Divided into eight sections, each with introductory essays, the selections offer rich and detailed insights into a diverse multinational philosophical landscape. Revealed in this pathbreaking work is the way in which traditional philosophical issues related to ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology, for instance, take on specific forms in Africa's postcolonial struggles. Much of its moral, political, and social philosophy is concerned with the turbulent processes of embracing modern identities while protecting ancient cultures.

Given that Enlightenment rationality developed in Europe as European nations aggressively claimed other parts of the world for their own enrichment, scholars have made rationality the subject of postcolonial critique, questioning its universality and objectivity. In _On Reason_, the late philosopher Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze demonstrates that rationality, and by extension philosophy, need not be renounced as manifestations or tools of Western imperialism. Examining reason in connection to the politics of difference—the cluster of issues known variously as cultural diversity, political correctness, (...) the culture wars, and identity politics—Eze expounds a rigorous argument that reason is produced through and because of difference. In so doing, he preserves reason as a human property while at the same time showing that it cannot be thought outside the realities of cultural diversity. Advocating rationality in a multicultural world, he proposes new ways of affirming both identity and difference. Eze draws on an extraordinary command of Western philosophical thought and a deep knowledge of African philosophy and cultural traditions. He explores models of rationality in the thought of philosophers from Aristotle, René Descartes, Francis Bacon, and Thomas Hobbes to Noam Chomsky, Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, and Jacques Derrida, and he considers portrayals of reason in the work of the African thinkers and novelists Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and Wole Soyinka. Eze reflects on contemporary thought about genetics, race, and postcolonial historiography as well as on the interplay between reason and unreason in the hearings of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He contends that while rationality may have a foundational formality, any understanding of its foundation and form is dynamic, always based in historical and cultural circumstances. (shrink)

The Protestant ethic — a moral code stressing hard work, rigorous self-discipline, and the organization of one's life in the service of God — was made famous by sociologist and political economist Max Weber. In this brilliant study (his best-known and most controversial), he opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and its view that change takes place through "the struggle of opposites." Instead, he relates the rise of a capitalist economy to the Puritan determination to work out anxiety over (...) salvation or damnation by performing good deeds — an effort that ultimately discouraged belief in predestination and encouraged capitalism. Weber's classic study has long been required reading in college and advanced high school social studies classrooms. (shrink)

Africa is reconstituting its post-colonial character; much of its moral, political, and social thought is concerned with the turbulent process of embracing its modern identity while protecting its ancient cultures. Reflecting this process, this new edition of 'The African Philosophy reader' also addresses provocative ideas about gender and race in Africa: When was the African woman 'invented'? What is the political morality of race? Africa's place in the global context, and the much publicized 'African Renaissance', are put under the prism (...) of critical analysis. These pressing and increasingly urgent issues are eloquently addressed in a fascinating interplay of voices from both Africa and the West. 'The African Philosophy Reader' is the perfect guide to the fascinating world of African thought. (shrink)

This piece is one of among a handful that seek in the first instance to reveal the origin of African philosophy as an academic discipline, the source of its unity and distinctiveness. The discipline of African philosophy originates in tragedy, out of pain, confusion and rage stemming from colonial destruction; destruction that is responsible for what Fanon calls the ‘negro neurosis' caused by what Biko would describe as the unbearable fusion of colonised and coloniser. I argue that the birth of (...) African philosophy as an academic discipline is largely responsible for its character and, crucially, for its distinctive creative possibilities. South African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 27 2008: pp. 285-295. (shrink)

This piece is one of among a handful that seek in the first instance to reveal the origin of African philosophy as an academic discipline, the source of its unity and distinctiveness. The discipline of African philosophy originates in tragedy, out of pain, confusion and rage stemming from colonial destruction; destruction that is responsible for what Fanon calls the ‘negro neurosis’ caused by what Biko would describe as the unbearable fusion of colonised and coloniser. I argue that the birth of (...) African philosophy as an academic discipline is largely responsible for its character and, crucially, for its distinctive creative possibilities. (shrink)

This book continues and revises the ideas of justice as fairness that John Rawls presented in _A Theory of Justice_ but changes its philosophical interpretation in a fundamental way. That previous work assumed what Rawls calls a "well-ordered society," one that is stable and relatively homogenous in its basic moral beliefs and in which there is broad agreement about what constitutes the good life. Yet in modern democratic society a plurality of incompatible and irreconcilable doctrines--religious, philosophical, and moral--coexist within the (...) framework of democratic institutions. Recognizing this as a permanent condition of democracy, Rawls asks how a stable and just society of free and equal citizens can live in concord when divided by reasonable but incompatible doctrines? This edition includes the essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited," which outlines Rawls ' plans to revise _Political Liberalism,_ which were cut short by his death. "An extraordinary well-reasoned commentary on _A Theory of Justice_...a decisive turn towards political philosophy." --_Times Literary Supplement_. (shrink)

Translation of 'The Meaning of Life' (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) into Persian by Abdulfazl Tavakoli Shandiz. Printed as a booklet.

The eminent Ghanaian philosopher Kwasi Wiredu confronts the paradox that while Western cultures recoil from claims of universality, previously colonized peoples, seeking to redefine their identities, insist on cultural particularities.

In spite of decolonisation, the philosophical character of European standpoint on colonisation together with its corresponding practices remains unchanged in its relations with the erstwhile colonies. It is precisely this condition which calls for the need for the authentic liberation of Africa. This speaks of a two-fold exigency. One is that the colonised people's conceptions of reality, knowledge and truth should be released from slavery and dominance under the European epistemological paradigm. Without this essential first step there cannot evolve a (...) common authentic and liberating universe of discourse. The second exigency is that the evolving common universe of discourse must take into account the rational demands of justice to the colonised arising from the unjust wars of conquest that resulted in colonial disseizing of territory as well as the enslavement of the colonised. These rational demands of justice are specifically the restoration of territory to its indigenous rightful owners and reparations to them. This two fold exigency is the indisplensable neccessity for the authentic liberation of Africa, and indeed, all the colonised people of the world. (shrink)

Modernity's Consciousness of Time and Its Need for Self- Reassurance In his famous introduction to the collection of his studies on the sociology of ...

Describes the received theory of necessary and sufficient conditions, explains some standard objections to it, and lays out alternative ways of thinking about conditions and conditionals.

Environmental ethics is the discipline in philosophy that studies the moral relationship of human beings to, and also the value and moral status of, the environment and its nonhuman contents. This entry covers: (1) the challenge of environmental ethics to the anthropocentrism (i.e., humancenteredness) embedded in traditional western ethical thinking; (2) the early development of the discipline in the 1960s and 1970s; (3) the connection of deep ecology, feminist environmental ethics, and social ecology to politics; (4) the attempt to apply (...) traditional ethical theories, including consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics, to support contemporary environmental concerns; and (5) the focus of environmental literature on wilderness, and possible future developments of the discipline. (shrink)

The communitarian conception of person is the dominant view of personhood in African philosophy. This view centrally holds that personhood is something that is attained in direct proportion to one's moral worth and one's relations with her surrounding community. This view understands personhood as something that is acquired as one's moral responsibility grows. Essentially personhood is constituted by the community and expressed in relations that one has with her community. Thus the individual and the community are both tied in the (...) same fate. The individual is seen as constituted by the community and as one with the community. Whatever happens to her happens to the whole community. Some leaders of newly independent Africa used this communitarian VIew of personhood to argue for a socialist order. Such an order would have been faithful to the traditional communitarian conception of person and the soc,i al as well as the economic order that proceeds from that conception. In order to develop an authentically African socialist programme these leaders strived to show that the communitarian conception of personhood naturally leads to African socialism. They took African socialism to be a panacea to economic and social ills that had been brought on by colonialism. This thesis seeks to interrogate both the communitarian conception of personhood and the resultant political ideology of African socialism. It is argued that the major driving factor behind the development of the communitarian view and African socialism is an inordinate desire to find and present the African difference. The problem started with Placide Tempels' futile search for an African ontology and has been perpetuated by all communitarians and African socialists. Thus this project is conceived as a philosophical critique of African communitarianism and the resultant socialism. (shrink)