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African Philosophy: The End of a Debate

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Encyclopedia of African Religions and Philosophy
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In the last three decades, the problems that have sustained the debate on African Philosophy could be framed in such questions as: What is philosophy? What is African Philosophy? In their typical traditional cultures, did the Africans ever engage in philosophical discussions? Whatever the nature of an African Philosophy, is it a unique thought-system distinct from philosophies of other cultures, or does it overlap in significant ways with the others? These questions were asked and discussed in the 1960s, 1970s, and the greater part of the 1980s. Numerous articles were published during this period debating and evaluating the subject of African philosophy. Some scholars who produced books about this debate were: Paulin J. Hountondji (1977, 1983), Kwasi Wiredu (1980), Claude Sumner (1980), P.O. Bodunrin (1983), H. Odera Oruka (1990), and V.Y. Mudimbe (1988). This debate has produced a number of interesting and significant theories about philosophy in general and African Philosophy in...

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Correspondence to Henry Odera Oruka .

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Oruka, H.O. (2021). African Philosophy: The End of a Debate. In: Mudimbe, V.Y., Kavwahirehi, K. (eds) Encyclopedia of African Religions and Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-2068-5_14

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