Sage Philosophy

Introduction

The volume, published by Brill in Leiden in 1990 with the subtitle “Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate on African Philosophy”, documents a project Odera Oruka had pursued at the University of Nairobi since the 1970s. Its core is a series of interviews, mostly with rural Kenyan elders, on God, death, justice, the place of women and the good life. Odera Oruka distinguishes folk sages, who restate communal wisdom, from philosophic sages, who examine it critically and reach their own conclusions. A second part collects essays by other philosophers debating the method. The project was meant to show, against both ethnophilosophy and the view that philosophy needs a written tradition, that critical reflection exists in oral cultures in the voices of individuals.

Connections

Responds to

• African Philosophy: Myth and Reality1976 · Paulin Hountondji

Criticizes

• Bantu Philosophy1945 · Placide Tempels