An Analysis of Hountondji’s “The Struggle for Meaning, Reflections on Philosophy, Culture and Democracy in Africa”
Author : Fasil Merawi
Abstract :
The paper tries to critically expose Paulin Hountondji’s book The Struggle for Meaning, Reflections on Philosophy, Culture and Democracy in Africa. In this work, Hountondji tries to; defend his earlier work African Philosophy: Myth and Reality, rearticulate his positions on ethnophilosophy, sketch his intellectual background and origins and offers a critique of extraversion in African philosophy. Such a critique is used in order to assert the universality of African philosophy and the necessity of developing a rigorous scientific practice in Africa. By analyzing Hountondji’s ideas on ethnophilosophy and the ethno sciences, extraversion and the universality of philosophy, I will argue that although he develops a profound critique of the ideological implications of traditional past, folklore and societal wisdom, still on the process Hountondji devalues the value of traditional wisdom for African philosophy and failed to realize the fact that philosophical thought could occur in different forms and modalities.
Keywords :
Extraversion, ethnophilosophy, re-appropriation
