Original Research

Decolonisation of African philosophy: Regular – abstraction or scientific thinking?

Johan A. van Rooyen
Inkanyiso | Vol 16, No 1 | a112 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/ink.v16i1.112 | © 2024 Johan A. van Rooyen | This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 09 January 2024 | Published: 25 July 2024

About the author(s)

Johan A. van Rooyen, Research Institute for Theology and Religion, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa

Abstract

It is this article’s projection to think decolonised as an African (as my own Gestimmheid is from Africa), with Okolo’s proposition that African philosophy appeared only from the African-European connection. Okolo, was what can be point to, as utterances of philosophical proclivities that are not philosophically inherent, viewed as a (the) philosophy in Africa that originated and persisted in Africa. This can be explicated as an elementary cultural utterance of sapiens in Africa. Yet, original philosophy is defined by captious cogitation or thinking that originated post-World War II whereupon Africans should have seized some degree of precise scholarly and spontaneity, thus African philosophy. Still, it raises the inquiry: Why primarily inquire African philosophy? What is the motive behind African philosophy formulation of African sagaciousness, be a by-product of an African-European connection? A transparent enigma in Okolo’s stance is the assertion that the aggregated African, specifically the substance of being-African that he labelled with the phrase being-with is a non-African-radiation, and therefore not a realistic sapiens philosophy for European radiation on African philosophy.

Contribution: This article investigates the theory or proposal that being or existential designate the evidence of existence that is at the heart or core of philosophy, an African-philosophy in its affirmative stance, without the European connection. This investigation then derives from: one, to evaluate the critique from sceptic authors against Okolo’s deficiency, two, to investigate the dating of the African philosophy thus the locality that philosophy has consistently abided and could be acquired in the dating’s spheres, and three, presupposes that what Africa is can then, with credibility, carry Africa.


Keywords

Okolo; Africa; philosophy; dating/periodisation; thinking; cultural; educatedness; inter-subjectivity; Veldsman

Sustainable Development Goal

Goal 4: Quality education

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