Autores, obras y objetivos de la literatura picaresca

Mudimbe speaks of three main approaches in current African philosophical prac- tice. First is the critique of ethnophilosophy, a critique which draws upon the Western philosophical tradition’s view of appropriate philosophical practice. The second is the ‘foundational’ approach, which questions the epistemological foun- dations of the human and social sciences. The third approach includes philologi- cal studies, critical anthropology, and hermeneutics. The Ghanaian philosopher Kwame Gyekye distinguishes between traditional and modern African philoso- phy, while other African philosophers such as Sodipo and the Congolese philos- opher Tshiamalenga simply distinguish between professional and traditional Af- rican philosophy.

If one examines the discussion surrounding the various types or models of Af- rican philosophy mentioned so far, one recurring issue that emerges is whether philosophy is to be construed primarily as ‘professional philosophy’, and thus ultimately along the lines of the institution of Western philosophy during the last millennium, or to be construed contextually as some form of culture philosophy. In addition to those who think of philosophy contextually, there are some whose effort is directed towards making explicit the worldviews of traditional cultures,

19 while others are more concerned that philosophy be relevant to issues of inde- pendence, modernization, and development (Nkrumah 1970). Perhaps a better way of stating the problem is in these two pertinent questions:

1) Is philosophy the product of a universal human reason or is every philosophy primarily an expression of the culture which produces it?

2) Could the meeting of African philosophy and the other philosophical traditions all over the globe not produce novel and promising directions for philosophy as a whole?

The heart of the matter is that, for a long time, African philosophy, as dis- played by academic African/Africanist philosophers, was largely dependent on the so-called mainstream Western philosophical establishment. Their use of cate- gories and conceptual systems in a non-Western context like Africa still depend- ed on Western epistemological orders, with indifference towards indigenous Af- rican philosophy. Mudimbe claims that even those that professed to be ‘Afrocen- tric’ in their representations, consciously or unconsciously still referred to the same Western epistemological orders. Such descriptions are as much products of Western cultural priorities and prejudices as anything African. The pow- er/knowledge system (Foucault) of colonialism propagandized Western civiliza- tion, philosophy included, as the cultural paradigm. Africa was constructed as the ‘Other’, and most things African were viewed as negations of that paradigm (Mudimbe 1988).

Even though Oruka, in his sage philosophy project, implicitly intends to coun- ter the Eurocentric bias against traditional African thought, he does not explicitly interrogate Western images of Africa nor challenge their hegemony. His modern- ist position in the project is a propagation, however indirect, of Western hegemo- ny in African studies/philosophy.28 Oruka’s philosophical position and aesthetic style is rooted in the modernist Enlightenment and its belief in reason, and in the idea that man can decisively shape the world, that history is progress, that logi- cal, rational thought can penetrate all mystery, and that there are no murky depths of existence that cannot thus be illuminated. Some modernist scholars are look- ing for absolute knowledge in science. They believe that science is objective, universal, and rational. Early Enlightenment ideals involved rational enquiry as the guiding principle for all knowledge, and the belief that only progress in intel- lectual method could bring about a world of order, security, and social under- standing. Scholars associated with this tradition include the philosophers Kant and Voltaire. The flipside to this position is that, in believing that their values should be universally applied, Enlightenment thinkers tended to see Europe as

28

Oruka (1991) provides as a sub-title: ‘Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate on African Philoso- phy’ [my italics].

the most enlightened and civilized part of the world. Hegel, for example, thought it was morally permissible to colonize non-Western peoples.

Oruka’s tendentious dependence on the Western epistemological order is de- fensible from the modernist position described above. However, the modernist position in itself is in serious doubt from the post-modern standpoint and from existential critiques. Post-modernism has developed since the 1950s and embrac- es the relativism of a sophist like Protagoras and even Aristotle. For the post- modernist, knowledge claims are not absolute or universal, but they exist in rela- tion to specific discourses. The French post-modern philosopher Jean- Francois Lyotard (1924-1998) argues that knowledge can be legitimated only by reference to the scientific language-game in which it is made.29 For Derrida (1976), there is no such thing as a truth in itself, as truth is plural. The post-modern position re- jects modern theory and recognizes a situation where a multitude of theories ex- ists and none is superior to any other. Post-modernists reject modernism’s ‘grand’ narrative, meta (master) narratives à la Lyotard, and narratives that claim to be scientific, objective, and universal, that serve to legitimate modernity and assume justice, truth, theory, hegemony. In addition, existentialist critiques of modernism agree with Western Marxists that Enlightenment heritage is totalitari- an and dominating. The German philosophers Horkheimer and Adorno remind us of the dangers contained in a Faustian celebration of science without humanity or morality (Horkheimer & Adorno 2002). In common with German philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), post- modernists share scepticism about the possibility of truth, reason, and moral uni- versals, a conviction that terms like ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are inappropriate and an insistence that subjective and conflicting interpretations are the closest humans can come to ‘understanding’.30 While aware of the hegemonic tendencies in the use of science, American philosopher Sandra Harding has no option but to admit that all of science is a mere myth, an ethnoscience, but that some of its methods do warrant science’s pretence to objectivity, rationality, and validity (Harding 1994, 1997).

29

Lyotard explicitly draws inspiration from Wittgenstein’s language-game in elaborating his own idea of ‘Grand’ narrative in his book The Postmodern Condition. According to Austrian-born British phi- losopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), language-game refers to the context in which an utterance is made, which determines the purposes served by the utterance and therefore its meaning. Wittgen- stein thought that philosophical problems are due to ignoring the ‘game’ in which certain ideas are used. He conceives of a plurality of language-games and tries to show the different activities language users engage in. Lyotard applies this notion mainly in his analyses of power, authority, and legitima- tion.

30 _{Further discussion of post-modernism and its criticisms of modernism is found in Chapter 5 of this} work.

21 However, could this imply that African worldviews and African ways of thinking cannot be carefully thought out and made explicit within what we could term the framework of their own rationality? (Mudimbe 1988). Mudimbe’s ques- tion aims at exposing and, if possible, avoiding some silent dependence on a Western episteme. He proposes knowledge from:

[...] a wider authority: intellectuals’ discourses as a critical library and, if I could, the experience of rejected forms of wisdom which are not part of the structures of politi- cal power and scientific knowledge. (Mudimbe1988:x-xi)

Modern science ought to consider itself as a knowledge system among other knowledge systems, which each contain their respective criteria of truth and claims of validity. I submit that in contemporary times, characterized by globali- zation, a more satisfactory way to deal with African philosophy is the method that has been developed in intercultural philosophical studies. This will provide us with insights and information about traditions of knowledge and intellectual practice elsewhere in the world, in social contexts very different from our own. This will involve taking African and other globally available knowledge tradi- tions seriously in a bid to flavour and augment each knowledge tradition.