Wow! eBook
African Philosophies
Author(s): Séverine Kodjo-Grandvaux (Author), Matthew B. Smith (Translator)
- Publisher: Polity
- Publication Date: September 2, 2025
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 270 pages
- ISBN-10: 1509558454
- ISBN-13: 9781509558452
Book Description
In this important book Séverine Kodjo-Grandvaux argues that a serious engagement with African philosophy is long overdue. She shows that there is a rich tradition of philosophical thought in Africa that addresses issues ranging from the legacies of colonialism to the nature of time, the state, responsibility, identity, dignity and personhood. An engagement with African philosophy also offers a fresh perspective on Western philosophy, prompting us to interrogate ourselves and our own history. Conceptualizing African philosophy becomes a way of conceptualizing the world and of understanding how to know ourselves through the gaze of another.
African Philosophies is not so much a survey of philosophy in Africa but rather an account of how the question of African philosophy emerged in the second half of the 20th century and of what we can learn from a serious engagement with African philosophy today. It will be of great interest to students and scholars in philosophy, in colonial and postcolonial studies and throughout the humanities.Editorial Reviews
Review
Teodros Kiros, Professor of Philosophy at Harvard Summer School and host of The Kiros Report
“Severine Kodjo-Grandvaux has written a wonderful and insightful text that rejects Western conceptualizations of philosophy that are used to devalue and exclude African philosophies as legitimate.
African Philosophies favors clarity and precision in its discussion of African philosophers’ ideas and insights into the human condition over the political or ethical pleas for inclusion often found in many works of comparative philosophy. Kodjo-Grandvaux insists that philosophies should wander beyond the artificial borders of Western thought towards the diverse cultural possibilities of the human. Diop, Oruka, Wiredu, and Appiah become world thinkers reflecting upon the differences and plurality found among peoples in Africa and the world. Instead of continuing the colonial heritage of Western (white) philosophy that believes it must teach lesser peoples the white ways of thinking, Kodjo-Grandvaux insists that African philosophies have much to teach the West about human potentiality and being.”Tommy J. Curry, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh
“an admirable overview of key meta-philosophical debates in African philosophy, which will be of interest to anyone who is concerned with intellectual responses to colonialism and its aftermath on the African continent.”
Postcolonial Studies
