MAN’S sense of wonder about the things in and outside of him sharpened his curiosity to know not only the sense of things but the sense of senses in general, and the meaning of meanings in particular.

The satisfaction of this innate curiosity, which became a gauntlet thrown to man, was picked up in different ways.  A lot of factors, however, help to condition man’s approach to this quest for knowledge. The environment, the culture, religious belief, the organisational structure, the value system, and so forth, jointly or singly, influence(s) man’s effort to comprehend himself and his world.

The understanding of himself and his environment opened up yet another greater problem of knowledge: the problem of God. The quest to know man, his environment and his source and the source of his environment was typified in the Man-World-God scheme.

Every rational inquiry revolves around the above scheme. The African man, while battling with his own internal and external challenges; biological and ecological demands, and so forth, also grapples with these problems in his own way. His own ways, being, however, not totally exclusive from other peoples’ ways and not absolutely dissoluble in them.

The particularisation of the universal and the universalisation of the particular constitute the universal cognitive method. Some people believe, however, that the abstraction of the “universals” from their own “particulars” has sealed up the issue of the universals. This is as sweet a statement as it is false.

Man’s manifestation of an astute quest for knowledge singles him out as a rational being. He is, he thinks, he knows, he knows that he knows and knows that he thinks; he thinks also that he knows! To that extent, this makes every man a philosopher; just as every man is an engineer, a medic, a lawyer, etc.

Not every man, however, is a professional engineer, professional medic, professional lawyer, etc. Not every man is a professional philosopher, and that was why Pythagoras, a Greek philosopher, whom history had,  studied in Egypt for 22 years, designated that aspect or the body of human knowledge that occupies itself with the exercise, and not only a mere demonstration of rationality, as  philosophy (the love of wisdom).

The bewilderment of man caused by the multiplicity of things in, outside and around him; his curiosity to unravel the mysteries underlying the various realities of man triggered in him the posing of questions different and the positing of various answers. In Greece, Thales posed the first philosophical question of what the world was made up.

This question and the answers presented by him showed that it was a quest for knowledge, not necessarily a demonstration of the love of wisdom. One could, therefore, observe that the etymological meaning of philosophy is more inaccurate, while the technical meaning captures more of its functions.

The exercise of man’s activity as a rational animal was to be braced by the establishment of academic philosophy. Thales initiated it in the Greek world; Socrates, Plato and Aristotle articulated and consolidated it.

The same was the situation in Africa, as postulated by the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of African Philosophy, Dr Edmund Ugwu Agbo, who also was a discussant on the “Articulation of African Philosophy: Emmanuel Edeh’s Contribution”. In his submission, he stated that one could not be said to have exhausted the issue of academic philosophy in Africa without due references to the Africans in the Diaspora.

The African slaves in the Western world played important roles in the establishment of African philosophy. They employed their “africanity” to rationalise the condition of their kith and kin in Africa, and also to themselves imported as slaves into the Western world. Olaudah Equiano is prominent among this group.

His narratives show strong elements in rationalising African realities and the prevailing fate of the Africans. He belonged to the group of African thinkers of the 18th century.

In the ‘40s, Placid Tempels and Marciel Griaule initiated a proper and consistent academic mention of African philosophy. Tempels, a Belgian missionary, is known to have raised serious questions about African academic philosophy.

In his book, “La Philosophie Bantou”, he presented the Bantou concept of being, which, according to him is force. Trying to continue with the philosophical tradition of his Western brothers – the establishment of the indisputable and impeccable “universal” – Tempels was able to find a way of making the teaching of the church he represented comprehensible by the people by identifying force as a representation of being. He is to be appreciated for bringing African academic philosophy to a level of serious debate.

An ethnologist, Griaule, in  Dieu d’eau, entretiens avec Ogotommeli (1948), also made contributions that are remarkable in the development of African academic philosophy.

In the ’50s, Cheikh Anta Diop published his work on Nations Négre et Culture (1954), where he defended the African continent from the attacks of the Westerners that it was a dark continent devoid of any scientific progress. Alexis Kagame in his La Philosophie Bantou-Rwandaise (1956), followed the step of Tempels, but as an African indigene, he employed a term that is African to designate his category of being: Ntu.

The ‘60s witnessed a change in the movement of African academic philosophy. Francis Kofi Kwame Nkrumah’s  Consciencism: Philosophy and Ideology for Decolonisation and Development with particular reference to African Revolution(1964), demonstrated the practical nature of African philosophy. He and his contemporaries were faced with colonialism and employed their reasoning as Africans to contrast the nefarious activities of the Western colonialists.

Leopold Sedar Senghor in his African Socialism (1964) espoused the Negritude. For him, African ontology bears the mark of action, as Francis Njoku noted. Action, according to Senghor is interpreted according as it confronts or deviates from the interconnectedness of life force.

Aimé Cesaire continued with the Negritude movement. He emphasized culture as a process through which any group acquires its own personality. Julius Nyerere in his African Socialism (1965) developed a school of thought that was mostly influenced by the Western concept of socialism, though with some African imports.

J.S. Mbiti in his book, African Philosophy and Religion (1969), noted that the philosophical systems of many African societies are yet to be formulated, but that some could be found in the religion, proverbs, oral traditions, ethics and morals of the societies concerned.

Thoughts from the ’70s represented a turning point in the history of African academic philosophy. A great African thinker, Theophilus Okere, was one of the renowned protagonists in the representation of African philosophy. In  his writings, he presented no articulated philosophical system because substantial to his thought was that what obtained then in Africa was what he called “non-philosophy”.

Non- philosophy from where, according to him, philosophy could be developed. It was, however, not until the ’80s that he presented a more articulated vision of his position in the situation of the African academic philosophy.

Mr. EDMUND AGBO, a commentator on national issues, writes from Lagos.