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African Epistemology: Essays on Being and Knowledg

✍ Scribed by Peter Aloysius Ikhane (editor), Isaac E. Ukpokolo (editor)


Publisher
Routledge
Year
2023
Tongue
English
Leaves
203
Series
Routledge Studies in African Philosophy
Edition
1
Category
Library

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✦ Synopsis


This book investigates how knowledge is conceived and explored within the African context. Epistemology, or the theory of knowledge, has historically been dominated by the Western approach to the discourse of knowledge. This book however shines a much-needed spotlight on knowledge systems originating within the African continent.

Bringing together key voices from across the field of African philosophy, this book explores the nature of knowledge across the continent and how they are rooted in Africans’ ontological sense of being and self. At a time when moves to decolonize curricula are gaining momentum, this book shows how understanding the specific ways of knowing that form part of the every day life of the African, will play an important part in rebalancing studies of philosophy globally. Employing critical, conceptual and rigorous analyses of the nature and essence of knowledge as understood by indigenous African societies, the book ultimately asks what could pass as an African theory of knowledge.

This important guide to the connections between knowledge and being, in African philosophical thought, will be an important resource for researchers and students of philosophy and African studies.

✦ Table of Contents


Cover
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Notes On Contributors
Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction: On the Meaning and Discourse of African Epistemology
Notes
Bibliography
Part I Knowledge and Knowing in African Epistemology
1 African Epistemology: Knowledge Ontologised
Introduction
Preliminary Considerations
The Universe-Of-Harmony Belief and Its Ontological Commitment
African Epistemology: Knowledge Ontologised
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
2 Knowledge and Truth as Interaction Between the Knower and Being: Knowing in African Epistemology
Introduction
Theorising Knowledge and Truth
On Knowledge Derivation
African Communitarian Epistemology
Knowledge and Truth in African Communitarian Epistemology
Conclusion
Bibliography
3 Exploring the Theory of Communo-Cognition
Introduction
Communo-Cognition, Ubuntu and Relational Minds
Communo-Cognition, Difference and Rehumanisation
Communo-Cognition: Two Charges
Concluding Thoughts: The Humanness of Relational Cognition
References
Part II On the Object of Knowledge in African Epistemology
4 Understanding a Thing’s Nature: Comparing Afro-Relational and Western-Individualist Ontologies
Introducing African Relationality
Definitions of Key Terms
An Afro-Relational Hypothesis About the Essence of a Natural Object
Motivating the Afro-Relational Approach
A Relational Account of the Self
A Relational Account of Water
Defending the Afro-Relational Approach From Objections
Conclusion
Notes
References
5 Being as the Object of Knowledge in African Spaces
Introduction
On the Nature of the Object of Knowledge
Object of Knowledge in African Philosophy
‘Being’ in African Spaces
Conclusion
References
6 The Ontological Foundation of African Knowledge: A Critical Discourse in African Communitarian Knowledge
Introduction
A Look at African Ontology
Spiritual (Immaterial) Existence and African Knowledge
Communitarian Ontology and Knowledge
Communitarian Knowledge and the Individual
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Notes
References
Part III Context-Discourse of African Epistemology
7 Truth in African (Esan) Philosophy
Introduction
Truth as an Epistemic Ideal
Truth as a Moral Ideal
The Human Person in Esan Metaphysics
Truth in Esan Philosophy
Conclusion
Notes
References
8 From Ontology to Knowledge Acquisition in Africa and the Caribbean: What Can Be Known for Certain?
Introduction
Afro-Caribbean Philosophy, History, and Ontology
Afro-Caribbean Epistemology as Socio-Cultural
Afro-Caribbean Epistemology as Perspectival
Conclusion
Note
Bibliography
9 ElẸ́Ẹ̀rí as Omọlúàbí: The Interface of Epistemic Justification and Virtue Ethics in an African Culture
Introduction
The Nature of Ìmọ̀ (Knowledge) in Yorùbá Weltanschauung (Ìwòye/ Worldview)
Omọlúàbí (Virtuous Person) as Axiom for Ẹ̀rì (Testimony)
Is Epistemic Tyranny a Threat to Yorùbá Epistemology?
The Phenomenon of Ìfìdímùlẹ̀ (Justification) in Yorùbá Epistemology
Conclusion
References
Part IV African Epistemology in Applied Context
10 Onto-Normative Monism in the ሐተታ (Ḥāteta) of Zera Yaqob: Insights Into Ethiopian Epistemology and Lessons for the Problem of Superiorism
Introduction
‘All Things Are Good If We Ourselves Are Good’
Existential Exhaustion
Äḥättism
Ḥasäwäism
Human Nature
The ሐተታ (Ḥāteta, Inquiry)
The Will
Cognitive Dissonance
Ambivalence, Love and Superiorism: A Personal Note
Conclusion
Notes
References
11 Personalism and an African Epistemology of Personhood
Introduction
The Idea of Personalism
African Personhood and African Epistemology
African Epistemology of the Person
Conclusion
Works Cited
12 Knowledge, Being, and the Case for an African Epistemology
Introduction
Epistemic Dislocation
The African Knower
Motivations of an African Knower
Concluding Remarks
References
Index


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