Browsing by Author "Chalchessa, Adugna"

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    African Philosophy in Black and White:Identity, Ideology and Discourse
    (Addis Ababa University, 2016-06) Chalchessa, Adugna; Gutema, Bekele (PhD)
    Contemporary African philosophy has been struggling with questions of identity and lack of direction since its inception. This is in part due to its unique position between two traditions, that of Africa and the West. These two traditions had shown considerable historical polarity that made it difficult to explicitly canonize and formulate an 'African' system of thought. In this sense, European discourse on Africa had been the main challenge, where the former continued to deny the latter recognition and inclusion. As it were, it undermined everything African and worked relentlessly to replace it. As a result, Africans were forced to prove the existence of philosophy in Africa. However, the very denial being political-ideological, along with the struggle for freedom, liberty and independence from slavery and colonialism, African intellectuals were engaged in this political-ideological struggle beyond an epistemic one. As a result, narratives such as Negritude, Afrocentrism, African personality, African Renaissance, etc., became essential narratives of African discourses. Even today, a century after the abolition of slavery and decades after independence, African thinkers remain trapped in the same conceptual and existential struggle against this history and its continued legacy. What is anAfrican philosophy? What do its content, form, method, etc., should look like? How can it make use of the two traditions to its own benefit? In this thesis, I will explore some historical backgrounds and current trends of this struggle. I will argue that the hitherto debates between African and European intellectuals externally and between Africans internally foundationally are continuations of the legacy of the racism and ideology of black-white dialectics. Though this dialectics is less important today, African philosophical practice has been unable to fully escape its shadow. As such, it needs a shift in method and direction that fits its unique nature, for which I introduced a new approach in this thesis –what I called a symbiotic-discourse. Key words: African philosophy, African identity, Afrocentrism, Negritude, conceptual decolonization, symbiosism