Why the ‘Politics’ against African Philosophy should be Discontinued

Abstract

We argue that philosophy education across the globe is still bedevilled with the ‘politics’ of marginalization of less favoured traditions like African philosophy. Extant works show that the conventional curriculum of philosophy used in educational institutions across the globe is predominantly Western and, as such, very much colonial. We contend that this amounts to a sort of ‘epistemic injustice’ that is detrimental to knowledge production. We argue specifically that this ‘politics’ should be discontinued. We propose the conversational tradition, out of which a philosophy curriculum that is comprehensive and antithetical to the politics of exclusion may be developed.

Echoes from the Great Divide: On the Faltering Philosophical Dialogue between Africa and the West

“…But the facts seem to belie this thesis (at least as far as relations between Africa and the West are concerned). Should we assume a lack of interest, or bland ethnocentrism, on the side of Westerners, as some African philosophers, like Jonathan Chimakonam (2018a), do? But why would philosophers differ in this regard from other Westerners?…”