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African Philosophy: The State of its Historiography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

J. Obi Oguejiofor
J. Obi Oguejiofor*
Affiliation:
Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nigeria
*
J. Obi Oguejiofor, Department of Philosophy, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nigeria. Email: Obioguejiofor@yahoo.com
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Abstract

Departing from Charles Taylor’s statement that philosophy is inescapably historical, the paper tries to examine several attempts to write the history of African philosophy. It notes that contrary to the experience of many other regional philosophies there is yet no comprehensive history of African philosophy which takes full account of its the different spectrums and periods. A good number of authors who have tried to recount the history of African philosophy have dwelt only on aspects or periods of that philosophy thus precluding the advantage of presenting African philosophy as a coherent whole. An examination of the weakness and the strong points of some of these works leads to the assertion of the necessity of comprehensive history of African philosophy, as well as a weighing of the possible reasons why no serious attempt have been made in that direction. Writing such a work will be the last complement of the History of Africa.

Type
Articles
Information
Diogenes , Volume 59 , Issue 3-4: Africana Philosophy , November 2012 , pp. 139 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2013

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