Philosophy and an African Culture

Introduction

Wiredu’s first book, a collection of essays published by Cambridge University Press in 1980, written while he taught at the University of Ghana. He argues that much of what is presented as “African philosophy” is folk thought, and that comparing it with Western science and philosophy, rather than with Western folk beliefs, is a mistake. Traditional beliefs should be neither preserved out of loyalty nor dismissed, but examined by the same critical standards that apply anywhere; he criticises, for instance, authoritarian habits of thought. Several essays use the Akan language of Ghana to test philosophical concepts, among them the much-discussed “Truth as Opinion”. The book is often counted among the founding works of modern academic philosophy in Africa.

Connections

Taken up in

• African Philosophy through Ubuntu1999 · Mogobe Ramose disputed