African Gnosis Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge: An

Transcription

African Gnosis Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge: An Introduction
Author(s): V. Y. Mudimbe
Reviewed work(s):
Source: African Studies Review, Vol. 28, No. 2/3 (Jun. - Sep., 1985), pp. 149-233
Published by: African Studies Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/524605 .
Accessed: 16/05/2012 23:21
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
African Studies Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to African
Studies Review.
http://www.jstor.org
AFRICAN GNOSIS
PHILOSOPHY AND THE ORDER OF KNOWLEDGE:
AN INTRODUCTION
V. Y. Mudimbe
INTRODUCTION
This article is extracted from a largeressay which grew as a consequence(or,
more exactly, as an accident) of an invitation to establish a survey on African
philosophy. Strictly speaking, the notion of African philosophy refers to
contributions of Africans practicingphilosophy within the definite frameworkof
the discipline and its historical tradition (Horton, 1976; Hountondji, 1977;
Mudimbe, 1983b). It is only metaphorically or, at best, from a historicist
perspective, that one would extend the notion to African traditional systems of
thought, considering them as dynamic processes of integrating concrete
experiences into the order of concepts and discourses (Ladriere, 1979: 14-15).
Thus, I have preferred to title this text "African Gnosis." J. Fabian used the
notion of gnosis (1969) in his analysis of a charismatic African movement. In
this contribution, the wider frame of this notion seems better to encompass the
range of problems addressed,all of which are based on a preliminaryquestion:to
what extent can one speak of an "African knowledge," and in which sense?
Etymologicaly, gnosis is related to gnosko, which in ancient Greek means "to
know." It refers to a structured, common, and conventional knowledge, but
strictly under the control of specific procedures for its use as well as
transmission. Gnosis is, consequently, different from doxa, or opinion, and, on
the other hand, cannot be confused with episteme, or general intellectual
configuration.
The title is thus a methodological tool: it covers possibilities of
misunderstandingwhat is or what is not African philosophy, and orients the
debate in another direction by focusing on the conditions of possibility of
philosophy as part of the larger body of knowledge. I use this central notion of
conditions of possibility according to a recent tradition in which M. Foucault
could, for example, define his own intellectual ambition in terms of its
dependence on alterations that Jean Hyppolite introduced in Hegelian
philosophy (Foucault, 1982: 235-37). What the notion of conditions of
possibility indicates is that discourses not only have socio-historicalorigins but
also epistemological contexts. It is the latter which make them possible and, on
the other hand, can account for them in an essential way.
1985.
AfricanStudiesReview,vol. 28, nos. 2/3, June/September
149
150
AFRICANSTUDIESREVIEW
I shall be dealing with discourseson African societies, cultures,and peoples as
signs of something else, interrogatingtheir modalities, significance,or strategies
as a means of understandingthe type of knowledgewhich is being proposed. In
fact I do not address the classical issues of African anthropologyor history about
the results which might or might not mirroran objective African reality. Rather I
am looking ad montem of the results, precisely at what made them possible,
before accepting them as commentary on the revelation, or restitution, of an
African experience.
Therefore, the essay attempts a sort of achaeology of African Gnosis as a
power-knowledgesystem in which major philosophical questions recently have
risen: first, about the form, the content, and the style of "Africanizing"
knowledge; second, about the status of traditional systems of thought and their
possible relation with the first genre of knowledge. From the first part of the
essay through the second part in which the power of anthropologist and
missionary is analyzed, to the last on philosophy, I am directly concerned with
processes of transformationof types of knowledge.
This orientation has two consequences: an apparent attenuation of the
originality of African contributions and, on the other hand, an overemphasison
external procedures, such as anthropologicalor religious influences. The fact of
the matter is that, up to now, Western interpretersas well as African analysts
have been using categories and conceptual systems dependent on a Western
epistemological order, and even in the most explicit "Afrocentric"descriptions,
models of analysis explicitly or implicitly, knowinglyor unknowingly,refer to the
same order. Does this mean that African Weltanschauungen and African
traditional systems of thought are unthinkable and cannot be made explicit
within the frameworkof their own rationality?My own claim is that thus far the
ways they have been thought of and the means used to explain them relate to
theories and methods whose constraints, rules, and systems of operation suppose
a non-African epistemological locus. From this viewpoint the claim of some
African philosophers such as O. Bimwenyi-Kweshi (1981) and F. EboussiBoulaga (1981a) that they represent an epistemological hiatus should be taken
seriously. What does this mean for the field of African studies? To what extent
can their perspectives modify the fact of silently depending on a Western
episteme? Would it then be possible to think anew the notion of tradition from,
let us say, a radical dispersion of African culture?
These are the most alive issues in the debate on African philosophy. They
oblige me to specify immediately my position about representativesof African
Gnosis. Who is speaking about it? Who has the right and the credentials to
produce it, describe it, comment upon it or, at least, present opinions about it?
No one takes offense if an anthropologistis called upon. But strangelyenough,
Africanists-and among them anthropologists-have decided to separate the
"real" African from the Westernized African, and to rely strictly on the first.
Against this myth of the man in the bush, J. Jahn (1961:16) chose to "turn to
those Africans who have their own opinion and who will determine the future of
Africa; those, in other words, of whom it is said that they are trying to revive the
African tradition." Yet, Jahn's decision seems exaggerated. I would prefer a
wider authority: intellectuals' discourses as a critical library and, also, the
experience of rejected forms of wisdom which do not participate in the
traditional or the modern structuresof power and knowledge.
AFRICANGNOSIS
151
I am deeply indebted to the Joint Committee on African Studies of The
Social Science Research Council in conjunction with The American Council of
Learned Societies. It invited me to write this essay and gave me the necessary
facilities. The bibliographyat the end shows to how many works and scholars I
am also intellectually indebted. I must express explicitly my obligations to some
friends and colleagues without whom this essay would, perhaps, have not been
written and certainly, not finished now: Elizabeth Boyi for her encouragement,
Christie Agawu for her editorial assistance, Kofi Agawu for his reading of some
chapters. I am particularlygrateful to Arnd Bohm whose patient correction of
the proofs and critical comments helped me to clarify many points. Finally, I
have to record my special thanks to ShirleyAverill for her useful suggestions,the
typing of the manuscript, and her unfailing patience. Needless to say, the ideas
as well as the hypotheses on, and interpretation of, African Gnosis are
completely my responsibility.
MISSIONARY'S DISCOURSE AND AFRICA'S CONVERSION
In fact, I am now so accustomedto the paradoxesof this planetthat I wrote
the precedingsentencewithoutthinkingof the absurdityit represents.
- P. Boulle, Planet of the Apes
It takes little imagination to realize that missionary discourses on Africans
were powerful. They were both signs and symbols of a cultural model. For quite
a long time, along with travellers'accounts and anthropologists'interpretations,
they constituted a kind of knowledge. In the first quarterof this century, it was
clear that the traveller had become a colonizer and the anthropologist his
scientific advisor, while the missionary, more vigorouslythan ever, continued, in
theory as well as in practice, to expound the model of African spiritual and
culturalmetamorphosis.
One might observe that the missionary'sparticularposition in the process of
Africa's conversion has led to very peculiar results (Bureau, 1962: 248-62).
These, intersectingwith ideological perspectives,have fostered, on the one hand,
African theories of otherness and, on the other, brought about serious doubt
concerning the pertinence of Western discourses on African societies. Thus, we
have two magnificent actors: the missionary and his African successor, both of
them presenting their views on policies of conversion, basing them on what
African culture is supposed to be, and utilizing anthropology as a means of
dominating or liberatingAfrican people (Hastings, 1979: 119-20).
The theme to be investigated is the articulation between the missionary's
languageand its African echo or negation, and the ultimate consequencesof this
relationship for anthropology. It is appropriate in view of questionable
hypotheses about missionaries' positive or negative contributions to African
ideology, and, in general, of the controversial interpretationsof this relation in
the crisis of African Studies. For the sake of clarity, I shall, first, address the
subject of missionary discourse; second, the African response; third, how they
mingle historically and ideologically in an anthropological locus and have ad
valorem responsibilityin the building up of an African ideology of otherness.
The more carefully one studies the history of missions in Africa, the more
difficult it becomes not to identify it with cultural propaganda, patriotic
motivations, and commercial interests, since the programof the mission is more
complex than the simple transmission of the Faith. From the sixteenth century
152
AFRICANSTUDIES REVIEW
to the eighteenth, missionaries were, all through the "new worlds," part of the
political process of creating and extending the right of European sovereignty over
newly discovered lands (Keller et al., 1938). In doing so, they obeyed and
followed the "sacred instructions" of Pope Alexander IV, issued in his bull Inter
Caetera (1493): to establish the Christian religion, overthrow and bring to the
faith all barbarous nations. Besides, the bulls of Nicholas V-Dum Diversas
(1452) and Romanus Pontifex (1455)-had already given to Christian Kings of
Portugal the right to dispossess and enslave for eternity Mahometans, pagans,
and all black peoples in general (Deschamps, 1971).
Nos praemissa omnia et singula [See the complete document in Bimwenyi,
1981: 619-24] debita meditatione pensantes, et attendentes,quod cum olim
praefato Alfonso Regi quosumque saracenos ac paganos, aliosque Christi
inimicos ubicumque constitutos, ac regna, Ducatus, Principatus, Dominia,
possessiones, et mobilia et immobilia bona quaecumqueper eos detenta ac
possessa invadendi, conquirendi, expugnandi, debellandi et subjugandi,
illorumque personas in perpetuam servitutem redigendi, ac regna ...
possessiones et bona sibi et successoribussuis applicandi,appropriandi,ac in
suos successorumque usus et utilitatem convertendi, alliis nostris literis
plenam et liberam inter caetera concessimus facultatem (Nicholas V, 1454.
See Bimwenyi-Kweshi,1981: 621-22).
The missionaries, preceding or following a European flag, not only helped their
mother country to acquire title to new lands, but also accomplished a "divine"
mission ordered by the Holy Father, Dominator Dominus. It is in God's name
that the Pope considers the planet as his franchise and sets the basic principles of
terra nullius which denies all the "non-Christian natives" the right to an
autonomous political existence, and the right to own or to transfer ownership
(De Witte, 1958).
If, with the Reformation, the Holy Father's power "to give, grant and assign
forever" continents and lands to European monarchs was challenged, the new
axiomatic rule-cuius regio, illius religio-enforced the complementarity between
colonial exercise and religious conversion. For instance, a Christian kingdom of
Congo, effectively organized and officially recognized by the Holy See and major
European seapowers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, was not
pertinent anymore in the eighteenth century when mercantilism and
Protestantism dominated. The prevalent economic ideal of a "balance of trade"
was inseparable from the need to increase the "nation's wealth and its strength,"
and hence the great utility of colonial trade and possessions.
The Church's involvement in establishing Western rights of sovereignty was
important before the Reformation, as after it. The mass celebrated on the
Guinea Coast in 1481, under a big tree on which the royal arms of Portugal were
displayed, is an act symbolizing taking possession of a new territory. It had the
same significance as a multitude of other similar acts. Among them, for instance,
in Africa, the erection of a pillar, engraved with Portuguese royal arms by Vasco
Da Gama on the East coast in the kingdom of Melinda and of another
constructed in 1494, by Diego Caon at the mouth of the Congo River. These
symbols were part of a formal and elaborate ceremony of appropriation of a
"terra nullius." Generally, such a ceremony presented three major characters
(Keller et al., 1938):
1. The construction or the erection of a physical sign: a pillar (Portuguese), a
landmark or even a simple pile of stones (Spanish), a cross (English and
AFRICANGNOSIS
153
French). The sign is adornedwith the royal arms.
2. A solemn declaration presenting, in some cases, the letters patent received
from the king; at any rate, announcing the new sovereignty and indicating
that the possession is taken in the name of, or for, the King.
3. A symbolization of the new jurisdiction. Explorers from Roman Catholic
nations, generally,perform a mass; while Ango-Saxonrepresentativesspecify,
by a sacred formula or by a law, the symbol of their control on the land. For
example, on August 5, 1583, as part of the ceremony of taking posession of
Newfoundland, Sir Humphrey Gilbert promulgated a "code of three laws"
namely: establishing the Church of England in the colony; punishing as high
treason any act prejudicial to the Queen's right of possessing the new land;
and deciding for "those uttering words to the Queen's dishonour, the penalty
to be having their ears removed and their ship and goods confiscated."
The missionary was an essential part of this universe. His role in the general
process of expropriationand subsequentlyof exploitation of all the "new found
lands" all over the world, was as great as the importance of the sacred symbols
he served. As G. Williams puts it: If, in many areas, his presence "helped to
soften the harshness of Europeanimpact on the indigenous peoples whose lands
were invaded and exploited," his "fervour was allied, rather than opposed to
commercial motive" (Williams, 1967: 29).
The scramble for Africa, in the nineteenth century, took place in an
atmosphere of Christian revival: the age of Enlightenment and its religious
criticism were just over. Coleridge's phrase that the Bible finds you, made
tremendous sense. On the continent, the Vatican I Council firmly reorganized
Catholicism. A group of distinguished prelates even re-evaluatedthe meaning of
the so-called Cham's malediction and wish that "InteriorAfrica solemnis gaudii
proximi Ecclesiae triumphi particeps fiat" (Bimwenyi, 1981: 625-26). Besides,
there was a general spirit of adventure in the air (Betts, 1975). The European
political and economic rivalries were an incentive to concrete actions overseas,
the success of men like Cecil Rhodes re-enforcedthe myth of an Africantreasure
house and appealed to young and ambitious potential colonists. Above all,
scientific curiosity and philanthropic objectives combined to confuse struggle
against the slave trade with geographicexplorations and mythologies about the
"poor savage Africans"(Hammond and Jablow, 1977).
Of all "the bearers of the African burden," the missionary was the best
symbol of the colonial enterprise(See Kalu, 1977). He sincerely devoted himself
to the ideals of colonialism: the extension of Civilization, the introduction of
Christianity, and the advancement of Progress. Pringle's 1820 vision might be
considered as axiomatic (Hammond and Jablow, 1977: 44):
Let us enterupona newand noblercareerof conquest.Letus subdueSavage
Africaby justice,by kindness,by the talismanof Christiantruth.Letus thus
to extendthe
go forth,in the nameand underthe blessingof God,gradually
moral influence . . ., the territorialboundaryalso of our colony, until it shall
become an Empire.
Obviously, the missionary's objectives could but be co-extensive with political
and cultural perspectives on colonization, as well as with the Christian view of
his mission. With equal enthusiasm, he served as an agent of a political empire,
a representative of a civilization, and an envoy of God. There is no essential
contradiction between these titles. All of them implied the same purpose: the
conversion of African minds and space.
154
One might say that missionary speech is always predetermined,preregulated,
let us say colonized. It depends upon a normative discourse already given,
definitely fixed, clearly meant (Allier, 1925). Orthodox missionary speech, even
when imaginative or fanciful, evolved within the frameworkof what, from now
on, I shall call the "authorityof the truth," that is God's reason interpretedby a
civilization and aimed towards the conversion of the world in terms of cultural
and socio-political regeneration,economic progress,and spiritual salvation. This
means, at least, that the missionary does not have to dialogue with pagans and
savages, but must impose the law of God that he incarnates. All of the nonChristian cultures have to undergo a process of reduction to, or-in missionary
language-of regeneration in, the norms that the missionary represents. This
undertakingis perfectly logical as a rule: a man whose ideas and mission come
from and are sustained by God's reason is rightly entitled to the use of all
possible means, even violence, in order to carryout his objectives. Consequently,
the fact of "'Africanconversion" rather than being a positive outcome of a
dialogue-unthinkable per se-stood as the sole position that the African could
take in order to survive as a human being.
In dealing with this kind of general theory, we need models to refer to for the
sake of argument. I would propose three men: the seventeenth century Italian
Giovanni Francesco Romano; the nineteenth century African Samuel Ajayi
Crowther; and the twentieth century Belgian Placide Frans Tempels. These
individuals were neither the best of all missionaries, nor necessarily the most
remarkable.Yet one would easily recognize that each one, in his time, was an
excellent example of sound commitment to religious interests and imperial
policy.
Giovanni F. Romano, a misionary in Congo from 1645 to 1654, published, in
1648, a brief report of less than one hundred pages on his voyage to, and his
sojourn in, that central African kingdom (G. F. Romano, 1648). He really
presents no reasons for supposingthat Congolese cannot understandthe Gospel's
message. His conception of mission coincides with traditional practice. It struck
me that, as a missionary, he could have accomplished the same type of work as
did S. Boniface in Germany. But, instead, he was a seventeenth century
missionary. He boasts of the number of people converted, masses celebrated,
sacraments given, churches erected, but he cannot stand the presence of Dutch
protestants, those enemies of the Catholic faith (Nemici della Santa Fede
Cattolica) who witness against the European grandeur and unity. Romano
defines his own mission as working God's field (la Vigna del Signore) and
preaching God's news (predicare la parole di Dio) to the poor and pagan
Congolese (questi gentili, quei poveri), etc. For a soldier of God, this does not
exclude concern for privileges of rank, and the continuation of this friendly
Christian kingdom. Romano and his colleagues interfere in the conflict between
the Congolese monarch and one of his rebel vassals, since a Christianmonach is
a treasurethat must be saved by all means. About the Catholic Garcia II, indeed,
he wrote the following (Romano, 1648: 37):
E certocosa degnad'eternamemoriala divotione,che sua Maestadimonstro
versola nostraReligionede dettoconventoe scuola.
Romano's language is a language of orthodoxy, the expression of la Santa
Fede. Few derogatorywords occur in his report. His ethnographicdescriptionof
the kingdom African customs, for instance, is neither curious nor bizarre
AFRICANGNOSIS
155
(Mudimbe-Boyi, 1977). Except for the king and his courtiers, all the inhabitants
are poveri genti e gentili. This is not a paradox. Romano describes an African
version of a Christian and European kingdom with its dukes, earls, and barons.
With such a model it is perfectly normal to observe a solid hierarchy in which
social groups are related to social status and positions or, in terms of the
interpretation current in Romano's time, according to God's will. The only
major difference between the model and its African expression appears in a
metaphor of colors: white versus black.
I naturalidel Congo sono tutti di color negre chi piu, e chi meno;... Quando
nascono, non sonno negri ma bianchi, e poi a poco a poco si vanno facendo
negri (Mudimbe-Boyi,1977: 375-383).
At the heart of Romano's conviction lies the desire for the universality of God's
law. On the other hand, he hopes to overcome in the African vigna della
Christianita Satan's presence and promote the essenza della verita.
The second model is Samuel Ajayi Crowther. Born about 1806, this native of
Yorubaland in Nigeria, and a former slave, was educated at Fourah Bay College
(Sierra Leone) and in England. Ordained a minister in 1843 in the Church
Missionary Society, he became, in 1864, the first Anglican Bishop of "the
territories of Western Equatorial Africa beyond the Queen's Dominions." An
untiring missionary, he participated in several explorations, among which was
the voyage that he related in his Journal of an Expedition Up the Tshadda
Rivers, published in 1855.
Crowther believed that Africa could regenerate herself without the help of
others (Meester, 1980b: 72). However, in presenting his own experience he tends
to refer to current ideas about "savages" and builds his own project of
converting his African brethren to civilization and Christianity on this
perception. About his 1854 Niger expedition, for instance, Crowther recalls (In
Hammond and Jablow, 1977: 36):
I asked whether the inhabitants of Gomkoi were Pagans or Mohammedans;
and was informed that they were all Pagans;that the males wore some sort of
cloth around their loins, but the females only a few green leaves. On asking
whetherthey were cannibals,I was answeredin the negative.
What is interesting in this brief quotation is its classificatory implications, in
particular the characteristics selected: paganism, nakedness, and cannibalism.
Western assimilated, Crowther intends to relate objectively an ethnographic case,
but very clearly he is illustrating the syndrome of savagery. As D. Hammond and
A. Jablow (1977: 36-37) rightly put it:
The basic attitudes which arbitrarily relate these essentially unrelated
qualities-paganism, nakedness, cannibalism-are those which assign all
cultural differences to the single category of savagery;and one trait as it
distinguishes a savage from a Europeanbecomes an index to the existence of
the other traits which are part of the syndrome.
In fact, far from making Crowther responsible for this syndrome, I am inclined
to look at him as expressing the signs of an episteme. He simply seems to share a
pervasive evolutionary assumption, a tendency to see in Africans only these
indexed features and, thus, subsequently, to indicate the necessity of a
regeneration through both a cultural and spiritual conversion (Figure 1).
The third example is the Belgian Placide F. Tempels, a missionary in Central
Africa from 1933 to 1962, and author of Bantu Philosophy, published in 1944.
156
FIGURE 1
IdeologicalModel of Conversion:
Colonial Rule
Premises
Mediators
Aim
Status
Primitiveness
Conversion
Civilization
Symbols
or
signs
*Pagan(evil)
Christianity
Christian
(good)
*Naked (child)
Education
Civilized
(adults)
*Cannibal
(beast)
Evolution
"Evolu6"
(humanbeing)
Method
Colonial
Anthropological Missiology,
Sciences
presuppositions Applied
Anthropology,
Pedagogy
Placide Tempels was a very serious and careful student of Bantu culture, despite
allegations to the contrary mainly made by professional anthropologists and
philosophers who are inclined to emphasize formal training as the condition sine
qua non of good scholarly work. Tempels had lived more than ten years among
the Luba Katanga people, sharing their language and cultural background when
he decided to publish his experience (Tempels, 1979: 3-25). Rather than a
philosophical treatise, his Bantu Philosophy could be understood simultaneously
as an indication of religious insight, the expression of a cultural doubt about the
supposed backwardness of Africans, and a political manifesto for a new policy
for promoting "civilization" and "Christianity." But this complexity is not what
is commonly discussed when specialists speak of Tempels' philosophy (Mudimbe,
1983b: 133-34).
It must be remembered that Bantu Philosophy is based on very simple ideas.
First: in all cultures, life and death determine human behavior; or, presented
differently, all human behavior depends upon a system of general principles.
Secondly: if Bantu are human beings, there is reason to seek the fundamentals of
their beliefs and behavior, or their basic philosophical system. From this
position, Tempels attempts "a true estimate of indigenous peoples," rejecting
"the misunderstanding and fanaticism of the ethnology of the past and of the
former attitude of aversion entertained with regard to them" (Possoz preface:
13-15). This meant questioning the classical doctrines about evangelization,
civilization, and colonization (Tempels, 1959: 167-89).
These three models-Giovanni
Francesco Romano, Samuel Ajayi Crowther,
and Placide Frans Tempels-signify
a kind of truth, its signs, and discourse. We
can perceive in them an expression of a common ideology. They are, all of them,
people for whom commitment to God is central. Concretely, they believe
themselves to be in charge of saving Africa. This, for them, means the promotion
of the ideals of Christian civilization. Finally, they are secure in their knowledge
of the correct means for Africa's conversion.
AFRICANGNOSIS
157
In his evaluation of Christianity from an African point of view, F. EboussiBoulaga, a philosopher from Cameroon, holds that, in general, missionary
discourse has always been presented as a discourse of philosophical reduction
and ideological intolerance (Eboussi-Boulaga, 1981: 35):
Le Christianismeest heritier de la raison grecque et il est la continuation et
l'achevementde la revelationjudaique. Par ce double trait, il est critiquede la
deraison des autres religions et denonciation de leur caracteremythologique.
Son element propre est le langageet l'histoire, mais non les regions obscures
du cosmos ou de l'imaginaire.Voild pourquoiil est accorded la modernite et
resiste mieux que d'autres d la corrosion de celle-ci, au desanchantementdu
monde qui lui est correlatif.
Sharing the arrogance of Christianity expressed in its identification with
raison, histoire et puissance, missionary discourse has always, according to
Ebousi-Boulaga, presented five major features. First of all, it is a language of
derision insofar as it fundamentally ridicules the pagan's gods. One must not
forget that, since its birth, Christianity has proclaimed itself both the only way to
truly divine communication and the only correct image of God and God's
magnificence. Secondly, it is a language of refutation or systematic reduction: all
of the pagan religions constitute the black side of a transcendental Christianity,
and this metaphoric opposition of colors means the opposition of evil and good,
Satan and God. The third feature illuminates the missionary's pragmatic
objectives: his action is supported by a language of demonstration, which reflects
God's truth. In order to sustain his derision and refutation of non-Christian
beliefs and practices, the missionary emphasizes the Christian faith in terms of
its historical coherence and transforming virtues. Religious and biblical
categories enter into the logic of this civilization, thus sacralizing a cultural
model and giving it a divine seal. Consequently, there is a fourth character: the
rule of the Christian orthodoxy which relates Faith to knowledge of the only
Truth. This is the foundation of the supremacy of the European experience in
which his fantastic combination originated. It accounts for the following
principles: first, that the Christian characteristic resides in the quality of Faith
and not in moral grandeur; second, that it is Faith which promotes and gives
sense to ethics and not the contrary. The last trait of missionary discourse relates
to these two axioms and their theological significance: it is a language of
conformity to these vigorous axioms. Missionary speech and praxis prove that no
human enterprise can succeed as long as the true God is not acknowledged. The
Christian God's spirit appears, therefore, as history's only engine.
I would prefer to simplify this analytical perspective of Eboussi-Boulaga into
a simpler scheme. The missionary language of derision is basically a cultural
position, the expression of an ethnocentric outlook. The refutation and
demonstration aspects rationalize the initial ethnocentric moment and are aimed
explicitly towards an intellectual reduction that would achieve the rules of
orthodoxy and conformity. Thus, we have three moments of violence, rather
than types, in missionary language, theoretically meant by the concepts of
derision, refutation-demonstration, and orthodoxy-conformity.
Taking into account the missionary theology of salvation, precisely the
general policies of conversio gentium, it becomes clear that the same violence
joins the spiritual and cultural process of conversion in a hypostatic union (see
Figure 2). All missionaries, whatever their denominations, operate according to
the same canon of conversion. Their language depends on three major types of
AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW
158
data always already given and taken for granted: premises, mediators, and
objectives. All of them tend to integrate cultural and religious aims, the mission
being altogether oriented towards the cultural promotion and spiritual salvation
of "savages." Thus, for instance, Romano's predication of la santa Fede to questi
poveri also implied involvement in political affairs in order to perpetuate a
Christian Western dependent Kingdom in Africa. Bishop Crowther was
preoccupied with both Christianization and Westernization of "naked, cannibal
and pagan primitives." Tempels (1959: 186) put forward his philosophy of
civilizing Bantu people and stated: "If the Bantu cannot be raised by a Christian
civilization, they will not be by any other."
The pertinent categories arise from a structural combination. On the one
hand, ethnographic commentaries on African people are arranged with regard to
the prospect of their possible conversion; on the other hand, specific sociocultural symbols design the meaning of the passage from primitiveness to
civilization.
An evolutionary thesis expresses the conversion from "savagery" and Satan's
"darkness" to "lights of civilization" and God's kingdom. This transformation is
sometimes described as the introduction or restoration of health in a sick
universe, the establishment of order in a world of disorder, madness, corruption
and diabolical illusions (see Pirotte, 1973; Fernandez, 1979). In its standard
form, the process of conversion which is the path to a civilized life specifies three
steps: first, primitives or pagans; second, the "will to become Westernized" or
catechumens; third, Christians or "evolu&s," that is, Westernized individuals.
Accordingly, the missionary's language presents three major approaches: derision
concerning the so-called primitive religions and their Gods, refutation and
demonstration in order to convince the evolving Africans, and imposition of
rules of orthodoxy and conformity for converts.
FIGURE 2
The MissionaryTheologyof Salvation
Premises
Mediators
Aim
Status
Primitiveness
Conversion
WesternCivilization
and Christianity
Symbols
*Illness
to introduce
Health
to restore
Method
*Disorder
(madness, satanic
illusions and
corruption)
to establish
Order
(Christianmodels
of faith and
behavior)
*Darkness
to promote
The Light of God
and Civilization
Derision
Demonstration Conformity
AFRICANGNOSIS
159
Quite inevitably the ChristianFaith has for many years . . been inextricably
bound up with this Western aggression.But it has also to be admitted quite
frankly that during these centuries the missionaries of the Christian Church
have commonly assumed that Westerncivilization and Christianitywere two
aspects of the same gift which they were commissioned to offer to the rest of
mankind. This assumption was sometimes quite conscious and was explicitly
stated. More often it was quite unconscious and would have been indignantly
denied. But in neither case are we called upon to judge our fathers. Their
sincerity can hardlybe disputed (Taylor, 1963:5-6).
Fundamentally, an evolutionary assumption was expressed on the basis of a
dualistic anthropology (see Ngimbi-Nseka, 1979: 10, 18-19). As Benedict XV put
it in his Maximum Illud encyclical (1919), missionaries must be determined to
oppose Satan and to bring salvation to the "poor people of Africa victimized by
evil forces." Yet one might observe that Romano focused on mediators and aims
rather than on premises. And Tempels (1962) absolutely doubted the classical
process of conversion: he was not sure, in the least, that assimilation constituted
the best way, and he hated the "evolues" whom he considered to be bad copies
of Europeans.Moreover, he did not believe that to Christianizemeant to impose
a Western anthropology.However, Tempels' position did not imply a complete
negation of the essential dualism, but only indicated anothertype of guidance for
the promotion of orthodoxy and conformity. The emphasis he gave to Bantu
ontology, for example, means that he had faith in the possibility of bringing
about a "new Christian civilization" without destroying Bantu values, or their
underlying major principles, the concept and reality of "vital force" (see
Mataczynski, 1984). This new outlook is simply a new manner of demonstrating
and promoting the essence of orthodoxy with the aim remaining clearly the
same: "Christianity is the only possible consummation of the Bantu ideal"
(Tempels, 1959: 186).
Tempels is not alone in looking for new policies of integrating Christianity
into African cultures. Ethiopian Christianity, African Islam, and syncretic
churches all over the continent witness to the vitality of a convincing
naturalization of the Bible or the Koran (Monteil, 1964, 1980; Sundkler, 1964;
Barrett, 1968). In the 1960's Taylor detects three main ingredients in the African
challenge to Christianity: (1) Christian religion is "inherently Western" and
"fails to correspond to the felt needs of Asia and Africa"; (2) depending on the
first challenge, a radical question: "can the Christian faith not only prove its
ability to meet the deep human needs of our time but also make peoples of
different backgrounds feel at home in the new world?"; (3) finally, the fact that
"the Christian Churchhas not yet faced the theological problem of 'co-existence'
with other religions" (Taylor, 1963: 6-8).
160
From the 1950s onward, new orientations appear for the indigenization of the
Church (Nyamiti, 1978; Hastings, 1979). It is only gradually that the policies
shifted from a first step of adaptation insisting on the Africanization of some
external aspects (music, hymns, etc.) to a reflection on the content of Christianity
in an African setting. New premises establish a completely different perspective:
the pagan culture is thought of and analyzed as an abandoned field in which
God's signs already exist (Figure 3). Thus, though there can be only one aim,
Christianity, methods are arbitrary and should be modified and adapted to
circumstances and cultures (Taylor, 1963: 124). African intellectuals were
appealing "to the Church to 'come to grips' with traditional practices, and with
the world view that these beliefs and practices imply" (Hastings, 1979: 119; see
also Kalu, 1977).
The best illustrations of this current are Gravrand's Visage Africain de l'Eglise
(1962), Mulago's Un Visage Africain du Christianisme (1965), Bahoken's
Clairieres Metaphysiques Africaines (1967), and Mbiti's New Testament
Eschatology in an African Background (1971). In these contributions, the authors
explicitly favor "the search for Christianity's essential message which would
penetrate African ways of thinking and living" (Mudimbe, 1983a: 92). A new
vocabulary arises and, in principle, covers new forms of evangelization:
Africanization, indigenization, naturalization, and adaptation of Christianity.
Some theorists even speak of "indigenizing the Gospel" and "the Message"
(Bimwenyi, 1981a: 231). In Roman Catholic circles, the norms of the new policy
are relatively well-specified in two official documents of Pius XII: Evangelii
Praecones (1951) and Fidei Donum (1957).
What this ambivalent vocabulary introduces and means is a progressive
displacement of responsibility insofar as the future of Christianity is concerned
(e.g., Chipenda, 1977 and Setiloane, 1977). Historically, one can refer to Des
Pritres Noirs s'interrogent (1956), a solidly nationalist reflection on African
Christianity, as the first explicit manifestation of a new radical current.
Ironically, it is during this period that positive and sympathetic contributions to
African religions are produced in anthropology. They include Deschamps' Les
FIGURE 3
The Theologyof Indigenization
Premises
Mediators
Aim
Status
Pagan Culture
Conversion
Christianity
Symbols
*Abandonedfield
to plant, sow the
Africanfield
Adapted
Christianity
to spreadthe
good seed
Method
*Steppingstones
of Christianityin
pagantraditions
to establishand
to construct
the Church
Indigenized
Christianity
Criticalevaluation
of premises
Demonstration
Conformity
AFRICANGNOSIS
161
Religions d'AfriqueNoire (1954), Parrinder'sAfrican TraditionalReligion (1954),
and AfricanMythology(1967), Van Caeneghem'sLa Notion de Dieu chez les BaLubas du Kasai (1956), Schebesta's Le Sens Religieux des Primitifs (1963), E.
Damman's Die Religionen Afrikas (1963), and the collection edited by M. Fortes
and G. Dieterlen, African Systems of Thought (1965). African clergymen read
these books in order to imagine ways of transforming traditional religion or, at
least, of using some of their elements in the process of adapting Christianity
(Mulago, 1959). In the wake of independence, some of them become nearly
radical: they suspect the good faith of anthropological descriptions and begin to
question the very meaning of the theologies of adaptation.
At first, the concept of "adaptation" was hailed on all sides, by African
Christians as well as by missionaries. Even though it was not seen as
committing the Church to religious dialogue with African tradition, and
perhaps because of this, adaptation, as the means by which the African
Church could develop its own life-style, was highly welcome. It was only
slowly realized that the concept of adaptationcontained within itself the seeds
of perpetualwestern superiorityand domination. The reaction has been quite
violent (Shorter,1977: 150).
The fact is that, even at the time of the manifesto of Black priests (1956), the
search for an African Christianity was already enveloped by the themes of
cultural authenticity and independence. It clearly implied a relative rejection of
both anthropologists' and missionaries' interpretations of African traditions and
religions as well as the colonial presence.
The search had two major aspects: a nationalist reading and the installment
of an intellectual rupture in colonial history. For example, Kagame questions the
competence of Tempels and makes a backward journey to his roots with his La
Philosophie Bantu-Rwandaise (1956) in which he describes Bantu-Rwandais
ontology, criteriology, psychology, cosmology, and ethics. I am afraid Shorter
confuses problems of method and ideological motivation when he states that "it
is only because Kagame is inspired by European philosophy that the African
thinks of trying to express the traditional thought of his people as a conceptual
system" (Shorter 1977: 24). The inspiration is one thing, the objective another.
What Kagame did was to use the Aristotelian model in order to demonstrate that
contrary to anthropologists' and missionaries' accepted opinions, his people had
always had a well-organized and systematic "philosophy." He explicitly intended
to undermine the myths which sustained both colonial policies and the Church's
programs for an adapted Christianity (1976). Philosophically, one could debate
Kagame's assumption about the possibility of collective and non-explicit
philosophies. Ideologically, however, his work was quite important if considered
as an answer to hypotheses about "pagan" cultures and the premises of
adaptation policies (see Figure 3). In the same vein, A. Makarakiza publishes his
La Dialectique des Barundi (1959), E. B. Idowu, Olodumare. God in Yoruba
Belief (1962) and Towards an Indigenous Church (1965); E. Mveng, L'Art
d'AfriqueNoire. Liturgie et Langage Religieux (1965), and F. M. Lufuluabo, a
series of booklets presenting or analyzing traditional religiosity
vis-a-vis
Christianity (1962, 1964a & b, 1966).
On the other hand, the violence of ideas tending towards political and
cultural autonomy had a direct impact on religious thinking. During the 1959
International Meeting of Black Writers and Artists in Rome, a Committee on
Theology functioned and elaborated a text calling for another Christianity in
162
Africa. Within Catholicism, two Jesuit priests from Cameroon-E. Mveng, M.
Hebga-are active and their influence marks ways of reconciling Christianity and
Africanity (Bimwenyi, 1981a: 227-30). A theology of incarnation is being
promoted with a particular emphasis on new premises: Negritude and Black
personality as expressions of an African civilization, African history with its own
symbols as a preparation to Christianity, and finally the experience of slavery,
exploitation, and colonization as signs of the suffering of God's chosen ones
(Figure 4). The most striking feature of these intellectual positions resides in the
clear distinction between the program of political liberation which should permit
a transformation of the traditional civilization and that of rethinking
Christianity as an integral part of the local culture (Idowu, 1965; Hebga, 1963;
Tchidimbo, 1963).
I have recently proposed that it might be said that in the 1960's an aim was
fulfilled and that it is now possible to discern the major trends which contributed
to the progressive settlement of a theology of incarnation (Mudimbe, 1983a: 94-
95).
1. A strong interest in the Africanization of Christianity insofar as it would
allow a divorce between Christianity and Western history and culture, and a
willingness to introduce African features into the Church.
2. A search for an African element in the field of theology and religious
activities, which might keep pace with the ideological objectives for political
and cultural autonomy. This trend mainly characterizes Roman Catholic
African theologians.
3. A vigorous interest in traditional religions leading to the supposition that
anthropologists' and missionaries' works are neither dependable, nor
FIGURE 4
The Theologyof Incarnation
Status
Premises
Mediators
African
Traditional
Civilization
Conversion A Modern
African
Civilization
(BlackpersonalityNegritude)
Symbols
AfricanHistory
Aim
(BlackpersonalityNegritude)
Otherness
*African,Muslim
and European
heritages
AfricanCulture
(African
Weltanschauungen,
AfricanChristianity)
*A particular
experience:
slavery,
exploitation,
colonization
Method
Social Science
African
Ideology
Autonomy
AFRICANGNOSIS
163
acceptable in general; and, thus, encouraging new programs and projects
which will be the responsibilityof African scholars (see also Chipenda, 1977;
Setiloane, 1977).
It would be inaccurate to pretend that missionaries normally upheld the
African perspective. The Churches'official policies, in the late 1950's and early
1960's, were as confusing as those of the colonial powers (Hastings, 1979: 15974). Despite the fact that the Churches had trained most of the nationalist
leaders and intellectuals and, also, despite the then widely held suspicion
concerningthe Churches'commitment to the principlesof Westernsupremacyin
Africa, many a missionary did not welcome the outcome of ideologies of
otherness and did not like doctrines of African independence at all. Besides
political fears, there was the feeling that these new theories were opening a new
era and meant the end of missionary initiative in Africa. As Hastings (1959:
120), commenting on the significance of the assembly of the International
MissionaryCouncil held in Ghana in 1958, put it:
The churchesof the third worldwere becomingindependentand the old
must
whichso clearlyinvolveda statusof dependence
missionaryrelationship
inevitablyend.Whatrolewouldtherenowbe formissionaries?
The question was pertinent. By the mid-1960's the initiative becomes African
and, generally speaking, integrates the essential theses of a new model of
conversion (Meester de Raventsein, 1980a, 1980b). The emphasis is, then, put on
new premises (Negritude, Blackness, African heritage and experience) and tends
to present conversion in terms of critical integration into Christianity, that is,
asserting cultural autonomy and defining Christianization as a way of
accomplishingin Christ a spiritual heritage authenticallyAfrican (Mulago, 1981:
43; Bimwenyi, 1981b: 47-60). Rightly, Eboussi-Boulaga writes that "le
surgissement d'un 'Nous-Sujet' africain est le phenomene humain majeur de ce
siecle en son second versant, du moins pour nous" (1978: 339). Two major facts
thus emerged (see Figure 4). First, a strong emphasis on history and a new
anthropologyas a means for a better understandingof both African tradition and
identity. It led, in 1966, to the creation of Centers of African Religions. In
pastoral institutes-Bodija (Nigeria), Bukumbi(Tanzania),Cocody (Ivory Coast),
Kinshasa and Lubumbashi (Zaie), etc.-it generally gave birth to realistic
programs taking into account native languages, local customs, and the social
relations of production. Second, a striking ideological convergence becomes
obvious: African theologians' interests intersected with the orientations of the
African Society of Culture (ASC) and with Presence Africaine (Paris) on the
significance of African Religions (Basse, 1977: 129-38). Further a succession of
scholarly meetings in the 1960's redefined the concept of conversion and the
purposes of studying African religions while broadening the scope of the
criticism of anthropology and the philosophy of Christian mission in Africa
(Agossou, 1977; Appiah-Kubiand Torres, 1977):
1955: On Africa and Christianity.Meeting. (Accra,Ghana).
1959: On Christianity, Africanity and Theology. Meeting. Sub-Committee on
Theology, Second Congressof African writers. (Rome, Italy).
1961: On African Religions. ASC-Coloquium (Abidjan, Ivory Coast).
Proceedingspublished by PresenceAfricaine, Paris, 1962.
1963: ASC-publication. African Personality and Catholicism. Paris: Presence
Africaine.
164
1963: Reincarnation and Mystic Life according to African Religions. Congress
(Strasbourg, France). Proceedings: Reincarnation et Vie mystique en
Afriquenoire. 1965.
1965: On Africa's
traditional
Religions.
Congress (Bouake,
Ivory Coast).
Proceedings:Les Religions africainestraditionnelles.Paris:Seuil.
1966: On African Theology. African Churches Conference. (Ibadan, Nigeria).
Proceedings: Pour une Theologie africaine. Yaound&: Cl&. 1969.
1968: Renewal of the Church and New Churches. Colloquium. (Kinshasa,
Zaire). Proceedings: Renouveau de l'Eglise et nouvelles Eglises. Mayidi:
Revue de Clerge Africain, 1969.
1969: Understanding African Religions: A la Rencontre des Religions Africaines.
secretariatus pro Non-Christianis. Rome: Libreria Editrice Ancora.
1970: On African Religion as a Source of Culture and Civilization. ASCColloquium. (Cotonou, Benin). Proceedings: Religion Africaine comme
Source de Valeursde Cultureet de Civilisation. Paris: Pr&senceAfricaine.
1972.
In the 1970's the reconsideration of classical grids seems general among
African scholars (Hebga, 1976; Kalilombe, 1977; Ngindu, 1979). At scholarly
conferences, no one any longer really cares about the scientific evidence of the
past. African scholars prefer to deal directly with the issues that involve African
responsibilities in the social sciences as well as in the humanities (Glele, 1981).
In religious studies, the most challenging theological meetings were the following:
in 1976, the Assembly of Third World Theologians (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania)
and the pastoral colloquium of Koumi (Upper Volta); in 1977, the conference on
Black civilization and the Catholic Church (Abidjan, Ivory Coast) and the Accra
meeting (Ghana) which led to the constitution of an Ecumenical Association of
African theologians (Appiah-Kubi and Torres, 1977); in 1978, the Kinshasa
(Zaire) congress on African Religions and Christianity (see Arrighi, 1979).
The result of this process may be best illustrated by two quotations from
African Roman Catholic Cardinals' statements:
African Christianity cannot exist without the African Theology. And this
implies that it should be made clear that relations exist betweenthe authentic
religion broughtto us throughChrist on the one hand and religionsin general
and more precisely African religions on the other hand. As Africa possesses
today its own theologians, this task belongs in the very first place to those
African theologians-Malula Cardinal Albert-Joseph(1977: 23), Archbishop,
Kinshasa.
Au deld du refus de toute domination ext&rieure,c'est la volonte de
renouer en profondeur avec l'heritage culturel de l'Afrique, trop longtemps
m&connuet refuse. Loin d'etre un effort superficielou folkloriquepour faire
revivre quelquestraditions ou pratiquesancestrales,il s'agit de construireune
nouvelle societe africaine dont l'identite n'est pas conferee du
dehors-Zoungrana CardinalPaul, Archbishop,Rome.
Cardinals, even though Africans, are not customarily extremist. On the
contrary. Malula's and Zoungrana's pronouncements clearly indicate the 1980s
concerns: an analysis of the complementarity existing between Christianity and
African religions, an African theology of incarnation considered as the
responsibility of African theologians, and, finally a permanent search for an
identity from a positive anthropological background (Tshibangu, 1977: 29-31).
AFRICANGNOSIS
165
Is this impulse towards a new discourse purely gregarious,expressing at an
intellectual level a confusion implying a possible transformationof ideological
reference?It is obvious that new norms claim to impose themselves in the space
that the voices of missionaries, anthropologistsand colonial administratorshave
dominated so far (see Thomas & Luneau, 1969; Emmet, 1972; Pratt, 1972;
Hallen, 1976). It may be said that what is at stake for Africans is simply a
reappropriationof an initiative on the basis of what paradoxicallyfounded the
power and the knowledge of the colonial system (see e.g., Mazrui, 1974). As Th.
Okere (1979: 279) put it:
Hence the peculiaroriginalityof Africanculture.It means the common
experienceof the traumaof the slave trade,of the humiliationthat was
colonization,of assault on traditionalreligion, of new won political
of presenteconomicexploitation,of the ambivalentstatusof
independence,
on the thresholdof theageof industry.
standinghesitatingly
The interrogations which carry the initiative sometimes slip into a sort of
demagogicalspiritual activism. However, that is perhaps not as importantas the
strugglefor an orthodoxy defined in terms of historical and culturaldifference.
At a very general and vague level, the main characteristic of the new
discourse is its own autodefinition as a discourse of succession (Mveng, 1978:
267-76). Looked at carefully, it can be divided into two complementarygenres.
One bears on techniques of interpreting and re-employing the signs of what
yesterday was called paganism and primitiveness and which, today, is qualified
as religion and God's symbolic discretion. The second genre tends to focus on
the right of being other, and thus on the epistemological demands of the
enterprise.In the first case, studies evaluate values of the past in terms of present
exigencies and the future of African communities, thus inversing the order of
anthropology's classical description whose fecundity has been founded on the
positivity of "primitive organisations" as closed systems (e.g., MubengayiLwakale, 1966; Mulago, 1973; Agossou, 1975; Bujo, 1976; Massamba, 1976;
Hebga, 1979). The second type constitutes itself as an ideological or
philosophical discussion on the diversity of human experienceand, consequently,
studies the relativity of cultural and political grammars which, in their
singularity, testify to an essential meaning hidden below the surface (e.g.,
Tshibangu, 1974; Boesak, 1976; Adoukounou, 1981; Eboussi-Boulaga, 1981a;
Bimwenyi, 1981). In both cases, one sees that the new discourse on African
difference conveys the ambition and an explicit will to truth. As such, it
generates and explicates its own presence in both history and the present
knowledge on African realities (Ebousi-Boulaga,1978: 339-70; Ela and Luneau,
1981).
This new discourse in its intention as well as in its power, is clearly the result
of a cross-cultural breeding. One might choose to emphasize its ambiguity
(Ralibera, 1959: 154-87) or even re-analyze the paradoxical questions that
allowed it. First, the question of knowing who, about Africa, validly can or must
speak at the junction of ethnographicand historical descriptions,and from which
background?Second, the issue of promoting "discourses"on others now that we
have learned an essential lesson from the criticism of anthropological and
missionary discourse: "savages" can speak, not only when their being and
traditions are at stake, but also in order to evaluate proceduresand techniques
that pertain to the description of their being and traditions (see Appiah-Kubi
and Torres, 1977: 189-95).
166
However, insofar as the new African discourse estimates its own course and
fate in terms of epistemologicalrupture(Bimwenyi, 1981; Eboussi-Boulaga,1978
and 1981), we may stop at this claim and interrogateits conditions of existence.
That can be done through three questions (see Foucault, 1982: 50-55). Who is
speaking?From which institutional sites? And, according to which grids are his
questions pertinent and in which sense? I propose that one of the best ways of
answering these questions might be a careful rewriting of the relationshipsthat
existed between African ethnographyand the politics of conversion.
ETHIOPIAN SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE
"If Abyssinia had been a colony, for example, the most ardent believer in the
preservation of native culture would not have advocated the recreation of the
pre-Christianreligion" wrote L. P. Mair (see Malinowskiand others, 1938: 4). In
the Marxist Ethiopia of today, a Canadian scholar, C. Sumner, has, since 1974,
made a major contribution to the search for a new outlook on traditional local
culture. He thinks that "there is an urgent need that philosophy, taught in
Ethiopia at a university level, should not be entirely alien, but integrate values
found at home, in the fertile native ground" (Sumner, 1974: 3). He has, so far,
made available the following major sources.
(1) The Book of the Wise Philosophers, known since 1875 thanks to C. H.
Cornill (Das Buch der Weisen Philosophen nach dem Aethiopischenuntersucht
Leipzig) and A. Dillmann ChrestomathiaAethiopica (1950, Berlin). It is an
anthology, a collection of sayings, most of which were attributed to different
philosophers like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Galen, etc. The majority of the
sayings were exhortations and advice, "often addressed by a wise man to a
disciple or to his son" (Sumner, 1974: 4). The version edited is a Geez
translation from an Arabic original made between 1510 and 1522 by Abba
Mikael, an Arabic-speakingEgyptian. It is profoundly marked by Greek and
Christian influences, as shown in references to Socrates' life and to platonic
philosophy, and in quotations of early ChurchFatherssuch as Gregoryand Basil.
(2) The Treatise of Zar'a Yacob and Walda Heywat. The edition of these
seventeenth century texts was for the first time established by E. Littman (1904:
Philosophia Abessini, Corpus Sciptorum ChristianorumOrientalium,vol. 18, 1,
Paris). Sumner's edition (1976, 1978) presents the first complete English version
(1976: 3-59). The treatise is a Hatata, an autobiographicalmeditation. The
Zar'a Yacob (Seed of Jacob) is divided into twenty-five chapters bearing on the
author's life, the eternity of God, division among believers, the meaning of faith
and prayer, the law of God and the law of man, Moses' law and Mohammed's
meditation, physical and spiritual work, marriage,and the nature of knowledge.
Composed of thirty-five brief chapters, the Treatise of Walda Heywat (Son of
Life) examines such topics as creation, knowledge, faith, nature of the soul, law
and judgement, social life, the use of love, virtues and human weaknesses,
education, and time and culture.
In the presentation of his 1904 edition of these books, Littmann notes their
intellectual power and personal originality.
While the greaterpart of Ethiopianliteratureis translatedfrom foreign
languages,these two books written by Abyssiniansare imbued with their own
native character.... However, I would say that these flowers could not grow
solely from the Ethiopian ground, unless they had been irrigatedby external
AFRICANGNOSIS
167
waters(Sumner, 1976: 63).
In 1916, Carlo Conti Rossini advanced the hypothesis of an European origin for
the treatises, proposing Giusto D'Urbino, an Italian missionary as author
(Sumner, 1976: 64-77) and eventually, the two hatatas became two nineteenthcentury Italian works (Sumner, 1976: 78). Sumner has occupied himself proving
the contraryand re-establishingthe Ethiopian origin of the texts (1976: 250-75).
On the other hand, in his extensive analysis of the treatises (1978: 65-73),
Sumner compares Zar'a Yacob to Mani, Luther, Herbert of Cherbury, Rene
Descartes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He thinks that "many of the ideas
developed in the Hatata are similar to, and in some instances identical with, the
Tractatus de Veritate and the Discours sur la Methode, but the convergence
would not apply beyond the logical level of a common rationalistic approach and
of epistemological investigations (1978: 61).
(3) The Life and Maxims of Skendes, an Ethiopic version of the well-known
text of Secundus which exists in two branches: Western (Greek and Latin) and
Eastern (Syriac, Arabic and Ethiopic), and whose roots go back to the first
centuries of the Roman Empire. Sumner reproduces the edition established by
Bachmann: Das Leben und die Sentenzen des Philosophen Secundus das
Schweigsamen(1887, Halle). This Geez version belongs to the 1434-1468 literary
period (Sumner, 1981: 118) and translates an earlier Arabic text. The theme of
the book is a question-"what is the relation between a woman's will and her
instinctive tendencies?"-and a commentaryon a shocking maxim: "all women
are prostitutes" (Sumner, 1981: 81-95). According to Sumner, the Ethiopian
version is, from a literary viewpoint, original. "The translator very often departs
from the Arabic original. He both subtracts and adds" (Sumner, 1981: 437).
Sumner is preparing the publication of two other volumes: The Fisalgwos and
Basic Ethiopian Philosophical Texts. While saluting the publication of the Book
of the Wise Philosophers, L. Nusco of the then Haile Selassie I University
remarkedthat the book "is not a work of philosophy in the technical sense of the
word," adding that such a classification would cause the indignation of all
professional philosophers" (Sumner, 1974, cover: 3). In his evaluation of the
1976 Addis Ababa Seminar on African philosophy, Van Parys (1978: 65) asked
whether or not these treatises are really Ethiopian since they are-at least, the
first and the third-translations. His answer (Van Parys, 1978: 65) is prudent:
they are original and creatively Ethiopian but, apart from the second, none of
them is really critical:
C'estdans la comparaisonentreI'Arabeet le grecd'unepart,et I'Ethiopien
d'autrepart,que se situe la marqueethiopienne.Cependant,aucunede ces
oeuvresne montrel'espritcritiquequi caract&rise
l'espritmoderne.
J. -P. SARTRE AS AN AFRICAN PHILOSPHER
So that apes probablydescend from men? Some of us thoughtso; but it is not
exactly that. Apes and men are two separatebranchesthat have evolved from
a point in common but in different directions.... P. Boulle, Planet of the
Apes.
Up to the 1930s, the entire framework of African social studies is consistent
with the rationale of an epistemological field and its socio-political expressions of
conquest. Even those social realities, such as art, languages or oral literature,
168
which might have constituted an introduction to otherness are repressed in
theories of sameness. Socially, they are tools strengtheninga new organizationof
power and its political methods of reduction, namely, assimilation or indirect
rule. Within this context, Negritude, a student movement, which operated in the
1930s in Paris, is a literary chapelle despite its political implications. Besides, it
was particularly poetry that these young men-Aime Cesaire, Leon Damas,
Leopold Senghor-used in order to explore and speak about their difference
(Blair, 1976: 143-51; Kesteloot, 1965).
It is Sartre who, in 1948, with his Black Orpheus, an introduction to
Senghor's anthology of poetry, transformed Negritude into a major political
event and a radical criticism of colonialism. However, everyone would agree that
the Indian criticism of colonialism since the 1920s and the growing influence of
Marxism from the 1930s onwards opened a new era and allowed for the
possibility of new types of discourses which, from the colonial perspective, were
both absurd and abhorrent.The most original include the Negritude movement,
the Fifth Pan-African Conference, and the creation of "Presence Africaine."
Eventually, these indications of an African will for power led to political and
intellectual confrontations (Bandung, Conferencesof Paris and Rome), a radical
criticism of anthropology and its inherent preconceptions of non-Western
cultures in the 1960s; and since then, a stimulating debate about the African
significanceof social sciences and humanities.
In his foreward to the literary anthology of L. S. Senghor, J.-P. Sartre made
the voices of Negritude widely known. But what an ambiguity in this elevation
of the French existentialist to the rank of the philosopher of N&gritude.The
resource and promise of a young ideology devoting itself to the needs of a world
beginning anew were to be cast into a very critical but somehow stultifyingmold.
In Black Orpheus, Sartre presents means for a possible action against the
dominant ideology and affirmsthe right of Africansto a new fashion of thinking,
of speech, and of life. What he (Sartre, 1976: 7-8) advances is much more than a
brilliant game of oposites which Senghor might, perhaps, have been sufficiently
satisfied with to introduce in a literaryanthology.
Today,theseblackmen havefixedtheirgazeuponus and ourgazeis thrown
backin our eyes;blacktorches,in theirturn,lightthe worldand our white
headsareonlysmalllanternsbalancedin thewind.
But Sartre goes farther than Senghor. With passion he fixes paradigms which
would alow the colonized Black to be in charge of himself (see Jeanson, 1949).
"It is the efficiency alone which counts." "The oppressed class must first take
conscience of itself." "This taking of conscience is exactly the opposite of a
redescent into one's self; it has to do here with a recognitionin and action of the
objective situation of the proletariat.""A Jew, white among white men, can deny
that he is a Jew, can declare himself a man among men. The Negro cannot deny
that he is Negro nor claim for himself this abstract uncolored humanity." He
even specifies the exact significanceof the Negro's revolution (Sartre, 1976: 17):
The Negrowho vindicateshis n~gritudein a revolutionary
movementplaces
himself,then and there,uponthe terrainof Reflection,whetherhe wishesto
rediscoverin himself certain objective traits growing out of African
civilization,or hopesto findthe blackEssencein thewellsof his soul.
The Negritude which he thus affirms and celebrates is simultaneously the
"triumph of Narcissism and suicide of Narcissus, tension of the soul outside of
AFRICANGNOSIS
169
its culture, words and every psychic fact, luminous night of non-knowledge."
Immediately after this celebration, he specifies special caveats: Negritude can
neither be sufficient nor must it live forever. It is made to be denied, to be
exceeded. Among the ruins of the colonial era, its singers must again tune their
songs, reformulatetheir myths and submit them to the service and to the need of
the revolution of the proletariat.
Of Black Orpheus, it could be said that while he was correctingthe potential
excesses of the ideology of N6gritude, Sartre was thwarting, in a sovereign
manner, some possible orientations of the movement and at the same time
submitting the generosity of heart and mind of the militants to the fervour of a
philosophy which he was promoting. It was to the credit of L. S. Senghorthat he
was not sterilized by the peremptory arguments and vision of the first
theoretician of N6gritudewhom he had unadvisedlyaroused:he had asked Sartre
for a forewordto celebrateNegritude;in reply, he was given a shroud.
Nevertheless, Black Orpheus is a major moment, perhaps one of the most
important, ideologically. It displays the potentialities of both Marxist revolution,
and the negation of colonialism and racism: "The Negro," states Sartre,"creates
an anti-racist racism. He does not at all wish to dominate the world; he wishes
the abolition of racial privilegeswhereverthey are found; he affirmshis solidarity
with the oppressed of all colors. At a blow the subjective, existential, ethnic
notion of Negritude 'passes' as Hegel would say, into the objective, positive,
exact notion of the proletariat" (Sartre, 1976: 59). What Sartre did was to
impose philosophically the political dimension of a negativity against the
colonial history, which was a compelling undertaking for Africans. By
emphasizing the relativity and the sins of Western expansionism, he gives sense
and credibility to all signs of opposition to colonialism and invites a new
understanding of violence in the colonies. Thus, Pan African Conferences,
Gandhi's non-cooperation movement, or the Neo-Destur rising in North Africa
appear to have a dialectical and positive portent for the future: they can inform
the lives of the colonized and, also fundamentally,provide the possibility of new
societies under changed conditions.
The celebrated change from colonized to independent, from divine-right
power to liberation, may not seem to have any relation to anthropology or
African social studies in general. In fact, it does. Firstly, Black Orpheuswas in
large measure responsible for the blossoming of what has been called in
FrancophoneAfrica the N6gritudeliteratureof the 1950s (Blair, 1976; Wauthier,
1964). A literatureengagee, highly political, put forward Sartre'sbasic positions
with regard to African independence. This new generation of writers born
between 1910 and 1920 includes Sheik Anta Diop, Bernard Dadi6, Rene
Depestre, Frantz Fanon, Keita Fodeba, Camare Laye, Ferdinand Oyono, and
others. Secondly, Black intellectuals, particularly Francophones, read Sartre,
discuss his anti-colonialistpositions and, generallyspeaking,uphold them. Fanon
is a good example of Sartre's impact on Pan-Africanintellectual revolution. In
his Peau Noire, Masques Blancs he accuses Sartreof treason, for Fanon does not
believe that "Negritude is dedicated to its own destruction."Some years later, in
Les Damnnesde la Terre, the West Indian theorist firmly applies Sartre's
dialectical principle and bluntly states: "there will not be a Black culture," "the
Black problem is a political one."
On the other hand, there is a connection between this Black literatureengagde
and the African ideology of otherness. Yet, in Black Orpheus Sartre proposes a
170
Marxist paradigm. The founders of Negritude do not disagree with him on this
point. Some West Indians, for instance Aime Cesaire, Etienne Lero, Jules
Monnerot, and Jacques Roumain, have been at one time or another members of
the Communist Party. Mamadou Dia, Alioune Diop, Birago Diop, Jacques
Rabemananjara,and L. S. Senghorare rathercritical of communism, even when,
as in the case of Senghorand Toure, they are socialists. For them, communismis
as Sartredefined it, just a travellingcompanion. They question the overemphasis
on the fate of the international proletariat and wish to determine strategy for
promoting the individuality of African culture. As opposed to Marx's rigid
interpretationof the relations between values and peoples' aspirationsin society,
they look for ways of reinventing a socio-historic backgrund for independent
African societies (Senghor, 1962). Thus the basic premise of the African Ideology
of otherness:history is myth (Jahn, 1961).
Is Sartre really the inspired guide of this revolution? Let us say that Sartre,
philosopher "in partibus" of Negritude-or, figuratively, Sartre as Negro
philosopher-is a symbol. Since the 1920s, writerslike R. Maran,A. Gide, or M.
Sauvage had criticized the colonial enterprise. In anthropology,scholars such as
Maurice Delafosse, Leo Frobenius, Marcel Griaule, Theodore Monod had offered
positive views of African social regimes. And in 1947, around "Presence
Africaine" and its founder, Alioune Diop, French intellectuals-Georges
Balandier, Albert Camus, Emmanuel Mounier, Paul Rivet-upheld the political
and cultural implications of the mythical character of history. But Sartre
established a cardinal synthesis. By rejectingboth the colonial reason and the set
of socially eternal values as a basis for society, his brief treatise philosophically
founded a relativist perspectivefor African social studies.
Sartre did not necessarily influence Georges Balandier or Joseph Ki-Zerbo;
nor does he guide all African thinkers. Nevertheless, his insights illuminate the
trends and situations of African scholarship.His path to liberation meant a new
epistemological configuration under the sovereignty of dialectical reason
(Jeanson, 1949). It is from his interpretationrather than from communism that
the two characteristicsof present-dayAfrican social studies, presentedby Copans
(1971a), make sense. On the one hand, a radical criticism of "imperialism"and
on the other, a "Marxist revival" which, de facto, "reoccupies the whole
theoretical domain of African studies."
Despite the importance of the Negritude movement, very little attention has
been given to the relationships existing between its textual organization, its
sources, and its expressions (Melone, 1962). We have known, for instance, that
Negritude was a French invention but not how essentially French it was
(Adotevi, 1972). We have been told that the Negritude literature presents itself
as internally unified but not that its structure and spirit respond more to
Europeansources than to the immediately visible African themes (Gerard, 1964;
Bastide, 1961). Hauser's huge book deals with these issues (Hauser, 1982). It is
probably the most careful study to date on the Negritude movement. Its value
does not lie in any new discovery but in the manner with which it addressesthe
questions of Negritude's significanceand objectives. Fundamentally,accordingto
Sartre,Negritude signifies tension between the past and the future of Black men,
and thus it must always be ready to redefine itself and its presence. As Hauser
says, it clothes itself in mythical forms and offers its meaning as a mnotde passe
and its philosophy as an inversion and a reversalof Westerntheses. The result is
a paradox:Negritude writers speak to a White audience (Hauser, 1982: 214).
AFRICANGNOSIS
171
Po~tes pour les noirs, les hommes de la negritude furent lus par les blancs;
poetes du present,ils ne sont recus en Afriqueque comme poetes du passe.
Seen as a literary language, it is also, from the perspective of its content, an
ideological system according to Sartre, "a revolutionary project." It comments
upon a Weltanschauung, interprets a given world, unveils the universe (dire le
monde), and gives a significance to it (signifier le monde) (Melone, 1962;
Diakhate, 1965). But, at the same time, because it is an ideological discourse,
Negritude claims to be a key to a new understanding of history. Thus the
problem of the political and cultural responsibility of the Negritude movement
appears (Senghor, 1964). An ambiguous responsibility, thinks Hauser. Insofar as
N6gritude's political position is concerned, Hauser states that Negritude has not
been a revolutionary movement: "la nrgritude n'est pas un mouvement
revolutionnaire, ni mrme, dans son ensemble (Cesaire excepte) un mouvement
de revolte" (Hauser, 1982: 443). Moreover, in relation to its conditions of
possibility, N6gritude stands as a result of multiple influences: the Bible,
anthropologists' books, French literary schools (symbolism, romanticism,
surrealism, etc.), and literary genealogies and models (Baudelaire, Lautr6mont,
Rimbaud, Mallarme, Valery, Claudel, St. John Perse, Apollinaire, etc.). Hauser
multiplies proofs of the Western sources of Negritude and seriously doubts its
African authenticity (Hauser, 1982: 533).
It becomes immediately apparent in these internal contradictions of
Negritude that Sartre's proposition on the deadlock of the movement makes
tremendous sense. Unless understood as metaphors, the signs of otherness that
Negritude might have promoted in literature, philosophy, history, or social
science, seem to refer to techniques of ideological manipulations. R. Depestre
(1980: 83) notes it in a very strong way, stating that
Le p&cheoriginel de la negritude-et les aventuresqui ont d&natureson projet
initial-lui vient de la fee qui la tint sur les fonts baptismaux:l'anthropologie.
La crise qui a emport&la negritude coincide avec les vents violents qui
soufflentsur les c01ebresterrainsotil'anthropologie-qu'elle s'avoue culturelle,
sociale, appliquee, structurale-, avec des masques nigres ou blancs, a
l'habitudede mener ses savantesenquetes.
Ideologies for Otherness
In the wake of Negritude, but also running parallel to it or even against it,
African political thought affirms itself. It aims initially at recognizingthe Black
personality (la personnalite negre) and obtaining certain socio-political rights
(Wauthier, 1964). Only later, in the 1945s, does it really serve African
independence (Coquery-Vidrovitch,1974). It is commonplaceto see in it one of
the important elements of Africa nationalism, the other being resistance to
colonialism, either passive or violent. It is noteworthy that its most distinguished
promoters are among those first and most completely assimilated to Western
culture and thought, and that everything happens as if-from the point of view
of the integration experienced and accepted-those WesternizedAfricans felt, at
one time, the need to return to their own sources and to state the right to be
different(see Dieng, 1983).
To consider this awakening as a special turning point in the history of the
West is not, in any case, to disqualify it. In 1957, Nkrumah published his
autobiographyin which he explained to what extent he had been influenced by
172
communist and socialist writings, Black American political theories, particularly
Marcus Garvey's Philosophy and Opinions, and Padmore's view on panAfricanism. He also wrote that he learned a lot from Hannibal, Cromwell,
Napoleon, Mazzini, Gandhi, Mussolini, and Hitler. Senghor also presented his
own orientation, putting it in the plural, undoubtedlywith the view to including
his friend-founders of Negritude (1962). If they believed in affirming their
difference, it was, according to him, owing to anthropologists and to Black
Americans; but also because they were between the two wars, the priviliged
witnesses of the crisis of Western values. Moreover, Marx, whom they had just
discovered, gave them reasons for dreaming of another world. Senghor's
explanation is plausible. Up to the 1960s, these factors-anthropology, American
ideology, and Marxism-have had impact on African intelligence. To cut the
story short, let us mention as major points of reference three major types of
contributionswhich graduallychangedthe pace of colonial thinking and practice.
First, anthropologicaland missionary commitments to African values which-for
instance, with Schmidt's enterprise, Tempels Bantu Philosophy(1945) and, later
on, with contributions from African scholars like Mulago's L'Union vitale bantu
chez les Bashi, les Banyarwanda et les Barundi face c l'Unite vitale ecclesiale
(1955) and Kagame'sLa PhilosophieBantu-Rwandaisede l'Etre(1956)-promote
the concept of African theodicy or sign of a natural religion. They established
African religions as particularand respectableexperiencesof a universalwisdom
or philosphy. Second, the intervention of some Western sociologists and
historians. Raymond Michelet in his African Empires and Civilizations (1945),
and Basil Davidson and Georges Balandier in their numerous publications,
oppose the pervasive myths of the widely accepted conceptions about the "living
fossils" or frozen societies. Third, the "awakening"of African intellectualswho,
on the one hand, begin to speak about their past and their culture and, on the
other, to attack or, at least, to interrogate colonialism and its basic principles
(Dieng, 1979; Guisse, 1979).
One could observe this African action in some representative domains:
anthropology, history, and political thinking. In anthropology, studies of
traditional laws were carried out by A. Ajisafe, The Laws and Customs of the
Yoruba people (1924), and J. B. Danquah, Akan Laws and Customs (1928).
Analyses in African customs and traditions were published, for example, D.
Delobson, Les Secrets des Sorciers noirs (1934), M. Quenum, Au Pays des Fons:
Us et Coutumesdu Dahomey (1938), J. Kenyatta,Facing Mount Kenya (1938), J.
B. Danquah, The Akan Doctrine of God (1944); and, much later on, the excellent
researches of K. A. Busia and P. Hazoume, respectively on The Position of the
Chief in the Modern Political System of Ashanti (1951) and Le Pacte au Sang du
Dahomey (1956). In the field of history, the most prominent contributions to
African nationalism were those of de Graft-Johnson'sAfricanGlory:The Story of
VanishedNegro Civilizations(1954) and Sheik Anta Diop's book, Nations Negres
et Culture (1954), in which he analyzed the notion of Hamites and the
connections between Egyptianand African languagesand civilizations.
It is in the political essays that a progressiveawakeninggraduallyaffirmedthe
principles of African nationalism. In his Towards Nationhood in West Africa
(1928), J. W. de Graft-Johnsonstill envisaged the future of West Africa in terms
of the British Empire. But nine years later, W. Azikiwe, in Renascent Africa
(1937), was more critical of Western colonial programs.He emphasized the fact
that the "renascent African" must know that his ancestors "made definite
AFRICANGNOSIS
173
contributions to history" and condemned imperialism and militarism. Major
essays took into account the strong resolution of the Fifth Pan-AfricanCongress
of Manchester (1945) which clearly stated: "We demand for Black Africa
autonomy and independence," a central theme in Nkrumah's TowardsColonial
Freedom (1947), Cesaire's Discours sur le Colonialisme(1950) and Fanon's Peau
noire, Masques blancs (1952). For a number of African intellectuals,these works
have been, and probablystill are, major sources on which they base their cultural
autonomy.
In her thesis, L. Kesteloot provided a brief history (1965) of the contact with
Black Americans which contributed to the awakening of the conscience of
Africans (see also Shepperson, 1960). L. G. Damas, on the eve of his death in
1978, strongly confirmed this thesis by making use of the contributions of
DuBois, L. Hughes, Carter Woodson, Countee Cullen and in particularMercer
Cook, all of whom he considered as a link between Black Americans and
Africans (Damas, 1979: 247-54). To these names, Senghoradds Claude MacKay
and Richard Wright(Senghor, 1962).
If it is difficult to say with certainty to what degree an impact the ideological
commitment of Black Americans made on the African intelligentsia, one could,
at least, observe that it converged with the influence of the Marxist movement,
particularlythe French Communist Party. Before the last war, the Party was the
best organized force to fight outright for the Black man's cause. A number of
Black intellectuals became communist: A. Cesaire, J. Roumain, E. Lero, J. S.
Alexis. Others, like Nkrumah, Nyerere, and Senghor, allied themselves to the
Marxist ideological principles. But in any case, the association with Black
Americans stronglyinfluencedthe critical views of Black Africanson the crisis of
Western values. It also illuminated the differences in the socio-historical
conditions of both. Opposition had already appearedat the Second Pan-African
Congress in 1921, successively held in London (August 28), Brussels (August
29_September 2) and Paris (September 3 and 5). Establishingthe history of the
Black race, DuBois had, to Blaise Diagne's great surprise, pleaded for the
principle of the separation of races and of separate evolution. But Diagne
imposed on the assembly the ethnological point of view that "the Black and the
colored people were capable of progressive development which would allow
[them] to reach the advanced state of other races"(Bontinck, 1980: 604-5).
Nevertheless, among the influences on African thought, from the 1930s to the
1950s, the most influential was Marxism. Significantexamples of its impact are
the warm support that Sartre gave to Negritude movement in 1948 with his
Black Orpheus, the publication by Aim6 Cesaire of Discourse on Colonialism in
1950, and the convention at La Sorbonne in 1956 of the First International
Congressof Black writers and artists.
This same year was also the one in which some Black intellectuals publicly
wished that Marxism could promote their cause, and not the reverse. A. Cesaire
left the French Communist Party under this sign. During the Sorbonnemeeting,
this question was at the center of the debate. A critical distance was therefore
suggested, but not total rejection; for, as A. Ly would say, "the blind refusal of
Marxismwould be as absurd as a total alienation to the Marxist system would be
fatal for the evolution of humankind"(1956). Though expresseddifferently,it is
precisely the "Bandung"spirit and the principle of non-alignmentwhich would
be projected in politics.
174
In literature,this position is expressed in three major ways: first, in terms of
domestication of political power (E. Mphahlele, Mongo Beti, and Sembene
Ousmane, for example); second, in a radical criticism of colonial life (Ch.
Achebe, D. Chraibi, F. Oyono); and third, in the celebration of the classical
sources of life (A. Sefrioui, Sheik Hamidou Kane) (see Jahn, 1968).
It is noteworthy that a number of political leaders who accede to power in
Independent Africa declare themselves for Marxism or socialism or, in some
cases, define ways of indigenizing these systems. Socialists or not, the African
heads of state, attempting to link thought to action, published much, perhapstoo
much. In the late 1950s, one of the most prestigious leaders, Ahmed Sekou
Toure, dared to refuse the progressive route to political autonomy proposed by
France. In 1959 he published more than a thousand pages on his socialist
projects for the development of Guinea and the promotion of Africa (1959, a, b,
c). Aime Cesaire celebrated this "courageous"and "dynamic" thought (19591960). In its inspiration as in its perspectives,it is close to that of K. Nkrumah.
Nkrumah's influence, already immense in Anglophone Africa, invaded Frenchspeaking countries in 1960 with the translationof his autobiography.It knew an
increasing favor whose highest point was the welcome offered to his
Consciencism (1964). In this work, as in others, Nkrumah incorporated
faithfulness to Marxism into the cause of decolonization and the struggleagainst
imperialism. His friend, Patrice Lumumba,had neither the time to put down his
thought in clear terms, nor to refine his essays (1963). These appearedafter his
disappearance. J.-P. Sartre again put his talent to the service of African
nationalism by introducing J. Van Lierde's book on the political philosophy of
Patrice Lumumba(Van Lierde, 1963).
Numerous other leaders give points of view on the complex problems of
Independent Africa. The major issues concern the managementof the State as
well as the means of economic liberation. Such leaders include Ahidjo in
Cameroon(1964, 1969), Badian in Mali (1964), Mamadou Dia in Senegal(1957,
1960), and Kanza in Congo-Zaire (1959, a, b). More recently, Nyerere has
promoted Ujamaa (1968) and M. Ngouabi insisted on the imperative necessity
of applying scientific socialism (1975). But the ways followed in politics, when
they have not led to bitter failure, have caused serious problemshere and there.
Political opposition surfaced when permitted. In any case, different thoughts
have arisen, hence, the satire and the polemics found, for example, in the
authoritative mockery of the Negro State of D. Ewande (1968). But they will be
asserted in cathartic terms, especially in fiction in the 1960s, by taking, as their
target, the incompetence and the abuse of the new administratorsof the African
states. The theme of the "bad exploiting colonialist" and his motives are
succeeded by an original socio-political subject:we are, in the main, to blame for
our misfortunes (Casteran, 1978; Pomonti, 1979). There is a proliferation of
examples in the literary texts of Kwei Armah, Kofi Awoonor, Cameron Duodu,
Ahmadou Kourouma,Tierno Monenembo,or Ngugi wa Thiongo.
MARX AFRICANIZED
The image of Africa after 1965 is distressing. Authoritarian regimes have
multiplied, rules and norms of democracy have been flouted or rejected (see
Gutkind and Wallerstein, 1976). Here and there, political dictatorships have
been imposed. Some charismatic leaders have vanished into obscurity. S. Toure
AFRICANGNOSIS
175
was isolated in his dictatorship and K. Nkrumah, challengedand insulted, died
in exile. Senghor remains, but even he had to remove Mamadou Dia, whose
economic ideas in the 1960s were considered to be a necessary complement to
the metaphysics of the father of Negritude in order to guaranteesecurity for the
Africa path to socialism (Kachama-Nkoy, 1963). Covered with honors, but more
and more criticized by the new generation, Senghor works at making all his
works accessible (1964, 1971, 1977, 1983). At the same time he continues,
against all opposition, to define N&gritudeas a value of dialogue and of
openness, and to clarify his humanist choices for socialist politics and an
economy based on an African reading of Marx (1976). Nyerere also appears in
these years as one of the more credible political thinkers.
Despite its crucial problems of adaptation to the African context, socialism
seems the most fashionable doctrine. Its best known proponentsare F. Fanon, L.
S. Senghor,and J. Nyerere.
The West Indian Frantz Fanon is a solid Marxist, but also a good student of
Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre. His commitment to the African
revolution, expressed in Peau Noire, Masques blancs (1952), Les Damnes de la
terre (1962), and Pour la Revolution Africaine (1969), is based on a concrete
understandingof the Hegelian dialectic: the alienation of colonialism constitutes
the thesis, the African ideologies of otherness (Black personality and N&gritude)
the antithesis, and political liberation will be the synthesis. The similarity with
Sartre's analysis in Black Orpheus is striking. But Fanon is probably more
concerned with details and practical contradictions because he knows them
better, comes from a "colony," and is himself Black and an active memberof the
Algerianrevolution. He can address a wider rangeof problems.
The alienation of colonialism entails both the objective fact of total
dependence (economic, political, cultural and religious) and the subjective
process of the self-victimization of the dominated. The colonized internalizesthe
racial stereotypes imposed upon him, particularly in his attitudes towards
technology, culture, and language.Black personality and N6gritudeappearas the
only means of negating this thesis and Fanon expounds the antithesis in terms of
anti-racist symbols. N&gritudebecomes the intellectual and emotional sign of
opposition to the ideology of White superiorityand, at the same time, asserts an
authenticity which eventually expresses itself as a radical negation: rejection of
racial humiliation, rebellion against the rationality of domination, and revolt
against the whole colonialist system. This symbolic violence ultimatelyturns into
nationalism and subsequently leads to a political struggle for liberation. The
synthesis is the conjunction of, on the one side, "national consciousness" and
"political praxis"; and, on the other, the consequences of the contradictions
created by existing social classes: national bourgeoisie, proletariat,
lumpenproletariat,and peasantry; the last two being the possible source of a
revolutionaryconsciousness.
Whereas Fanon distinguishes the analysis of a struggle for liberation (first
phase) from the promotion of socialism (second phase), L. S. Senghor tends to
define African socialism as just a stage in a complex process beginning with
and oriented towards a universal civilization. He emphasized three
NMgritude
major moments: Negritude, Marxism, and universal civilization.
(a) Ncgritude is "the warmth"of being, living, and participatingin a natural,
social, and spiritual harmony. It also means taking on some basic political
positions: that colonialism has depersonalizedAfricans and therefore the end of
176
colonialism should promote the self-fulfillmentof Africans. Thus, Negritude is
simultaneously an existential thesis (I am what I have decided to be) and a
political enterprise.It also signifies a choice: among Europeanmethods, socialism
seems the most useful for both the cultural reassessmentand the socio-political
promotion.
(b) Marxism is, for Senghor, a method. In order to use it adequately, the
Senegalese thinker dissociates Marxism as humanism from Marxism as a theory
of knowledge. It is because the first offers a convincing explanation of the notion
of alienation within its theory of capital and value and exposes the scandal of
man under capitalism becoming a mere means of production and a strangervisa-vis the product of his work, that Senghorreadily accepts its conclusions insofar
as they indicate a recognition of natural rights of man who is and must remain a
free agent and a creatorof culture.
"We are socialist," writes Senghor, "because we accept Marx and Engels and
believe in the usefulness of their analysis of societies. Yet we add to Marx and
Engels' works the contributions of their successors."But, for Senghor,Marxism
as a theory of knowledge constitutes a problem. It is one thing to use its schemas
for analyzing and understandingthe complexity of social formations, another to
accept that social complexities universally fit into the concept of the class
struggleand the need to deny religion.
(c) Towards a universal civilization: Negritude and Marxist humanism are
just, according to Senghor, dialectic stages in a dynamic process towards a
universal civilization. Using and interpreting hypotheses of Pierre Teilhard de
Chardin, the Jesuit priest and paleontologist who wrote extensively about the
past and the future of the humankind, Senghor founds his ideas of a universal
civilization upon laws of evolution. He believes that the movement from micro
entities to more complex ones and finally to conscience expresses a natural law.
And this would imply, at least, three major theses: first, the principle of
development of man, of all human beings; second, the principle of harmony in
development; third, God's existence as a natural necessity. Senghor thinks that
some basic African values are well expressed in this perspective,namely the idea
of community, the principle of harmony between evolving men and changing
nature, and finally, the vision of a unitary universe.
Senghor's influence on contemporary African thought, particularly in
Francophonecountries, is considerable.The Senegalesewriter, like the Ghanaian
Nkrumah, does not allow himself to be neutral. Of the African thinkers of this
century, he will probably have been the most honored and the most
complimented. Yet, probably also the most disparaged and the most insulted,
especially by the present generation of African intellectuals. It is significant,for
instance, that S. Azombo-Menda and M. Anobo, in their manual of African
philosophy, believe they are obliged to explain the presence of Senghor in their
anthology, by observing that "his thought has exerted on black intellectualssuch
influence that it would be regrettablewere his principal theses to be ignored or
passed in silence by sectarianism or because people felt incapable to discuss
them" (Azombo-Menda and Anobo, 1978). Does Senghor really deserve such
excessive excuses to appear in a textbook of African philosophy?It is fitting to
note that Senghorhas become a myth which is endlessly discussed.
It is true that criticism, especially African, has mainly seen in Senghor the
promoter of some famous oppositions which, out of context, could appear as
embracing perspectives proper to certain racist theoreticians. Thus: Negro
AFRICANGNOSIS
177
emotion confronting hellenistic reason, intuitive Negro reasoning through
participation facing European analytical thinking through utilization; or again:
the Negro-African, man of rhythm and sensitivity, assimilated to the other
through sympathy, who can say "I am the other, I dance as the other, therefore I
am." On this basis Senghor has been accused of seeking to promote a detestable
model for a division of vocations between Africa and Europe, between African
and European (e.g., Towa, 1971a; Soyinka, 1976).
J. Nyerere's socialism is probably the most pragmatic of all African socialisms
(Duggan and Civile, 1976: 181). Its basic assumption has been spelled out in
simple terms. In the expression "African socialism" the most important word is
not socialism but African. In other words, according to Nyerere (1968: 27), an
African does not need to convert to socialism or to democracy since his own
traditional experience is socialist and democratic.
The trueAfricansocialistdoes not look on one classof men as his brethren
and anotheras his naturalenemies.He does not forman alliancewith the
He regardsall menas
for the extermination
of the "non-brethren."
"brethren"
his brethren-as membersof his ever-extending
family. Ujamaa,then, or
"familihood"describesour socialism.
Ujamaa, or communalism, rejects both capitalism (which "seeks to build a
happy society on the basis of exploitation of man by man") and doctrinaire
socialism (which "seeks to build its happy society on a philosophy of inevitable
conflict between man and man"). For Nyerere, Ujamaa means first of all, the
creation of a new society, a nation, based on the traditional model of family.
Secondly, moving beyond the nation, the socialist project would imply a constant
development of communalism for all peoples (Duggan and Civile, 1976: 188-96).
The Arusha Declaration (1967) made Nyerere's program more explicit by
prsenting the creed of his party, its socialist chart, the policy of self-reliance, the
philosophy of membership and an official statement about socialist leaders. The
creed presents the rationale of Ujamaa. In the first part, it describes the major
values (sharing, equality, rejection of alienation and exploitation of man by man,
etc.); in the second part, it offers as ideological deductions, its main political
objectives. They are: first, independence of the nation, but a socialist nation
governed by a socialist government; second, cooperation with African countries
and commitment to the liberation of Africa and her unity; third, improvement of
the conditions of equality and life in the nation and, therefore, nationalization of
the means of production and political control of the fields of production.
The seach for the construction of a new African society is equally oriented in
other directions. N. Azikiwe's interpretation of political unity and the pragmatic
federalism advocated by O. Awolowo in Path to Nigerian Freedom (1947) have
followers. Nkrumah's political philosophy is still popular all over the continent.
Nkrumah's concept of social revolution described in I Speak of Freedom (1961)
and the materialism of Consciencism (1964) which exposes a socio-political
system implying dialogue and the possibility of reconciling antagonistic forces
and orienting them towards positive social change is particularly popular.
Unfortunately, looking back at Nkrumah's regime in Ghana, one might think
that it was just rhetoric. The Ghanaian leader knew quite well what he was
opposing and what he wanted in terms of organizationof power. Though a good
marxist theorist, once in power, Nkrumah became a bad politician, and rapidly
turned into a dictator. The best that can be said would be that he simply failed
to put his theory into practice. Yet, his theoretical legacy remains, challenging
178
and stimulating for the new generation of African Marxists looking for
paradigms of revolutionary change and cultural dynamism. At a quite general
level, one may still admire his critical evaluation of G. Padmore'sPanafricanism
or Communism (1956), his views on the unity of the continent, and the
pertinence of his analyses on neo-colonialism(Nkrumah, 1962, 1965).
It is my feeling that, in general, the new African wave tends to focus on the
ideological significance of the failure of contemporary African society. In
French-speakingcountries, the criticism is carried out in the context of presentday socio-political contradictions rooted in both the pre-colonial and colonial
experience, as for example, by Pathe Diagne in Pouvoirpolitique traditionnelen
Afriqueoccidentale(1967) and G. L. Hazoume with his book Ideologies tribalistes
et Nation en Afrique:le Cas dahomeen (1972). Under the circumstances,many
thinkers tend to re-evaluate African socialism and insist on the usefulness of
applying the Marxist lesson in a more systematic manner. Majhemout Diop
suggested it in his Contributiona l'Etude des problkmespolitiques en Afrique
Noire (1958). It was brilliantly applied by Osende Afana to the economic
situation of West Africa in L'Economie Ouest-Africaine.Perspectives de
Developpement(New Edition 1976). The Marxist trend is thus still dynamic, as
shown by the ritings of various authors like P. Diagne, P. Hountondji, M.
Ngouabi and the official ideological choices of some regimes such as those of
Angola, Benin, Congo, Ethiopia, and Mozambique.The newly createdJournal of
African Marxists is also an indication of the Marxist revival in Africa. It has
succeeded in bringingtogether intellectualsfrom all over the continent and states
its task in terms of "providing a platform for Marxist thought to provide that
element most needed now to enable Africa to throw off imperialist domination
and capitalist exploitation" (Issue 4, 1983: 3; see also Dieng: 1979).
Yet, mainly in West Africa, other scholars continue to allocate first place to
questions that have been asked again and again about tradition. M. Dia, for
instance, with his works on Islamic humanism (1977, 1979)joins A. Hampate Ba
and Boubou Hama, prestigious survivors of an old team which, from the 1930s
onwards, has invoked traditionalism and Islam as effective sources of
regeneration.
Present trends give the impression that the Africa of the 1980s relives the
crises of the 1950s. To create myths which would give a meaning to its hope for
improvement, Africa seems to hesitate between two principal sources, the
Marxist and the traditionalist, and worries endlessly about the evidence about
the superiority of the Same over the Other, and the possible virtues of the
inverse relationship. But, a discreet and controverted current has quietly
developed since 1954, the date of the publication of Sheik Anta Diop's Nations
Negres et Culture. To many, this current appears as the only reasonable
alternative to the present disorder. Using Marxism as a foil, it intends to scan
African tradition in depth, affirming the cultural unity of precolonial Africa,
linguistic kinship and common historic past (Diop, 1954, 1960a, 1967, 1981).
These learned investigations by Diop-assisted by the Congolese Th. Obenga
(1973) and the Cameroonian E. Mveng (1972)-want to give Africa the moral
benefit of being the cradle of Mankind and of having influenced the history of
ancient Egypt and the Mediterraneancivilizations. But could these potentially
mobilizing myths, as Sheik Anta Diop hoped (1960b), found the possibility of a
new political order in Africa?
AFRICANGNOSIS
179
PRIMITIVE PHILOSOPHIES
As one of Tempels Franciscan colleagues put it, Monsignorde Hemptinne's
attitude was: "We don't need that little Capuchin coming here to give us
lessons." (W. De Craemer,1977: 30)
The expression primitive philosophy is usual in the 1920s-1930s. It is part of
the fabric which, since the end of the nineteenth century is colonizing the
continent, its inhabitants, and realities. It belongs also to a system of thought
dominated by such milestones as Les Fonctions Mentales dans les Societes
inferieures (1910), La Mentalite Primitive (1922), L'Ame Primitive (1927), Le
Surnaturel et la Nature dans la Mentalite Primitive (1931), L'Experience
Mystique et les Symboles chez les Primitifs (1938). They mark a radical difference
between the West characterized by a history of intellectual and spiritual
reasoning and the "primitives" whose life, Weltanschauung, and thinking have
nothing in common with the West. As Levy-Bruhl (quoted by Evans-Pritchard,
1980: 80) wrote in La Mentalite Primitive:
The attitude of the mind of the primitive is very different.The nature of the
milieu in which he lives presentsitself to him in quite a differentway. Objects
and beings are all involved in a network of mystical participation and
exclusions. It is these which constitute its texture and order. It is then these
which immediatelyimpose themselveson his attention and which alone retain
it.
From this emerges a theory of two types of mentality. One is rational,
functioning according to principles of logic and inquiring into causal
determinations and relations; another, prelogica, seems completely colonized by
collective representation and strictly dependent upon the law of mystical
participation. Westerners participate in the logical thought. In the pre-logical and
symbolic, one finds "such peoples as the Chinese included with Polynesians,
Melanesians, Negroes, American Indians, and Australian Blackfellows" (EvansPritchard, 1980: 88).
Evans-Pritchard could state in 1965 that "there is no reputable anthropologist
who today accepts this theory of two distinct types of mentality" (EvansPritchard, 1980: 88). I would only note that what the present-day "granddichotomy" implies might not be Levy-Bruhl's model of opposed mentalities but
would surely indicate a division of reason between the so-called closed and open
societies. At any rate, in the 1920s-1930s the division meant both the task of
comprehending the primitive mentality as a poor and non-evolved entity, and
the possibility of restoring it at the beginning of the history of reason. It is within
this framework that one understands books and contributions dealing with
primitive philosophies such as Delhaisse's Les Idees Religieuses et philosophiques
des Warega(1909), Kaoze's La Psychologiedes Bantu, des Bani Marungu(1910),
Correia's VocablesPhilosophiqueset Religieux des PeuplesIbo (1925), or the well
known texts of Brelsford on Primitive Philosophy(1935) and The Philosophyof
the Savage (1938).
I am not saying that all these scholars and others who were then studying
"primitive organizations" (see Smet, 1978b, 1980) were all disciples of LevyBruhl, defending the thesis of a division of reason between "primitive" and
"civilized." Rather, all of them, even those who like Delafosse (1922, 1927)
commented upon African structures and peoples with a vivid Einfuhlung, were
concerned with the discrepancy existing between Europe and the black continent
180
and wished to describe this difference and possibly classify it into a taxonomic
grid of human cultures. The Belgian Franciscan Placide Frans Tempels could be
considered as a paradigmatic illustration of this curiosity of the 1920s-1930s. He
is a sign caught at the crossroad of several currents: evolutionary assumptions of
the late nineteenth century., Lvy-Bruhl's theses on prelogism, the Western selfdeclared mission to civilize Africa through colonization, and the Christian
evangelizing generosity.
Within the arrogance of a Belgian colonial conquest meant to last for
centuries, Tempels, a missionary in Katanga, wrote a small book of philosophy
which still disturbs a number of African thinkers. What Tempels knew of
philosophy amounted, essentially, to the education he received during his
religious training. He was not a professional philosopher and his major
preoccupations, from his arrival in Africa in 1933, were of a religious nature.
One of his exegetes, A. J. Smet, has even suggested that Levy-Bruhl's influence is
evident in the first texts, which tended to be ethnographical in outlook, and
which Tempels published before Bantu Philosophy (Smet, 1977b: 77-128).
Tempels was fully committed to a mission, that of leading the Black man (to
whom he did not yet give the status of being a complete man) along the road to
civilization, knowledge, and true religion in the style of Bulamatari ("Breaker of
Rocks"), a spiritual Master and authoritarian doctor (Tempels, 1962: 36). It was
this certainty that would strongly relativize Bantu Philosophy which, in this
respect, could be considered as testimony to a revelation and as a sign of a
change in the life of Tempels (1962: 37).
Je dois dire que mon but, dans cette recherchede l'homme bantou etait ... de
me sentir "bantou"au moins une fois. Je voulais penser, sentir, vivre comme
lui, avoir une dme bantoue. Tout cela avec l'intention de pouvoir m'adapter
... I1 y eut sans doute dans mon attitude quelque chose de plus, ou d'autre,
que le simple int&r?tscientifiqued'un ethnologuequi pose des questions sans
que n&cessairementl'objet de sa science, l'homme vivant q'il a devant lui ...
soit le but de ses investigations .... Mon attitude comprenait peut-etre un
element de bienveillance envers cet homme vivant et suscitait en lui une
reaction de confianceenvers ma personne.
Thus looking back at the period which allowed his Bantu Philosophy,
Tempels neatly differentiated himself from anthropologists. His aim is different,
he says, and bears on a radically different attitude, one of Einfuhlung or
sympathy. But his book caused extraordinary repercussions. G. Bachelard greeted
it as a treasure. Alioune Diop pledged his faith and the destiny of Presence
Africaine on this little work, to whose French version he appended a congenial
foreword, describing it as the most decisive work he had ever read (A. Diop,
1965). However, the book has not lacked enemies. The story begins in Katanga,
in the Belgian Congo, as it was then called, where a strange prince of the Church
and of the colony, Bishop Jean-Felix de Hemptinne, exercised his power to check
the circulation of Bantu Philosophy, insisting that Rome condemn the book as
heretical and that Tempels be expelled from the country (DeCraemer, 1977: 2930).
The reason was that in the colonial milieu, this small book casts doubts on
the greatness of the colonial venture. There were then perfectly respectable
theoreticians who considered the right to colonize as a natural right. According
to the doctrine, it was up to the most advanced humans to intervene in the
"sleeping regions" of Africa and to exploit the wealth meant by God for all
AFRICANGNOSIS
181
humanity. Through his presence and his policies, the colonizer was intended to
awaken these "lethargic peoples" and to introduce them into civilization and
true religion. For about ten years, Tempels follows this objective. In the fashion
of colonial administrators, he derived two theses from his experience: that nature
comes from God and that it is up to superior peoples to civilize their inferior
brethren. Moreover, the right to colonize was duplicated by a natural duty and a
spiritual mission. A stirring metaphor very much in fashion in the 1930s seems
to support his thesis: just as in a forest there are fragile, dependent forms of life
which can live and develop only under the protection of those much stronger and
more powerful, so it is among human communities.
With his Bantu Philosophy, Tempels does not entirely reject, as the colonists
feared, this ideology of natural domination. His project, admittedly, is to propose
more efficient ways to achieve the task of civilizing and evangelizing Bantu
peoples. As a priest, true to the ideals of his mission, he proposes a new program
for the human and spiritual promotion of the indigenous people; namely, how to
establish Christian values on a Bantu cultural basis and construct a civilization
which will be in harmony with the modes of thinking and of being Bantu.
Tempels was persuaded that his Bantu Philosophy and particularly his ontology,
is the best tool which can allow Whites to understand and meet Africans. He
(Tempels, 1959: 23) writes that:
Folklore alone and superficialdescriptions of strange customs cannot enable
us to discover and understandprimitive man. Ethnology,linguistics, psychoanalysis, jurisprudence,socology and the study of religions are able to yield
definitive results only after the philosophy and the ontology of a primitive
people have been thoroughlystudied and writtenup.
Tempels' conception of Bantu philosophy could be summarized in five
propositions (see Eboussi-Boulaga, 1968; Tshiamelenga, 1981).
(1) Since Bantu are human beings, they have organized systems of principles
and references. These systems constitute a philosophy even though Bantu are not
"capable of formulating a philosophical treatise, complete with an adequate
vocabulary" (Tempels, 1959: 36). In sum, their philosophy is an implicit one and
it is Tempels interpreting Bantu answers to his questions who unveils its
organized and systematic character of beliefs and customs.
(2) This philosophy is an ontology. In the West, since the Greeks, philosophy
has been concerned with defining and indicating the real in terms of being,
through a static perspective accounted for by such expressions as "the reality that
is," "anything that exists," or "what is." On the contrary, notes Tempels, Bantu
philosophy seems to offer a dynamic understanding by giving a great deal of
attention to the being's vitality and by relating being to its force (Tempels, 1959:
50-51):
We can conceive the transcendentalnotion of "being"by separatingit from
its attribute, "Force," but the Bantu cannot. "Force" in his thought is a
necessaryelement in "being,"and the concept "force"is inseparablefrom the
definition of "being."There is no idea among Bantu of "being"divorced from
the idea of "force."
(3) Bantu ontology in its specificity implies that being as understood in the
Western tradition signifies force in Bantu tradition, and therefore one can state
that Being = force, or as the Italian translator of Tempels entitled his abridged
Italian version: Forza = Essere (Tempels, 1979: 23). It is thus force in its
182
mysterious presence that provides a possibility of classifying beings in a
hierarchy comprising all the existing realms: mineral, vegetable, animal, human,
ancestral, and divine. On the other hand, in the expanse of all of them vital force
appears to be the essential sign of ordering identities, differences, relationships.
From the extreme below to God's stage, there is a permanent and dynamic
dialectic of energy: vital force can be nourished, stopped or diminished,
increased or decreased in every being, and from one transition to another, the
reference remains the order of its fulfillment in God.
Bantu speak, act, live as if, for them, beings were forces. Force is not for them
an adventitious, accidental reality, force is even more than a necessary
attribute of beings: Force is the nature of being, force is being, being is force
(Tempels, 1959: 51).
The origin, the subsistence or annihilation of beings or of forces, is expressly
and exclusively attributed to God. The term to "create" in its proper
connotation of "to evoke from not being" is found in its full significationin
Bantu terminology(Kupangain Kiluba)(Tempels, 1959: 57).
All force can be strengthened or enfeebled. That is to say, all being can
become strongeror weaker(Tempels, 1959: 55).
Within these uninterrupted exchanges, beings are not bound in upon
themselves but constitute what Tempels calls a "principle of activity" (Tempels,
1959: 51), and by their interactions account for the "general laws of vital
causality," namely
(a) "man (living or deceased) can directly reinforce or diminish the being of
another man";
(b) "the vital human force can directly influence inferior force-beings (animal,
vegetable, or mineral) in their being";
(c) "a rational being (spirit, manes, or living) can act indirectly upon another
rational being by communicating his vital force to an inferior force (animal,
vegetable, or mineral) through the intermediacy of which it influences the
rational being" (Tempels, 1959: 67-68).
(4) Bantu ontology can be thought of and made explicit only because of the
conceptual frame of Western philosophy. And Tempels (1959: 36) put it in a
rather direct way: "it is our job to proceed to such systematic development. It is
we who will be able to tell them in precise terms, what their inmost concept of
being is."
(5) Bantu ontology could be a guide to the ontologies of all primitive peoples
in general. In effect, throughout his book Tempels indistinctly uses the terms
Africans, Bantus, primitives, natives, and savages. He clearly indicates that
although he is presenting the "philosophy" of a small community in Belgian
Congo, his conclusions could be valid for all non-Western societies. At least
twice, he specifies this ambition: first, when, modestly, he notes that "many
colonials who are living in contact with Africans have assuredme that I have set
out nothing new, but merely set out systematically what they had grasped
vaguely from their practical knowledge of Africans" (Tempels, 1959: 37). Second,
at the end of his first chapter, he explicitly and sincerely marks the possible
generalizationand discussion of his observations(Tempels, 1959: 38):
AFRICANGNOSIS
183
The problem of Bantu ontology, the problem whether it exists or not, is thus
open to discussion. It is legitimate now to enter upon the task of setting out
their philosophy,which is perhapsthat common to all primitive peoples, to all
clan societies.
What is one to think of Bantu Philosphy? Mbiti (1970: 14) states that the
main contribution of Tempels is more in terms of sympathy and change of
attitude than perhaps in the actual contents of his book." At any rate, Mbiti
(1971: 132) has doubts about the dynamic conception of Bantu ontology. 0.
P'Bitek attacks Tempels' suggested generalization of Bantu ontology: "Fr.
Tempels invites us to accept this thought-system, not only as Bantu, but as
African. Can serious ... scholars concerned with a correct appraisal and analysis
of African beliefs and philosophy afford this kind of generalisation?" (P' Bitek,
1973: 59). A Zaiean philosopher (Tshiamalenga, 1981: 1979) specifies the
criticism in a more satisfactory way:
In effect, Tempels' method is simply one of sympathy (Einftihlung)and
communion with Luba Shaba behavior, a method of rapid and superficial
comparison, and prematuregeneralization.If it is clear that sympathy can
allow a hypothesis,that cannot mean that the latteris founded.
Tshiamalenga then focuses on three points. First, it is not because the Luba
studied by Tempels pay a great deal of attention to the reality of force that one
could conclude that force is being. Second, an ontology cannot be constituted on
the basis of its external signs. More importantly, the identification of the Bantu
notion of force with the Western notion of being does not seem to make sense,
since in Bantu tradition the concept of force should be understood and defined
in its relationships with other concepts, while in the West being is a notion
transcending all determinations and opposing the very nothingness. Third, the
equivalence established between force and being should be considered as a
simulacrum since it is unthinkable without the Western conceptual
instrumentarium used by Tempels (Tshiamalenga, 1981: 179; see also Boelaert,
1946; Sousberghe, 1951). Conclusion? Tempels built up a philosophy but did not
reconstruct Bantu philosophy (Tshiamalenga, 1981: 179).
Perhaps one should also evaluate Tempels' enterprise from the background of
his own period in which Levy-Bruhl's dogmas were pervasive, with the
colonizing objectives as well as the Christian mission expressed in an
evolutionary grid (see Pirotte, 1973; Lyons, 1975). On the other hand, in which
sense should we understand Tempels' own judgement about his book? He
(Tempels, 1959: 40) unpretentiously writes at the beginning of his chapter on
ontology:
The present study, after all, claims to be no more than an hypothesis, a first
attempt at the systematicdevelopmentof what Bantu philosophyis.
The debate about this "philosophy" which has since developed, and which is
regularly repeated, appears to me unduly intellectual. Tempels' work is certainly
ambiguous (see also Hebga, 1982). It is not, however, worth the extremes which
it sometimes excites. Surely one could reproach Tempels for confusing the vulgar
meaning of philosophy with its technical definition, but by returning insistently
and incessantly to this weakness, as though, philosophically, it constitutes a
mortal sin, African philosophers could obstruct more useful developments. Even
though some of Tempels' disciples continue to use his controversial concept of
being-force, they generally bring in stimulating African visions and conceptions
184
(e.g., Kagame, 1956; Lufuluabo, 1962; Mujynya, 1972). Yet, after Aime Cesaire
(1972), one could also note the political complicity which the book implied, and
throw more light on its concurrence with colonial ideology (see Eboussi-Boulaga,
1968). Without doubt, it could also be indicated, as a paradox, that Bantu
Philosophy opened some holes in the monolith of colonial ideology, as Alioune
Diop noted in his foreword(1965). Finally, any African of sound mind would be
perfectly entitled to question the socio-historical significance of the book and,
with F. Eboussi-Boulaga,fear that the thesis of the evolution of Bantu thought
according to Tempels simply means reduction of Bantu temporality to a fixed
past (Eboussi-Boulaga,1968: 5-40).
I might suggest that the truth of Bantu Philosophy resides in the tension of
these contradictions.It is probablethat the scholarlyworks to which A. Smet has
devoted himself for some years now in order to establish a more complete image
of Tempels and his thought will emphasize most clearly the fuzziness of a
thought born of cross-breeding between ethnological curiosity, evangelical
ambiguities, and colonial purpose. We should thus place this little book in the
spiritual evolution of its author. While attempting to "civilize," Tempels found
his moment of truth in an encounter with other people of whom he thought
himself the master. He became a student of those he was supposed to teach, and
sought to comprehend their version of the truth. During this encounter, there
was a discreet moment of revelation which radically clouded the convictions of
the civilizer. The adventure ended in a constitution of a sort of syncretic
Christian community: the Jamaa "family" (Smet, 1977c). Tempels describes its
spirit in a curious book (1962). Celebratingthe themes of life, love and fertility,
the movement gained ground in Central Africa before being excommunicatedby
the Catholic hierarchyfor unorthodoxy(De Craemer, 1977; Mataczynski, 1984).
Had Tempels chosen for his essay a title without the term philosphy in it, and
had he simply organized his ethnographic data on Luba and commented upon
them, his book would have perhaps been less provocative. At least it could have
offered a regional representationwithin its own limits in the manner of Marcel
Griaule's Conversations with Ogotemmdli (1965) first published in 1948. One
year later, praising Tempels' insights, Griaule wrote what should have been the
preface to the 1949 French version of Bantu Philosophy which was published by
Presence Africaine (1949). In his brief text, Griaule established links between
Bantu ontology and conceptions of the Dogons. In the preface to Conversations,
he also makes explicit their proximity (Griaule, 1965: 1-2):
Ten years ago [these works of G. Dieterlen on Les Ames des Dogon (1941), S.
de Ganay's Les Devises (1941) and my own Les Masques(1938)] had already
drawn attention to new facets concerning the 'vital force' ... They have
shown the primary importance of the notion of the person and his relations
with society, with the univese, and with the divine. Thus Dogon ontology has
opened new vistas for ethnologists... More recently... the Rev. Fr. Tempels
presented an analysis of conception of this kind, and raised the question of
whether"Bantuthought should not be regardedas a system of philosophy."
Griaule totally relied on an atypical informant-"Ogotemmdli,
of Lower
Ogol, a hunter who had lost his sight by an accident and endowed with
exceptional intelligence and wisdom-who in thirty-three days introduced him to
the deep knowledge of Dogon belief and tradition. Griaule's essay is organized
around the informant's interwoven monologues. From creation to the origin of
social organizations, the recitation follows two threads: a mythical decoding of
AFRICANGNOSIS
185
the universe in its being, and a symbolic interpretation of the foundation of
history, culture and society which, says Griaule, defines "a world system, the
knowledge of which will revolutionize all accepted ideas about the mentality of
Africans and of primitive peoples in general"(Griaule, 1965: 2). Some members
of the anthropological establishment decided that Griaule was lying. The
conversations were a mystification:Dogons, as all primitives, could not possibly
conceive such a complex structuringof a knowledge which through myths and
rites, unites, hierarchisesand explains astronomicalsystems, correspondencesof
worlds, calendrical tables, classification of beings, and social transformations.
Moreover, Griaule's book could not be really accepted: it claims to be a simple
report of Ogotommili's teaching and does not obey the sacred canons of social
anthropology.
At any rate, the Conversationswith Ogotemmeli indicate the far-reaching
importance of myth in an African setting. The myth is a text which can break
down into pieces and reveal human experience and social order. We have known
that since Durkheim and Mauss. But it is Levi-Strausswho has definitely given
force to this theory and has thus invalidated the method and conclusions of a
great number of poor works which, in the 1950s, still described "primitive
philosophies" (see bibliographies in Cahiers des Religions Africaines, 1975: 9,
17-18), or "ethno-philosophies,"as they were then called (see Smet, 1980: 161).
Holas and Zahan's sound studies on African spirituality and cosmology are
exceptions.
It is in mainstream anthropology that an original renewal takes place. The
publication in 1954 by D. Forde of a collection of essays on the African concept
of world is a major event. It brings together some of the most imaginative
students of Africa: M. Douglas, G. Wagner,M. Griaule, G. Dieterlen, K. Little,
J. J. Maquet, K. A. Busia, P. Mercier, who in their respective contributions
explore "the significanceof cosmological ideas as expressions of moral values in
relation to the material conditions of life and the total social order" and,
specifically,"show this intricate interdependencebetween a traditionalpattern of
livelihood, an accepted configurationof social relations, and dogmas concerning
the nature of the world and the place of men within it" (Forde, 1976: x). It has
become possible to really consider myths and rites as guides to comprehending
symbolic dimensions as well as mirrors of systems of thoughts. One may recall
congenial publications such as Fortes and Dieterlen'sAfricanSystems of Thought
(1965), Middleton's Ritual and Authorityamong an East African People (1960),
L. de Heusch's Symbolisme de I'IncesteRoyal en Afrique (1958), or P. Holas'
L'Image du Monde Bete (1968).
Within this new intellectual atmosphere, Leach's statement (1980: 1) on the
pertinence of myth as socio-culturalcode makes tremendoussense:
All stories which occur in the Bible are myths for the devout Christian,
whetherthey correspondto historicalfact or not. All humansocietieshave
myths in this sense, and normallythe myths to which the greatestimportance
is attachedare those which are the least probable.
The most prudent-the most trivial too-of generalizationsone may propose
about African systems of thought would be the following: myth and society are
autonomous but respond to one another, or, more exactly, the myth signifies
social reality to the point that without it reality loses its meaning. For example,
it is a set of myths which gives the guidelines for the Lugbara of Nile-Congo to
shifting connections existing between the community, its extension, and
186
descendance (Middleton, 1980: 47-61). The Tiv myth, on the other hand, fuses
with genealogy incarnating a mythical recitation, defining the overall lineage of
human brotherhood, and narrating itself as a cosmic order (Bohannan, 1980:
315-29). In the Dogon culture also, founding myths express linkages between
social organizationand the cosmic universe. Virtuallyall culturalsigns and social
features of Dogons are related to the egg of the world with its seven vibrations
and spiral motion (Griaule and Dieterlen, 1976: 83-110).
Yet the myth, despite its paradoxical forms and sometimes
irrationally
contradictory versions, does not only express the mechanics of a discreet
rationality that gives account of analogies, dependences, overlapping, or
antinomic virtues within the natural, social and cosmic orders. It is not only a
collective memory for a community which often can rely on griots and
specialized speakersin chargeof narratingits past. One cannot even think that it
is only a complicated table of knowledge keeping and maintaining valuable
reminiscences, important discoveries and deeds handed down by ancestors. If
one can look into an African myth and recognize in it, as in the case of Dogon
myth (Griaule, 1965; Dieterlen, 1941), a powerful and amazing organization of
classifications, filiations, their transformations and representation,it would be
wrong to limit the meaning of the myth to this function. For a careful student
could always go beyond the formal systems and unveil other symbolic networks
which might be positively unconscius to the membersof the community (see e.g.,
Turner, 1969; Heusch de, 1982). Myths are autonomousbodies.
As L. de Heusch (1982: 247) put it in his conclusion to The Drunken King
(1968):
They are not the products of labor, and they defy all attempts at
whetherprivateor collective.No copyrightattachesto their
appropriation,
telling,retelling,and transformation.
Theyeveneludethe ideologicalfunction
that the kingsinvariablytry to forceon them.Theyare bornealongby the
slacktides of history,but theydancewiththe raysof the sunandlaughwith
the rain,knowingno othermasterthanthemselves.
The history of this new type of scholarshipsearchingfor deep structuresis the
history of African anthropology in its most inspiring expressions and heresies.
Tempels felt it necesaryto leave the mainstreamof the primitivist tradition, and
with his Bantu Philosophywished to counterbalanceconstructionson "primitive
philosophies." Griaule and his fellow workers have followed a similar path.
"Dogon ontology" in its elaborate complicity became for them a thesis: Dogons
"were thought to present one of the best examples of primitive savagery"
(Griaule, 1965: 1). Here is one of them, Ogotemmeli, revealing"to the European
world a cosmogony such as that of Hesiod ...
and a metaphysic that has the
advantage of being expressed in a thousand rites and actions in the life of a
multitude of living people" (Griaule, 1965: 3). Thus, one may again point to
Einfuihlung.It is interesting to note that D. Forde refers to the impact of this
orientation in order to frame his collection of texts on cosmological ideas:
Tempels' book is, for him, "an arrestingessay on the pervasive effects of belief in
the permeation of nature by dynamic spiritual forces" and, on the other hand,
field research "among some peoples of the Western Sudan, such as the Dogon,
Bambara, and Akan" witnesses to "unsuspected complexity and elaboration of
cosmological ideas" (Forde, 1976: ix-x).
I am personally convinced that the most imaginative works such as those of
G. Dieterlen, L. de Heusch or V. Turner,which reveal to us what are now called
AFRICANGNOSIS
187
African systems of thought, can be fundamentally understood through their
journey into Einfiuhlung. In the case of African scholars the journey often
becomes, as in the case of Kagame correctingTempels, one of sympathytowards
oneself and one's culture.
Kagameand the EthnophilosophicalSchool
I shouldlike to revealthis astoundingtruthto you:not onlyam I a rational
inhabitthis humanbody,but I
creature,not only does a mindparadoxically
comefroma distantplanet.(P. Boulle,1964:84)
Kagame explicitly wants to check the validity of Tempels theory (1956: 8)
and correct generalizationsand philosophicalweaknesses.A philosopher,but also
a knowledgeablehistorian, anthropologist,linguist and theologian (see Mudimbe,
1982c; Ntezimana and Haberland, 1984), Alexis Kagame got a doctorate in
philosophy in 1955 from the Gregorian University in Rome. Member of the
Belgian Academy of Overseas Sciences since 1950, University professor and
author of some one hundredbooks, Kagamewas from the 1950s onwardsone of
the most respected and also controversial international symbols of African
intelligentsia.He has profoundlymarkedthe field of African philosophywith two
monumental books of 448 and 336 pages respectively. His first treatise, La
PhilosophieBantu-Rwandaisede l'Etre (1956), concerns itself with a community,
the Banyarwanda,well specified by its history, language,and culture.The second,
La Philosophie Bantu Comnparee(1976) expands the research to all the Bantu
area. Both books rely heavily on linguistic analyses of Bantu languages. This
linguistic family stretches from the Southern regions of Cameroon to South
Africa, covering the major part of equatorial regions and all African cultures
existing to the South. It is part of a larger group, Benoue-Congo, which
comprises three major subgroups: (a) Bantoid non-Bantu languages (Nigeria,
Cameroon), (b) Grassfields Bantu (Cameroon, partially in Nigeria), (c) Bantu
family (Cameroon, partially in Central African Republic, Kenya and Ouganda;
completely or predominantly in Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Congo, Cabinda,
Zaie, Angola, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Comores, Zambia, Malawi,
Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and
Namibia).
For Kagame, to speak of a Bantu philosophy implies, above all, a
consideration of two conditions for its possibility: the linguistic coherence of
Bantu languageswhich uniformly presents class structuresand the commodity of
a philosophical method inherited from the West (Kagame, 1971: 591). Tempels,
according to Kagame, initiated the availability of the method and that is his
merit. His Bantu Philosophy should be revised because Tempels was not a
scholar:he did not pay attention to Bantu languagesand moreover,his synthesis,
strictly based on his experience within the Luba-Shabacommunity, does not
offer a comprehensiveunderstandingof Bantu cultures(Kangame, 1971: 592).
Nevertheless, Kagame's formal schema is much the same as Tempels'. It
unfolds into the classic chapters of scholastics. What is Kagame's method of
analysis and interpretation? He recommends first a systematic search for
philosophical elements within a specific languagecarefully described;second, an
extension of the search to all the Bantu areas and a comparisonof philosophical
elements (Kagame, 1976: 7).
188
Rechercher les elements d'une philosophie "Bantu" d'abord au sein d'une
langue determinee;ne rien affirmerqui ne soit etaye d'une preuve culturelle
indubitable,transcritedans la langue mrme originale et traduite litt6ralement
dans celle accessibleau lecteuretranger.
Une fois en possession de ces el1ments de depart, entreprendre les
recherches a l'&chellede l'aire "Bantu," pour v6rifier en quoi chaque zone
serait en accord avec les resultats initialement fixes, ou s'en differencierait.
(Kagame, 1971: 592)
The method can be justified. It is quite adequate and perfectly convincing as
a preliminary step towards philosophizing. The difficulty lies in Kagame's claim
that the discovery, through an Aristotelian grid, of hitherto unknown Bantu
cultures is a discovery of a collective, deep, and implicit philosophy: "un systeme
de pensee profonde" (Kagame, 1976: 79), "un systeme collectif de pensee
profonde, vecu et non repense (dont on peut) toucher du doigt la superiorite sur
le travail individuel d'un penseur attitre au sein d'une civilisation a ecriture"
(Kagame, 1976: 171).
According to Kagame (1956, 1971) this silent philosophy can be recognized in
the results of a rigorous application of five major scholastic grids: formal logic,
ontology, theodicy, cosmology and ethics.
(1) Formal Logic is concerned with the notions of idea as it is expressed in a
term, that of judgment as signified by a proposition and, finally, that of
reasoning as exercised in syllogism. Are these notions and relations produced in
African "deep" philosophy? Kagame answers yes, noting that:
(a) Bantu distinguish the concrete from the abstract. And, about the latter
which is a precondition for philosophizing, they separate the abstract of
accidentality (expressing entities which do not exist independently in nature, e.g.,
bu-gabo "virility, courage, force") from the abstract of substantiality (expressing
entities existing independently in nature, e.g., bu-muntu "humanity").
(b) The Bantu proposition is organized in agreement with two principles. The
enunciation of actors' names is always made at the outset of the discourse; a
classificatory relative, that is a linguistic classifier incorporated into substantives,
corresponds to names of each actor and allows a systematic distinction between
subjects and complements in the discourse.
(c) The reasoning is elliptic. It may use a premise (Major) but more generally
it states a general observation or even a proverb directly leading to a conclusion.
(2) Bantu Criteriology and Ontology. If, in general terms, Bantu criteriology
does not seem to be particular, nor original when compared to other cultures de
niveau analogue (Kagame, 1971: 598), the ontology or general metaphysics is, on
the contrary, well-illumined thanks to linguistic systems of classes.
Lorsque vous voulez atteindre la pens&eprofonde Bantu, vous considerez
n'importe quel echantillon representantles termes appartenanta n'importe
quelle classe. Ce terme representeune idde, designe un objet; par exemple un
berger, un enfant, un voleur, etc. etc.; toutes les idWesainsi reprbsent&es
aboutissenta une notion unificatricequi est homme. De mrme: une houe, une
lance, une serpette, etc. etc.; chacun de ces objets r6pondraa la notion deja
unificatrice d'instrument, certes, mais si vous poussez plus loin, la notion
unificatriceultime, au-dela de laquelle il n'y aura plus moyen d'avancer,sera
celle de chose (Kagame, 1971: 598-99).
There are ten classes in Kinyarwanda. But Kagame, and after him Mulago (1965:
152-53) and Mujynya (1972: 13-14), emphasize that all the categories can be
AFRICANGNOSIS
189
reduced to four basic concepts (see also J. Jahn, 1961: 100):
MU-ntu = being of intelligence, corresponds to the Aristotelian notion of
1.
substance;
2.
3.
KI-ntu = being without intelligence or thing;
HA-ntu which presents variants such as PA- in the Eastern Bantu
languages, VA- in the West and Go- + lo/ro in the South, expresses the
time and place;
KU-ntu which indicates the modality and thus centralizes all the notions
related to modifications of the being in itself (quantity or quality) or visa-vis other beings (relation, position, disposition, possession, action,
passion). As such, Kuntu corresponds to seven different Aristotelian
categories.
Bantu ontology in its reality and significance translates itself through the
complementarity and connections existing between these four categories, all of
them created from the same root NTU which refers to being but also,
simultaneously, to the idea of force. Kagame insists that the Bantu equivalent of
to be is strictly and only performed as a copula. It does not express the notion of
existence, and therefore cannot translate the Cartesian cogito. It is by
enunciating muntu, kintu, etc. that I am signifying an essence or something in
which the notion of existence is not necessarily present (1971: 602).
Lorsque l'essence (ntu) est perfectionn&epar le degre de I'exister,elle passe
ainsi a l'echelon des existants. L'existant ne peut se prendre ... comme
synonyme de 1'etant,puisque, dans les langues."Bantu,"le verbe etre ne peut
signifier exister. L'oppose de I'existantest le rien. En analysant les le1ments
culturels, on doit conclure que le rien existe et que c'est 1'entitequi est a la
base du multiple. Un Wtre
est distinct d'un autre, parce qu'il y a le rien entre
les deux (Kagame, 1971: 602-3).
4.
Mulago specifies the basic notion of ntu. It cannot be simply translated by
being, since ntu and being are not coextensive insofar as the ntu categories only
subsume created beings and not the original source of ntu, that is God: Imana
in Kinyarwanda and Rundi, Nyamuzinda in Shi (Mulago, 1965: 153; Kagame,
1956: 109-10). Ntu is the fundamental and referential basic being-force which
dynamically manifests itself in all existing beings, differentiating them but also
linking them in an ontological hierarchy:
L'Utreest foncibrementun et tous les existants sont ontologiquementrelies
entre eux. (Theuws, 1951: 59). Au-dessus, transcendant, se place Dieu,
Nyamuzinda, commencementet fin de tout 6tre; Imana, source de toute vie,
de tout bonheur. Intermediaresentre Dieu et l'homme,tous les ascendants,les
ancitres, les membres trepasses de la famille et les anciens heros nationaux,
toutes les phalangesdes Amesd&sincarnees.Au-dessousde l'homme, tous les
autres ?tres, qui, au fond, ne sont que des moyens mis d la disposition pour
sa vie (Mulago, 1965: 155).
epanouirson ntu, son Wtre,
In sum, the ntu is somehow a sign of a universal similitude. Its presence in
beings brings them to life and attests to both their individual value and to the
measure of their integration in the dialectic of vital energy. Ntu is both a uniting
and a differentiating vital norm which explains the powers of vital inequality in
terms of difference between beings. It is a sign that God, father of all
w'abantu n'ebintu (Mulago, 1965: 153)-has put a stamp on the
beings-ishe
universe, thus making it transparent in a hierarchy of sympathy. Upwards, one
would read the vitality which, from minerals through vegetables, animals and
190
humans, links stones to the departed and God himself. Downwards, it is a
genealogical filiation of forms of beings, engendering or relating to one another,
all of them witnessing to the original source that made them possible. One could
here recall Foucault commenting upon the prose of the world in the pre-classical
age of the West (1973: 29):
Every resemblancereceives a signature;but this signatureis no more than an
intermediate form of the same resemblance.As a result, the totality of these
marks, sliding over the great circle of similitudes, forms a second circle which
could be an exact duplication of the first, point by point, were it not for that
tiny degree of displacementwhich causes the sign of sympathyto reside in an
analogy, that of analogyin emulation,that of emulation in convenience,which
in turn requiresthe markof sympathyfor its recognition.
No, we are dealing with an African "implicit philosophy" which, says
Lufuluabo (1964: 22), commenting upon the Luba notion of being, is essentially
dynamic because the subject lives in accordance to a cosmic dynamism. E. N. C.
Mujynya (1972: 21-22), a disciple of both Tempels and Kagame, proposes the
significance of this ontological dynamism in four principles:
all elements of the universe, that is each created ntu, is a force and an
1.
active force;
2.
everything being force, each ntu is thus always part of a multitude of other
forces and all of them influence each other;
3.
every ntu can always, under the influence of other ntu, increase or
decrease in its being;
4.
because each created being can weaken inferior beings or can be weakened
by superior beings, each ntu is always and simultaneously an active and
fragile force.
From these principles, Mujynya deduces two corollaries: first, only one who is
ontologically superior can diminish the vital force of an inferior being; second,
whatever action is decided or taken by a being d propos another being modifies
the latter by increasing or decreasing his or its vital force. Consequently, one
would understand the reason why Mulago (1965: 155-56) refers to Bachelard's
evaluation of Tempels' Bantu Philosophy and writes that it would be better to
speak of Bantu Metadynamics rather than Metaphysics.
(3) Theodicy and Cosmology. Although God is the origin and meaning of ntu,
he is beyond it to the point that, according to Kagame and Mulago, one cannot
say that God is an essence (Kagame, 1968: 215; 1971: 603; Mulago, 1965: 152).
God is not a ntu but a causal and eternal being, who, in Kinyarwanda, is called
the Initial one (Iya-Kare) or the Pre-existing one (Iya-mbere), in Kirundi the
efficient Origin (Rugira) and in Mashi the Creator (Lulema).
Il est donc impropre, aux yeux de la culture "Bantu,"d'appelerDieu l'Etresupreme, puisqu'il n'entre pas dans les categoriesdes &tres,et que d'autrepart
le qualificatifde supreme le place au-dessusdes etres dans la mime ligne des
ntu. Ii faut I'appelerle Prexistant, attribut qui revient I l'Existant Eternel
(Kagame, 1971: 603).
Referring to his native Luba language and re-analyzing Kagame's documentation,
Tshiamalenga strongly opposes Kagame's interpretation. God is essence. He is
ntu, even a muntu; and, in the same vein, the human being is, within the
dialectic of vital forces a thing, a kintu. In effect, thinks Tshiamalenga, Kagame
and his followers, namely Mulago and Mujynya, are wrong because they forget
AFRICANGNOSIS
191
that prefixing classifiers are formal and arbitrary.They are used in classifying
and distinguishing the status of substantives and not that of ontological entities
(Tshiamalenga,1973).
As to Bantu cosmology, it is, according to Kagame (1971: 606), based on an
implicit metaphysic principle: every body, every extension has a limit, or
differently stated, an unlimited extension is impossible. It follows that Bantu
Weltanschauung distinguishes three circular and communicating worlds: the
earth or center of the universe because it is the home of Muntu, master of all
existing ntu; above, beyond the sky, there is another circle of life on which God
dwells; and under our earth another world exists in which are the departed (see
also, e.g., Van Caeneghem, 1956; Mbiti, 1971; Bamuinikile, 1971).
(4) Rational Psychologyand Ethics. In terms of psychology,the referencehere
is the human being as distinct from the animal. Both are living beings, have
senses and the capacity of motion. Both are marked by similar patterns in terms
of birth and death. It is, however, in their passing away that a major difference
can be observed. The animal's vital force or shadow completely disappears.On
the contrary, in the case of a human being, if generallyhis shadow vanishes, the
principle of intelligence which characterizes him as human being remains,
becomes the muzimu (modimo, motimo, etc.) and joins the subterranean
universe.
On the other hand, as long as they are alive, animals and human beings are
conceived as analogically having in common two senses (hearing and sight)
rather than the five senses of "classical Western philosophy." The other three
senses are obviously experienced, but according to Kagame (1956: 186), the
knowledgethey bring is integratedinto the sense of hearing.
In terms of ethics, Bantu philosophy can be reduced to two essential and
founding principles:
(a) the first rule of agir and utilisation is based on the internal finality of the
human being. Using an image, Kagame notes that if one looks at the vital
principle of a human being one perceives that it is a two-pointed arrow:at the
one end the faculty of knowing (intelligence) and at the other that of loving
(will). Classical philosophy has put the emphasis on the first:we have "to know
beings surroundingus in order to discern what is good and what is not good for
us. We have to love who and what is good and avoid what is bad for us. At a
second step we have to know and love the Pre-existingOne who made possible
these beings so we can know and love them" (Kagame, 1971: 608). Bantu
philosophy, on the contrary, would emphasize the other point: loving, that is
procreating,perpetuatingthe lineage and the community of human beings, and
by doing so affirmingthe notion that vital force is immortal.
(b) The second rule is related to the preceding one. The Bantu community
defines itself through blood filiation. The community stands and understands
itself as a natural and social body and infers from the authority of its being and
its history the laws and mechanisms for territorial occupation, political
institutions, customs, and rites. The most strikingand importantthing is that the
Bantu community has developed two radicallyopposed but complementarytypes
of laws. First, there are juridical laws that the society controls throughits judges
and lawyers. They do not oblige individual consciences, and whoever can escape
them is considered as intelligent. Second, there are taboo-laws, principally of a
religious nature: they are, generally negative and clearly specify what should be
avoided. They contain in themselves an immanent power of sanction and God is
192
the sole judge. That means that whatever the transgression,no human being-be
he a Chief, a Priest or a King-can sanction or forgive the taboo-sin. The
problem and its resolution lie between the transgressor and God, and also
between his still-existingfamily on earth and his departedancestors.
Kagame's views may seem controversial.They are, however, deductions of a
really impressive and solid linguistic analysis. No one can seriously question his
talent in handling, for example, grammaticaloverviews of Bantu languages,even
though many points are questionable, such as the geographicalextension and the
meaning of the category Hantu, or the contiguity he establishes between terms
and concepts as if the relatonshipsexisting between terms and concepts as if the
relationships existing between signifiersand signifieds were not arbitrary.At any
rate, with Kagame'swork, Bantu Philosophy escapes Tempels' generalizationsen
l'air: it is now founded on a linguistic order. A second feature marks the
discontinuity from Tempels to Kagame. Tempels spoke of Bantu philosophy as
an intellectual and dynamic system which, although implicit, exists as an
organized and rational construction just awaiting a competent reader or
translator who could resuscitate it. Kagame is more prudent. He claims that
every language and culture is sustained by a deep and discreet order. Yet he
notes and insists that his work unveils not a systematic philosophy but an
intuitive organizationjustified by the presenceof precise philosophicalprinciples.
Moreover, this organization is neither static, nor permanent, as indicated by
changes in present-daymentalities (1956: 27). As a body, despite the evidence of
its cultural roots (1976: 117, 225), one should not reduce it to an absolute
singularity. The third distinction means that, for Kagame, this would be
nonsense since such important notions as idea, reasoning, or proposition cannot
be thought of as offering a Bantu particularity.In the same vein, formal logic as
such does not present a definite linguistic character(1956: 38-40), and insofar as
criteriologyand the properties of intelligence are concerned,the problems of the
former are co-natural to all human beings (1976: 105) and those of the latter
depend on philosophy as a universal discipline (1976: 241). There is thus a clear
universalist dimension in Kagame'sphilosophy. The fourth and last major point
distinguishingKagame from Tempels concerns Bantu philosophy as a collectively
assumed system. For the Belgian Franciscanit is a silent domain which has been
functioning for centuries perhaps in a sort of "frozen dynamism." Kagame, on
the contrary, names the founding thinkers of a philosophy which, for him, is in
its being a formulation of a cultural experience and that experience's historical
transformations(1976: 193, 305). These thinkers are the historical fathers of the
Bantu cultures (1976: 193), the creatorsof our languages(1976: 83), and the first
Bantu fellows (1976: 76).
These four differences about Bantu philosophy-the method for revealing it,
whether Bantu philosophy is a systematic or an intuitive philosophy, whether it
is a strictly regional or universalistoriented system, and whetherit is a collective
philosophy with or without authors-demarcate a clear discontinuity from
Tempels to Kagame. Yet elements of continuity exist in both the fluctuationthat
these differences imply and in the objectives of Bantu philosophy itself. For
Tempels as well as for Kagame and his followers, the affirmationand promotion
of African philosophy meant a claim for an original alterity. Their argument,in
its demonstration, parallels primitivist theories on African backwardnessand
savagery. If there is a dividing line between the two it is a blurred one which
establishes itself primarily as a signifier of sympathy or antipathy. Tempels
AFRICANGNOSIS
193
exploited legible signs of Bantu behavior in the name of Christianbrotherhood.
Kagame and most of his disciples implicitly or explicitly refer to a racial duty
(Kagame, 1956: 8) and stress the right to demand "an anthropologicaldignity"
and "the assessment of an intellectual independence"(N'Daw, 1966: 33). Once
this differenceof contention is established, one can focus on convergenceswhich
solidly mark the continuity from Tempels to Kagame and other
ethnophilosophers.These are judgements which proceed from their analyses and
interpretationof African cultures and can be summed up in three propositions:
(1) a good application of classical philosophicalgrids demonstratesbeyond doubt
that there is an African philosophy which, as a deep system, underlies and
sustains African cultures and civilizations; (2) African philosophy is
fundamentally an ontology and organizes itself as a deployment of interacting
but hierarchicallyorderedforces; (3) Man, vital unity, appearsto be the center of
the endless dialectic of forces which collectively determine their being in relation
to him (Ebousi-Boulaga, 1968: 23-36; Hountondji, 1977; Tshiamalenga, 1981:
178).
These principles sanction the area of ethnophilosophy whose geography is
characterized by two features: a disruption of the ideology about the
anthropologist's techniques of describing African Weltanschauungen and a
paradoxicalclaim accordingto which a satisfactorymethodologicalWesterngrid
is a requirement for reading and revealing, through an analysis and an
interpretation of linguistic structures or anthropological patterns, a deep
philosophy. So far, it has been possible to distinguish two principal orientations
within this field: the first interrogatesand explores the so-called silent philosophy
(e.g., A. Makarakiza, 1969; F. Ablegmagnon, 1960; W. Abraham, 1966;
Lufuluabo, 1962, 1964b; N'Daw, 1966; J. C. Bahoken, 1967; J. Jahn, 1968;
Mujynya, 1972; Onyewueni, 1982). The second orientation refers to this
philosophy with regardto the value of those of its elements which could be used
for the Africanization of Christianity (e.g., Gravrand, 1962; Taylor, 1963;
Mulago, 1965; Lufuluabo, 1964a, 1966; Nothomb, 1965; Mubengayi, 1966;
Mpongo, 1968; Mbiti, 1971). J. Mbiti's methodology in New Testament
Eschatology in an African Background(1971) is a good example of this second
orientation. In order to look "at the encounter between Christianityand African
traditional concepts" (1971: 1) in the Akamba setting, Mbiti distinguishes three
steps: first, the presentation and semantic analysis of Akamba concepts which
can be considered as related to eschatology such as fire, treasure, pain, tears,
heaven, etc. Then comes the presentation and theological interpretation of
Christian eschatological concepts. The last step establishes a table of conceptual
correspondences and differences, and from it derive norms for acclimatizing
Christianity.
One might also add a third ethnophilosophical trend. It could comprise a
variety of racially and culturallyoriented enterpriseswhich, at least for some of
them, grew up independently of the thesis of an African ontology. Without any
doubt they participate in the ideological climate of Negritude and intellectual
policies for otherness. On the other hand, they distribute themselves in the space
occupied by ethnophilosophical projects with which they have been interacting
strongly, particularlysince the 1960s. These enterprises can be reunited under
three entries: (a) the approach to a traditional humanism which in its standard
forms presents esoteric cultural economies (e.g., Ba and Cardaire, 1957; Ba and
Dieterlen, 1961; Fu-Kiau, 1969; Fourche and Morlighem, 1973; Zahan, 1979) or
194
an indigenous basic reflection on the tradition (e.g., Ba, 1972, 1976; Bimwenyi,
1968; Memel Fote, 1965; Souza, 1976); (b) the project for a critical valorisation
of traditional elements and lessons as weapons for a radical criticism (e.g.,
Kalanda, 1967) and a reflection on present-dayAfrican modernity (e.g., Hama,
1969, 1972; Dia, 1975, 1977-1981); (c) an exploitation of the tradition as a
repository of signs and meanings of African authenticity. In its political
application it has led, at least in one case, to a notorious mystification, the
Zairean policy of authenticity and its dubious philosophical foundations (see,
e.g., Kangafu, 1973; Mbuze, 1974, 1977). In its conscious and erudite expressions
it prescribesthe most fundamentalquestions about being Black in the twentieth
century. Cesaire, for example, refers to the order of authenticityin his Discourse
on Colonialism (1972), as well as in his explanations for leaving the French
Communist Party (Cesaire, 1956) and A. Diop warmly acclaims Tempels' book
as a tool for the possible emergenceof authenticity.Recently, in a polemic article
against African academic philosophy, Hebga has emphasized the demands of
authenticity as imperative for a culturalmarquedistinctive(Hebga, 1982: 38-39).
Finally, it is on this very notion of authenticity that Eboussi-Boulagaestablished
his La Crise du Muntu:Authenticiteafricaine et philosophie(1977), unfolding a
problematics of origin: what is an African and how does one speak of him and
for what purpose?In which areas and against which backgroundis the knowledge
of his being to be deposited? How does one define this very being, and from
which authority could one provide a foundation for possible answers? It is
obvious that the significance of these questions has nothing to do with
ethnophilosophy,nor with a cheap, lazy exploitation of the notion of authenticity
in the sense in which the Zaiean governmentdid it in the early 1970s. In effect,
these questions come from a different horizon. It is one I would consider as
markedby the patience of a critical philosophy.
ASPECTS OF AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY
You'reright,Jinn.That'swhatI think.... Rationalmen?Menendowedwith
a mind?Men inspiredby intelligence?No, that'snot possible.(P. Boulle,
1964:128)
What are the major aspects of present-dayAfrican philosophy?We are now
beyond Tempels' revolution. However, his ghost is still present. Implicitly or
explicitly, the most inspiringtrends in the field stll define themselves with respect
to Tempels. An African Jesuit priest well-readin philosophy has recently written
that those Africans who are presently opposing Tempels and belittling the work
of his followers by bestowing on it the pejorativequalificationof ethnophilosophy
are simply ungrateful to a man who established the possibility of their
philosophizing (Hebga, 1982). In fact, this statement indicates a post-Tempels
climate and a reorganization of the field which today demonstrates a neat
plurality of trends (Sodipo, 1975; Maurier, 1976; Tshiamalenga, 1981; Dieng,
1983). It is possible to distinguish three main approachesin this new period. (a)
The philosophical critique of ethnophilosophywhich springsmainly from a 1965
academic talk given by F. Crahay at the Kinshasa Goethe Institute on the
conditions of the existence of a Bantu philosophy. With his talk, Crahay
immediately imposed a new orthodoxy in the field. (b) The foundational trend
which, since the 1960s, deliberatelyand in a hypercriticalway, interrogatesboth
the bases and representationsof social and human sciences in order to elucidate
AFRICANGNOSIS
195
epistemological conditions, ideological frontiers, and procedures of
transformationof disciplines. (c) Philosophical deconstructionand hermeneutics
which indicate avenues to new praxes on African culturesand languages.
The philosophical critique of ethnophilosophy is not the other side of
Tempels' and Kagame's school. Rather, the latter made it possible and now
justifies it. It is a policy discourse on philosophy which directs itself towards an
examination of methods and requirementsfor practicing philosophy in Africa.
As a trend, it owes a convincing force to its status as discourse which is firmly
linked to both the Western tradition of philosophy as a scientific discipline and
its academic structures guaranteeing valid and institutionally accepted
philosophical practices. As such, the critiques of ethnophilosophy can be
understood as subsuming two genres: a reflection on methodological limits of
Tempels' and Kagame's school and, on the other hand-at the other extreme of
what ethnophilosophical exercises represent-African practices and works
bearing on Western subjects and topics in the most classical tradition of
philosophy.
Which Critiqueof Ethnophilosphy?
As we have seen, up to the 1960s, anthropologists,European missionaries,
and some African clergymenwere the only ones proposingdirections in the field
of African philosophy. This vague notion conveys the meaning of
Weltanschauung,and more generally, that of practical and traditional wisdom,
rather than that of an explicit and critical system of thought (Smet, 1980: 97108). A certain amount of confusion exists insofar as most hypotheses reflect, as
in the case of Radin's Primitive man as a philospher (1927), the authority of
ethnographicdescription. Some syntheses, such as those of Frobenius(1893) and
Delafosse (1927, 1932), and even Tempels (1959), Griaule (1965) and Kagame
(1956, 1976), draw their textual necessity from an interpretation of patterns
opposing or integrating nature and culture in order to illumine or negate the
existence of a regional rationality. Another element of confusion is the
pervasiveness of Levy-Bruhl's legacy. For a long time it was kept alive by
anthropologists, colonials, and missionaries through such notions as collective
consciousness in fragmentarysocieties, peoples still experiencingthe simplicity of
the state of nature, childish Blacks incapable of managingtheir lives and affairs
rationally and, above all, the civilizing mission themes and the policies of
Christian (conversio gentium (Lyons, 1975: 123-63; Tempels, 1959: 26-29;
Taylor, 1963: 26-27; Onyanwu, 1975: 151).
Within this context the very notion of African philosophy as used by Tempels
and his first disciples seemed absurdfrom a technical viewpoint. Consideredas a
passe-partout key for an entrance into "native" systems and ways of life in the
sense proposed by Tempels, it is generally accepted as useful. However, since
1945, some professionals have feared that it could lead to intellectual heresies,
because it promotes possibilities of ambiguous commentaries on "primitive"
rationality (Boelaert, 1946: 90). Furthermore, it clearly seems to connote an
intellectual process of rotating African experience and traditions (Sousberghede,
1951: 825).
These are some of the central questions that F. Crahay addressed in his
famous speech of March 19, 1965, to Kinshasa's intelligentsia and which was
eventually published in Diogenes under the title, "Le 'Decollage' Conceptuel:
196
Conditions d'une Philosophie Bantoue" (1965). A former student of classics,
philosophy, and psychophysiology at the universities of Louvain, Paris, and
finally Liege where, in 1954, he received a doctorate in philosophy, F. Crahay
was, in the 1960s, teaching logic and European modern philosophy at Lovanium
University (Kinshasa), a Catholic institution created by Louvain University in
the mid-1950s. He had no interest in opposing Tempel's double project: to guide
colonizers towards "African soul" and to stimulate original ethnographic studies.
On the contrary, he respected the project, its practicality and sympathy (Crahay,
1965: 61-65).
A prendre ce livre pour ce qu'il voulait &treau premier chef-une sorte de
guide vers l'ame bantoue ... -on devrait se bornera lui reprochersans trop
d'insistance, son titre. A le prendre pour ce qu'il souhaitait etre par
sucroit-une incitation d des etudes systematiques dans la direction
indiquee- on aurait encore mauvaise grace a lui faire grief d'etre incomplet,
souvent trop g&neralet, sur quelques points de detail, contestable ... A
travers le double propos du livre on ne peut manquerde rendre hommaged
l'oeuvre d'agissantesympathieavec laquelleil temoigne.
Crahay's intervention is a philosophical lesson which only claims to clarify the
confusion surrounding the very notion of "Bantu philosophy" by evaluating
Tempels' book and determining the conditions of possibility for a rigorous
practice of philosophy in Africa.
Thus, he does not question the pertinence, nor the usefulness of Tempels'
description of a Bantu Weltanschauung centered on the idea of vital force, but
rather interrogates three weaknesses of the enterprise:
1.
the title of the book which is based on an intellectual confusion of vecu
and reflexif, the vulgar meaning of philosophy and its professional
significance;
2.
the mixing up of these differences throughout the book, even when
Tempels is dealing with such specific notions as metaphysics, ontology,
and psychology;
3.
the vagueness of Tempels' philosophical terminology consequently leads
one to suspect the validity of a great number of his statements (Crahay,
1965: 63).
In order to delineate the boundaries of a professional discussion, Crahay
proposes a definition of philosophy. Philosophy is a reflection presenting precise
characteristics: it is "explicit, analytical, radically critical and autocritical,
systematic at least in principle and nevertheless open, bearing on experience, its
human conditions, significations as well as the values that it reveals" (1965: 63).
In a negative way, what is implied by this understanding of the discipline is that
there is no implicit philosophy, nor intuitive or, immediate philosophy; that the
philosophical language is not a language of experience but a language on
experience. From this premise, what Tempels describes is not, strictly speaking, a
philosophy. Insofar as his language witnesses to and comments upon experience,
it only signifies the possibility of a philosophical reflection. In any case, Tempels
book seems, at best, a rationalization of a Weltanschauung (Crahay, 1965: 64-
65):
une vision du monde, pour autant qu'elle s'exprime,nous pouvons dire qu'elle
est langage du vecu, langage de l'experience (collant a une certaine
experience),langagede vie ou d'action, poetique ou non, et de toute mani~re,
charge de symboles; qu'elle est langage immediat, non critique; que rien ne
AFRICANGNOSIS
197
1'empiche d'&tre rhapsodique et, jusqu'd un certain point, irrationnelle
(Crahay,1965: 64-65).
The problem of Tempels and his disciples is a methodological one: the
confusion in which they indulge themselves by not distinguishing between a
"vision du monde," its reflexive potentialities, and the philosophical practice
which can work on them. Crahay does not, consequently, hesitate to state that
unless one seeks to blind and mystify people there is, to date, no such thing as an
African philosophy (Crahay, 1965: 68):
Palons net: si l'on ne veut pas compromettre,en Afrique,le projet mimede la
philosophie, confondre l'emploi informe de ce terme avec son emploi distrait,
r&duirela philosophie a une simple vision du monde, il faut bien avouer qu'il
n'existe pas, a ce jour, de philosophie bantoue. Ce qui existe, certes, c'est une
vision du monde propre aux Bantous cohesive et originale, noyau d'une
sagesse. Moyennant un ensemble de circonstances favorables, elle efit pu,
jadis, engendrerune philosophieproprementdite.
Philosophy as an intellectual practice is different in kind from
Weltanschauung and radically other than ethnographic descriptions paraphrasing
a tradition, its wisdom, and linguistic richness. Yet philosophy concerns the
experience of humans, although it cannot be assimilated to it: philosophy bears
on experience, reflects experience but does coincide with experience. And for the
promotion of philosophy in Africa, Crahay suggests five conditions determining
the possibility of a conceptual taking-off:
1. the existence of a body of African philosophers living and working in an
intellectually stimulating cultural milieu resolutely open to the world;
2. a good and critical use of philosophical reflectors which, through the patience
of discipline, would actualize in Africa a cross-cultural inspiration similar to
the examples of medieval Arabs inheriting Aristotle's system and rethinking
it, and European scholastics then depending on the Arab's legacy;
3. a selective and flexible inventory of African values-be
they attitudes,
categories or symbols-which
possibly would donner a penser in the sense
recently proposed by P. Ricoeur's hermeneutics, or at any rate, would allow in
Africa ventures such as that of Spinoza rebuilding a moral and political
philosophy on a critical reading of the Jewish tradition;
4. a neat dissociation of reflexive consciousness from mythical consciousness
which will imply and, in any case, amplify major contrasts: subject versus
object; I versus the other; nature versus supernature; sensible versus
metaphysical, etc.
5. an examination of the African intellectuals' main temptations. On the one
hand, the short-circuit ideology which, for instance, accounts for choices of
philosophical systems apparently in accordance with African urgencies, as in
the case of Marxism. On the other hand, the implications of a pervasive cult
of alterity which might become une fin en soi throughout its quite respectable
objectives: asserting an African originality and otherness, restoring and
reinterpreting a past, a tradition, a culture; finally, claiming the right to a
future reflecting African personality.
In sum, in Crahay's critique, philosophy gets its privilege from a scientific
tradition. One could debate the validity of the definition, and thus of the
implications, offered as conditions for the possibility of a future and real Bantu
philosophy (see Tshiamalenga, 1977a). Consequently, the real counterpart of
198
Crahay's lesson on philosophy is to be seen in its own reproduction and the
debate it has initiated. In any case, the formulated dichotomy which establishes
the opposition between philosophy and unphilosophy as a preliminary and
necessary condition of philosophizingcoincides once and for all with a historical
mutation in the brief history of African philosophy (Ruch, 1974; Maurier, 1976;
Tshiamalenga, 1977a, 1981; Yai, 1977). Three African philosophers-F.
Eboussi-Boulaga (Cameroon), M. Towa (Cameroon), and P. Hountondji
(Benin)-take on the task of completing the mutation by directing the debate
towards two main issues: how and why the very question itself about he
possibility of an African philosophy can and should be justified. What exactly
can and cannot philosophy allow?
Eboussi-Boulaga,in a text (1968) which did not please Prisence Africaine's
Committee (see editor's note to Eboussi-Boulaga'sLe Bantou Problematique,
1968: 4-40), dwells on Bantu philosophy. He first comments upon the poverty of
Tempels' method which, because it does not face the problem of its own origin
(namely, how can anthropologybe a source of or a basis for philosophy?),defines
itself as a technique of values transcription expressing to itself what is
fundamentally unutterable (Eboussi-Boulaga, 1968: 9-10). Secondly, EboussiBoulaga elaborateson an analysis of Tempels' work, focusing on the ambiguityof
the ontological hypothesis which he thinks ultimately reduces the Muntu to the
primitiveness of an amoral and absolutely determiningorder of forces (EboussiBoulaga, 1968: 19-20). Finally, Eboussi-Boulagaputs forwardthe socio-historical
contradictionsof Tempels' treatise on the basis of Cesaire's(1972: 37-39) radical
question: why was this book possible and how to interpret the structural
similarity between the simulacrum of an ontological hierarchy and the socioeconomic hierarchy in the colonial experience?(Eboussi-Boulaga,1968: 24-25).
Marcien Towa, in two complementarybooklets (1971a, 1971b), througha general
evaluation of Tempels (1959), Kagame (1956), N'Daw (1966) and Fouda's (1967)
works, links the critique of ethnophilosophyto Negritude's political ambivalence
(Towa, 1971b: 24-25). According to him, the only results brought about by the
ethnophilosophical trend are two controversial achievements: a dubious
terminological distinction between European and African products within an
ambiguously enlarged domain of philosophy, and a confusion between
anthropological arrangementsof sets of beliefs, myths, and rites, and, on the
other hand, metaphysics. As such, ethnophilosophy should be considered as an
ideology whose methodologybetrays both philosophyand anthropology.
Ce que l'ethnophilosophievalorise dans le passe, n'est pas en fait
du passe.La retro-jection,
n&cessairement
c'estle
imposeparla consid&ration
proced&par lequel il altere et defigurela realite traditionnelleen y
introduisantsecratementd&sle stade descriptif,des valeurset des idees
actuellespouvant?tretout d fait &trangbres
au
a l'Afrique,pourles retrouver
stade de la professionde foi militante,"authentifices
en vertu de leur
pretendueafricanit&."
(Towa,1971b:32)
The second phase of the philosophical critique of ethnophilosophy begins
with Hountondji's activist articles which have greatly internationalized the
debate by coming out very regularlyin a great variety of prestigiousprofessional
journals and publications from the 1970s onwards: Prisence Africaine (Paris,
1967, 61), African Humanism-Scandinavian Culture.:A Dialogue (Copenhagen,
1970), Etudes Philosophiques(Paris, 1970, 1), Diogene (Paris, 1970, 71; 1973,
84), La Philosophie Contemporaine(Firenze, 1971, vol. IV, R. Klibansky ed.),
AFRICANGNOSIS
199
CahiersPhilosophiquesAfricains(Lubumbashi,1972, 1; 1974, 3-4), Consequence
(Cotonou, 1974, 1), etc. He eventually reunited some of them into a book Sur la
Philosophie Africaine (1977; English version, 1983) which, since its publication
has become the "bible" of anti-ethnophilosophers. Hountondji's fabulous
intellectual authority, at least in French-speakingcountries, springs from several
factors. One of them is that he is a former student of the Ecole Normale
Superieure of the Rue d'Ulm in Paris, one of the most select and most
prestigious schools in the world, which in philosophy has produced modern
thinkers such as Merleau-Ponty,Sartre,Aron, Althusser,who have influencedor
revolutionized the field. Second, his agregation de philosophie gives him an
indubitable power-knowledge:in France as well as in all Francophonecountries
agregres are usually considered as the brightest of the best of intellectual
competitors. Finally, one could also think that Hountondji's career as a teacher
and a scholar in Benin, West Germany, France, and Zaie as well as his
responsibilities in international philosophical institutions have helped the
dissemination of his ideas tremendously.Nevertheless, it is only fair to say that
the brilliance of his texts, the solidity of his reasoning and the pertinence of his
argumentsprobablyconstitute the real factor of the success of his critique against
ethnophilosophy.
Hountiondji's positon can be describedfrom two points: on the one hand, his
two main reasons for the rejection of ethnophilosophy;on the other, two other
reasons for a critique and a bettering of Crahay'slesson. Let us look at the first
set of reasons. (a) Ethnophilosophyis an imaginary, drunken-likeinterpretation
which is never supported by any textual authority and depends totally on the
interpreter'swhims. It claims to translatea non-existent culturaltext and its very
work ignores its own creative activity and therefore its own liberty.
Consequently, one can say that the ethnophilosophical imagination a priori
prevents itself from attaining any truth, since truth presupposes that liberty
should rely upon an unimaginary order and should be conscious of both the
evidence of a positive order and its own margin of creativity. (b) If Western
establishments have valorized ethnophilosophy, it is, according to Hountondji,
due to an ethnocentric bias. When, for instance, such notables as G. Bachelard,
A. Camus, L. Lavelle, J. Wahl, J. Howlett, or G. Marcel readily acclaim Bantu
Philosophy(see PresenceAfricaine, 1949, 7), it means that because of present-day
international standards they would accept whatever (n'importequoi, le premier
ouvrage venu, Hountondji, 1970) provided that it offers a sympathetic view of
Africans, even if, in doing so, they put themselves in total contradictionwith the
theoretical implications of their own philosophical practice. As to Hountondji's
two-point critique of Crahay's lesson, it bears on the notion of conceptual
taking-offand on the destination of philosophical discourse. (a) For Hountondji,
the notion of a conceptual taking-off does not make sense as the general
condition of existence of an African philosophy. He states that in all civilizations
a conceptual taking-offis always already accomplished even when human actors
use or integrate mythical sequences into their discourse. One could, by virtue of
this characteristiccompare Parmenides' discourse to those of Confucius, Plato,
Hegel, Nietzsche or Kagame. (b) Finally, Hountondji believes that Crahay
completely missed a major point: the destination of discourse. He rightly insists
that be it mythical or ideological, language evolves in a social environment,
developing its own history (Hountondji, 1970; 1983). From this viewpoint,
Hountondji argues that Mulago, Kagame, and most of the ethnophilosophersare
200
certainly philosophers insofar as they can recognize that their own texts are
philosophical, but they are totally wrong when they claim that they are restoring
an African traditional philosophy. He writes, "we have produceda radicallynew
definition of African philosophy, the criterion being the geographicalorigin of
the authors rather than an alleged specificity of content. The effect of this is to
broaden the narrow horizon which has hitherto been imposed on African
philosophy and to treat it, as now conceived, as a methodical inquiry with the
same universal aims as those of any other philosophy in the world" (Hountondji,
1983: 66).
Hountondji's critique displays the superiority of a critical conception of
philosophy. A disciple of Canguilhemand Althusser,Hountondjilooks at African
philosophical practices from a strictly normative viewpoint. His philosophy
seems to imply a thesis which to many is controversial:that, up to now, Africa
has not been philosophizing and that in her past there is nothing which might
reasonablybe called philosophical (Koffi, 1976; Yai, 1977; Tshiamalenga,1977a,
Laleye, 1982). On the other hand, it is important to note that for Hountondji,
philosophy must be understood as metaphilosophy,that is, as "a philosophical
reflectionon discourse which [is itself] overtly and consciously philosophical."
Hountondji's texts prompted throughout Africa a lively debate on what
African philosophy is. Generally stimulating (Ruch, 1974; Odera, 1974; Sumner,
1980), sometimes a bit too raucious (Yai, 1977; Koffi, 1977), criticisms of Towa
and Hountondji's positions dwell on three main problems. The first is on the
validity and meaning of the question: is there an African philosophy?To this Yai
responds with another question: "what is the source of this inquiry? Who, at
times such as these, arrogatesthe right to put a question that can be innocent
only in appearance?"(Yai, 1977: 6). The second problem concerns Hountondji's
reduction of philosophy to a body of texts explicitly self-definedas philosophical
in nature. And the last is about the necesary relationshipbetween the emergence
of individual philosophers and the existence of philosophy. Through these
problems, one easily gets two violent reproachestowards Towa and Hountondji,
but in a special way against the latter: elitism and Western dependency. It is
almost a war-like opposition to all African intellectuals "agregespar le conclave
du sacr6 college des agregeset docteurs en philosophie"(Koffi and Abdou, 1980).
According to Yai, the tenants of what he qualifies as speculative philosophy are
"Young Turks who have several points in common with the Young Hegelians
castigated by Marx in The German Ideology" (Yai, 1977: 4) who "find in all
discussions prior to their own, nothing but mythologies"(Yai, 1977: 4). It is an
"elite by definition" that has become "the elite of elite, a pedestal from which
they are very careful not to climb down for a purpose so humble as empirical
research among the masses" (Yai, 1977: 16). At any rate, accordingto Koffi and
Abdou, this elite representneo-colonialism(1980: 192).
In a special issue of RecherchesPhilosophiquesAfricaines(1977, 1) on African
Philosophy, members of the School of Kinshasa-Mutuza, Smet, Tshibangu-waMulumba and Tshiamalenga-achieve in an elegant fashion a provisional but
organic compromise between Tempels' legacy and critical demands for the
practice of African philosophy. Tshiamalenga(1977a), for example, agrees with
Crahay and Hountondji on the methodological mistakes of ethnophilosophy,
particularlyon the absurdityof speakingof implicit collective philosophy. On the
other hand, he points out the dogmatist and idealizing charactersof Crahay's,
Towa's, and Hountondji's understandingof philosophy which even within the
AFRICANGNOSIS
201
Western philosophical experience does not really correspond to any practice
historically attested (Tshiamalenga, 1977a). From those positions, Tshiamalenga
distinguishes within African philosophy two domains. One is that of NegroAfrican traditional philosophy constituted by explicit enonces from the oral
tradition (cosmological and religious myths, didactic proverbs, maxims,
apothegms, etc.) on what the human society is, the meaning of life, death, and
the hereafter. The other is that of contemporaryAfrican philosophy, that is the
totality of signed researches on similar subjects using an interpretationof the
traditional philosophy or springing from reflection on the contemporary
condition of the African (Tshiamalenga, 1977a: 46). In the same issue, Smet
solves the methodological and ideological oppositions between ethnophilosophy
and its critics in terms of a diachronic complementarityof schools (Smet, 1977a;
see also, Elungu, 1978a). One year later, Elungu makes Smet's proposition more
explicit by carefully specifying three historical trends (Elungu, 1978b): an
anthropological philosophy or ethnophilosophy; an ideological philosophy or
political philosophy-two currents which in a mythical or nationalist generosity
contributed to the promotion of African dignity and political
independence-and, finally, a post-independence trend: the critical one
which-with Crahay, Hountondji, and others-demands a rigorousreflection on
the conditions of philosophy as well as on those of existing individuals and
societies (see also, Wiredu, 1977; Mudimbe, 1983b).
At the other extreme of ethnophilosophy and its critics, one notes works
which have neither the form of anthropologicalexegeses, nor the fashionable
anti-ethnophilosophicalvocabulary. They not only faithfully inscribe themselves
in the purest mainstream of the philosophia perennis but sometimes deal with
specifically Western topics. Many a Doctor of Philosophy, Doctorate, or MA
presented in European universities by young scholars-I might add, that a very
great number of them insofar as France and her former African dependenciesare
concerned-attest to it. They single out "the universal historicity of the West"
and grandness of a royal method. One can surely begin by referringto applied
philosophy as, for example, illustrated by the genre of article which Aguolu
published on "John Dewey's Democratic Conception and Its Implication for
Developing Countries" (Aguolu, 1975), and more recently Ngoma's subtle paper
on "Verb and Substantive of Being" (Ngoma, 1981), or even to the annual
publications of the Department of Philosophy in Kinshasa (Zaie) whose major
references accidentally but happily coincide with the Franco-Belgianorthodoxy
in philosophy. It would also be possible to allude to the beautifully British
Philosophyand an African Cultureof Wiredu (1980) which, among other exciting
things, teaches us how "it is a fact that Africa lags behind the West in the
cultivation of rational inquiry" (Wiredu, 1980: 43) and indicates that "the ideal
way to reform backward customs in Africa must, surely, be to undermine their
foundation in superstition by fostering in people .
. .
the spirit of rational in all
spheres of thought and belief" (Wiredu, 1980: 45).
There is, however, in this special area quite a remarkable orthodox and,
purely speculative undertaking.Bodunrin'sbrilliant essay on "The Alogicality of
Immortality" (1975) and Wiredu's "Logic and Ontology" (1973) could be
considered as paradigmaticmodels. In terms of voluminous contributionsI may
suggest three models: Elungu's systematic study on the concept of extent in
Malebranche'sthought (1973b), Ugirashebuja'sfine book on dialogue and poetry
according to Heidegger (1977) and Ngindu's extensive research on the
202
philosophical problem of religious knowledge in Lanberthonni&re'sthinking
(1978). How can these options be justified? The question, I am afraid, does not
make sense, since it is very difficult to find decisive means which would allow
credible tests of the authors' minds. Besides, a possible response would look
quite trivial: the social and intellectual context in which these philosophers
developed might account for their choices (Sodipo, 1975: 121), as it would for
such notorious eighteenth-centurycases as the African A. G. Amo's intellectual
career in what was not yet Germany, and his hypotheses on De Humana Mentis
Apatheia (1734), Tractatusde Arte Sobrie et AccuratePhilosophandi(1738), and
the lost De Jure Maurorum in Europa (1729); or the other case, neatly
scandalous, of Jacobus Capitein, an African, who made and publicly exposed a
remarkablestudy at Leiden University in the Netherlands on the non-existent
opposition between slavery and Christian freedom: De Servitude, Libertati
Christianae non Contraria (1742). At any rate, our contemporary students of
philosophia perennis may also be troubling. One is surely taken aback when, in
these very classical types of analyses, in the guise of logical deduction one comes
across presuppositionson African otherness. Hence, for example, it is a surprise
to follow Ugirashebuja discovering in Heidegger's writing Banyarwandas'
language as a sign of being and its nomination, and to hear through the
Rwandese philosopher'stext Heidegger inviting all of us-Westerners, Africans,
Asians-to listen to being in our respective language!(See Ugirashebuja, 1977:
227; Dirven, 1978: 101-6.) In the same vein, Ngindu, in a sophisticated
introduction to the fin de siecle modernist crisis within the Roman Catholic
European circles of philosophy, excavates reasons for commenting on "cultural
imperialism" in Africa and its epistemologicalforce of reduction (Ngindu, 1978:
19).
From this extreme border, which could have been thought of as completely
foreign to African culture or as just a marginalbut powerful space in which only
ways of domesticating the African experience are elaborated, arise slips of the
pen and murmurs which are close to ethnophilosophicaldreams. On the other
hand, it is not at all certain, as the School of Kinshasa has demonstrated,that
Hountondji and his fellow anti-ethnophilosophers are neo-colonialist devils
preventing people from celebrating their otherness. His responses to criticisms
(Hountondji, 1980, 1981, 1982), strangely enough, reflect a well-balanced
philosophical and nationalist imagination: "as Gramsci rightly used to say, only
truth is revolutionary"(Hountondji, 1982: 67).
Foundations
Both the ethnophilosophical trend and the critical school converge on one
thing. They agree by their very opposition upon the existence of philosophyas an
exercise and a discipline in Africa. Viewed in terms of its organicexpression,this
practice can be described from at least four different angles: the Ethiopian
heritage, the solidity of an empiricist tradition in English-speakingcountries, the
epistemologicalfoundation of an African discourse in social and human sciences,
and the Marxist universalism.
The brief presentation I have made of Sumner's editions of Ethiopian texts
has shown the particularsituation of the Ethiopian tradition whose Christianity
goes back as far as the fourth century. Intellectual arguments, theological and
political commentariesand translationshave since then been an appreciatedtask
AFRICANGNOSIS
203
for learned monks and scholars.Throughcenturies, a philosophytook shape and,
accordingto Sumner, The Book of the Wise Philosophers(see Sumner, 1974) and
The Treatise of Zar'a Yacob (Sumner, 1976) are good examples. The first
"presents itself as the quintessence of what various philosophershave said on a
certain number of topics, most of which are ethical (Sumner, 1974: 100). Thus
philosophy,fdlasfa, is understood as principallybeing a wisdom which includes
both a knowledge of the universe and of man's purpose in life. Adapted maxims
from the Greek, Egyptian or Arabic or coming, as in the case of numerous
numerical proverbs, from Ethiopian roots, guide the listener or the reader on
such topics as matter, human physiology and psychology, man's social
dimension, and moral concerns (Sumner, 1974: chapter 9-13). The Treatise of
Zar'a Yacob also presents propositions on moral issues (Sumner, 1983) and
guidance about knowledge. Yet it is a unique and important sign which suggests
a critical outlook in the seventeenth-centuryEthiopian culture to the point that
A. Baumstark has compared it to "the Confessions of a fellow African, St.
Augustine" (In Sumner, 1978: 5). The method of Zar'a Yacob is definitely new:
it posits the light of reason as "discriminatingcriterion between what is of God
and what is of men" and can be compared to Descartes' clear idea (Sumner,
1978: 70-71).
Another angle of the foundation of African philosophical practice is the
solidity of the empiricist method in Anglophone countries. Their universities and
departments of philosophy are generally older than those of Francophone Africa,
and the faculty seems more mature. Van Parys (1981: 386) after visiting twenty
countries having departments of philosophy, noted in his evaluative synthesis
that "les institutions des pays anglophones paraissent plus solides dans leurs
traditions
eprouvees, mieux organisees. Elles ont des biblioth~ques plus
deja
fournies, les publications y sont plus reguli&res, les corps professoraux nationaux
plus etoffes et plus murs." In a more obvious way, the quality of Second Order's
articles and its program clearly preserve a sense of academic heritage. A biannual journal, Second Order, states on its issue covers:
its aim is to publish first class philosophical work of all kinds, but it is
especially concerned to encourage philosophizing with special reference to
Africancontext. Althoughthe initiators belong to the Anglo-Saxontraditionof
philosophy, they see it as their job to construe their subject ratherwidely: to
regardinter-disciplinaryboundariesas made for man, not man for them, and
to watch out for growing points in their subject as it applies itself to new
problems.
The elegant book of K. Wiredu (1980) is a good example of this ambition. In
fact, what specifies the configuration of this empiricist practice is the very close
relationship existing between Anglo-Saxon philosophers and their African
colleagues. For example, D. Emmet (Cambridge), E. Gellner (Cambridge), D. W.
Hamilyn (London), R. Harre (Oxford), R. Horton (IfM),D. Hudson (Exeter), S.
Lukes (Oxford), J. J. MacIntosh (Calgary), A. MacIntyre (Brandeis), and others
serve on the board of Second Order's consultants. In terms of teaching about and
researchingin philosophy, the discipline is accepted as a given and, at the same
time, clearly distinguishedfrom African Religions or Sociology departments.
A few cases will illuminate the African task of founding an epistemological
ground for a new discourse: the debate on African theology, the discussion on the
limits of anthropology, and the deconstruction doctrine in philosophy.
204
The debate on African theology took place in 1960 (Tshibanguand Vanneste,
1960). The origin was a public discussion between A. Vanneste, Dean of the
School of Theology at Lovanium University and one of his former students, T.
Tshibangu, who afterwardsbecame the Roman Catholic auxiliary bishop of the
archdiocese of Kinshasa and Rector of the University. When the university was
nationalized in 1971 by the Mobutu government, Bishop Tshibangubecame the
president of the National University of Zaie. The debate concerns the possibility
of an African Christian scientific theology. On the one side, Tshibangu invoked
that in the present conditions of the world it makes sense to promote the
feasibility of a Christian theology of African orientation which epistemologically
will have the same status as the Judeo-Christian, Eastern, and Western
theologies. On the other side was Dean Vanneste, who, althoughbelieving in the
future of Christian theology in Africa, insisted on the demands of theology
understood in its very strict cultural sense and defining it as a universal
discipline (see Nsoki, 1973; Mudimbe, 1981; Ngindu, 1968, 1979; Tshibangu,
1974).
What is at stake is a question about the legitimation of an exploratory
inquiry: how to reconcile a universal faith (Christianity)and a culture (African)
within a scientific discipline (theology) which is epistemologicallyand culturally
marked (Tshibanguand Vanneste, 1960: 333-52). Europeanand African scholars
in a fabulous disorder took positions pro or contra Tshibangu's or Vanneste's
thesis. Among the most notable I would mention J. Danielou, A. M. Henry, H.
Maurier,V. Mulago, Ch. Nyamiti, A. Janon, and G. Thils (see Bimwenyi, 1981;
Mudimbe, 1981). In sum, the debate also indirectly questioned such important
contributions as Atal's philological analysis of John's prologue (1973),
Kinyongo's synthesis on the meaning of Jhwh (1970), Monsengwo's semantic
study on the Bible (1973), and Ntendika's books on patristic philosophy and
theology (1966, 1980). But the problem, de facto, can be extended to all the
social and human sciences-and has been enlarged as both an epistemological
and a political problem by the second Kinshasa philosophical meeting of Zaiean
philosophers in 1977 (see also Adotevi, 1972; Bimwenyi, 1981; Buakasa, 1978;
Mudimbe, 1974, 1982b; Sow, 1977, 1978). Thanks to a provisional identical
epistemological filiation, all Africanists-Westerners or Africans-can, in
principle, refer to the same language despite their ethnocentricism and
idiosyncrasies. We have seen that anthropologicaldiscourse was an ideological
discourse. ContemporaryAfrican discourse on theology or on social science is in
the same vein ideological too. A discourse of political power, it often depends
upon the same type of ideologies (Hauser, 1982; Elungu, 1979).
Gutkind notes that "actual intensificationof capitalist control over the means
of production in Africa increasingly reduces sections of the population to a
landless rural or urban proletariat in whose lives ancestral traditions, however
modified, no longer mean anything" (MacGaffey, 1981). I would add that this
has another significance for the Marxist analysis. Large sections of the African
people have nothing to do with the present-dayorganizations of economic and
political power within their own countries, nor with the intellectuals' and
universities' projects to link Western experience to the African context. It is on
the fact of this scandal that both the African Marxists and
"deconstructionists"-and these latter ones coincide with the antiethnophilosophycurrent-base their arguments.
AFRICANGNOSIS
205
For Towa (1971) the critical enterprise is a total vocation. The "esprit
critique" must apply indiscriminately to European intellectual imperatives as
well as to African constructions, the only acceptable "truth"being that there is
nothing sacred that philosophy cannot interrogate(Towa, 1971: 30). Hountondji
goes further, explicating that philosophy is essentially history and not system,
and thus, there is no one doctrine that may identify itself with truth in an
absolute manner. The best understandingof what truth is resides in the process
of looking for it. Therefore, "la verite est, en quelque sorte, le mouvement par
lequel nous enoncons des propositions en essayant de les justifier et de les
fonder" (1977: 82). Similar philosophical positions have allowed Th. Obenga to
"rewrite"the cultural relationshipsthat existed between Egypt and Black Africa.
In the process, he criticizes European theses and also pinpoints Sheik Anta
Diop's methodological weaknesses. J. Ki-Zerbo (1972) has published his general
history of Africa, generating new means of thinking about the diversity of
functions of African cultures.
All of the social and human sciences have undergonethis radical experience
between 1960 and 1980. Fundamentally,it is based on "the right to truth" and
so far implying a new analysis of three paradigms:philosophical ideal versus
contextual determination, scientific authority versus socio-political power, and
scientific objectivity versus cultural subjectivity. Yet, one might discover signs
which, since the end of World War II, have meant the possibility of new theories
in the African field. European theorists, then, seem to invert some values of
colonial sciences and analyze African experience from a perspective that
gradually institutionalizes the themes of contextual determination and cultural
subjectivity. In the 1950s, J. Vansina and Y. Person envisaged a new
arrangementof the African past, interpretinglegends, fables, and oral traditions
as "texts" and "documents," which with the help of archaeologicaldata could
contribute to the foundation of an "Ethno-History"(Vansina, 1961), a discipline
joining history and anthropology. G. Balandier was to write the first books on
"African sociology." Moreover, with his "anthropologie dynamique," he
reorganizedthe discipline and describedthe traditional"object"of anthropology,
the "native," as the only possible "subject" for his own modernization. In the
psychological field, people such as A. Ombredane (1969) re-examined, on a
regional basis, the assumptions on the psychology and intelligence of Blacks.
More recently, Frantz Crahay (1965), confronted Tempels' heritage, J. Jahn's
generalizationson African culture and limitations in Nkrumah'sphilosophy, and
expounded the conditions for a critical philosophical maturity in Africa. In the
1970s, G. Leclerc with Anthropologieet Colonialisme (1972) and J. L. Calvet
with Linguistique et Colonialisme (1974), among others, rewrote the history of
ideological conditioning in the social and human sciences.
This trend of Western scholarship has had a certain impact on African
practice. Nevertheless, it is neither a direct ancestor nor the major and sole
reference of the African current we are examining. Although both are concerned
with the same object and both essentially present the same fundamental
objective, there are, at least, two major differences that distinguish them. The
first difference accounts for a paradox. These currents have the same origin in
the Western episteme but their beginnings did not coincide, and at present,
despite their similitude, they constitute two autonomous orientations.They have
all developed in the Europeancontext as "amplification"of theses coming from
two "loci": on the one hand, the "library" constructed by such scholars as
206
Frobenius, Delafosse, Theodore Monod, Robert Delavignette, B. Malinowski,
and Marcel Griaule; and on the other hand, the intellectual atmosphere of the
1930s-1940s which, rediscovering Marx, Freud, and Heidegger, critically reevaluated the significance of links existing between objectivity and subjectivity,
history and reason, essence and existence. On the basis of these questions, new
doctrines appeared-neo-Marxism, existentialism, etc., but also Negritude and
Black personality; doctrines emphasizing diversely the pertinence and the
importance of subjectivity, unconscious existence, relativity of truth, contextual
difference and otherness. In this atmosphere,Africanism developed and took on
a new visage. In the 1950s-1960s, while in Anglophone countries, B. Davidson
established the interest of African history. In Francophone countries the most
dynamic schools of European Africanism were Marxist-dominatedand heavily
influenced by Levi-Strauss'notions of "otherness"and "savage mind." It is an
Africanism of "big brothers." Y. Benot, C. Coquery-Vidrovitch,L. de Heusch,
Cl. Meillassoux, H. Moniot, J. Suret-Canale,B. Verhaegen,and others link the
emergence of new scientific and methodological approaches to the paradoxical
task of teaching Africans how to read their otherness and of helping them in the
formulation of modalities that might express their own being and their vocation
in the world. Contemporaneously,in the Anglophone world, scholars such as J.
Coleman, Ph. Curtin, J. Goody, T. Ranger, P. Rigby, V. Turner, and Crawford
Young brought and are bringing to light new representationsof African history
(Curtin, Ranger) and synchronic analyses of socio-cultural "depths" (Rigby,
Turner,Young).
The "deconstruction" of colonial sciences represented by those Western
trends does not, however, coincide completely with the presuppositions of the
critical African trends of J. Ki-Zerbo, Th. Obenga, or F. Eboussi-Boulaga.The
epistemological conditioning is obviously the same and, in some cases, one can
even observe that on the visible surface of programs,projects and actions are
oriented towards identical purposes such as in the case of Terence Ranger and
the School of Dar es Salaam, Peter Rigby and the Africanist team at Makerere,
and B. Verhaeganand the Zalean school of Political Science. However, a major
difference does exist. It is made explicit by the the new generation of European
scholars-J. Bazin, J. F. Bayart, J. P. Chretien, B. Jewsiewicki, J. Cl.
Willame-who are more conscious of the objective limitations that their own
subjectivity and regional socio-historic determinations impose on their dealings
with African matters. M. Hauser, for example, introduces such a comprehensive
work as his Essai sur la Poetique de la Nigritude (1982) by recognizingthat the
presuppositions that founded the project and the methods of analysis used,
determine his study in "un lieu d'&crituresubjectif," itself ideologically marked
(1982: 27).
On the other hand, since the 1960s African theorists and practitioners,rather
than confiding in and depending on "big brothers,"have tended to use reflexivity
and critical analysis as a means for establishingthemselves as "subjects"of their
own destiny and becoming responsible for the "invention" of their past as well
as of the conditions for modernizingtheir societies. Thus, the dialogue with "big
brothers" has been from the beginning ambiguous, made up of mutual
understanding and rejection, collaboration and suspicion (see Wauthier, 1964).
Adotevi's NAgritude et Negrologues (1972) might be considered as a good
illustration of this spirit. Although, epistemologically, this book is an
amplification of the Western crisis of the signification of social and human
AFRICANGNOSIS
207
sciences, it gives an account of the limits of Africanism and proposes its absolute
negation as a new "explanation" for African integration into "history" and
"modernity": "la revolution ne se fait pas avec des mythes, fussent-ils fracasses"
(Adotevi, 1972: 81). One might also recall Mabika Kalanda's modest book which,
in 1966, founded the principle of "remise en question" as a means of intellectual
and political liberation.
The second difference is a consequence of the first. In its prospectives, the
African critical trend displays its power as the only "common place" for both a
positive knowledge of dynamic tensions and for discourses on the foundation
and justification of African human and social studies. Thus, it tends to define its
mission in terms of three paradigms: cultural renaissance of African nations, new
scientific vocation, and developmental applications.
From this intellectual climate spring the organizing ideologies that sustain
strategies for new relationships between knowledge and power, and original
frames for social and human studies in Africa. Hountondji represents the neoMarxist ideology and insists on three complementary actions (1981: 68):
1.
the promotion of a philosophical critique and ideological clarification in
order to oppose illusions, mystifications, and lies that continue in Africa
and about Africa.
2.
rigorous study, assimilation, and real understanding of the best in
"international philosophy," including Marxism, which according to the
author, is the only theory providing pertinent concepts and means for
analyzing the exploitation of Africa.
3.
a paradoxal task: stepping out of philosophy in order to meet and dialogue
with social reality.
Most of the theorists, however, favor different views. Eboussi-Boulaga and Sow,
for instance, offer a more systematic criticism of Western anthropology as a
precondition for the building of new interpretations. At the deepest level, they
agree with Hountondji on the necessity of new choices. Their strategies, however,
explicate the possibility of radically disturbing the epistemological arrangements
that account for Africanism and also for Marxism. The basic assumption is a
relativist one. Cultures, all cultures, are blind in terms of values that they
incarnate and promote (Eboussi-Boulaga); or, a critique of the concept of human
nature: human nature is a construction and, at any rate, social and human
sciences are not concerned with this abstraction (Sow).
Nous ne sommes pas persuade que l'objet pr&cisdes sciences humaines, a y
regarderde pres, soit l'&tuded'une naturehumaine Universelle pos&ea priori,
parce que nous ne savons pas si une telle naturehumaine existe quelque part
concr~tement. Il se pourrait bien que la Nature Humaine (ou l'homme en
general, I'homme naturel, etc.) soit une fiction theorique de la philosophie
activiste d'une experienceconcrete limit&
gen&rale,ou alors, la g&n&ralisation
(Sow, 1977: 256-58).
Sow expounds that the reality of human nature makes sense only when
intermingled with representations of a given anthropological tradition or
perspective. The conclusion that comes out is a thesis. Against dialectic and
anthropology how can intellectuals in Africa think about human nature and for
what purpose?
At a more concrete level, one can observe the alternatives offered by the
critical trend in Africa as in the case of Wiredu, who empirically faces African
social contradictions. Other theorists indicate practical policies for the
208
implementation of strategic principles in socio-cultural formulas. First, the
paradigm of renaissance accounts for theories that in their essentials affirm the
positivity of being oneself as recently illustrated by Chinweizu, Onwuchekwa
Jemie, and Ihechukwa Modubuike in their Toward the Decolonization of African
Literature (1983). It also means the right to doubt "perennial" and "universal"
values. In this sense, there is a correlation between the ideology of cultural
relativism, debates on African literature, and concrete policies promoting African
languages and "authentic" traditions as cultural institutions.
But this is just one side of a complex process. Mabika Kalanda (1967: 163)
has thrust down a severe principle: in order to reappropriate his own cultural
consciousnes and invent new paradigms for his "renaissance," it is imperative
for the African to re-evaluate the general context of his tradition and to
expurgate it critically.
Le milieu global bantou est dissolvant et deprimant pour l'individu. Sa
philosophie &rigeen loi sacr&ela dependance,la soumission, l'effacement,la
degenerescence mentale et donc physique de l'homme. Un tel milieu
pr&disposea l'esclavage.... L'impuissancementale individuelle ou de groupe
intuitivement ressentie ou mime constat6e dans les realit6sobjectives pousse
inconsciemmenta l'agressivited l'&garddes &trangers
plus avanc&sque nous.
It is on the basis of a similar hypothesis that Eboussi-Boulaga (1977: 223) later
propounds the form of a "recit pour soi," a critical means for understanding the
past and the failures of an historical life, in order to be able to act differently in
the future.
Second, the paradigms of scientific vocation and developmental applications
of science are probably the easiest to analyze. In the 1960s, they meant the
Africanization of personnel in universities and research centers. In other words,
they explicated the transfer of intellectual leadership and administrative
authority in general. This struggle for scientific responsibility rapidly led to
myths and theories of "Africanization of sciences." For several years, Sheik Anta
Diop's influence was important, for it allowed the hypostasis of African
civilizations. Centers of African studies multiplied and African subjects were
introduced into university curricula. To the classical theme of "all that is
European is civilized; all that is African is barbarous" was substituted a new one:
"all that is African is civilized and beautiful." This "intellectual nationalism"
depended heavily on the political nationalism. As Hodgkin rightly noted: it
"developed furthest in those territories where political nationalism [was] most
firmly established, [had] an effect upon practice as well as upon attitudes" (1957:
175-76).
The major characteristic of the 1970-1980s is the relative autonomy of the
intellectualist side of African nationalism. The failure of independence dreams
might account for the redistribution of power. Politicians and managers have
become the "gestionnaires" of acute contradictions existing between the
processes of production and the social relations of production, the "economy" of
power and political rhetoric. The intellectuals generally define their mission in
terms of 'deconstruction' of existing systems of economic, political, and
ideological control. Within the intellectual group there are two major tendencies:
the first, more and more Marxist dominated, emphasizes strategies for economic
majority and political liberation; the second, "liberal," essentially focuses on the
epistemological implications of a philosophy of otherness. One might think that
the first group, fundamentally, promotes new theories for the Westernization of
AFRICANGNOSIS
209
Africa. On the other hand, the second group, up to now, seems caught in
paradoxes created by the junction of a will for political power and postulates of
symbolic analysis.
Nevertheless these orientations have, to date, produced the most significant
promises in present-day African scholarship. Already, in many
fields-anthropology, history, philosophy, and theology-official orthodoxy
inherited from the colonial period has been challenged. African scholars affirm
new alternatives, regional compatibilities and, above all, the possibility of a new
economybetween power and knowledge.
The process is the most visible, as we have seen, in the domain of Christian
theology, which is also, by far, the best organizedfield. It faced, chronologically,
successive major questions in its development (Mveng, 1983). First of all,
following the myths on "Africanization"of the nationalist moment, it dealt with
the challenge of a critique of Western Christianity.The aim at that time was to
search for causes of confusion existing between colonialism and Christianity,to
promote a better comprehension of historical Christianity, and the
implementation of an African Christianity. The stepping stone theory, the
adaptation approach, and the incarnation interpretation are the best known
solutions proposed for the promotion of an African Christianity (Bimwenyi,
1981a: 263-81). A second question appeared almost immediately: what
epistemological foundation to propose for African theology? Three types of
answers and strategieshave been planned:
(a) An African reading of the Western experienceof Christianity.I can hardly
enter into details because of the complexity of its purposes. Nonetheless, let us
note two main methodologicalpoints: on the one hand, the choice for a rigorous
and very classical analysis of the Western historical process of indigenizing the
Gospel; on the other, a critical interpretation of this process based on the
ideological significanceof strategic cultural selections and subservient rules, and
aimed at the explanation of the progressiveconstitution of the Church'sdoctrine
and the development of its liturgy. Bishop Tshibangu'sworks on the history of
theological methods in the West (1965, 1980), and J. Ntendika's scrupulous
studies (1966, 1971) on Patristic theology are good examples of the trend. In
philosophy, the same tendency of investing in a good understanding of the
Western practice of philosophy, as a useful step before promoting African
philosophy, can be observed in several cases. Examples are the philosophy of
Second Order, Elungu'sstudy (1973b) on the concepts of space and knowledgein
Malebranche's philosophy, Ugirashebuja's analysis (1977) of the relationship
between poetry and thought in Heidegger'swork and Ngindu's presentation of
religious knowledgeaccordingto Laberthoniere(1978).
(b) This critical reading of the Western experience is both a way of
"inventing" a foreign tradition in order to master its techniques and an
ambiguous strategyfor implementing alterity. It is accepted that "les theologiens
Africains n'ont rien d gagner d se replier sur eux-memes,""ils se condamneraint
totalement a rester des theologiens de seconde zone" (Tshibanguand Vanneste,
1960: 333-52). In 1974, T. Tshibangu published Le Propos d'une Theologie
Africaine, a brief manifesto, which concentrates on linguistic and cultural
relativism and upholds, along with the fact that there are a variety of systems of
thought, the evidence of ethnic understandingand expressions of Christianity.
Tshibangu's booklet has become a classic and has a tremendous influence. It is
already possible to study the outcome of his thesis. There is now a serious
210
interest in an examination of the Christian tradition according to the most
critical methodologies. On the other hand, there are more and more
anthropological and linguistic investigations on African traditions which pinpoint
regions of compatability and diffraction between Christianity and African
religions, of which Bimwenyi's Discours Theologique Africain (1981a), Hebga's
Sorcellerie et Pridre de Delivrance (1982), or the book published by J. M. Ela and
others, Voici le Temps de Heritiers(1981) are illustrations.Rather than insisting
on the economy of cultural and religious constellations and their possible
compatibility, this trend tends to emphasize the pertinence of diffraction and its
relative value in a regional system of revelation. Mulago's Cahiers des Religions
Africaines has been the most remarkablelocus and vehicle of this project since
1965.
(c) The last trend addresses a delicate issue: does it make sense to be
Christian and African? More concretely as E. Mveng expressed it, how and why
an African should believe in and promote a Christianity, which not only has
become a product of exportation of Western civilization but also has been used
and still is utilized as a means of racial and class exploitation (Mveng, 1983:
140):
Le malheur, c'est que l'Occident est de moins en moins chretien, et le
christianisme, depuis longtemps, est devenu un produit d'exportationde la
civilisation occidentale, c'est-a-dire un parfait outil de domination,
d'oppression, d'annihilation des autres civilisations. Le Christianismeprone
aujourd'huinon seulementen Afriquedu Sud, mais par l'Occidenten tant que
puissance et civilisation, est loin, tres loin de l'Evangile.La question est done
pos&e,radicale:quelle peut etre la place des peuples du Tiers-Mondedans un
tel christianisme?Et cette question concerne en tout premier lieu, les Eglises
officielles.
In order to face this question, Eboussi-Boulagahas put forth his Christianisme
sans fetiche. Revelation et Domination (1981). It is a complete "deconstruction"
of Christianity. Putting away dogmas, traditional criteria, and theories of official
Churches, he propounds a direct interpretation of the emergence of revelation as
a sign of liberation. In this perspective, the time and the dignity of the human
being become the place of God's dream for incarnation. As a consequence,
according to Eboussi-Boulaga,the most important issue for followers of Jesus is
the liberation of their own faith and its conversion into a practical means for a
real transformationof the world; a conclusion that is, for instance, the postulate
of theologies of liberation in South Africa (see, e.g., Boesak, 1977). One of the
soundest illustrations of this "spirit of the Exodus" has been given by J. M Ela
with his Le Cri de l'Homme Africain. Questions aux Chretiens et aux Eglises
d'Afrique (1980), a "radical move away from the God of natural theology
preached by missionaries" and a promotion of the God of Exodus interested in
history and the socio-economic conditions of man.
The hermeneuticalorientation appeared in this context as field of a possible
African theology. I think that Okere'sthesis (1971) was the first invitation to this
possibility. Since then, Tshiamalenga and Nkombe have established themselves
as the most credible masters. Okolo, a former student of Kinyongo, made explicit
the philosophical choices of the method (1980) inspiringhimself from a brief and
stimulating text of his professor (Kinyongo, 1979). In 1983 Okere published a
modest book on the foundations of the method in which one finds clear
guidelines based on a solid principle: "language seems to affect culture and
AFRICANGNOSIS
211
thought at some level," but one cannot go from this pronouncement"to speak of
philosophical and metaphysical thought as somehow predetermined
linguistically"(Okere, 1983: 9). To date, the most convincing studies, apart from
Okere's unpublished dissertation have been done by Tshiamalenga(e.g., 1974,
1977b, 1980) and Nkombe in his methodologicalpropositions (e.g., 1978, 1979).
In terms of intellectual classification, it is possible to distinguish two main
trends. The first is one of ontological hermeneuticswhich, at least in Kinshasa
(Zale), coincides with the reconversionof Tempels' and Kagame'slegacy to more
rigourous modalities of philosophising (see, for example, Okere, 1971;
Tshiamalenga, 1973, 1974, 1980). The second is more of a psycho-socially
oriented hermeneuticswhich integrates lessons from phenomenologicalmethods
(e.g., Laleye, 1981 and 1982; Nkombe, 1979).
The question of the significance of these new intellectual strategies of
"conversion" has also been delineated from other horizons. On the social
sciences, T. K. Buakasa, for example, has analyzed the socio-cultural
determinations of scientific reason, under a provocative title, Westernsciences,
whatfor? (Buakasa, 1978; see also, Okonji, 1975). Inspiredby M. Foucault and,
mainly, J. Ladriere'swork on philosophy of sciences, Buakasa re-examinesthe
historicity and architectureof scientific reason- "la science est la seule pratique
vraiment rationnelle, le seul lieu, actuellement,de manifestationprivilegi&ede la
rationalit'"-in order to introduce techniques for the conversion of African
"mentality" in terms of scientific reason. Another philosopher, P. E. Elungu,
although accepting the reality of African authenticity and the autonomy of its
socio-historicalexperience, bases his proposalsfor African liberationon a unique
condition: a conversion to "l'esprit philosophique." And, according to him,
"l'espritcritique" appears to be the only possible way to modernization,insofar
as it will mean the possibility of an epistemological rupture, and subsequently,
the emergence of an "esprit scientifique." That is, a new cultural environment
characterizedby:
1.
la capacite qu'a l'homme de rompre avec ce qui est simplement donne",
dans la recherchede ce qui lui est essentiel et specifique.
2.
la saisie de cet essentiel-specifiquedans la libertedu discours.
3.
la constatation que cette liberte du discours n'est pas la liberte tout court,
que cette autonomie du discours n'est pas independance (Elungu, 1976;
see also Sodipo, 1975 and 1983).
About these new rules of the game, one might recall M. Foucault'sobjectives
in The Discourse on Language (1982) for the liberation of discourse. Explicit
references to Western schemata are also noticeable in Hountondji's programon
African practice of science that relies on L. Althusser, and in O. Nkombe's
research (1979) on African "symbols" inspired by P. Ricoeur and Levi-Strauss.
But the existence of these intellectualfiliations means a project of methodological
and ideological syntheses ratherthan a capitulationof otherness.
To sum up the essentials of the rules of this deconstruction,I can note the
following as major principles:
An hypothesis: to understand and define the configurationof scientific
1.
practice in social and human sciences as an ideological locus determined
by three major variables: time, space and the (un)-conscious of the
scientist.
A thesis: to analyze and promote African experiences as formed on the
2.
basis of a particular history and as witnessing to a regional
212
Weltanschauung.
An objective: to think about and propose reasonable modalities for the
integration of African civilizations into modernity, in accordance with
"l'esprit critique" and the scientific reason, the purpose being the
liberation of man.
It might be that all of these themes have been made possible by some of the
consequences of the epistemologicalrupture,which accordingto Foucault (1973)
appearedin the West at the end of the eighteenth century.The hypothesis makes
tremendous sense if one looks at the receding, during the nineteenth century, of
theories on "function," "conflict," and "signification,"and on the other hand at
the emergence of a new intelligence on the potentialities of paradigms of
"norm," "rule" and "system." In theory, this reversal accounts for all ideologies
of difference. But it is not certain that it fully explains the functional
arrangementof the "colonial library"and its pervasive effectiveness during the
nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, nor the ambiguous relationships that a
chronological sequence establishes between the beautiful myths of the "savage
mind" and the African ideological strategiesof otherness.
3.
Resources
Useful information on African philosophy resources can be found in Smet's
history of African philosophy (1980: 5-16), his methodological presentation of
this history (1977a: 47-68), and in Van Parys's overview of the present-day
philosophical activity in Africa (Van Parys, 1981: 371-86). I would like to
reorganizeand complete them. Let us distinguish five sections: (1) bibliography,
(2) journals and periodicals, (3) textbooks and collections, (4) syntheses and
methodologicalguides, (5) departmentsand associations of Africanphilosophy.
Bibliographies
(1.1) Alfons Josef Smet's work. A graduate of Louvain University (Belgium)
and a respected specialist of Alexanderof Aphrodisiasand Thomas Aquinas, this
Belgian scholar has turned himself into one of the best and the most patient
students of African philosophy since his appointment in 1967 as Professor at
Lovanium University in Kinshasa (Zale). He presently teaches at the Catholic
Theological School in Kinshasa. He is the author of the most systematic
bibliographies on African philosophy. They should be used with prudence, for
Smet does not distinguish anthropological oriented works from strictly
philosophical publications (see Smet, 1978b: 181). (1.1.1) "Bibliographiede la
Pens&eAfricaine. Bibliographyon African Thought" in Cahiers Philosophiques
Africains(1972, 2: 39-96 and 1975, 7-8: 63-286) which lists 2973 entries. (1.1.2)
"La Philosophie Africaine Bibliographie S&lective" in Philosophie Africaine.
Textes Choisis II et Bibliographie Selective (Smet, 1975). The index and the
concordance table of Tempels's Bantu Philosophy (Smet, 1975b: 499-557) are
quite useful. The bibliography presents 310 representative titles. (1.1.3)
Bibliographiede la PhilosophieAfricaine. (1) Alphabeticallist. (2) Chronological
listing. (1977, Kinshasa: Faculte de Theologie Catholique). (1.1.4) Bibliographie
Selective de la Philosophie Africaine (Smet, 1978b) is an extension of the
preceding (1.1.3). (1.2) More selective than Smet's bibliographies is my
chronological bibliography (Mudimbe, 1982a: 68-73), which lists only
Francophone African works. (1.3) P. E. Ofori published a select bibliography:
AFRICANGNOSIS
213
Black African TraditionalReligions and Philosophy with 2592 entries (Nendeln:
KTO Press, 1977). It should be supplemented by (1.3.1) Smet's "Bibliographie
Selective des Religions Traditionnelles de l'Afrique Noire" (1975a: 181-253),
scientifically more reliable. (1.3.2) Ntedika's "La Theologie Africaine,
Bibliographie Selective" published by La Revue Africaine de Theologie
(Kinshasa) from 1977 to 1979. (1.3.3) Facelina and Rwegera's international
bibliography:African Theology TheologieAfricaine(1978, Cerdic: Strasbourg,38
pages). (1.3.4) Ngindu's bibliographyon African Theology has been published in
the Bulletin of African Theology since 1983. Against Ntedika's tolerant
perspective (1977-1979), which includes missiology and even primitivist works,
Ngindu, in nationalistic fashion, notes only those publicationswhich correspond
to "philosophies" of otherness and African ideologies of liberation, and strictly
emphasizes contributions by Africans. (1.4) One can also refer to good
bibliographes on African milieu, societies, Weltanshsuungen, and creative
writings and authors. Among the soundest: (1.4.1) In German: the invaluable
series of Afrika-Schriftum.Bibliographie deutschsprachigerwissenschaftlicher
Veroffentlichungenaber Afrika sidlich der Sahara (Literature on Africa.
Bibligraphy of scientific publications on Africa South of the Sahara in German
language) (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner). The index (Vol. II, 296 pages) is an
efficient, analytical, and well-organizedinstrument. (1.4.2) In English: (1.4.2.1)
Herdeck, E. D., ed., African Authors. A Companion to Black African Writing
1300-1973 (1973, Washington, D. C.: Black Orpheus Press). It is an excellent
source for synthetic information. In the appendices one finds a useful
classification of authors by sex, period, genre, country, etc., and lists of
publishers of journals on African studies. M. Lubin, Professor at Howard
University, is presently completing and updating this bibliography. (1.4.2.2)
Jahn, J., is the author of several internationallyrespectedbibliographies:(a) Die
Neoafrikanische Literatur. Gesamtbibliographie von den Anfagen bis zur
Gegen"wart(1965, Duisseldorf-Koln:Eugen Diedericks), which is in German,
English and French;(b) in collaborationwith U. Schild and A. Nordmann, Who's
Who in African Literature(1972), Tilbingen: Horst Erdmann;Second ed. 1973,
Nendeln: Kraus Reprints. (1.4.2.3) Moser, G. M., A TentativePortuguese-African
Bibliography. Portuguese Literature in Africa and African Literature in the
Portuguese (1970, University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University
Libraries,Bibliographicalseries, 3). (1.4.2.4) Scheub, H., Bibliographyof African
Oral Narratives (1972, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press), which to date,
is the most reliable bibliographyon the subject. (1.4.2.5) Zell, H. and Silver H., A
Reader'sGuide to AfricanLiterature(1972, London:Heinemann), is a fourre-tout
encyclopedia-like book. Fortunately annotations do justice to genres and
sometimes help the reader to distinguish between hairstyles publications,
collections of children's stories, and treatises on political militantism. (1.4.2.6)
The International African Bibliography of Current Publications on Africa
(London: International African Institute) still stands as the most dependable
source of information on ongoing research.(1.4.3) In French: the most important
bibliographicalsources are: (1.4.3.1) Th. Baratte-EnoBelinga, J. Chauveau-Rabut
and M. Kadima-Nzuji'sBibliographiedes AuteursAfricainsde Langue Francaise
(1979, Paris: Nathan) lists 2303 titles. It classifies authors by country and has
three well-done indexes: on authors, Francophone African publishers, and
records and tapes. (1.4.3.2) The Cardan(Paris, Ecole Pratique de Hautes Etudes)
has been publishing since 1977 a monumental bibliography on African social
214
studies: Bibliographiedes Travauxen Langue Francaise sur l'Afriqueau Sud du
Sahara. Sciences Humanines et Sociales (1977-1978-1979-1980 and 1979-1982,
198+, 224+, 212+, 244 pages). A good complement to this enterprise is the
general survey of the situation of African studies in Europe financed by the
Agence de Cooperation Culturelle et Technique (ACCT): Etude Africaines en
Europe.:Bilan et Inventaire (1981, Paris: Karthala, 2 vol.) and the Bulletin
Signaletique, n. 524, on science of language, published by the French Centre
National de la Recherche Scientifique(1983, vol. 37, n. 2). (1.4.3.3) R. Pelissier,
Africana. Bibliographies sur l'Afrique Lusohispanophone (1800-1980) (1981,
Montamets-Orgeval:Ed. Pelissier). The most up to date source of documentation
on Spanish and Portuguese-speakingAfrica. (1.4.3.4) The special issue of Notre
Librairie(1983, 70-71) offers 1900 titles classifiedby countries.
Journals and Periodicals
(2.1) Specificaly devoted to African philosophy or to the practice of
philosophy in Africa are: (2.1.1) Afrique et Philosophie. Revue du Cercle
Philosophiquede Kinshasa. Published by philosophy students of the Department
of Philosophy and African Religions, Faculte de Theologie Catholique,Kinshasa,
1977. (2.1.2) Archivesde PhilosophieAfricaine. Centred'Etudeset de Recherches
en PhilosophieAfricaine, Department of Philosophy, University of Lubumbashi,
Zale, 1978-1979. (2.1.3) Cahiers du Departement de Philosophie, Faculte des
Lettres, University of Yaounde, Cameroon, 1977. (2.1.4) CahiersPhilosophiques
Africains. African Philosophical Journal. Department of Philosophy, University
of Lubumbashi, Zale, 1972. (2.1.5) Consequence.Journal of the Inter-African
Council of Philosophy, Cotonou (Benin), 1974. (2.1.6) Le Kore:Revue Ivoirienne
de Philosophie et de Culture. Department of Philosophy, University of Abidjan,
Ivory Coast. (2.1.7) Recherches Philosophiques Africaines, Department of
Philosophy, Faculte de Theologie Catholique, Kinshasa, Zale, 1977. (2.1.8)
Second Order, Department of Philosophy, University of Ife, Ife-Ife, Nigeria,
1972. (2.1.9) Uche, Journal of the Department of Philosophy, University of
Nsukka, Nigeria. (2.1.10) Thoughtand Practice. The Journalof the Philosophical
Association of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya, 1974. (2.2) Well-known journals of
African studies regularly publish articles on Africa philosophy,
Weltanschauungen,systems of thought. I only mention here the most active in
the field: (2.2.1) Presence Africaine (Paris) still stands as the most powerful
symbol of the renewal of African studies. As Herdeck put it: "it is hard to
imagine what Africa and black cultural studies in general would be without
Presence Africaine" (Herdeck, 1973: 576). In creative arts, Black Orpheus
(Ibadan)has been a vey dynamic center of African intellectualpromotion. (2.2.2)
In English: Abbia (Yaounde), Africa (London), African Studies Review
(Gainesville), Canadian Journal of African Studies (Quebec-Montreal).(2.2.3) In
French: L'Afrique Litteraire et Artistique (Paris), Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines
(Pais), Cahiers des Religions Africaines (Kinshasa), Geneve Afrique (Geneva),
Notre Librairie (Paris), Politique Africaine (Paris), Recherche, Pedagogie et
Culture (Paris), Revue Africaine de Theologie (Kinshasa), Revue du Clerge
Africain (Mayidi), Zaire-Afrique (Kinshasa). (2.2.4) The Annales of Francophone
Universities, particularlythose of University of Abidjan, Dakar, and Libreville
are notable publications in which one finds importantcontributions.
AFRICANGNOSIS
215
Textbooksand Collections
(3.1) I only know of six textbooks completely or partially devoted to African
philosophy. They are all in French. Four are introductorytexts for high school
students (3.1.1 to 3.1.4). And two are more specialized (3.1.5 and 3.1.6) and can
be used for an undergraduate class. (3.1.1) Abou-Rejeily, T., Precis de
Philosophie, t.l., a l'usage des 0l~ves des sixiemes, Section litteraire et arts
plastiques, (1973, Bruxelles:De Boeck; Kinshasa: Equatoriale).(3.1.2) AzomboMenda, S., and Enobo-Kosso,M., Les PhilosophesAfricainspar les Textes (1978,
Paris: Nathan). (3.1.3) Dubois, J., Van Den Wijngaert, Botolo M., Initiation
Philosophique(1973, Kinshasa: Okapi). The first edition (1972) did not contain
the chapter on African philosophy. (3.1.4) Laburthe-Tolraand Bureau, R.,
Initiation Africaine. Supplement de Philosophie et de Sociologie a l'usage de
l'AfriqueNoire (1971, Yaounde: Cle). (3.1.5) Smet, A. J., PhilosophieAfricaine.
Textes Choisis et Bibliographie Selective 2 vol., (1975, Kinshasa: Presses
Universitaires du Zaie.) (3.1.6) Tort, P. and Desalmand, P., Sciences Humaines
et Philosophieen Afrique.La DifferenceCulturelle(1979, Paris:Hatier).
(3.2) PresenceAfricaine (PA) has published major collections on the African
condition. All of them are inspired by ideologies of otherness and deal with its
political and cultural implications. Here are the most significant as listed
alphabetically by Baratte (see 1.4.3.1). (3.2.1) Art Ntgre (1951, Paris: Presence
Africaine, 2 ed., 1966, Paris, Presence Africaine). (3.2.2) Colloque Sur La
Negritude tenu a Dakar (Senegal) du 12 au 16 avril 1971. Sous les auspices de
l'Union Progressiste Senegalaise (1972, Paris,PA) (3.2.3) Colloque Sur Les
Politiquesde Developpementet les diversvoies africainesversle socialisme-Dakar,
3-8 decembre 1962 (1963, Paris, PA). (3.2.4) Conferenceau Sommet des Pays
Indipendants Africains Addis Abeba (mai 1963) (1964, Paris: PA). (3.2.5)
Congrds(Premier)International des Ecrivains et ArtistesNoirs (Paris, Sorbonne,
19-22 septembre 1956) Compte rendu complet (1956, Paris, PA) (PA, 1956 nr.
VII-IX-X). (3.2.6) Congres(Deuxiume)des Ecrivains et ArtistesNoirs (Rome, 26
mars-ler avril 1959) Paris: PA, 1959, Tome 1' L'Unite des cultures negroafricaines (PA, 1959, nr. XXIV-XXV) Tome 2: Responsabilite des hommes de
culture, (PA, 1959, nr. XXVII-XXVIII). (3.2.7) Etudiants (Les) Noirs Parlent.
PA, special issue, 1953. (3.2.8) Monde Noir (Le) PA, special issue, Theodore
Monod edit. nr. 8-9, 1950. (3.2.9) Personnalite Africaine et Catholicisme
(Contribution africaine au Concile 1962-65) (1963, Paris: PA) (3.2.10) Premiure
Confirence Internationaledes Africanistesde I'Ouest(Dakar: IFAN, 1945. Tome
1: 1950, Tome 2: 1951). (3.2.11) PA 1947-1967 "Melanges" (Reflexions
d'hommes de culture) (1969, Paris: PA) (3.2.12) Reflexions sur la Premidre
D&cennie des Independances de L'Afrique Noire Special issue of PA, 1971.
(3.2.13) Societe Africaine de Culture (S.A.C) La civilisation de la femme dans la
tradition africaine (Colloque d'Abidjan, 1972) (1975, Paris: PA). (3.2.14) Societe
Africaine de Culture (S.A.C) Economie et Culture. Travaux de la Societe
Africaine de Culture (Paris, UNESCO, 20-21 octobre 1962) (1965, Paris, PA)
(3.2.15) Societe Africaine de Culture (S.A.C.), Colloque Sur L'Art N~gre ler
Festival Mondial des Arts negres, Dakar, 1-24 avril 1966. Colloque "Fonction et
signification de l'art negre dans la vie du peuple et pour le peuple (30 mars-8
avril)." Organise par la S.A.C. avec le concours de I'UNESCO, sous le patronage
du Gouvernement du Senegal (Paris: PA Vol. 1: 1967, Vol. II: 1971). (3.2.16)
Colloquiumon Negro Art (Dakar, 1966). Paris: PA. (3.2.17) SocidtdAfricainede
Culture(S.A.C.). ColloqueSur les Religons, Abidjan, 5-12 avril 1961 (Paris:PA)
216
(3.2.18) Societe Africaine de Culture (S.A.C.) Congres International des
Africanistes 2e session, Dakar, 11-20 decembre 1967 (1972, Paris: PA) (3.2.19)
Societe Africaine de Culture (S.A.C.) Perspectives Nouvelles sur L'Histoire
Africaine Comptes rendus du Congres International d'Historiens de 1'Afrique.
University College, Dar-es Salaam, octobre 1965, pr&sentespar le Reverend P&re
EngelbertMveng (1971, Paris: PA). (3.2.20) Societe Africainede Culture(S.A.C.)
Les Religions Africaines Comme Source de Valeursde Civilisation colloque de
1970 (1972, Paris: PA). (3.2.21) Societe Africaine de
Contonou, 16'22
aotitNation et
Culture (S.A.C.) Club
Developpementdu Senegal (1972, Paris: PA).
(3.2.22) Societt Africaine de Culture et TerreEntiere, avec la collaborationdes
amis italiens de PA, Frascati, 27 septembre-3octobre 1969. L'Afrique noire et
l'Europe face d face. Dialogue d'africains et d'europeens sur la pr&sentecrise
mondiale de civilisation. (1971, Paris PA (3.2.23) Societe Africainede Cultureet
TerreEntiere, avec la collaboration des amis italiens de PA, Brazzaville, 21-26
fevrier 1972. La reconnaisance des differences, chemin de la solidarite.
Recogition of our differences leads to solidarity ...
2e rencontre d'Africains et
d'Europiens (1973, Paris: PA). (3.2.24) Societe Africainede Culture/Universitedu
Cameroun Le Critique africain devant son peuple comme producteur de
civilisation. Colloque de Yaounde (16-20 avril 1973) (1977, Paris:PA).
This selective list should be completed by the consultation of PA's annual
catalogue.
Synthesesand MethodologicalGuides
(4.1) The debate on African philosophy has already inspired important and
voluminous synthesis. I would recommendas the most dependableand relatively
objective the following: (4.1.1) Elungu, P. E. Du Culte de la Vie d la Vie de la
Raison. De la Crise de la ConscienceAfricaine. (1979, These pour le Doctorat
d'Etat, Universite de Paris). (4.1.2) Laleye, I. P. La Philosophie?Pourquoi en
Afrique? Une Phenominologie de la Question (1975, Berne: P. Lang). (4.1.3)
Maurier, H., Philosophie de l'Afrique Noire (1976, S. Augustin bei Bonn:
Anthropos). (4.1.4) Okere, Th., Can There be an African Philosophy? A
Hermeneutical Investigation with Special References to Igbo Culture (1971,
Louvain University, thesis). (4.2) In terms of methodology and classification,
Smet's books are invaluable guides, particularlyhis history of African philosophy
(1977a) and his article on methodology (1977d: 47-48). In collaboration with
Nkombe he has proposed a classification of African philosophers (Nkombe and
Smet, 1978). Also of interest are the following titles: (4.2.1) Guisse, Y. M.,
Philosophie, Culture et Devenir Social en Afrique Noire (1979, Dakar: Nea).
(4.2.2) Dieng, A. L., Contribution I'Etude des ProblUmesPhilosophiquesen
AfriqueNoire (1983, Paris: Nubia). (4.2.3) Haefner, G., "Philosophie in Afrika."
In Stimmen der Zeit (1978: 795-806) which should be read in relation with
Maurier's expose on methods (Maurier, 1974: 87-107). (4.2.4) N'Daw, A., La
Penste Africaine.:Recherches sur les Fondements de la Pensee Negro-Africaine
(1983, Dakar: Nea). (4.3) Although it specifically deals with theology, H.
Bimwenyi's contribution (1981a) on the epistemologicalfoundation of an African
scientific discourse is probablythe most ambitious project to date.
AFRICANGNOSIS
217
AfricanDepartmentsand Associationsof Philosophy
(5.1) Departments of philosophy exist in almost all the African Universities.
The most visible insofar as African philosophy is concerned are concentratedin
West and Central Africa (Van Parys, 1981: 371-386). (5.1.1) West Africa:
University of Benin, Cotonou. P. Hountondji and H. Aguessy teach in the
departmentof philosophy and sociology, and have two complementarypositions:
the former emphasizes the critique of ethnophilosophy, the latter promotes a
critique of the critique of ethnophilosophy, thus sharing the views of the postTempels anthropological philosophy. Cotonou is also the home of the InterAfrican Council of Philosophyand its journal, Consequence,of which Hountondji
is the General Secretary. (5.1.2) University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana. Until
recently K. Wiredu was chairing this longtime excellent department of
philosophy. In 1978, it was staffed by eight members among them, K. Gyekye.
Let us note the existence of the Legon Journal of Humanities. (5.1.3) Ivory
Coast. In the philosophy department of Abidjan University, one finds a very
good team: K. Aka Landry, Chair; F. Eboussi-Boulaga,P. E. Elungu, Niamkey
Koffi, Villasco. It publishes a journal of philosophy.Also in Abidjan,Memel-Fote
works at the Institut d'Ethno-Sociologieand J. Agossou at the Institut Catholique
d'AfriqueOccidentale. A journal of the institute, Savanes et Forets offers articles
on philosophy. (5.1.4) Nigeria. One may ingle out three major centers: (5.1.4.1)
The department of philosophy at IfMUniversity in which teach J. O. Sodipo, B.
Hallen. It publishes, under the editorship of Sodipo, the outstanding Second
Order. (5.1.4.2) Department of Philosophy at Ibadan University whose best
known member and Chair is Bodunrin.There is a dynamic PhilosophicalSociety
at Ibadan. (5.1.4.3) Department of Philosophy at Nsukka lead by Onyewunyihas
a journal of philosophy: Uche. (5.1.2) Central Africa: (5.1.2.1) Cameroon. The
epartment of philosophy is chaired by M. Towa. B. Fouda teaches at the Ecole
Normale Superieure. (5.1.2.2) Zale (5.1.2.2.1) Department of Philosophy and
African Religions, School of Catholic Theology, Kinshasa.A. J. Smet is the chair.
Other senior members: N. Tshiamalenga and 0. Nkombe. It has a regular
publication Recherches Philosophiques Africaines and organizes an annual
internationalconference on African philosophy themes. The school also hosts an
active center of African Religions whose V. Mulago is the director, and three
other journals: Les Cahiers des Religions Africaines, La Revue Africaine de
Thelogie and the Bulletin of African Theology. (5.1.2.2.2) University of
Lubumbashi.Senior members in the departmentof philosophy are J. Kinyongo,
Mujynya and J. M Van Parys. The department publishes Les Cahiers
PhilosophiquesAfricains. (5.1.3) Let us note that in East Africa, H. O. Oruka of
the department of philosophy at Nairobi University edits Thoughtand Practice;
and, in Ethiopia, Cl. Sumner is the author of a monumentalwork on traditional
Ethiopian philosophy. (5.2) Associations (5.2.1) Continental associations:
(5.2.1.1) The Inter-African Council of Philosophy (Cotonou, Benin) (5.2.1.2)
Societe Africaine de Philosophie (Dakar, Senegal) (5.2.1.3) Soci&teAfricaine de
Culture (Paris, France) (5.2.2) National associations (5.2.2.1) Association des
Professeurs de Philosophie en secondaires (Ouagadougou,Haute-Volta)(5.2.2.2)
Cercle Philosophique de Kinshasa (Zaie) (5.2.2.3) Ibadan Philosophical Society
(Nigeria (5.2.2.4) Nigerian Philosophical Association (Nigeria) (5.2.2.5) Societe
Zairoise de Philosophie (Lubumbashi,Zaire) (5.2.2.6) Philosophical Association
of Kenya (Nairobi, Kenya).
218
REFERENCES
AbandaNdegue, M. J. 1970. De la Negritudeau NPgrisme,Yaound&:Cle.
Ablegamagnon,F. M. 1957. "Du 'Temps'dansla CultureEwe." PresenceAfricaine 14-15:
222-32.
. 1958. "Personne,Tradition et Culture"pp. 22-30 in Aspectsde la CultureNoire.
Paris:Fayard.
. 1960. "L'Afrique noire: la Metaphysique, I'Ethique, I'Evolution actuelle."
Comprendre,21-22: 74-82.
. 1962. "totalites et Systamesdans les Societ&sd'AfriqueNoire." PresenceAfricaine
41: 13-22.
Abraham,W. E. 1966. The Mind of Africa. Chicago:The University of ChicagoPress.
Adele Jinadu, L. 1976. "The Moral Dimensions of the Political Thoughtof FrantzFanon."
Second Order 5, 1.
Adotevi. S. 1972. Nigritude et Negrologues.Paris:Plon.
Adoukounou,B. 1981. Jalons pour une TheogieAfricaine, 2 vols. Paris:Lethielleux.
Agossou, J. M. 1972. Gbet'oet Gbedo'to.Paris:Beauchesne.
1977. "Pour un ChristianismeAfricain." Cahiers des Religions Africaines 11, 1:
21-22.
Aguolu, C. C. 1975. "John Dewey's Democratic Conception and its Implication for
Developing Nations," Second Order4, 2.
Ahidjo, A. 1964. Contributiona la ConstructionNationale. Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
Ahidjo, A. 1969. Nation et Developpementdans l'Unite.Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
Ajayi, J. F. A. 1969. "Colonialism:An Episode in African History" in L. H. Gann and P.
Duignan, Colonialism in Africa 1870-1960. Vol. I of The History and Politics of
Colonialism. Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press.
Ajisafe, A. K. 1924. The Laws and Customsof the YorubaPeople.
Ake, C. 1979. Social Science as Imperialism:The Theoryof Political Development.Lagos:
University of Ibadan Press.
Allier, R. 1925. La Psychologiede la Conversionchez les Peuplesnon-civilises.Paris:Payot.
Amin, S. 1972. L'Accumulational'Echellemondiale. Paris:Anthropos.
. 1971. L Afriquede l'OuestBloquee:l'EconomiePolitiquede la Colonisation. Paris:
Ed. du Minuit.
Appiah-Kubi,K. and Torres, S. 1977. AfricanTheologyen Route. New York:Orbis.
Arendt, H. 1968. Imperialism.Part Two of the Originsof Totalitarianism.New York:H. B.
Jovanovich.
Arinze, F. A. 1970. Sacrificein Ibo Religion, Ibadan.
Arrighi,R. 1979. Liberationou Adaptation.La TheologieAfricaines'interroge.Le Colloque
d'Accra.Paris:L'Harmattan.
Atal, D. 1972. Structureset Significationdes Cinqpremiers Versetsde l'Hymnejohannique
au Logos. Louvain-Paris:Beatrice-Nauwelaerts.
Atangana,N. 1971. Travailet Developpement.Yaound&:Cle.
Auge, M. 1979. Symbole, Fonction, Histoire. Les Interrogationsde l'Anthropologie.Paris:
Hachette.
Ba, A. H. 1972. Aspectsde la CivilisationAfricaine. Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
. 1976. Jesus vu par un Musulman. Dakar-Abidgan:MouvellesEdit. Africaines.
Ba, A. H. and Cardaire,M. 1957. Tierno Bokar, le Sage de Bandiagara. Paris: Presence
Africaine.
Ba, A. H. and Dieterlen, G. 1961. Koumen. Texte Initiatique des Pasteurs Peul. Paris:
Mouton.
Badian, S. 1964. Les DirigeantsAfricainsface a leur Peuple. Paris:Maspero.
Bahoken, J. C. 1967. Clairi'res metaphysiquesAfricaines.Essai sur la Philosophie et la
Religion chez les Bantu du Sud-Cameroun.Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
Bairoch,P. 1971. Le TiersMonde dans 17mpasse. Paris:Gallimard.
Bal, W. 1963. Le Royaume du Congo aux XV7 et XVFesi'cles. Documents d'histoire.
Leopoldville(Kinshasa):INEP.
AFRICANGNOSIS
219
Bamuinikile,S. 1971. La Mort et l'Au-delachez les Balubadu Kasai. Lubumbashi:Cepsi.
Baran, Paul. 1957. The Political Economy of Growth. New York: Modem Reader
Paperbacks.
Barone, Ch. 1982. "SamirAmin and the Theory of Imperialism."in The Reviewof Radical
Politics, 14.
Barett,D. B. 1968. Schism and Renewal in Africa. Nairobi:OxfordUniversity Press.
Barthes,R. 1979. The Eiffel Towerand OtherMythologies.New York:Hill and Wang.
Basse, E. C. 1977. "Itinerairede Presence Africaine: Problame de l'Eglise en Afrique."
Cahiersdes ReligionsAfricaines, 11, 1: 21-22.
Bastide, R. 1961. Variationssur la Negritude."PrisenceAfricaine 36.
Battle, V. M. and Lyons, Ch. H. (ed.). 1970. Essays in the History of AfricanEducation.
New York:TeachersCollegePress.
Baudrillard,J. 1972. Pour une Critiquede l'EconomiePolitiquedu Signe. Paris:Gallimard.
Beattie, J. 1973. "UnderstandingTraditonal African Religion: A Comment on Horton."
Second Order2, 2.
Beier, U. (ed.). 1966. The Originof Life and Death. London:Heinemann.
Betts, R. F. 1975. The False Dawn. European Imperialism in the XIXth century.
Minnapolis:University of Minnesota Press.
Bigo, P. 1974. L'Eglise et la Rdvolutiondu Tiers Monde. Paris: Presses Universitairesde
France.
Bimwenyi, 0. 1968. "Le Muntu a la Lumi&rede ses Croyancesen l'Au-deld."Cahiersdes
ReligionsAfricaines 8, pp. 137-5 1.
. 1971. "Le Muntu a la Lumiere de ses Croyances en l'Au-de-ld."Cahiers des
ReligonsAfricaines 9: 59-112.
Bimwenyi-Kweshi, O. 1981a. Discours Theologique Nigro-Africain. Problemes de
Fondements. Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
. 1981b. "L'Inculturationen Afrique et Attitude des Agents de l'Evangelisaton."in
Aspectsdu Catholicismeau Zaire. Kinshasa:Faculte de TheologieCatholique.
Blair, D. 1976. AfricanLiteraturein French. Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press.
Blyden, E. W. (AA) Africaand Africans. London, 1903.
(CINR) Christianity,Islam and The NegroRace. London, 1988. New edition, 1967,
--.
at EdinburghUniversity Press.
. (LET). Selected Letters of Edward WilmotBlyden, edited by Hollis R. Lynch, New
York: KTO Press (1978).
(LO). Liberia'sOffering,New York, 1862.
. (LPPF). Liberia:Past, Present,and Future. Washingtn,1869.
-Bodunrin, P. 0. 1975a. "Values and Objectivity in the Social Sciences." Thought and
Practice 2, 1.
. 1975b. "The Alogicalityof Immortality."Second Order.
Boelaert,E. 1946. "La Philosophie Bantoue selon le R. P. Placide Tempels." Aequatoria9:
81-90.
Boeak, A. A. 1977. Farewell to Innocence.A Socio-EthicalStudy on Black Theologyand
Black Power. New York: Orbis Books.
Bohannan, P. 1980. "Concepts of Time among the Tiv of Nigeria," in J. Middleton (ed.)
Myth and Cosmos. Austin:University of Texas Press.
Bontinck, F. 1980. "Mfumu Paul Panda Farnana (1888-1930) Premier (?) nationaliste
Congolais," in V. Y. Mudimbe (ed.) Africa's Dependenceand the Remedies. Paris:
Berger-Levrault.
Bourgeois,A. 1971. La Gr'ce Antiquedevantla Negritude. Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
Brelsford,V. 1935. PrimitivePhilosophy.London:J. Bale.
. 1938. "The Philosophyof the Savage."Nada 15.
Buakasa,T. K. M. 1973. L Impense du Discours.Kindokiet Nkisi en Pays Kongodu Zaire.
Kinshasa:Presses Universitairesdu Zaire.
1978. "Les LibCration,
Sciences de l'Occident: Pour quoi Faire." Philosophieet
Kinshasa:Faculte de Theologie Catholique.
220
Bujo, B. 1975. Morale Africaine et Foi Chretienne. Kinshasa: Faculte de Theologie
Catholique.
Bureau,R. 1962. "Les Missions en Question. La Conversiondes Cultures."Christus9, 34.
Busia, K. H. 1956. "La Conception Africaine du Monde." Le Monde non Chretien 38:
165-74.
Casteran,C. et Langellier,J. P. 1978. L'AfriqueDeboussolde.Paris:Plon.
Cesaire,A. 1956. Lettred Maurice Thorez. Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
1959-60. "La Pens&ePolitique de Sekou Tour&"in PresenceAfricaine29.
1972. Discourseon Colonialism. New York:MonthlyReview Press.
Chinweizu, Jemie, Madubuike 1983. Toward the Decolonization of African Literature.
Washington,D. C.: HowardUniversity Press.
Chipenda,J. B. 1977. "TheologicalOptions in Africa Today," in Appiah-Kubiand Torres
(eds.) AfricanTheologyEn Route. New York:Orbis Books.
Clark,G. 1936. The Balance Sheets of Imperialism.New York:ColumbiaUniversity Press.
Clifford,J. 1983. "On EthnographicAuthority."in Representation1, 2.
Copans, J. 1971a. "Pour une Histoire et une Sociologie des EtudesAfricaines."in Cahiers
d'EtudesAfricaines 11, 43.
1971b. Critiqueset Politiquesde lAnthropologie.Paris:Maspero.
Coquery-Vidrovitch, C. 1969. "Anthropologie Politique et Histoire de l'Afrique." in
Annales 24, 1.
. 1974. L AfriqueNoire de 1800 d nos Jours. Paris:PressesUniversitairesde France.
Correia,J. A. 1925. "VocablesPhilosophiqueset Religieuxdes Peuples Ibo." in Bibliotheca
EthnologicaLinguisticaAfricana 1.
Count, E. W. edit. 1950. This is Race. An Anthology Selected from the International
Literatureon the Races of Man. New York: Schuman.
Crahay, F. 1965. "Le D&collage"conceptuel: conditons d'une Philosophie Bantoue." in
Diogene 52: 61-84.
Curtin, Ph. D. 1965. The Image of Africa.:British Thoughtand Action 1780-1850. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press.
Damas, L. G. 1979. "The Last Public Statementof L. -G. Damas." in HommageHosthume
d L. G. Damas. Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
Danquah,J. B. 1928. Akan Laws and Customs.
. 1944. TheAkan Doctrineof God. London:Cass.
Davidson, B. 1959. The Lost Cities of Africa. Boston:Little, Brownand Co.
. 1970. TheAfricanGenius. Boston: Little, Brownand Co.
De Craemer,W. 1977. The Jamaa and the Church.Oxford:The ClarendonPress.
Delafosse, M. 1922. L Ame NIgre. Paris:Payot.
. 1927. Les Negres. Paris:Rieder.
Delhaise, C. 1909. "Les Idees Religieuses et Philosophiquesdes Waregas."in Mouvement
Geographique29.
Delange, J. 1967. Arts et Peuplesd'AfriqueNoire. Paris:Gallimard.
Depestre, R. 1980. Bonjouret Adieu a la Negritude. Paris:Laffont.
Deschamps, H. 1971. Histoire de la Traite des Noirs de l'Antiquit
e nos jours. Paris:
Fayard.
Dia, M. 1957. L 'EconomieAfricaine. Paris:PressesUniversitairesde France.
1960. Nations Africaines et Solidarite Mondiale. Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France.
Dia, M. 1975. Islam, Societ&sAfricaineset CultureIndustrielle.Dakar:NEA.
1977-1981. Essais sur l'Islam. 1. Islam et Humanisme. 2. Socio-Anthropologie
de
l Islam. 3. Islam et CivilisationsNegro-Africaines.Dakar:NEA.
Diagne, M. 1976. "Paulin J. Hountondji ou la Psychanalyse de la Conscience ethnophilosophique."PsychopathologieAfricaine 3, XII.
Diagne, P. 1967. Pouvoir Politique Traditionnel en Afrique Occidentale.Essai sur les
InstitutionsPricoloniales.Paris:PrisenceAfricaine.
AFRICANGNOSIS
221
. 1972. Pour l'UnitQOuest-Africaine.Micro-Etatset IntegrationEconomique. Paris:
Anthropos.
Diakhate, L. 1965. "Le Processusd'Acculturationen AfriqueNoire et ses Rapportsavec la
Negritude."in PresenceAfricaine 56.
Diamond, S. 1974. In Search of the Primitive.A Critiqueof Civilization.New Brunswick.
Dieng, A. L. 1983. Contributiona l'Etude des ProblemesPhilosophiquesen AfriqueNoire.
Paris:Nubia.
. 1979. Hegel, Marx, Engels et les Problkmesde l'AfriqueNoire. Dakar:Sankor&.
Dieterlen, G. 1941. Les Ames des Dogons. Paris:Institut d'Ethnologie.
Diop, A. 1965. "Niam M'Paya" Preface to La Philosophie Bantoue. Paris: Pr&sence
Africaine.
Diop, C. A. 1954. Nations NAgreset Culture. Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
.1960a. L 'AfriqueNoire Precoloniale.Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
- 1960b. Les FondementsCulturels,Techniqueset Industrielsd'un Futur Etat Federal
d'AfriqueNoire. Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
- 1960c. L'Unite Culturellede l'AfriqueNoire. Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
. 1978. Anterioritedes CivilisationsNIgres. Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
. 1978. Parentegenetiquede l'EgyptienPharaoniqueet les LanguesNegro-Africaines.
Dakar-Abidjan:NEA.
. 1981. Civilisationou Barbarie. Paris:Pr&senceAfricaine.
Dirven, E. 1978. "Philosopher en Africain." in Melanges de Philosophie Africaine.
Kinshasa:Facult&de Theologie Catholique.
Dogbe, E. 1980. NAgritude,Cultureet Civilisaton.Essai sur la Finalite des Faits Sociaux.
Mee-sur-Seine(France):Akpagnon.
Duchet, M. 1971. Anthropologieet Histoire au Sidcle des Lumieres. Paris:Maspero.
Duggan, W. R. and Civile, Jr. 1976. Tanzaniaand Nyerere. New York:Orbis Books.
Eboussi-Boulaga,F. 1968. "Le Bantou Problematique."PresenceAfricaine 66: 4-40.
Eboussi-Boulaga,F. 1977. La Crisedu Muntu. Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
1981. Christianisme sans Fetiche. Revelation et Domination. Paris: Presence
Africaine.
Ela, J. M. and Luneau, R. 1981. Voici Le Temps des Heritiers.Eglises d'Afriqueet Voies
Nouvelles. Paris:Karthala.
Elungu, P. E. 1973a. " 'Authenticite'et Culture"in Revue Zairoise de Psychologieet de
Pedagogie2, 1: 71-74.
1973b. Etendue et Connaissancedans la Philosophiede Malebranche.Paris:Vrin.
1977. "La Philosophie, Condition du Developpement en Afrique aujourd'hui."
PresenceAfricaine 103: 3-18.
1978. "La Lib&rationAfricaineet Le Problamede la Philosophie."in Philosophieet
Liberation. Kinshasa:Faculte de Theologie Catholique.
1979. Du Culte de la Vie a la Vie de la Raison. De la Crise de la Conscience
Africaine. Paris. These pour le Doctorat d'Etat,Universit&de Paris.
.1980a. "La Philosophie Africaine Hier et Aujourd'hui."in Melangesde Philosophie
Africaine 3: 9-32.
Emmanuel,A. 1969. L'EchangeInegal. Paris:Masprro.
Emmet, D. 1972. "HauntedUniverses."in Second Order 1, 1.
Evans-Pritchard,E. E. 1937. Witchcrafts,Oracles and Magic aong te Azande. London:
Oxford University Press.
1946. "AppliedAnthropology."in Africa.
1962. Social Anthropologyand OtherEssays. New York:The Free Press.
. 1980. Theoriesof PrimitiveReligion. Oxford:ClarendonPress.
-Ewande,D. 1968. Vivele President.La Fete Africaine. Paris:A. Michel.
Fabian, J. 1969. "An African Gnosis." Historyof Religion 9.
Facelina, R. and Rwegera, D. 1978. Africain Theology. TheologieAfricaine. Strasbourg:
Cerdic Publications.
222
Fanon, F. 1952. Peau noire,MasquesBlancs. Paris:Seuil.
* 1961. Les Damnbsde la Terre. Paris:Maspero.
- 1969. Pour la RevolutionAfricaine. Paris:Maspero.
Fanoudh-Siefer,L. 1968. Le Mythe du NIgre et de l'AfriqueNoire dans la Litterature
Francaise(de 1800 d la Seconde GuerreMondiale). Paris:Klincksieck.
Favret-Saada,J. 1977. Les Mots, La Mort, Les Sorts. Paris:Gallimard.
Fernandez,J. W. 1979. "Africanization,Europeanization,Christianization."in History of
Religions 18, 3.
Fieldhouse,D. K. 1981. Colonialism.1870-1945. An Introduction.London:Weidenfeldand
Nicolson.
Fleischman,E. 1970. Le Christianisme'mis d nu'. Paris:Plon.
Forde, D. ed. 1976. African Worlds.London:OxfordUniversity Press.
Fortes, M. and Dieterlen, G. 1965. AfricanSystemsof Thought.London:OxfordUniversity
Press.
Foucault, M. 1973. The Orderof Things. An Archaeologyof the Human Sciences. New
York: Random.
. 1973b. Madnessand Civilization. New York:Vintage Books.
1980. Power/Knowledge.Selected Interviewsand Other Writings1972-1977. New
York:Pantheon Books.
. 1982. The Archaeologyof Knowledgeand the Discourseon Language. New York:
Pantheon.
Fouda, B. J. 1967. La PhilosophieAfricanede l'Existence. Ph.D. dissertation,Lille: Fac. des
Lettres.
Fourche,J. A. T. and Morlighem,H. 1973. Une Bible Noire. Bruxelles:Max Arnold.
Frobenius, H. 1893. Die Heiden-Neger des "agyptischenSudan". Berlin: Nitschke und
Loechner.
. 1899. "The Origin of African Civilization." in Annual Report of the Board of
Regentsof the SmithsonianInstitution.Washington:GovernmentPrintingOffice.
. 1937. AfricanGenesis. New York: StackpoleSons.
Fry, R. 1940. Visionand Design. New York:PenguinBooks.
Fu-Kiau,A. 1969. Le Mukongoet le Monde qui l'Entourait.Kinshasa:OfficeNational de la
RechercheScientifique.
Geertz, C. 1973. The Interpretationof Cultures.New York:Basic Books.
G&rard,A. 1964. "Origineshistoriqueset Destin litt&rairede la Negritude."in Diogt'ne48.
Glele, M. 1981. Religon Cultureet Politiqueen AfriqueNoire. Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
Godelier, M. 1973. Horizons, TrajetsMarxistesen Anthropologie.Paris:Maspero.
Goody, J. 1977. The Domesticationof the Savage Mind. Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity
Press.
Gravrand,H. 1962. VisageAfricainde l'Eglise. Une Experienceau Senegal. Paris:l'Orante.
Gregoire,Abbe H. -B. 1808. De la Litteraturedes N~gres. Paris:Maradan.
Griaule, M. 1948. Dieu d'Eau. Entretiensavec Ogotemmeli.Paris: Chene.
. 1950. "Philosophieet Religion des Noirs." in PresenceAfricaine 8-9: 307-12.
-Griaule, M. 1952. "Le Savoir des Dogon." in Journalde la Societe des Africanistes22: 2742.
Conversationswith
An Introductionto Dogon Religious Ideas.
1965.
Ogotemmeli.
London:OxfordUniversity Press.
Griaule, M. and Dieterlen, G. 1976. "The Dogon of the French Sudan,"in D. Forde (ed.)
African Worlds.London:OxfordUniversity Press.
Guisse, Y. M. 1979. Philosophie,Cultureet DevenirSocial en AfriqueNoire. Dakar:Nea.
Gunder-Frank,A. 1969. Capitalism and Underdevelopmentin Latin Amrica. New York:
Monthly Review Press.
Gutkind, P. C. W. and I. Wallerstein,(ed.) 1976. The Political Economy of Contemporary
Africa. BeverlyHills: Sage.
Gyekye, K. 1973. "Al-Ghazalion Causation."in Second Order2, 1.
AFRICANGNOSIS
223
. 1975. "PhilosophicalRelevanceof Akan Proverbs."in Second Order4, 2.
Haeffner,G. 1978. "PhilosophieIn Afrika."in Stimmen der Zeit 103.
Hailey, M. 1970. "Colonial GovernmentthroughIndirect Rule: The British Model," in W.
Carteyand M. Kilson TheAfricanReader:ColonialAfrica. New York:VintageBooks.
Hallen, B. 1976. "Phenomenologyand the Expositon of African TraditionalThought."in
Second Order 5, 2.
Hallere, J. H. 1971. Outcastsfrom Evolution: Scientific Attitudes of Racial Inferiority.
Urbana:University of Illinois Press.
Hama, B. 1968. Essai d'Analysede I'EducatonAfricaine. Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
1972. Cet 'Autre'de l'Homme. Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
1969. Kotia-Nima. 1. Rencontre avec I'Europe; 2. Rencontre avec I'Europe; 3.
Dialogue avec l'Occident.Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
. 1972. Le Retardde lAfrique.Essai Philosophique.Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
-Hammond, D. and Jablow, A. 1977. The Myth of Africa. New York: The Library of
Science.
Hastings, A. 1979. A History of African Christianity 1950-1975. Cambridge:Cambridge
University Press.
HauserM. 1982. Essai sur la Poetiquede la Negritude.Lille:Universite de Lille III.
Hazoume, P. 1935. Doguicimi. Paris:Larose.
Hazoumel G. -L. 1972. Ideologies Tribalisteset Nation en Afrique:le Cas Dahomeen. Paris:
PresenceAfricaine.
Hebga, M. 1958. "Plaidoyerpour les Logiquesde l'AfriqueNoire." in Aspectsde la Culture
Noire. Paris.
1976. Emancipationd'Eglisessous-tutelle.Essai sur I'Erepost-missionnaire.Paris:Presence
Africaine.
. 1979. SorcellerieChimire Dangereuse?Abidjan:Inades.
1982. "Elogede 'l'Ethnophilosophie'"in PresenceAfricaine 123.
. (ed.). 1963. PersonnaliteAfricaineet Catholicisme.Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
Herdeck, E. D. (ed.) 1973. AfricanAuthors.A Companionto Black African Writing13001973. Washington,D.C.: Black OrpheusPress.
Heusch De, L. 1958. Le Symbolismede lInceste Royal en Afrique.Bruxelles:U.L.B.
. 1971. Pourquoil'Epouser?Paris Gallimard.
-1982. The DrunkenKing. Bloomington:IndianaUnversity Press.
Hobson, J. A. 1902. Impeialism:a study. London.
Hodgkin,T. 1957. Nationalism in ColonialAfrica. New York:New York University Press.
Hodgkin, M. T. 1971. Early Anthropologyin the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.
Philadelphia:University of PennsylvaniaPress.
Hoffmann, 1973. Le Nigre Romantique. Personnage Litteraire et Obsession Collective.
Paris:Payot.
Holas, P. 1954. Le Culte de Zie. Dakar:Ifan.
.1968a. Les Dieux de I'Afrique.Paris:Geuthner.
.1968b. L'Image du Monde Bete. Paris:PressesUniversitairesde France.
Holden, E. 1967. Blydenof Liberia. New York:Vantage.
Hollis, M. 1981. "The Limits of Irrationality."in B. R. Wilson (ed.) Rationality. Oxford:
Basil Blackwell.
Horton, R. 1972. "SpiritualBeings and ElementaryParticles."in Second Order 1,1.
1976. "TraditionalThought and the EmergingAfrican Philosophy Department:A
Comment on the CurrentDebate." in Second Order6, 1.
1981. "African Traditional Thought and Western Science," in B. R. Wilson (ed.)
Rationality. Oxford:Basil Blackwell.
Hountondji, P. 1970. "Remarques sur la Philosophie Africaine Contemporaine." in
Diogine 71.
. 1977. Sur la PhilosophieAfricine. Paris: Maspero (Engish version: 1983, African
Philosophy.Myth and Reality. Bloomington:IndianaUniversity Press).
224
. 1980. "Distances."in Recherche,PJdagogieet Culture49, IX: 27-33.
. 1981. "Que peut la Philosophie?"in PresenceAfricaine119: 47-71.
1982. "Occidentalisme, Elitisme: Reponse a Deux Critiques." in Recherche,
P&dagogieet Culture 9, 56.
Howlett, J. 1974. "La PhilosophieAfricaineen Question."in PresenceAfricaine 91: 14-25.
Idoniboye, D. E. 1973. "The Conept of 'Spirit' in African Metaphysics."in Second Order
2, 1.
Idowu, E. B. 1962. Olodumare.God in YorubaBelief. London:Longmans.
Isichei, P. A. C. 1975. "Two Perspectivesto the Past: History and Myth." in Second Order
4, 2.
Iyeki, J. F. 1956. Essai de Psychologiedu Primitif. Le6poldville(Kinshasa):Edit. de la Voix
du Congolais.
Jahn, J. 1961. Muntu.An Outlineof the New AfricanCulture.New York:Grove Press.
. 1965. Die NeoafrikanischeLiteratur.Gesamtbibliographie
von den Anfangenbis zur
Gegenwart.Dusseldorf-Kohn:EugenDiedericks.
1.968. A Historyof Neo-AfricanLiterature.London:Faberand Faber.
Jeanson, F. 1949. "Sarteet le Monde Noir." in PresenceAfricaine 7.
Jordan, W. D. 1968. Whiteover Black:AmericanAttitudesTowardsthe Negro, 1550-1812.
Chapel Hill.
July, R. 1964. "Nineteenth Century Negritude:EdwardW. Blyden."in Journal ofAfrican
History 5, 1.
Kachama-Nkoy,J. 1963. "De Karl Marx a PierreTeilhardde Chardindans la Pens&ede L.
S. Senghoret MamadouDia." in VoiesAfricainesdu Socialisme. Lepoldville(Kinshasa):
Bibl. de l'Etoile, pp. 63-83.
Kagame, A. 1968. "La Place de Dieu et de l'Homme dans la Religion des Bantu" in
Cahiersdes ReligionsAfricaines,4 (213-222) and 1959, 5 (5-11).
. 1956. La PhilosophieBantu-Rwandaisede l'Etre. Brussels:Acad&mieRoyale des
Sciences Coloniales.
1971. "L'Ethno-Philosophiedes Bantu"in La PhilosophieContemporaine.Firenze:
La Nuova Italia.
. 1976. La PhilosophieBantu Comparee.Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
Kalanda, M. A. 1967. La Remise en Question.Base de la DecolonisationMentale. Brussels:
RemarquesAfricanes.
Kalilombe, P. A. 1977. "Self-Relianceof the African Church:A Catholic Perspective,"in
Appiah-Kubiand Torres(eds.) AfricanTheologyEn Route. New York:Orbis Books.
Kalu, O. U. 1977. "ChurchPresence in Africa:A Historical Analysis of the Evangelization
Process" in Appiah-Kubi and Torres (eds.) African Theology En Route. New York:
Orbis Books.
Kane, C. H. 1961. L AventureAmbigue. Paris:Julliard.
Kangafu,K. 1973. Discourssur I'Authenticite.Kinshasa:Les PressesAfricaines.
Kanza, T. 1959a. Le Congo d la Veille de son Indcpendance. Bruxelles:les Amis de
PresenceAfricaine.
1959b. Proposd'un CongolaisNaif. Bruxelles:les Amis de PresenceAfricaine.
Kaoze, S. 1907-1911. La Psychologiedes Bantus et QuelquesLettres. Reprod.Anastatique
par A. J. Smet (1979). Kinshasa:Facultede TheologieCatholique.
Kaunda, K. D. 1966. A Humanist in Africa. Letters to Colin M. Morris. London:
Longmans.
Keller, A. S.; Lissitzyn, O. J.; Mann, J. F. 1938. Creationof Rights of SovereigntyThrough
SymbolicActs 1400-1800. New York:ColumbiaUniversity Press.
Kesteloot, L. 1965. Les EcrivainsNoirs de Langue Francaise:Naissance d'Une Littetrature.
Bruxelles:Inst. de Sociologie.
Killingray, D. 1973. A Plague of Europeans. Westernersin African since the Fifteenth
Century. London:Penguin Education.
Kimoni, I. 1975. Destin de la LittOratureNegro-Africaineou Problkmatiqued'une Culture.
Kinshasa:Presses Universitairesdu Zaire.
AFRICANGNOSIS
225
Kinanga, M. 1981. "L'ArcheologieFoucauldienne.Une Methode d'Analysedu Discours."
in Langage et Philosophie. Kinshasa:Faculte de TheologieCatholique.
Kingsley, M. H. 1965. Travelsin WestAfrica. (Abridgedversion of 1900 edition). London:
F. Cass.
Kinyongo, J. 1970. Origine et Significationdu Nom divin Yahvy. Bonn: Bonner Biblische
Beitrage.
1973. L'Etre Manifeste. Meditation Philosophiquesur l'4ffirmation de soi, la
Participationet l'Authenticiteau Zaire. Lubumbashi:Synth~se.
Kinyongo, J. 1979. "Essai sur la Fondation epistemologique d'une Philosophie
hermeneutiqueen Afrique:le cas de la Discursivite."PresenceAfricaine 109: 12-26.
Ki-Zerbo,J. 1972. Histoirede l'Afriqued'Hierd Demain. Paris:Hatier.
1980. "De l'Afrique Ustensile a l'Afrique Parternaire,"in V. Y. Mudimbe (ed.)
Africa's Dependenceand the Remedies. Paris:Berger-Levrault.
Koffi, N. 1976. "L'Impense de Towa et de Hountondji." Paper presented at the
InternationalSeminar on AfricanPhilosophy,Addis-Ababa,Dec. 1976.
1977. "Les Modes d'Existence Materielle de la Philosophie et la Question de la
Philosophie Africaine."in Kore, Revue Ivoiriennede Philosophiede Cultureno. 5, 6, 7
and 8.
Koffi, N. and Abdou, T. 1980. "Controversessur l'Existenced'une PhilosophieAfricaine,"
in C. Sumner(ed.) AfricanPhilosophy.Addis-Ababa:ChamberPrintingHouse.
Kom, a. ed. 1983. Dictionnaire des Oeuvres Litteraires Negro-Africainesde Langue
Francaisedes Originesa 1978. Sherbrooke:Edit. Naaman.
Krader,L. 1973. "The Worksof Marxand Engelsin Ethnologycompared."in International
Reviewof Social History 18, 2.
Kunst, H. -J. 1967. L'africaindans IlArtEuropeen.Cologne:Dumont Presse.
Ladriere,J. 1979. "Forward"to Nkombe'sMetaphoreet Metonymie.... Kinshasa:Faculte
de Theologie Catholique.
Laleye, I. P. 1970. La Conceptionde la Personne dans la Pensee TraditonnelleYoruba.
Berne:Lang.
1975. La Philosophie?Pourquoien Afrique?Une Phenomenologiede la Question.
Berne:P. Lang.
1981. Philosophie et Realites Africaines. in Langage et Philosophie. Kinshasa:
Faculte de Theologie Catholique.
1982. "La Philosophie, l'Afriqueet les PhilosophesAfricains.Triple Malentenduou
Possibilite d'une CollaborationFeconde. In PresenceAfricaine 123: 42-62.
Langer,W. L. 1951. The Diplomacyof Imperialism1890-1902. New York.
Laroui,A. 1967. L'IdeologieArabe Contemporaine.Paris:Maspero.
Laude,J. 1979. L'Artd'AfriqueNoire. Paris: Ed du Chene.
Leach E. R. 1980. "Genesis as Myth." in J. Middleton Myth and Cosmos. Austin:
University of Texas Press.
Leclerc,G. 1972. Anthropologieet Colonialisme. Paris:Fayard.
Leuzinger,E. 1962. Afrique.L'Artdes PeuplesNoirs. Paris:A. Michel.
Levi-Strauss,C1. 1962. La Pensee Sauvage. Paris: Plon.
1963. StructuralAnthropology.New York:Basic Books.
1964. Mythologiques.Le Cru et le Cuit. Paris:Plon.
1966. The Savage Mind. Chicago.The University of ChicagoPress.
1973. AnthropologieStructuraleDeux. Paris:Plon.
1978. The Originof TableManners. New York:Haper and Row.
Lissouba, P. 1975. Conscienedu Developpementet Democratie. Dakar-Abidjan:NEA.
Lofchie, M. F. 1968. "Political Theory and African Politics." in Journalof ModernAfrican
Studies 6.
Lokadi, L. 1979. Diffirence entre la Generalit II du Materialisme dialectique et la
GeneraliteII du Materialisme historique.Contributiond la Critiquede l'Epistemologie
Althussdrienne.Ph.D. dissertation.Lubumbashi:Fac. des Lettres.
226
London, I. D. 1977. "Convergentand Divergent Amplificationand its Meaningfor Social
Science."PsychologicalReports 41.
Lugard,F. 1905. A TropicalDependancy.London:J. Nisbet.
Lufuluabo,F. M. 1962. Versune Thdodic~eBantoue. Paris:Tournai.
1.1964a. Orientationprechretiennede la ConceptionBantoue de 'Etre. Leopoldville
(Kinshasa):CEP.
. 1964b. La Notion Luba-bantouede l'Etre. Tournai:Casterman.
. 1966. PerspectiveTheologiqueBantoueet TheologieScholastique.Malines.
Lumumba,P. 1963. Le Congo, Terred'Avenirest-il menace. Bruxelles:Officede Publicite.
Ly, A. 1956. Les Masses Africaines et I'ActuelleCondition Humaine. Paris: Presence
Africaine.
Lyons, Rh. H. 1975. To Washan Aethiop White. New York:TeachersCollegePress.
Lynch, H. R. 1967. Edward WilmotBlyden.Pan-NegroPatriot 1832-1912. London:Oxford
University Press.
R.
New York:
1978. SelectedLettersof Edward WilmotBlyden edited by
H. Lynch.
KTO Press.
MacGaffey, W. 1981. "African Ideology and Belief. A Survey." in The African Studies
ReviewXXIV, 2/3.
Mafeje, A. 1976. "The Problem of Anthropologyin HistoricalPerspective:An Inquiryinto
the Growthof the Social Sciences."in CanadianJournalof AfricanStudies 10, 2.
Magubane,B. 1968. "Crisisin AfricanSociology."in East AfricanJournal 5, 12.
Mair, L. 1975. PrimitiveGovernment.Gloucester(Mass.):Peter Smith.
Makarakiza,A. 1959. La Dialectiquedes Barundi. Brussels:Academie Royale des Sciences
Coloniales.
Malanda, D. 1977a. La Mentalitc Africaineet t'Avenirde la Science. Kisangani:Edit. du
Base.
. 1977b. Science et Psychologie.Kisangani:Edit. du base.
Malinowsi, B. and others. 1938. Methods of Study of Culture Contact in Africa. Oxford
University Press.
Malula, Card. J. A. 1976. L'Eglise de Dieu qui est d Kinshasa vous parle. Kinshasa:Saint
Paul.
. 1977. "InauguralAddress."in Cahiersdes ReligionsAfricaines 11, 21-22, 1.
Martins Vaz, J. 1970. Filosojia Tradicionaldos Cabindas, 2 vol. Lisboa:Agencia Geral do
Ultramar.
Masambama Mpolo, 1976. La Liberationdes Envoiats. Yaounde:Cle.
Mtaczynski, D. A. 1984. A re-examinationof the Jamaa: 'Thick Discription'. Thesis in
Religion. HaverfordCollege.
Maurier, H. 1974. "Methodologie de la Philosophie Africaine." in Cultures et
Developpement6.
. 1976. Philosophiede l'AfriqueNoire. St. Augustinbei Bonn: Verlagdes AnthroposInstituts.
Mazrui, A. A. 1974. World Culture and the Black Experience. The University of
WashingtonPress.
Mbiti, J. S. 1970. AfricanReligions and Philosophy.New York:AnchorBooks.
1971. New Testament Eschatology in an African
Oxford: Oxford
Background.
.
Press.
University
Mbuze, L. 1974. Revolutionet Humanisme. Kinshasa:Les PressesAfricaines.
. 1977. Aux Sourcesd'Une Revolution.Kinshasa:Les Presses Africaines.
Melone, T. 1962. De Ia Negritude dans la Littirature Nigro-Africaine. Paris: Presence
Africaine.
Meek, R. L. 1976. Social Science and the Ignoble Savage. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Meesterde Ravenstein,P. de 1980a. Ok va l'Eglise d'Afrique?Paris:Cerf.
. 1980b. L'Eglise d'Afrique.Lubumbashi:Saint Paul.
AFRICANGNOSIS
227
Meillassoux, Cl. 1975a. Maidens, Meal and Money. Cambridge, CambridgeUniversity
Press.
1975b. 'Esclafageen AfriquePr6-coloniale.Paris:Mapero.
Memel-Fote, H. 1962. "Rapport sur la Civilisaton animiste." Colloquesur les Religions,
pp. 31-58.
. 1965. "De la Paix perp6tuelle dans la Philosophie pratique des Africains." in
PrisenceAfricaine 55, 15-31.
Memmi, A. 1975. The Colonizerand the Colonized. Boston:Beacon Press.
Middleton, J. 1960. Ritual and AuthorityAmong an East AfricanPeople. London: Oxford
University Press.
. (ed.) 1980. Myth and Cosmos. Austin:University of Texas Press.
Mommsen, W. J. 1983. Theoriesof Imperialism.London:Weidenfeldand Nicolson.
Monsengwo Pasinya, L. 1973. La Notion de Nomos dans le PentateuqueGrec. Rome:
Biblical InstitutePress.
Monteil, V. 1980. L'IslamNoir. Paris:Seuil.
Moore, B. 1958. Political Power and Social Theory. CambridgeMass.: HarvardUniversity
Press.
Mosely, A. 1978. "The Metaphysicsof Magic."in Second Order,7, 1 and 2.
Mouralis, B. 1981. "Mudimbe et le Savoir ethnologique." in L'Afrique Litteraire et
Artistique 58, 1: 112-25.
. 1984. "V. Y. Mudimbe et l'Odeurdu Pouvoir."in PolitiqueAfricane 13.
Mpongo, L. 1968. Pour une Anthropologiechritienne du Marriage au Congo. Kinshasa:
CEP.
Mpoyi-Bwatu,Th. 1983. "V. Y. Mudimbe ou le Reve du Promontoir et le Blocage dans
l'Ascenseur.Sur l'Ecart." in PeuplesNoirs/PeuplesAfricains 33.
Mubengayi,C. L. 1966. InitiationAfricaineet Initiation chretienne.Kinshasa:CEP.
Mudimbe, V. Y. 1974. L'Autre Face du Royaume. Une Introductiond la Critique es
Langages in Folie. Lausanne:L'Aged'Homme.
. (ed.). 1980. Africa'sDependenceand the Remedies. Paris:Berger-Levrault.
1981a. Visage de la Philosophie et de la Theologie Contemporainesau Zaire.
Bruxelles:Cedaf.
Mudimbe, V. Y. 1981b. "Signes Th6rapeutiqueset Prose de la Vie en Afrique Noire." in
Social Sciencesand Medicine 15B.
. 1982a. "La Pens6e Africaine Contemporaine1954-1980. R6pertoireChronologique
des Ouvragesde LangueFrancaise."in Recherche,Pedagogieet Culture, 56, IX: 68-73.
. 1982b. L'Odeurdu Pere. Essai sur es Limites de la Science et de la Vie en Afrique
Noire. Paris:Pr6senceAfricaine.
1982c. "In Memoria: Alexis Kagame (1912-1981)." in Recherche,Pedagogie et
Culture 56.
.1983a. "An African Criticismof Christianity."in Geneva-AfricaXXI, 2.
.1983b. "AfricanPhilosophyas an IdeologicalPractice.The case of French-Speaking
Africa."in AfricanStudiesReview 26, 3-4.
Mudimbe-Boyi,M. 1977. Testi e Immagini. La Missione del "Congo"nelle Relazioni dei
Missionari CappuciniItaliani 1645-1700. Lubumbashi:unpublisheddissertation.
Mujynya, E. N. C. 1972. L'Homme dans l'Univers des Bantu. Lubumbashi: Presses
Universitairsdu Zaire.
Mulago,V. 1959. "La Thbologieet ses Responsabilit6s."in PresenceAfricaine 27-28.
1965. Un VisageAfricainedu Christianisme.Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
1973. La Religon traditonnelledes Bantu et leur Vision du Monde. Kinshasa:
Presses Universitairesdu Zaire.
1981. "Evangblisation et Authenticit6 in Aspects du Catholicisme au Zaire.
Kinshasa:Faculte de ThEologieCatholique.
Muzungu,B. 1974. Le Dieu de Nos Peres. Bujumbura:Presses Lavigerie.
Mveng, E. 1965. L'Artd'AfriqueNoire. Liturgieet LangageReligieux. Paris:Mamne.
228
-
. 1972. Les SourcesGrecquesde l'HistoireNegro-Africaine.Paris:Pr&senceAfricaine.
1979. "De la Sous-mission a la Succession." in Civilisation Noire et Eglise
Catholique.Paris:Pr&senceAfricaine.
. 1983. "R&centsD&veloppementsde la Th&ologieAfricaine."in Bulletin of African
Theology5, 9.
N'Daw, A. 1966. "Peut-onparlerd'une Pens&eAfricaine?"PresenceAfricaine 58: 32-46.
. 1983. La Pensee Africaine. Recherchessur les Fondements de la Pensee NegroAfricaine. Dakar:NEA.
Nduka, 0. 1974. "African Traditional Systms of Thought and Their Implications for
Nigeria's Education."in Second Order 3, 1.
Ngimbi-Nseka. 1979. "Th&ologieet AnthropologieTranscendentale."in RevueAfricainede
Theologie 3, 5.
Ngindu, A. 1968. "La Quatrieme Semaine Theologique de Kinshasa et la Probl&matique
d'Une Th&ologieAfricaine."in La Revue du ClergeAfricain 2, 4.
. 1978. Le Problkmede la ConnaissanceReligiense d'aprnsLucien Laberthoniere.
Kinshasa:Faculte de Theologie Catholique.
. 1979. "La Theologie Africaine. De la Polemique a l'Ir&nismeCritique."in Bulletin
ofAfrican Theology 1, 1.
Ngoma, B. 1975. "Pour une Orientation authentique de la Philosophie en Afrique:
in Zaire-Afrique113.
l'Herm&neutique."
. 1978. "La Recusation de la Philosophie par la societe Africaine."in Melanges de
PhilosophieAfricaine 3: 85-100.
Ngouabi, M. 1975. Versla Constructiond'une Societe socialiste en Afrique. Paris: Presence
Africaine.
face au Developpement.Kinshasa:Okapi.
Nguvulu, A. 1971. L'HumanismeNegro-Africain
Njoh-Mouelle,N. 1970. De la Mediocrit a l'ExcellenceYaounde:Clt.
. 1970. Jalons. Recherchesd'une Mentaliteneuve. Yaound&:Cle.
Njoh-Mouelle,N. 1975. Jaons II. L'AfricanismeAujourd'hui.Yaound&:CI&.
Nkombe, 0. 1977. "Methode et Point de D~part en Philosophie Africaine:Authenticiteet
Liberation" pp. 69-87 in La Philosophie Africaine, Kinshasa: Faculte de Th&ologie
Catholique.
1978. "Essai de Stmiotique Formelle:les Rapportsdifftrentiels,"in Melanges de
PhilosophieAfricaine 3. Kinshasa:Facult&de ThbologieCatholique.
. 1978b. "Sagesse Africaine et Liberation."in Philosophieet Liberation. Kinshasa:
Facult&de Theologie Catholique.
1979. Metaphore et Metonymie dans les Symboles paremiologieques.
L 'Intersubjectivite
dans les ProverbesTetela. Kinshasa:Facultede TheologieCatholique.
Nkombe, 0. and Smet, A. J. 1978. "Panoramade la PhilosophieAfricainecontemporaine."
in Melanges de PhilosophieAfricaine3: 263-82.
Nkrumah,K. 1962. AfricaMust Unite. London:Heinemann.
1965. Neo-Colonialism:The Last Stage of Imperialism.
1970. Consciencism.London:Panaf Books.
Nothomb, D. 1965. Un HumanismeAfricain. Brussels:LumenVitae.
Nsoki, Kita. 1973. Problematiquede la Th/ologie Africaine.Dix Ans de Debats 1960-1970.
Louvain:memoirfor the licence.
Ntendika, J. 1966. L'Evolutionde la Doctrinedu Purgatoirechez S. Augustin. Paris: Etudes
Augustiniennes.
. 1971. L'Evocationde l'Au-delddans la Pridredes Morts. Etude de Patristiqueet de
LiturgieLatines. Louvain-Paris:BeatriceNauwelaerts.
1977-79. "La Theologie Africaine. BibliographieSelective" in Revue Africine de
Theologie 2, 3, 4 and 6.
. 1977. "Les Responsabilitesdu D1partementde Philosophie et Religons Africaines
de la Faculte de Theologie."in La PhilosophieAfricaine 1: 9-20.
Ntezimana, E., Haberland, E., and others. 1984. "Dossier: Alexis Kagame." in Dialogue
(Kigali) 102: 19-81.
AFRICANGNOSIS
229
Nyamiti, Ch. 1978. "New TheologicalApproachand New Vision of the Churchin Africa."
in RevueAfricainede Theologie 2, 3.
Nyeme, T. 1975. Munga. Ethique en Milieu Africain. Gentilisme et Christianisme.
Ingebohl:Impr. du P. Thbodose.
Nyerere,J. K. 1968. Ujamaa.Essays on Socialism. London:OxfordUniversity Press.
Nzege, A. 1980. Intelligence et Guerre.Essai sur la Philosophiepolitique de H. Bergson.
Ph.D. dissertation.Lubumbashi:Fac. des Lettres.
N'Zembele, L. 1983. "L'Avenird'une D&rision:l'Ordredu Discours Africain."in Peuples
Noirs/PeuplesAfricains 31.
Obenga,Th. 1973. L'Afriquedans l'Antiquite.Paris:Pr&senceAfricaine.
. 1980. Pour une NouvelleHistoire. Paris:Pr&senceAfricaine.
Odera, H. 0. 1972. Mythologiesas AfricanPhilosophy."in East AfricanJournal 9, 10.
Ofori, P. E. 1977. BlackAfricanTraditionalReligions and Philosophy.A Select Surveyof the
Sourcesfrom the Earliest Times to 1974. Nendeln:KTOPress.
Ogilby, J. 1670. Africa: being an accurate descriptionof the regions of Aegypt, Barbary,
Lybia, and Billedugerid,the land of the Negroes, Guinee,Aethiopia and the Abyssines.
London:Th. Johnson.
Okere, Th. 1971. Can ThereBe an AfricanPhilosophy?A HermeneuticalInvestigationwith
Special Referenceto Igbo Culture. Louvain, unpublishedthesis.
. 1979. "The Assumptionsof Africa Values as ChristianValues"in CivilisationNoire
et Eglise Catholique.Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
. 1983. AfricanPhilosophy.Washington,D.C.: University Press of America.
Okolo, 0. 1979. Traditionet Destin. Essai sur la Philosophiehermeneutiquede P. Ricoeur,
M. Heideggeret H. G. Gadamer. Ph.D. dissertation.Lumbumbashi:Fac. des Lettres.
Okolo, 0. 1980. "Tradition et Destin: Horizons d'une Hermeneutique philosophique
Africaine."in PresenceAfricaine 114.
Okonji, M. 0. 1975. "The Decolonization of the Social Science in Africanand Traditional
African Psychology."in Thoughtand Practice 2, 2.
Olumide, L. J. 1948. The Religion of the Yorubas,Lagos.
Ombredane,A. 1969. L'Explorationde la Mentalite des Noirs. Paris: PressesUniversitaires
de France.
Onyanwu, K. C. 1975. "African Religion as an Experienced Reality." in Thought and
Practice 2, 2.
Onyewueni,I. C. 1982. "A PhilosophicalReppraisalof AfricanBelief in Reincarnation."in
PresenceAfricaine 123.
Ortigues,M. C. and E. 1973. OedipeAfricain. Paris:U.G.E.
P'Bitek, 0. 1970. African Religions in Western Scholarship. Nairobi: East African
LiteratureBureau.
1971. Religion in CentralLuo. Nairobi.
~.
1973. Africa'sCulturalRevolution.Nairobi: MacMillan.
Pirotte, J. 1973. Periodiques Missionaires Belges d'expression Francaise, Reflets de
Cinquanteannees d'Evolutiond'uneMentalite. Louvain:PublicationsUniversitaires.
Pomonti, J. C. 1979. L'AfriqueTrahie. Paris:Hachette.
Pratt, V. 1972. "Science and TraditionalAfricanReligion."in Second Order 1, 1.
Radin, P. 1927. Primitiveman as philosopher.New York-London:Appleton.
Ralibera, R. 1959. "Theologien-pritre Africain et le D&veloppementde la Culture
Africaine."in PresenceAfricaine 27-28.
Randall-Maciver,D. 1906. MedievalRhodesia. London:Macmillan.
Robinson, R.; Gallagher,J. and Denny, A. 1961. Africa and the Victorians:The Climax of
Imperialismin the Dark Continent.New York:St. Martin'sPress.
Rodney, W. 1972. How Europe Underdeveloped
Africa. London.
Romano, G. F. 1648. Breve Relatione del successo della Missione de Frati Minori
Cappuccinidel SeraficoP. S. Francescoal Regno del Congo. Roma: Sacra Congregatione
de PropagandaFide.
230
Rombaut,M. 1976. La ParoleNoire. Paris:Editions Saint-Germain-desPres.
Ruch, E. A. 1974. "Is there an AfricanPhilosophy?"in Second Order3, 2.
Sachs, I. 1971. La Dicouvertedu TiersMonde. Paris:Flammarion.
Sahlins, M. 1976. Cultureand PracticalReason. Chicago:The University of ChicagoPress.
Said, E. 1978. Orientalism.New York:Pantheon.
Sanders, E. R. 1969. "The Hamitic Hypothesis: Its Origin and Functions in Time
Perspective."in Journalof AfricanHistory X, 4.
Sartre,J-P. 1976. Black Orpheus.Paris:Pr&senceAfricaine.
Scheub, H. 1972. Bibliography of African Oral Narratives. Wisconsin: University of
Wisconsin Press.
Schwarz, A. 1979. Colonialistes,Africanisteset Africains. Louiseville-Montreal:Nouvelle
Optique.
Sebag,L. 1964. Marxisme et Structuralisme.Paris:Payot.
Sene, A. 1966. Sur le Cheminde la Negritude. Le Caire:Impr. Catholiquede Beyrouth.
Senghor,L. S. 1961. Nation et VoieAfricainedu Socialisme. Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
1962. Pierre Teilhardde Chardinet la PolitiqueAfricaine. Paris:Seuil.
1964. Libert I: Negritudeet Humanisme. Paris:Seuil.
1967. Negritude,Arabismeet Francite. Beyrouth:Dar Al-KitabAllubnani.
1971. LiberteII: Nation et Moie Africainedu Socialisme. Paris:Seuil.
..
Senghor, L. S. 1972. "Pourquoi une Ideologie Negro-Africaine"in PresenceAfricaine 82:
11-38.
*. 1976a. Pour une RelectureAfricaine de Marx et d'Engels. Dakar-Abidjan:Nouv.
Edit. Africaines.
. 1976b. "Authenticiteet Negritude."in Zaire-Afrique102: 81-86.
1977. Liberte III: Ngritude et Civilisationde l'Universel.Paris:Seuil.
1983. LiberteIV- Socialisme et Planification.Paris:Seuil.
Setiloane, G. M. 1977. "WhereAre We in African Theology?"in Appiah-Kubiand Torres
(eds.) AfricanTheologyEn Route. New York:Orbis Books.
Shelton, A. J. 1963. "Le Principe Cyclique de la Personnalite Africaine." in Presence
Africaine 45 and 46.
. 1968. "Causalityin African Thought:Igbo and Other." in PracticalAnthropology
15.
Shepperson,G. 1960. "Notes on Negro-AmericanInfluenceson the Emergenceof African
Nationalism"in Journalof AfricanHistory 1, 2.
Shorter,A. 1977. AfricanChristianTheology.New York:Orbis.
Schumpeter,J. A. 1951. Imperialismand Social Classes. New York:AugustusM. Kelley.
Smet, A. J. 1975a. "BibliographieS&lectivedes Religions Traditionnelles de l'Afrique
Noire." in Cahiersdes ReligionsAfricaines 17-18.
1975b. Philosophie Africaine. Textes Choisis et BibliographieSelective, 2 vols.
Kinshasa:PressesUniversitairesdu Zaire.
Smet, A. J. 1977a. "Histoire de la Philosophie Africaine. Problemeset Methodes."in La
PhilosophieAfricaine. Kinshasa:Facultede Theologie Catholique.
.1977b. "Le Pere Placide Tempels et son Oeuvre Publi&e."in Revue Africainede
TheologieI, 1.
.1977c. "La Jamaa dans l'Oeuvre du Pere Placide Tempels." in Cahiers des
ReligionsAfricaines11, 1: 21-22.
. 1977d. "Histoire de la Philosophie Africaine Problemes et Methods." in La
PhilosophieAfricaine. Kinshasa:Facult?de Theologie Catholique.
. 1978a. "Le Concept fondamental de l'Ontologie bantu." Texte in~dit du Pere
Placide Tempels. Melanges de PhilosophieAfricaine 3: 149-80.
. 1978b. "Bibliographie selective de la Philosophie Africaine. R&pertoire
Chronologique."Melangesde PhilosophieAfricaine. 3: 181-262.
. 1980. Histoire de la PhilosophieAfricaine Contemporaine.Kinshasa: Faculte de
Theologie Catholique.
AFRICANGNOSIS
231
Snowden, F. M. 1970. Blacks in Antiquity. Ethiopians in the Greco-RomanExperience.
Cambridge(Mass):HarvardUniversity Press.
Sodipo, J. 0. 1973. "Notes on the concept of Cause and Chance in Youba Traditional
Thought."in Second Order 2, 2.
. 1975. "Philosophyin Africa Today." in Thoughtand Practice 2, 2.
. 1983. "Philosophy, Science, Technology and TraditionalAfrican Thought,"in H.
O. Oruka(ed.) Philosophyand Cultures.Nairobi:Bookwise Ltd.
Sousberghede, L. 1951. "A propos de 'La PhilosophieBantoue'."Zaire 5: 821-28.
Southal, A. 1976. "Orientationsin Political Anthropology."Canadian Journal of African
Studies 10, 2.
1983. "The Contribution of Anthropology to African Studies." African Studies
Review 26, 3/4.
Souza, G. de 1975. La Conceptionde "Vie"chez les Fons. Cotonou:Edit. du Benin.
Soyinka, W. 1976. Myth, Literature and the African World. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Sow, I. E. B. 1977. PsychiatrieDynamiqueAfricaine. Paris:Payot.
. 1978. Les StructuresAnthropologiques
de la Folie en AfriqueNoire. Paris:Payot.
Sumner, C. 1974-198 1. EthiopianPhilosophy:I, 1974, The Book of the WisePhilosophers;
II, 1974, The Treatiseof Zar'a Yacoband of WaldaHaywat; III, 1978, The Treatiseof
Zar'a Yacob and of Walda Haywat; IV, 1981, The Life and Maxims of Skandas.
Addis-Ababa:CentralPrintingPress.
. 1980. African Philosophy.PhilosophieAfricaine. Addis-Ababa:Chamber Printing
House.
. 1983. "An Ethical Study of EthiopianPhilosophy,"in H. O. Oruka(ed.) Philosophy
and Cultures.Nairobi: Bookwise Ltd.
Sundkler,B. 1964. Bantu Prophetsin SouthAfrica. London:OxfordUniversity Press.
Stavenhagen,R. 1971. "DecolonializingApplied Social Sciences."in Human Organization
30, 4.
Taylor,J. V. 1963. The Primal Vision. London:SCM Press Ltd.
Tchidimbo, E. M. 1963. L'HommeNoir dans L'Eglise. Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
Tempels, P1. 1945. Le Philosophie Bantoue. (Traduit du Neerlandais par A. Rubbens).
Elisabethville:Lovania. (1949) Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
1946. Bantoe-Filosofie.Antwerpen:De Sikkel.
1959. Bantu Philosophy.Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
. 1962. NotreRecontreI. L6opoldville:Centred'EtudesPastorales.
-Tempels, P1. 1979. Philosophie Bantu. Introduction et Revision de la Traduction de A.
Rubbenssur le 'texte' originalpar A. J. Smet. Fac. de Theologie Catholique:Kinshasa.
Terray,E. 1969. Le Marxisme devantles SocietesPrimitives. Paris:Maspero.
Tobner, 0. 1982. "CheikhAnta Diop, l'heretique."in PeuplesNoirs, PeuplesAfricains 30:
85-91.
Theuws, Th. 1951. "PhilosophieBantoue et PhilosophieOccidentale."in Civilisations 1.
Thomas. L. V. 1958. "Posivitisme et Metaphysique. Reflexions A propos de la Culture
Noire." in Aspectsde la CultureNoire. Paris:Fayard.
. 1960. "Un Systeme Philosophique S6nagalais:la Cosmologie Diola" in Presence
Africaine 32-33.
1982. La MortAfricaine.IdeologieFuneraireen AfriqueNoire. Paris:Payot.
Thomas, L. V.; Luneau, R. and Doneux, J. -L. 1969. Les Religions d'AfriqueNoire. Paris:
Fayard/Denoel.
Thornton,A. P. 1959. The ImperialIdea and Its Enemies. London:MacMillan.
Thornton, R. 1983. "Narrativeethnographyin Africa 1850-1920: the creationand capture
of an appropriatedomain for anthropology."in Man 18, 3.
Toure, S. 1959a. ExperienceGuineenneet UniteAfricaine. Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
Toure, S. 1959b. Guinde.Prdluded l'independance.Paris:PresenceAfricaine.
- 1959c.
.
Rpublique deGuinoe. Conakry:Impr. PatriceLumumba.
232
Tort, P. and P. Desalmand. 1979. Sciences Humaines et Philosophie en Afrique. La
DifferenceCulturelle.Paris:Hatier.
Towa, M. 197la. LepoldSedar Senghor.:Negritudeou Servitude.Yaounde:Cle.
. 1971b. Essai sur la ProblematiquePhilosophiquedans l'AfriqueActuelle. Yaound&:
Cl.
. 1979. L'Idee d'une PhilosophieAfricaine. Yaounde:Cl6.
Trilles, R. P. 1931. Les Pygmeesde la ForetEquatoriale.Paris:Bloud et Gay.
Tshiamalenga,Nt. 1973. "La Vision Ntu de 1'Homme.Essai de Philosophie linguistiqueet
anthropologique."in Cahiersdes ReligonsAfricaines 7: 176-99.
. 1974. "La Philosophie de la Faute dans la TraditionLuba"in Cahiersdes Religions
Africaines 8, 167-86.
1977a. "Qu'est-ceque la 'PhilosophieAfricaine."La PhilosophieAfricine I: 33-46.
--.
- 1977b. "Languesbantu et Philosophie.Le Cas du Ciluba."La PhilosophieAfricaine
I: 147-58.
. 1980. Denken und SprechenEin Beitrag zum Relativitats-prinzipam Beispiel einer
Bantusprache(Ciluba). Frankfurt/Main,Ph.D. dissertation.
. 1981. "La Philosophie dans la Situation Actuelle de 1'Afrique."Combatspour un
ChristiamismeAfricain. Kinshasa:Facult6de ThbologieCatholique.
Tshibangu, Th. 1965. Theologiepositive et Theologiespeculative.Position traditonnelleet
nouvelleProblematique.Louvain-Paris:B6atriceNauwelaerts.
1974. Le Propos d'une Theologie Africaine. Kinshasa: Presses Universitaire du
Zaire.
. 1977. "L'AfriqueNoire et le Christianisme."Cahiersdes ReligionsAfricaines 11, 1:
21-22.
. 1980. Theologiecomme Science au XXe sihcle. Kinshasa:Presses Universitairedu
Zaire.
Tshibangu, Th. and Vanneste, A. 1960. "Debat sur la Thbologie Africaine." Revue du
ClergeAfricain 15.
Tshibangu,W. M. 1972. Science et Superstitionchez A. Comte. Ph.D. Dissertation.Dijon:
Fac. des Lettres.
Turgot, A-R-J. 1913-1923. Oeuvres deTurgot et Documents le concernant, avec une
bibliographieet notes par G. Schelle, 5 vols. Paris.
Turnbull,C. M. 1962. The LonelyAfrican. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Turner,V. W. 1969. The Ritual Process. Chicago:Aldine.
Ugirashebuja,0. 1977. Dialogue entre le Poesie et la Pensee dans l'Oeuvrede Heidegger.
Brussels:Lumen Vitae.
Van Caeneghem, R. 1956. La Notion de Dieu chez les Balubas du Kasai. Bruxelles:
Acad6mieRoyale des Sciences Coloniales.
Van Lierde,J. 1963. La Penseepolitiquede PatriceLumumba. Paris:Pr6senceAfricaine.
Van Oberbergh,C. 1913. Les Nagresde l'Afrique.Bruxelles:A. de Wit.
Van Parys, J. M. 1978. "Philosophie en Afrique. Analyse du S6minairesur la Philosophie
Africaine d'Addis-Ababa. 1-3 December 1976." Melanges de Philosophie Africaine.
Kinshasa:Facult6de ThbologieCatholique.
1981. "Etat Actuel de l'Activit6 Philosophique en Afrique." Langage et Societe.
Kinshasa:Facult6de ThbologieCatholique.
Vansina, J. 1961. De la TraditionOrale.Essai de MethodeHistorique.Tervuren:MRAC.
Vaughan,A. T. 1982. "From White Man to Redskin:ChangingAnglo-AmericanPerception
of the AmericanIndian." TheAmericanHistoryReview 87.
Verger,P. 1968. Flux et Reflux de la Traite des N gres entre le Golf du Benin et Bahia de
Todosos Santos du XFVau XIX sidcle. Paris:Mouton.
Veto, M. 1962. "Unit6 et Dualit6 de la Conception du Mal chez les Bantu Orientaux."
Cahiersd'EtudesAfricines 8.
Vilasco, G. 1983. "Philosophie,Anthropologieet Culture,"in H. O. Oruka(ed.) Philosophy
and Cultures.Nairobi: Bookwise Ltd.
AFRICANGNOSIS
233
Vincke, J. L. 1973. Le Prix du Peche. Essai de PsychanalyseExistentielle des Traditions
Mont Noir.
Europeenneet Africaine. Kinshasa-Lubumbashi:
Wagner, R. 1981. The Invention of Culture. Chicago and London: The University of
Chicago Press.
Wallerstein, I. 1979. The Capitalist WorldEconomy. Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity
Press.
Wamba-Dia-Wamba,E. 1980. "La Philosophie en Afrique ou les Defis de l'Africain
philosophe," pp. 225-44 in A. Schwarz (eds.) Les faux Prophttes de l'Afrique ou
.
l'Afr(eu)canisme
Wassing,R. S. 1969. L'Artde l'AfriqueNoire. Fribourg:Officedu Livre.
Wauthier,Cl. 1964. L'Afriquedes Africains.Inventairede la Negritude.Paris:Seuil.
White, H. 1979. "Michel Foucault," in J. Sturrock(ed.) Structuralismand Sine. Oxford:
OxfordUniversity Press.
Willame, J. Cl. 1976. "L'AutreFace du Roaume ou le Meurtredu Pbre." Gen~ve-Afrique
15, 1.
Williams, G. 1967. The Expansion of Europe in the XVIIIth Century. OverseasRivalry.
Discoveryand Exploitation. New York:Walker& Company.
Wiredu,J. E. 1973. "Logicand Ontology"Second Order2, 1 and 2, 2.
1977. "How Not to Compare African Thought with Western Thought," in R.
WrightAfricanPhilosophy:An Introduction.Washington:University Press of America.
1980. Philosophyand AfricanCulture.Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press.
--.
Witte, De, C. M. 1958. "Les Bulles Pontificaleset l'ExpansionPortugaiseau XVe sidcle."
Revue d'HistoireEcclsiastiquel 53.
Wright, R. 1977. African Philosophy.:An Introduction. Washington:University Press of
America.
Yai, 0. 1977. "Theory and Practice in African Philosophy: The Poverty of Speculative
Philosophy." Second Order, 6, 2. French version of the article in PresenceAfricaine,
1978, 108.
Young, M. C. 1982. Ideology and Developmentin Africa. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Zahan, D. 1959. Societes d'InitiationBambara. Paris:Mouton.
1963. La Dialectiquedu Verbechez les Bambara. Paris:Mouton.
1979. The Religion, Spirituality, and Thought of TraditionalAfrica. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Zoa, I. 1957. Pour un Nationalisme Chretienau Cameroun.Yaounde:Saint Paul.

African Gnosis Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge: An

Transcription

Documents pareils

winning the job

This month we ask our panelists “What are the current

IMP 19 Culture 2004

Ms.Françoise - French Teacher

cv américain management

MEMORANDUM

French Language Text / Theory and Practice 1st Year

Conference. - L`IRD au Sénégal

ANNE BAQUET, soprano