Microsoft Word - TUTORIAL LETTER 201.docx

1 PLS1501/203/1/2021 TUTORIAL LETTER 201/01/2021 Introduction to African Philosophy PLS 1502 Semesters 1 and 2 Department of Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology IMPORTANT INFORMATION This TUTORIAL LETTER contains important information about your first assignment PLS1502/201/1/2021 2 CONTENTS Page 1 INTRODUCTION .. 3 2 PURPOSE OF TUTORIAL LETTER .. 3 3 The Ideal Solutions for Assignment 1 .. 3 4 CONCLUSION .. 7 PLS1502/201/1/2021 3 1 INTRODUCTION Dear Student, we hope that you are well and coping as best as you can through the crisis of this unprecedented global pandemic and pandemic semester. 2 PURPOSE OF TUTORIAL LETTER The following TUTORIAL LETTER contains the ideal solutions for the first assignment.

2 The answers are not exhaustive but provide you with an example of an approach to the assignments that would have gotten you a distinction grade 3 The Ideal Solutions for Assignment 1 Questions: For a value of 20 marks each please discuss briefly what your understanding of the following contains: African philosophy [20 marks] In answering this question the student could have gone about it a various ways focussing either exclusively on etymology, periodisation, different movements in the field or discussing the particular movements, figures , branches or problems. Etymology The student focussing on etymology would have provided a discussion of the roots of both Africa and philosophy and the combination of the two terms.

3 Although the matter itself is as contentious as many other philosophical problems. Africa is at the very least the descriptor of a geographical location, a continent of various peoples and the undisputed birth place of human civilisation. There are numerous interesting debates in relation to the cultural unity of Africa itself. Whereas theoreticians like Diop, Obenga and Chami maintain that despite the various so-described ethnic and linguistic groups , there nevertheless subsists throughout the African continent a unity both linguistic and cultural which makes it meaningful to describe its people and their philosophical tradition as African philosophy.

4 Critics of the cultural and linguistic unity hypothesis like Appiah on the other hand maintain that the differences between various groups of African peoples are so fundamental as to be comparable to for instance the difference between Germans and Zulus. On this account it would be unsustainable to talk of African philosophy since Africa itself is not in this view a coherent and defensible descriptor of people. In speaking of Africa too some authors have included all African-descended peoples (for example African Americans and Afro-Carribeans) whereas others insist only those on the continent may be so-described. PLS1502/201/1/2021 4 Philosophy on the other hand is usually translated to the love of wisdom on the basis of its Greek rendition , there are some like Obenga who insist the word itself predates its Greek adoption and originates from the Ancient Egyptian language.

5 In any case what philosophy itself is , continues to be contested by philosophers even in the western tradition. Historically for example what today is described as physics was in the time of Isaac Newton called Natural philosophy. There are those who maintain that there are as many definitions for philosophy as there are philosophers. You would only have been required to provide your own characterisation and understanding of what philosophy consists of . Most philosophers agree that it is a culturally grounded and critical account of reality which includes a self-critique of the account itself. Traditionally philosophy has been broken down into metaphysics (which deals with what there is or the nature of reality ), epistemology (how do we know about that reality and what does it mean to know anything at all), ethics (what must we do with that knowledge of reality) and politics (an extension of the ethical dimension in the organisation of societies and communities).

6 African philosophy could in this way then be understood precisely as the particular perspectives arising from Africa itself, its own critical perspective on these questions. Periodisation There are ancient, mediaeval , modern and contemporary periods in the history of African philosophy , each period consisting of its various problems, concerns and figures. Movements, figures , problems Your particular studies in this module focussed upon the contemporary tradition of African philosophy. This period has since the 1970s unfolded according to a typology given by Oruka as consisting of Ethno-philosophy, Nationalistic-ideological philosophy, Professional philosophy as well as Philosophical Sagacity.

7 He later added African philosophical hermeneutics to his original schema. The figures or authors associated with each school , though not un-controversially included Alexis Kagame in the case of Ethnophilosophy, Nkrumah and Biko in the case of Nationalistic Ideological philosophy, Paulin Hountondji and Marcien Towa in the case of Professional philosophy, Henry Odera Oruka in the case of Philosophical Sagacity and Tsenay Serequeberhan and Theophilus Okere in the case of African Philosophical Hermeneutics . Depending on the particular orientation of the philosopher and tradition in question, problems in African metaphysics for instance include the concept of cause in light of witchcraft, in ethics they include the problem of personhood and its origins, in politics they include problems of race and the liberation of the post-colonial state from neo-colonialism.

8 You were at liberty to mention and discuss any of the various problems which have arisen during your studies PLS1502/201/1/2021 5 Ethnophilosophy [20 marks] Ethno-philosophy is a matter of great controversy and is largely associated with the criticism which was levelled by Paulin Hountondji against the intellectual practice of his contemporaries. The gist of Hountondji s critique was that what his colleagues were doing was ethnology pretending to be philosophy. What he accused them of doing was simply collecting the collective beliefs and viewpoints of different ethnic groups on particular questions like the existence of god, the objections to murder, the nature of souls for example.

9 He argued that simply expressing these collective views under titles like the Xhosa view on interpersonal ethics or The Zulu understanding of the mind body problem while interesting were not really exercises in philosophy but ethnology. He argued among other things that philosophy was out of necessity critical, it should include not simply a catalogue of views but a self-critique of them. He insisted also that philosophy was in fact an individual rather than collective endeavour and could not as such be ascribed to any collective but to individual philosophers more correctly. In addition he insisted that a written tradition was necessary for any discussion of philosophy since this was the medium for critical and inter-temporal dialogue forming anything which could be called a tradition.

10 Because the term ethnophilosophy was used pejoratively , not all those accused of doing it accepted the judgment, so we will call them ethnophilosophers in inverted commas. Their defence included pointing out that every individual philosopher inherits his tradition, problems, language from a community and so philosophy is never simply the exercise of individuals. The also raised objections against his insistence on writing as a possibility condition for critical discourse by raising how Socrates for example , a widely accepted figure in the history of philosophy never wrote. They argued that it was indeed possible to engage critically via oral discourse and to sustain a critical tradition and perspective in collective ways which contained interpersonal disputes and differences.