it with both arms."
"Humanity has no boundary."
African Proverb
These quotes reflect wisdom from Ghana, handed down generations after generations. Unlike cultures which have lengthy written legacies of thought, many African cultures have stressed oral traditions, while others have had written documents lost over time.
Further, much African thought has been written down and interpreted by European explorers, colonizers, and missionaries, who misinterpreted African through their own preconceptions of Africans as "primitive." Further, African philosophers have tended to share their ideas with their communities, not treating their ideas as private property. This practice goes against Eurocentric assumptions of philosophers as lone thinkers, sole authors of their views. As a result, African philosophical views have been ignored, considered to be collective cultural wisdom, as if it emerged without the contributions of any particular thinkers.
Philosophy is not just an academic subject in Ghana. It is woven into the fabric of the culture, through Ghanaian values, proverbs, music, symbols, folktales, religion, politics, and other social and cultural practices.
Ghana Stools
Each stool has a unique Adinkra Symbol.
What is philosophy? From the Greek term, it literally translates as "love of wisdom." It is often regarded as the pursuit of wisdom on vital human questions: How ought we to live? What is justice? What is the world really like? How can we best pursue knowledge? These are among the universal questions, asked by reflective people across cultures.
Yet, most European and United States philosophers
tend to think of philosophy as their territory, tracing their legacies
back before Socrates in ancient Greece. Occasionally mentioning Eastern
approaches, many Eurocentric thinkers assume that African thought has not
contributed to European and U.S. traditions, or to a significant philosophical
tradition of
its own. They persist in this prejudice despite
the historical documentation linking Egyptian thought and sub-Saharan African
thought as contributing significantly to Ancient Greek philosophy. Often,
even when African philosophy is studied at colleges and universities in
the "First World," it is often treated as anthropology, cosmology, and
religion, as if philosophy is,
by definition, that of Europeans and Americans.
Some write elaborate treatises on whether African philosophy exists at
all.
Philosophers in Ghana continue to defy such myths, doing philosophy. They combine rich oral and written intellectual heritages with the analysis of philosophical perspectives expressed in various cultural practices. At the University of Ghana, the Philosophy Department reflects African, European, and American philosophical traditions. Courses range from Philosophy of History, to African Philosophy, to Logic and Critical Reasoning, to Political Philosophy.
Carol Moeller, Moravian College
Additional Sources:
African Philosophical Thought: The Akan Conceptual Scheme, Revised Edition, Kwame Gyekye, Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1995.
African Cultural Values: An Introduction,
Kwame Gyekye, Accra, Ghana:
Sankofa Publishing, 1996.
Akan Ethics, C.A. Ackah, Accra, Ghana: Ghana Universities Press, 1988.