strict or

technical sense with a view to show that both the broad or general
and narrow or technical sense shade into each other in many forms,
as well as unraveling some of the pitfalls associated with the
technical sense of the term. The word „epistemology‟ is a
compound Greek word formed from two simple parts, „episteme‟
which means „knowledge‟ and „logos‟ which connotes „theory‟.
Hence, epistemology is referred to as „theory of knowledge.‟

Even though epistemology embraces a variety of concepts and

issues, its central questions that agitated the minds of philosophers
have remained the same. These include, what are the criteria of
knowledge? How does one know or come to know anything at all?
And how does one know that one knows anything? These
questions, we believe, serve as an invitation to analyze the status
and nature of our knowledge claim; the validation of our cognitive
experience; and the relationship between our cognitive experience
and the various objects in the world. This is what Michael Williams
intends when he says that epistemology is concerned with the
nature or structure of the justification of our most important beliefs,
our belief in the existence of the physical world.19

Now apart from the above questions, there is even a larger question
which is: why a theory of knowledge? that is, is it necessary to have
a theory of knowledge? The other problems that border on the
above questions, are the problems of what we understand by the
term Knowledge, and what is it that deserves the title of knowledge
.20 It is argued that the answers to these problems can be achieved
only by those that are equipped with the techniques or
methodology appropriate for the discovery of the truth in them.
The same thing can be said even of a specifically knowledge claim
made by someone on the street because it is only those who have
the relevant facts that can make the necessary inferences and
deductions. However, there is an exception here, that is, a
philosopher, because of his understanding of what constitutes
knowledge, what in general could count as knowledge, can assert
that some particular claim purported to be a knowledge claim does
not qualify as knowledge in the real sense of the word. The reasons
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Amaechi Udefi Dimensions of Epistemology

for the philosopher‟s discountenance of such claim could be that

the conditions necessary for any claim to qualify as a genuine
claim to knowledge are not met and it is possible that the person
making such claim simply does not have sufficient grounds for his
claim which, in turn, may vitiate such claim from being true. The
point then is that any claim to knowledge, if it is to be a valid claim,
presupposes a prior satisfaction of the conditions concerning
grounds, truth, meaning etc. Thus, the task of the philosopher,
concerned with the theory of knowledge, is to investigate and
elucidate, in a practical manner, the conditions and concept of
knowledge.
The word „know‟ is slippery, as it is complex and sometimes
technical and philosophers have continued to grapple with its exact
meaning. Whereas some philosophers describe the word as
psychological or propositional attitudes towards statements or a
state of affairs, others reject and instead claim that it has distinctive
tone as a private mental state that intuitively distinguishes it from
the other psychological attitudes.21 For these people, such
statements as „I know x: will then refer to only that distinctive state
of mind at that particular time. But its ordinary English usage tends
to suggest that the word is commonly used in a dispositional or
behavioral sense. On this, H. H. Price writes;
Now in ordinary everyday English the verb „to
know‟ generally used in a dispositional sense: not
quite invariably perhaps, but certainly the
dispositional use of it is by far the most common.22
Although, we shall not wish to enter into any controversy about the
definition of the word here, we shall simply assert that whenever
we talk of knowledge or the ordinary English verb „to know‟ in
epistemology,23 what we are aiming at is the sense in which a
person knows that something is the case (knowing that or
propositional knowledge), or the sense in which a person could be
said to be acquainted with a state of affairs (knowledge by
acquaintance). Such cases include, for example, the situation where
a person claims to know that the atomic weight of gold is 197.2; or
that A. J. Ayer is the author of The Problem of Knowledge, we believe
that this sense of knowing entitles someone to talk of knowledge as
being a sub-set of belief. Even, at that, the way we justify different
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Tattva- Journal of Philosophy ISSN 0975-332X

claims to knowledge differs; hence the justification of the claim that

a person knows that the atomic weight of gold is 197.2 is quite
different from the justification required to prove the truth of the
claim that A.J. Ayer is the author of The Problem of Knowledge. Now
if this is accepted, then what justification do we have to say that
they fall under the same concept? To answer this will imply also
our knowledge or understanding of certain similarities they share
especially in the ordinary usage. So this seems to be one of the
sources of the philosophical importance of trying to find an
adequate definition of knowledge, that is, a definition that could
provide satisfactory criteria for assessing certain claims to
knowledge.24

2.Interconnections between the Broad and Strict Senses of

Epistemology

Like we stated above, the distinction between the broad and strict
or narrow senses of philosophy is akin to those between „critical‟
and „collective‟ epistemology. Hence, the explication of one can be
used to understand the other since epistemology is a core branch of
philosophy. Some philosophers and scholars have made
postulations alluding to the distinction between the broad and
strict senses of the terms, „philosophy,‟ „epistemology.‟ Witness, for
instance, F. C. Copleston‟s distinction between broadfield and
„second-order‟ philosophy25; Claude Sumner‟s „broad‟ and
„narrow‟ philosophy ; D. A. Masolo‟s „ordinary sense‟ and „second
26

sense‟ philosophy27. What is clear in all these two senses of

philosophy (epistemology) is that these philosophers do not take
them as autonomous and as existing independently of each other.
For them, however, both overlap and shade into each other in a
complementary manner.

The symbiotic relationship, as it were between the two senses or

philosophy and/for epistemology is well expressed by Sumner
when he argues that;
Philosophy in a broad sense is still philosophy. „In
this way, he justifies using the words Ethiopian
Philosophy in the titles of his books „… He sees his
own distinction between broad and narrow
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Amaechi Udefi Dimensions of Epistemology

philosophy to be a bridge or compromise between

Western version of philosophy and what is needed
to include African wisdom traditions within the field
of philosophy, thus making the definition more
universal rather than narrowly European28.

Now, it was adumbrated above that Hountondji and some

members of the analytic African philosophy movement have
shown how traditional African thought cannot and should not
constitute African philosophy. Hountondji, it should be recalled, in
his seminal work, African Philosophy Myth and Reality, made a
distinction between what he calls „popular‟ and „strict‟ senses of
philosophy. The former, according to him, refers to “wisdom,
individual or collective, which is made of coherent principles and
meant to guide daily action.” However in the strict sense,
Hountondji argues that it cannot be spontaneous or collective
philosophy, but is based on the scientific model of free discussion
during which hypotheses are tested29.

Also, Kwasi Wiredu, a member of the analytic school of African

philosophy may not be contemptuous to traditional African
thought, as Hountondji, yet he (Wiredu) did not conceal his
“colonized” version of philosophy that accepted Western
definitions instead of creating African definitions of philosophy,”
in Sumner‟s phrase30. On traditional African Philosophy, Wiredu
has this to say;

If African philosophy means Traditional African

philosophy as surprisingly many people seem to
think, then we can forget any pretence of modern
philosophizing. In most parts of Africa, we would
have, in that case, to abstain from such disciplines as
symbolic logic and its philosophical interpretations,
the philosophy of mathematics and of the natural
and social sciences, the theory of knowledge
associated with the foregoing disciplines and the
moral, political and social philosophy which has
arisen as a response to the needs of modern
times…31 [author‟s italics]
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Tattva- Journal of Philosophy ISSN 0975-332X

According to Olusegun Oladipo, Wiredu‟s rejection of the equation

of African Philosophy with African folk thought is informed by
two considerations namely; „practical and theoretical‟. On the
practical side, such equation, according to Wiredu, would amount
to being “content with the mere narration of the ideas Africans
lived by as an adequate fulfillment of the philosopher‟s task in
contemporary Africa.”32 From the theoretical angle, “it would deny
Africans the opportunity of engaging fruitfully in the activity of
modern philosophizing.” 33
But the hostilities against ethnophilosophy in particular and
traditional African philosophy in general by the analytic group is
unwarranted because their views will definitely hurt Africa by
robbing it, according to Barry Hallen of engagement in “a positive
and fruitful relationship between Africa‟s indigenous intellectual
heritage and technical systematic academic (Western)
philosophy”.34 One aspect of their grouse (analytic group) with
traditional African philosophy is simply that it is largely oral and
unwritten. In other words, “its various aspects have usually been
transmitted from generation to generation by word of mouth.”35
However some scholars have shown that proverbs, myths,
folklores etc, are important vehicles for the transmission of
traditional thought and as „sources of traditional conceptions and
ideas, whether metaphysical, epistemological, ethical etc.”36
By advocating the method of science and technology as the
basis of social development by the analytic African philosophers,
they were uncompromising in calling for a break or total
destruction of “traditional idols” and other heritage resources. But
it is fruitless to pursue this project because „the survival of the past
in contemporary Africa cannot be eliminated by fiat. In the views of
some scholars, particularly J. F. Ade-Ajayi,
…development is not simply an activity in which the
old is replaced by the new in a mechanical manner.
Rather, it is a process of social reconstruction in
which the past survives in the present, though in a
modified form…37

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Amaechi Udefi Dimensions of Epistemology

Based on the insight offered by the doyen of African

historiography, Ade-Ajayi, we make bold to say that the views of
the analytical African philosophers are unilluminating and
therefore does not serve as adequate critique of ethnophilosophy.

The interest and my pre-occupation in this essay is to show that the

attack on ethnophilosophy and the rejection of traditional African
thought is misguided. This is because ethnophilosophy is still a
fruitful discourse in contemporary Africa. Apart from promoting
some aspects of our positive culture, also serves as a basis for
promoting indigenous knowledge, which is “a paradigm shift from
the mechanistic top-down models primarily concerned with
economic development towards dynamic participatory approaches
concerned with all facets of human development.” In other words,
the utilization of „indigenous institutions and culture in effecting
more positive governance and development emphasizing
participatory processes‟ at the socio-political and economic layers
of the society is the interest of ethnophilosophers in postcolonial
Africa.

Conclusion

Let us reiterate the thrust of our argument in this essay by saying

that it is still worthwhile to study ethnophilosophy and traditional
African philosophy because of their potentials for assisting Africa
to overcome some of her development challenges.

References

Pauline J. Hountondji, African Philosophy Myth and Reality.

London: Hutchinson University Library for Africa, 1983.
51-52.
Ibid. 52.
Ibid. 34.
Barry Hallen. African Philosophy, the Analytic Approach.
Trenton: Africa World Press, Inc., 2006. 107-108.
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Tattva- Journal of Philosophy ISSN 0975-332X

Pauline J. Hountondji, African Philosophy Myth and Realit.

London: Hutchinson University Library for Africa, 1983.
82-83.
Ibid. 53.
Rush, E. A. The Ways of Knowing and Thinking. Lesotho:
National University of Lesotho, 1977.
Wasi Wiredu. “On Defining African Philosophy” in Tsenay
Serequeberhan (ed.) African Philosophy: The Essential
Readings, New York: Paragon House, 1991. 87.
Anyanwu, K. C. The African Experience in the American Market
Place, New York: Exposition Press, 1983. 60.
Abraham, W. E. The Mind of Africa Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1962.
Olabiyi Yai, C.F. “Theory and Practice in African Philosophy:
The Poverty of Speculative Philosophy” in Second Order,
An African Journal of Philosophy vol. vi, No.2 (July 1977): 3-
20.
Ibid. 11.
Mclean, Cf. George F. “Person as Essentially Cultural: From
Individual Self-Interest to Cultural Traditions” in William
Sweet et al. (eds.) The Dialogue of Cultural Traditions: A
Global Perspective Washington DC: The Council for
Research in Values and Philosophy, 2008. 23.
Anyanwu, K. C. “The Problem of method in African
Philosophy” in C.S. Momoh (ed.) The substance of African
Philosophy Nigeria: African Philosophy Projects
Publishers, 1989. 140.
Guthrie, W. K. C. The Greek Philosophies: From Thales to
Aristotle London: Methuen, 1967.
Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. 2nd Edition
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965. 174.
14
Amaechi Udefi Dimensions of Epistemology

Williams, Michael. Groundless Beliefs: An Essay on the

Possibility of Epistemology. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1977. 8.
These Points appear in to Hamlyn , D.W. The Theory of
Knowledge. London: The Macmillan Press, 1970. 4.
Barry Hallen and J. O. Sodipo, Knowledge, Belief and Witchcraft:
Analytic Experiments in African Philosophy. London:
Ethnographica Ltd., 1986. 8.
Price, H. H. Belief, London: George Allen and Union, 1969. 42.
For an Illuminating Account of the different senses of the
verb „to know‟, see Ayer, A.J. The Problem of Knowledge,
Harmondsworth: Penguin Book, 1956. 8.
These points appear Oladipo, O.T. Knowledge as Justified Belief.
An Unpublished M. A. project, University of Ibdan, 1984.
3-4.
Copleston, F. C. Philosophies and Cultures, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1980. 12-12.
Claude Sumner. Classical Ethiopian Philosophy. Los Angeles:
Adey Publishing Co., 1994. 17.
Masolo, D. A. African Philosophy in Search of Identity. Indiana:
Indiana University Press, 1994. 59.
Claude Sumner. Classical Ethiopian Philosophy. 17.
Hountondji, Paulin J. African Philosophy Myth and Reality. 56-
62.
Presbey, Gail M. „Broad‟ and „Strict‟ Distinctions Proposed by
Claude Sumner Regarding Ethiopian and African
Philosophy in Claude Sumner and Samuel W. Yohannes
(eds.) Perspectives in African Philosophy: An Anthology on
Problematics of an African Philosophy: Twenty Years After
(1996), Addis Ababa: University Printing Press, 2002. 78.
Kwasi Wiredu. “African Philosophical Tradition: A case
Study of the Akan”. The Philosophical Forum: A Quarterly
Vol. 24, Nos. 1-3, (1992-93): 1.
15
Tattva- Journal of Philosophy ISSN 0975-332X

Olusegun Oladipo. Philosophy and the African Experience. The

Contributions of Wiredu, Ibadan: Hope Publications, 1996.
14-15.

Barry Hallen. African Philosophy: The Analytic Approach. 106.

Ali. Mazrui, “The Written Word and Collective Identity” in

east Africa Journal vol. 9 No.5, (1972): 3.

Kwame Gyekye. “The Philosophical Relevance of Akan

Proverbs” in Second Order: An African Journal of Philosophy,
Vol. iv, No.2. (July 1975): 45-53; See also D.N.
Kaphagawani and H.F. Chidani Modzi, Chewa “Cultural
Ideas and Systems of Thought as Determined by Proverbs:
A Preliminary Analysis” in Journal of Social Sciences, vol. 10
(1983)100-110.

Ade Ajayi, J. F. “The Past in the Present: The Factor of

Tradition in Development” National Merit Award Lecture
delivered at Lagos in (December, 1990): 1-10.

Ibid. 10.

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