The poverty of Hountondji’s “African” philosophy.

Paulin Hountondji who is regarded as one of the leading African philosophers passed away in February 2024. One of his major contributions to African philosophy is a critique of ethno-philosophy. It is in this sense that Hountondji made a significant contribution to the debate on the nature of African philosophy. The question regarding the nature of African philosophy is inextricably intertwined with the infamous question, namely can there be an African philosophy? The latter question as we know is not an empirical question but rather a racist ontological one. In other words, if there are many oral and written texts authored by African philosophers since ancient Kemet to the contemporary era, why still pose this question of possibility? Why doubt if African philosophy exists? Authentic African philosophers themselves of course never posed this question for obvious reasons. The condition of possibility for this question is racism/white supremacy. This essay will critically discuss Hountondji’s famous thesis on the nature of African philosophy. In so doing, it will attempt to answer the question whether his famous thesis makes Western philosophy the model for the project African philosophy and thus reflects a mentality of a philosopher unable to free his thinking from Western influence. This essay will answer this question in the affirmative and also provide reasons thereof.

For us to really understand the works of a particular thinker we have to use the biographical method. This is in line with any history of thought and in our case of philosophy. But of course, the point is not to reduce a particular thinker to his/her personal experiences or his/her facts of life. Intellectual influences and encounters can be used effectively to account for the particular views which a particular thinker holds. Hountondji is not an exception in this regard. This essay posits that in order to fathom his famous thesis on the nature of African philosopher we have to understand his training and philosophical influences. This is how Valentine Mudimbe (1985:244) puts it regarding Hountondji and one of his heralded books entitled African philosophy: myth and reality(1996) “Moreover, its epistemological foundation is very French. His thesis only makes sense when it is referred to Althusser's doctrine as to what philosophy is and to Canguilhelm's advocacy of the universal promotion of science.” By using Oruka’s widely accepted schema on the nature of African philosophy, we can locate Hountondji in the category of the professional philosophers. As we already know many of these philosophers were the core of the pioneering generation of contemporary African philosophy who received their training at some of the elite universities of the West. Mudimbe (1985:244) further states that “At the same time, it is a brilliant and stimulating text witnessing to the distinctive spirit of the Ecole Normale Superieure of the Rue d'Ulm in Paris.” This biographical fact of course reflects the power of European imperialism and in particular French colonialism. And it is also something which Hountondji himself knows very well and apparently laments as eventuating in scientific dependency and epistemic extraversion in Africa which he also links to ethnophilosophy (Hountondji 2002, 2004).

In responding to the main question of this essay, our fundamental argument is that Hountondji’s famous thesis on the nature of African philosophy has nothing to do with African philosophy but everything to do with his Western influence stemming from his training in Paris and the Western philosophers who mentored him such as Louis Althusser. As a result of these brief biographical facts this essay will argue by referring to Hountondji’s book African Philosophy Myth and Reality (1996), that underlying his famous thesis posited in this book, are assumptions which reflect his inability to free his mind from Western influence. These assumptions include but are not limited to, textualism, universalism, Eurocentrism and scientism/positivism. We are aware of Hountondji’s weak defense in the Preface to the second edition of the abovementioned book against the charge of these assumptions. The chapters in this book were written before this weak defense thus are clearly redolent of these assumptions. All these assumptions have nothing to do with African culture in its diverse manifestation but fundamental unity as Cheik Anta Diop posited in the Cultural Unity of Black Africa (1962). These assumptions have everything to do with Western culture and worldview. In other words, Hountondji’s famous thesis reflects at the fundamental level a thinker of African descent who is intellectually and culturally alienated (ala epistemicide) due to his Western training at the highest level at a leading Western institution and by leading Western philosophers such as Althusser.

All these assumptions will be pointed out in his book as mentioned above which puts forward this famous thesis on the nature of African philosophy. It is very important to understand that in positing his famous thesis on the nature of African philosophy, Hountondji was responding critically to the nature of ethnophilosophy ala Tempels. Hountondji’s scathing and almost obsessive critique of ethnophilosophy is indicative of the much-hated infamous companionship between colonial anthropology (all anthropology is colonial anyway, even if practiced by Africans due to its fundamental epistemological flaw of alterity as Archie Mafeje has posited extensively) and contemporary African philosophy. Following Theophile Obenga for example in A Companion to African Philosophy (2004), we know that African philosophy proper does not emerge as a result of this infamous companionship. A solid reading in the history of philosophy following the likes of Obenga demonstrates that the proper history of African philosophy begins at least with ancient Kemet if not with Nubia. This is important because as Olabiyi Yai in Theory and Practice in African Philosophy: The poverty of Speculative Philosophy (1977) points out, many of the professional philosophers have the academic and elitist prejudice of assuming that African philosophy begins with their writings. This is a typical bourgeois prejudice which the likes of Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx exhibited in their thinking and writings, by assuming that philosophy proper begins with the Enlightenment era as R.G Collingwood has shown in The Idea of History (1946) and that (scientific) Socialism begins with the proletariat as Cedric Robinson shows in his book An Anthropology of Marxism (2001).

Let us now discuss the assumptions as mentioned above which Hountondji’s famous thesis on the nature of African philosophy is imbricated with. In order to fathom his thesis on nature of African philosophy we must first deal with his definition of “African” philosophy. This is how Hountondji (1996:33) defines his African philosophy “By 'African philosophy' I mean a set of texts, specifically the set of texts written by Africans and described as philosophical by their authors themselves”. Already in this definition of his African philosophy we can detect two assumptions, namely textualism and individualism. We will now unpack the assumptive logic of his heavily Western influenced thesis on the nature of African philosopher in detail.

The first assumption is Eurocentrism, which in our case is the idea that African philosophy is philosophy proper if and when is theorized as in the West by Western philosophers such as Kant and Marx among others (the Occidental Icons as Tsenay Serequeberhan would put it). It is important to note that in defining the nature of his African philosophy in Eurocentric terms Hountondji relies unashamedly on a Western history of philosophy both in its historical and epistemic schema. He refers to the history of philosophy and the philosophy of science as evolving in the West in order to define his African philosophy. The ground for this misguided exercise we suppose is that according to him there is no history of African philosophy which can be used to define African philosophy. This is despite the seminal efforts of Obenga to prove that there is a history of African philosophy and whose extensive writings Hountondji seems to have perused. This is how Hountondji (1996:89-90) states it “ We could now call it a day, the example of Kant being proof enough of our point that no philosophy, however new, ever appears ex nihilo, that every philosophical doctrine is a reply to foregoing doctrines in the double mode of confirmation and refutation or, better still, as a call for further developments, an appeal for future confirmation or refutation, so that every philosophy looks forward and backward, to the inexhaustible history of the discipline. Kant's position is therefore far from unique. Every great philosophy begins by inserting within parentheses, by practically rejecting the history of philosophy. Every great philosophy is a rebirth, a radical questioning”.

The second assumption is scientism. This assumption is inextricably intertwined with Hountondji’s problematic emphasis on written literature as the necessary condition of possibility for not only his African philosophy (as consisting of scientific philosophical literature) but scientific African civilization itself, even though Africa invented both writing and science as the likes of Charles S Finch and Ivan Van Sertima have demonstrated. This is amazing from someone who obsessively critiques ethnophilosophy as a mere reflection of the ethnosciences. This is because part of the core of cultural anthropology is the racist argument that civilization is premised on the invention and art of writing which primitive societies are said to lack (a technicist as opposed to an ethical understanding of civilization). Anyway, this is how Hountondji (1996:97-98) exhibits exultantly his scientism/positivism, “In other words, philosophy does not get up until dusk: we know that from Hegel, in the Preface to The Principles of the Philosophy of Right. But this tardiness is here defined as a lagging behind science, as the belated aftermath within philosophical discourse of the great events in the history of the sciences. Rather than noisily claim the existence of an African 'philosophy' which would save us the trouble of philosophizing, we would therefore be better advised to work patiently and methodically for what we could call African science or African scientific research. It is not philosophy but science that Africa needs first. If philosophy can also be of use, it is only by helping to liberate a genuine theoretical.”

The third assumption is textualism. The status of literature is very interesting in Hountondji’s thesis on the nature of African philosophy. This is because despite his acknowledgement of oral literature Hountondji, unlike authentic African philosophers such as Sophie Oluwole in her book Socrates and Orunmila: Two Patron Saints of Classical Philosophy (2017), accords the African oral tradition a contemptible status of a case of mere preservation and accumulation without intellectual manifestation of critical consciousness. Oluwole in her book accords critical significance to African oral literature and the African thinkers who produced it. This is how Oluwole (2017:14-15) states it “One of the most popular appellations of Orunmila Baba Ifa, literally means: 'Father of Ifa.' If Ifa is interpreted as a computerized compendium of the people’s views on different aspects of nature and human existence, as most scholars of philosophy now do, then Ifa means Yoruba Classical Philosophy' in the pristine Greek conception of the discipline. The correct English translation of the appellation, Orunmila Baba Ifa would be Orunmila Father of Yorubic Philosophy' in exactly the same sense in which we say: 'Socrates, Father of Greek Philosophy”.

For Hountondji what Orunmila philosophized as contained in the Ifa texts is not in itself a form of classical philosophy but merely a transcription which is just the starting of philosophy proper. This is because for Hountondji this orally transmitted literature is devoid of scientific value in the positivistic sense. It is a mere collection of customs, beliefs and practices of the Yoruba people as an ethnic group thus, amounts to ethnophilosophy which according to him is anything but African philosophy. This is Hountondji (1996:101) in his own words “Indeed, it is now beginning to be understood that African philosophy is not the supposedly collective, spontaneous, unreflective and implicit world­view with which it has hitherto been confused. It is coming to be accepted that it is not a system of tacit beliefs which are accepted, consciously or unconsciously, by all Africans in general or, more especially, by all the members of a particular ethnic group or a particular African society. It is now recognized that in this sense 'Bantu philosophy', 'Dogon philosophy', 'Diola philosophy', 'Yoruba philosophy', 'Fon philosophy', 'Wolof philosophy', 'Serer philosophy', etc. are so many myths invented by the West, that there are no more spontaneous African 'philosophies' than there are spontaneous Western, French, German, Belgian or American 'philosophies' creating silent unanimities among all Westerners, all the French, all the Germans, etc. African philosophy can exist only in the same mode as European philosophy, i.e. through what is called literature (our emphasis).” This how Hountondji (1996:106) further states it “The absence of transcription certainly does not intrinsically devalue a philosophical discourse, but it prevents it from integrating itself into a collective theoretical tradition and from taking its place in a history as a reference point capable of orienting future discussion. There may therefore have been African philosophers without an African philosophy, although the converse, as I hope to have shown, is strictly impossible. Thousands of Socrateses could never have given birth to Greek philosophy, however talented they might have been in dialectics. So, thousands of philosophers without written works could never have given birth to an African philosophy (our emphasis).” African philosophers without African philosophy, what were they practicing? Oral ethnophilosophy? Only Hountondji knows!

The last assumption is universalism which is a bone of contention in contemporary African philosophy. The methodological debate between the universalists and particularists pits the particularist hermeneutical camp of the likes of Theophilus Okere (1996) against the universalist camp of Hountondji and Kwasi Wiredu. This is how Bello (2004:263) states it “The universalists include Peter Bodunrin, Odera Oruka (both of blessed memory), Paulin Hountondji, and Kwasi Wiredu...” Partiality for Positivism and emphasis on African culture sums up this methodological debate. This is how Wiredu, Hountondji’s fellow-traveler in the universalist camp defends Hountondji’s famous thesis “In practice the contemporary African philosopher will find that it is the philosophies of the West that will occupy him most…” (Wiredu 2009:49). This fetishism of the West by the professional philosophers has entailed an obsessive and contemptuous critique of ethnophilosophy as a result of its originary links with colonial anthropology as Pascah Mungwini (2014) points out while discussing the need for the dominance of Postethnophilosophy in African philosophy. However, there are authentic African philosophers unlike Hountondji who clearly is not one, who defend ethnophilosophy as part of the nature of African philosophy, despite the charge of unanism and the paucity of reason/rationality in the Western sense by the “pure philosophers” (Yai 1977). The likes of Fainos Mangena (2014) posit that ethnophilosophy is based on reason and evidence thus counts as philosophy and not just a collective worldview as Hountondji argues. This cautiones against the conflation of colonial ethnophilosophy of Tempels and traditional African philosophy in the sense of a repository of African culture and thought as the foundation of African philosophy in the hermeneutical sense and tradition. African Philosophy Through Ubuntu (1999) by Mogobe Ramose and Indigenous Shona Philosophy (2019) by Pasch Mungwini stand out in this regard as opposed to Hountondji’s African Philosophy: Myth and Reality (1996).

In conclusion, this essay has critically discussed Hountondji’s famous thesis on the nature of African philosophy. In so doing, this essay has answered in the affirmative the question whether Hountondji’s thesis makes Western philosophy the model for an African project thus indicative of a thinker who is unable to free his mind from Western influence. This we did by using the biographical method to chart the path of Western influence which led us to Paris, Althusser and other “Occidental Icons”. This path led to Hountondji’s assumptions of Eurocentrism, textualism, scientism and universalism among other intellectual vices bespeaking the acute imperative for the decolonization of the African mind. It is in this sense that Hountondji might be a philosopher but certainly not an African philosopher thus the poverty of his philosophy with African pretensions.

Masilo Lepuru
An African philosopher and founding director of the Institute for Kemetic and Marcus Garvey Studies (IKMGS).

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