The Role of Philosophy in the African Context. Traditions, Challenges and Perspectives.

While it is true that philosophy took the leading charge in the regeneration of African identity, as J-P. Sartre explains it in “Orphée noire” (1948), in response to the history of domination, it might be time now for philosophy to rectify how this regeneration is to be redirected. And that will be done meaningfully only if philosophers direct their attention to explaining and debating, analytically or interpretively, the world as it is experienced by Africans, and African experiences of the world. In other words, it is upon us to make philosophy relevant to us. It is no longer helpful to engage in attempts to show that there is something called African philosophy which must be different from anything else out there. The only thing that is our own are our own experiences, our problems and our joys, and they generate… We owe it to ourselves to think about, to try to understand, and to explain these experiences to ourselves, and it shouldn’t matter who out there gets attracted to our discussions of our problem