Oruka’s project of sage philosophy focuses on texts from many interviews with individual sages. A brief biographical sketch and photograph precedes each in- terview. This practice stands in contrast to the ethnophilosophical practice, in which the views of informants (often anonymous) are summarized in the search for a common denominator (Presbey 2007), collective thought is emphasized, and meaning is sought in collective practices.
Oginga Odinga: His Philosophy and Beliefs (1992) is the first book in the Sage Philosophy Series, edited by Oruka. The main purpose of this series is to demonstrate the existence of individualized philosophies in Africa (Oruka 1992: 21). By detecting the African sage and acting as midwife, Oruka helps the sage produce his or her wisdom for posterity. Oruka’s conversations with Odinga fo- cus on diverse issues, such as truth, morality, and compromise in politics. The individual sage Odinga is presented in this book as one such African sage re- nowned for his Africanist and international role as a staunch nationalist thinker and activist. Oruka even thinks Odinga is very much like the British philosopher Bertrand Russell in his unfaltering ‘love for truth’, unrelenting ‘will for inde- pendence’, and ‘deepest sympathy with the suffering masses’ (ibid. 3).
Oruka’s method in identifying individuals is greeted by Wiredu as the first to give ‘substantial notice’ of individual philosophical thinkers in Africa (Wiredu 1996: 116), and Nigerian philosopher Emmanuel Eze (1999) credits Oruka with correctly emphasizing the importance of retaining the identity of individual thinkers. Hountondji (2002), in spite of his fierce criticisms of ethnophilosophy, claims he was impressed with Griaule’s work because it focused on an individu- al. He also credits Griaule for transcribing the words of one man, the guardian of ancestral tradition and the slavish mouthpiece of group wisdom. Hountondji does not hide his appreciation for Griaule:
Voluntarily assigning to himself the humble task of a secretary, custodian, transcriber of the worldview of a black sage, of one spiritual master among others, the French ethnologist gave the example of scientific patience and, in my eyes, did more useful work than the ethnophilosophers proper who were in a hurry to reach definitive con- clusions on African philosophy in general. (Hountondji 2002: 99)
The quotation shows that Hountondji does not hide his preference for the indi- vidual over the communal and anonymous views held by ethnophilosophers. Hountondji also appreciates Oruka’s emphasis on the merits of individual sages in his sage philosophy project. Here is Hountondji on Griaule:
He showed the possibility of a long-term project which would consist of a sys- tematic transcription of such speeches, at least as a starting point of a critical dis- cussion - what my Kenyan colleague the late Odera Oruka would later call ‘phil- osophical sagacity’ - rather than as a reconstruction of implicit philosophy behind
the habits and customs of the host society through a lot of non-verifiable hypoth- eses which always amount to overinterpreting the facts. (Hountondji 1996: ix)
I think Hountondji missed the updates on Dogon studies highlighted in Chap- ter 2. It is not a folk sage producing myth, nor a philosophic sage Oruka is hunt- ing for. The story in Conversations with Ogotemmêli is typical of the hegemony of the West and the hermeneutical problems of fieldwork I mention in this work. Griaule started with notions of négritude, already discernible in his Masques do- gons (1938), assuming he would find in Africa a philosophy on a par with the best Greek and Indian philosophy had to offer (Griaule & Dieterlen 1954: 83). And so he did, with Ogotemmêli, after long prodding and much re-structuring and re-writing. Yet, it is Griaule’s definition of what ‘deep philosophy’ is, and Greece and India are still the models. He then disguises this process as ‘the hum- ble task of a secretary’, not as some sleight of hand, in my opinion, but out of genuine belief (the ‘prejudice’ of Gadamer) that he had found the deep structures of Dogon thought in a spectacular and coherent myth. As we mentioned in Chap- ter 2, the Dogon do not know anything about this myth, and Hountondji does not take this up. So the Ogotemmêli case illustrates very well the Western power-of- definition (Foucault) of what constitutes sagacity/wisdom and what constitutes a proper myth. It also demonstrates the hermeneutic hegemony of North Atlantic views of what ‘constitutes’ Africa: Africa as the source of deep wisdom - but of a kind that is defined, judged, and appreciated by the West.
Presbey (2007) defends the view that Oruka did not just cite anyone as a sage, because even his folk sages had standing and reputation in their communities. She asserts that by naming individual sages, Oruka thought the sages were unique and interesting individuals who deserved to be known beyond their local communities. The worth of these sages, she maintains, is found not only in their ideas but also in the way they live, embody philosophy, develop their character over the years, and have affected their communities. Hence, the sages do not just articulate wise sayings but also have practical relevance in their respective com- munities; they are wise men and women committed to the moral betterment of their communities (Oruka 1991: 3).8 Oruka even challenges Tempels’ followers to identify the individual philosophers in the Bantu community:
Since the affirmation of an African philosophy is logically the affirmation of the ex- istence of African philosophers, it is important that Tempels’ followers go ahead and identify those philosophers. It is not too late to do so even forty years after Tempels, as we have done through our study of the sages. (Oruka 1990: 11)
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