AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY AND THOUGHTS ABOUT LIFE
3.2. AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY
3.2.2. Traditional African philosophical thoughts
72 Thus, by ‘African’ I do not mean to imply that a particular body of philosophical ideas is uniquely or exclusively African. I am using ‘African’ in the sense in which one might use ‘Western’ or ‘European’ or ‘Oriental’.
He states that such a basis would therefore justify a discourse in terms of ‘African philosophy’, just as the similarity of the experiences, traditions, cultural systems, values, and mentalities justify the appropriateness of the labels European philosophy, Oriental philosophy, Western philosophy, and so on.
73 enterprise’, the fashioning of ‘philosophies based upon contemporary experience with its many-sidedness’.
The above argument indicates that Gyekye’s beliefs are contrary to Wiredu's (1980) suggestion that African philosophy “is still in the making”. Gyekye approaches African philosophy through a detailed study of the conceptual scheme of the Akan (the largest ethnic group in Ghana), studying their traditional concepts and ways of thinking.
Gyekye (1987, p.51) states that the most obvious and greatest difficulty in studying or researching African philosophy stems from the fact that it is unwritten and undocumented. He further states that the question then becomes how one can succeed in resurrecting the philosophical doctrines and arguments of African thinkers.
Gyekye argues that in Africa philosophy can be found in the myths, proverbs, folk tales and beliefs of the people; however, he cautions that there are enormous difficulties in understanding and interpreting them. He further mentions that the possibility of misunderstanding and misinterpretation is real, since the potential to attribute views wrongly is always there. He says that one may undertake interviews and discussions with living traditional wise people in an attempt to overcome this difficulty, but ''one can never be sure that the conceptions or interpretations of the traditional elders are themselves not coloured by ideas and doctrines of Christianity or other religions such as Islam with which some of them are acquainted'' (Gyekye, 1987, p.52).
Gyekye argues that although some philosophical ideas can certainly be distilled from such sources (as mentioned above), and from discussions with traditional thinkers, a further difficulty arises in connecting isolated and sometimes unrelated ideas into a coherent system, even assuming the compatibility of those ideas. Gyekye (1987, p.53) suggests:
the scholar of African philosophy must pay attention to the logic of ideas, that is, the logical relations between them, draw inferences, and suggest explanations that introduce some order into the fragmentary and chaotic mass of discrete ideas. This exercise in logic, conceptual ordering, and theorising is not easy.'
74 Gyekye states that it is generally accepted that Africans are religious people, in the sense that they possess elaborate systems of religious beliefs and practices. He further states that some of these are philosophical in that they deal with such fundamental questions as the meaning of life, the origins of all things, death, and related questions.
He further asserts that in religion we seek answers to questions of ultimate existence;
philosophy is concerned with similar questions.
On the justification of traditional thought as philosophy, and particularly as African philosophy, Gyekye argues that the culture of a people comprises the people's beliefs, values, mentalities, institutions, habits, ways of life, and so on. In addition, in Africa philosophical ideas are not to be found in documents, for traditional African philosophy is not a written philosophy, although this does not mean that it cannot be written down.
Such ideas were embodied in proverbs, aphorisms or fragments (as such pithy philosophical sayings are called in the context of pre-Socratic Greek philosophy). Yet this does not in any way imply the non-existence of African philosophy (Gyekye, 1987, p.10): “Socrates did not write anything, although he inherited a written culture, but we know, thanks to Plato, that he philosophised”. In addition, “Buddha wrote no book, but taught orally” (Gyekye, 1987, p.11).
Gyekye thus argues that traditional African philosophy is none the worse for the absence of written philosophical literature, for this absence does not in anyway imply the absence of philosophical thinking or philosophical ideas (Gyekye, 1987, p.11). He further argues that it is a mistake to maintain that the term 'African philosophy' should be used to cover only the philosophy (that is, the written philosophy) that is being produced by contemporary African philosophers. Philosophy – whether in the sense of a worldview or of a discipline (systematic critical thought about the problems covered in philosophy as worldview) – is discoverable in African traditional thought (Gyekye, 1987, p.11).
75 Responding to Wiredu's (1980) assertion that African philosophy ''is still in the making'', Gyekye (1987) argues that what is 'still in the making' is modern African philosophy, wherein to be African and have a basis in African culture and experience, there must be a connection with the traditional African philosophy: ''By modern African philosophy, I refer to the philosophy that is being produced by contemporary African philosophers, but which reflects, or has a basis in African experience, thought categories, and cultural values'' (Gyekye, 1987, p.32).
By traditional African philosophical thought Gyekye (1987, p.32) refers to the indigenous philosophical thought of the Akan people that has been handed down from generation to generation. The sources of traditional African philosophical thought are expressed both in the oral literature and in the thoughts and actions of the people. Thus a great deal of philosophical material is embedded in the proverbs, myths and folk tales, folk songs, rituals, beliefs, customs and traditions of the people, in their art symbols and their sociopolitical institutions and practices.
Based on the above claims, this study is set within the context of African philosophy;
the Zulu philosophy of life is inclusive in this, and forms the basis of my argument later in the thesis.
3.3. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND THE ZULU PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE