THE AFRICANITY AND PHILOSOPHICALITY OF AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY

Abstract

One of the early debates in the historical development of African Philosophy has been on whether there is an African philosophy or not. While a school, primarily Africans, argued that there is an African philosophy, another school argued that there is no African philosophy. This argument in the negative was drawn from the poor concept and portrayal of who the African is and what he is capable of achieving by early historians and ethnologists. However, this piece revisits the argument and tries to argue for the philosophicality of African thought from the universalistic concept of philosophy, which is drawn from the fact that man is a rational being. From a particularistic point of view, this piece also argues for the ‘africanity’ of African philosophy, which speaks of the sitz en leben of African philosophy, and which provides the ingredients that defines it as African.