AfriCAN

HBLOSOPHY
(
(
P THE ANALYTIC APPROACH

Barry Hallen

Africa World Press, Inc.

P.O. Box 1692 P.O. Box 48
Trenton, NJ 08607 Asmara, ERITREA
 Africa World Press, Inc.
5
P.O. Box 1692 P.O. Box 48
Trenton, NJ 08607 Asmara. ERmiEA

,H3^
j-oot
m1 ^
Copyright © 2006 Barry Hallen
To the votaries at the Conclave of the Almond Tree
First Printing 2006
past and present, my eternal gratitude
for all that we have been to one another.
All rights reserved. No part of this pubUcation may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, Floreat!!
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written
permission of the publisher.

Book design: Saverance Publishing Services

Cover design: Ashrafiil Haque

Photographs: Cover and Chapter 16 © 2000 Carla De Benedetti

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data

Hallen, B.
African philosophy: the analytic approach / Barry Hallen.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-59221-369-3 (hardcover) - ISBN 1-59221-370-7 (pbk.)
1. Philosophy, African. 2. Analysis (Philosophy) 3. Methodology. I. Tide.

B5310.H35 2005
199’.6-dc22
2005013810
TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION: Philosophy in the African Context 1

PART I - CRITIQUES
Chapter 1. Analytic Philosophy and “Traditional” 13
Thought: A Critique of Social Anthropology
Chapter 2. “Philosophy” Doesn’t Translate: Richard 27
Rorty and Multiculturalism
Chapter 3. The Return of the “Closed” Society: ^ Cri- 63
tique of Richard Rorty
Chapter 4. Tribal Philosophies and Ordinary Language: 105
A Critique of Paulin Hountondji

PART n - METHODOLOGY
Chapter 5. A Philosopher’s Approach to “Traditional” 119
Culture
Chapter 6. Analytic Philosophy in the African Context 133
Chapter 7. Secrecy and Objectivity in the Methodol- 153
ogy and Literature of Ifa Divination

PART m - MORAL EPISTEMOLOGY

Chapter 8. The Open Texture of Oral Tradition 165
Chapter 9. Moral Values and Epistemological Virtues in 173
an African Philosophy
Chapter 10. Variations on a Theme= Ritual, Perform- 187
ance, Intellect
viii African Philosophy; The Analytic Approach
Chapter 11. “Witches” as Superior Intellects: Challeng-
ing a Cross-Cultural Superstition
PART IV - AESTHETICS
Chapter 12. The African Art Historian as Conceptual
Analyst
Chapter 13. “Handsome Is as Handsome Does”- Interre-
lations of the Epistemic, the Moral, and the Aesthetic
in an African Culture
Chapter 14. Some Observations About Philosophy,
Postmodernism, and Art in Contemporary African
Studies
Chapter 15. African Meanings, Western Words
Chapter 16. “My Mercedes has four legs!” “Tradi-
tional” as an Attribute of African Equestrian Culture
CONCLUSION: The Fable of “Authenticity”
BIBUOGRAPHY
INDEX
201
INTRODUCTION
217
PHILOSOPHY IN THE AFRICAN
237
CONTEXT
249 he chapters that constitute this text are meant to tell
T a story. That story is about an attempt to reorient an
academic philosophy that today is increasingly condemned
263 for privileging Western concerns, topics, and problems so
that it can not give fair representation to the theoretical
275
or abstract thinking of non-Western cultures. In some cases
this might involve the same or similar concerns, topics,
and problems. In others it might involve ideas and issues
299
comparatively foreign to the Western canon.
317 I wish I could say, decidedly, that the story has had a
happy ending. What I am concerned to demonstrate in this
text is that progress has been made toward reworking and
355
applying at least one possible way of doing philosophy—a
methodology—that could produce some interesting results
in any cultural context, be it Western or non-Western. That
methodology is based upon adapting an approach to phi­
losophy that was briefly fashionable, principally in Britain,
during the mid-twentieth century. It was then known as
ordinary language philosophy and is based upon the analysis
of the meanings of everyday discourse or ordinary language
in any culture so as to highlight the critical distinctions
made by the criteria that govern the meanings of key con­
cepts and the underlying systematic, conceptual relation­
ships thereby revealed.
When I first arrived in Nigeria, and began to teach phi­
losophy in universities there, to the best of my knowl­
edge there were no courses in African Philosophy being
taught. One apparent implication of this, which did not
go unnoticed by students and faculty, was that there was
2 African Philosophy; The Analytic Approach
nothing specifically philosophical about Africa’s indigenous
cultural heritage that could be taught. In those days, the
“study” of Africa’s indigenous cultures was pretty much
exclusively the business of religious studies or the social
sciences. That is why I decided to begin this text with a
critique of anthropology’s presumption to so exclusive a
prerogative (chapter 1). To borrow a figure of speech from
Kwame Anthony Appiah, African philosophers—if they are
to do anything besides teach exclusively Western philosophy
to African students—are compelled to aggressively “clear
themselves a space” (Appiah 1992, 143, 145, 149) in the inter­
national intellectual marketplace. Only then will they be in
an equal position to present and defend African viewpoints
on diverse philosophical topics.
On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean—more specifi­
cally in the North American intellectual “marketplace”—
there are still today prominent intellectuals, like the phi­
losopher Richard Rorty (chapters 2 and 3) who, cleverly and
seemingly innocently, suggest that “real” philosophy—most
importantly defined as the search for a transcendent truth,
a truth that must apply to all peoples in all cultures—has not
existed and does not exist anywhere else in the world but in
Western culture. Rorty attempts to ameliorate the distress
this might cause non-Western peoples by concluding that,
in any case, philosophy is a deservedly obscure subject that
is not particularly important because it has in fact failed
to achieve this truth. But, even so, the implications for
the intellectual heritage(s) of non-Western peoples could be
momentous, and monstrous. What I believe to be Rorty’s
overall position on this issue has been pieced together from
his remarks in a wide variety of his essays and books, which
are listed in detail in chapter 2, footnote 1 and chapter 3,
footnote 1 below.
Reservations about the approach to African philoso­
phy—the methodology—espoused by this volume have been
expressed by my African philosophical colleague, Paulin
Hountondji (chapter 4). He has for long condemned any ten­
dency on the part of either African or non-African scholars
to link African philosophy to some form of tribal mental­
ity. Be it called Bantu, Akan, Zulu, or Yoruba “philosophy,”
Introduction: Philosophy In The African Context 3
this essentially produces a picture of a worldview or system
of shared “tribal” beliefs about the nature of things. But
this is not what philosophy is conventionally taken to mean
in the West, where it is the product of individual thinkers
and the scrupulously critical analyses of the ideas under dis­
cussion. Consequently Africa once again becomes the victim
of a demeaning intellectual double standard. My response
to Hountondji, delineated in this chapter, is that analytic
philosophy which has long specialized in the critical analy­
sis, by individual philosophers, of the shared meanings that
form the basis for any natural language does not align itself
with a double standard because it, in any case, has long been
part of the Western canon.
Part II (Methodology) outlines in detail various experi­
ments with reorienting Western philosophical methodologies
within and to an African context. By this point my choice
of the Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria, or at least
the philosophical relevance of their culture and language in
particular areas of special interest, becomes clear. I begin
by reclaiming philosophers’ right to at least participate in
the study and typing of rationality in any culture, and
advocate the now increasingly frequent practice of regard­
ing African “informants” as colleagues. I also challenge the
presumption that African conceptual systems, as is the case
in the West, divide up the human being into rational and
emotional components (chapter 5).
I continue to refine and to sharpen my vision as to what
analytic philosophy in the African context should entail in
the next essay (chapter 6). The social anthropologist Robin
Horton, after reading an earlier draft, characterized this
essay as a kind of “Manifesto”—as an analytic clarion call
about “what is to be done.” And, on reflection, I think
this is precisely what I intend. The final chapter in part II
(chapter 7) is an enquiry of a rather different sort, in that
it sets out to compare the (negative) consequences of secrecy
in scientific method with the (positive) consequences of
secrecy in Ifa divination among the Yoruba. I introduce it at
this point because it is clearly an essay about methodology
and because, again, it demonstrates that what is essentially
4 African Philosophy; The Analytic Approach
the same methodological technique may be used and viewed
in a radically different manner in different cultures.
It is one thing to outline a methodology and quite another
to apply it. Part III (Moral Epistemology) therefore begins
with a small but essential first step, i.e., arguing that the
intellectual attitudes of members of Yoruba society toward
elements of their worldview are neither unquestioning nor
dogmatic. In fact, even everyday discourse would seem to
indicate that individuals are much more reserved about the
status of secondhand information, and that they may be
said to regard much of it as substantively hypothetical in
character (chapter 8). This obviously could make the topic of
interest to the academic philosopher. The informants or col­
leagues who informed me about these things were the type
of professionals whom the Yoruba refer to as on/?egun.‘ This
term has been variously rendered into English as doctor,
“herbalist,” “traditional healer,” “alternative medical doctor,”
and the deservedly notoriously pejorative “witch doctor.
Because my research upon Yoruba culture and language
involved working with a select number of such individuals,
it is perhaps at this point appropriate that I diverge briefly
and comment upon the writings of those commentators
upon African philosophy who see a resemblance or affin­
ity between my work in African philosophy (including
that done with the late J. Olubi Sodipo) and the movement
within African philosophy christened “Philosophical Sagac­
ity” by its champion and founder, the late H. Odera Oruka
(1990b). I feel it is important to do this because I know
how distressed Odera was about commentators’ tendency to
lump our two approaches together and to label them both as
philosophical sagacity.
Bear in mind that from the outset I have said that the
research and work on African philosophy with which 1
associate myself and the late J. Olubi Sodipo was primarily
meant to be grounded upon the (Western) analytic tradition,
as reoriented by an adaptation of ordinary language phi­
losophy. To give just two fairly obvious examples of why I
prefer the term adapted to adopted, we had also to come to
terms with the difficult problems (i) of translation between
languages that might not share a single cognate (see the dis­
Introduction: Philosophy In The African Context 5
cussion of W. V. O. Quine’s Indeterminacy Thesis of Radical
Translation in chapter 6 for relevant discussion), and (ii) of
working in and with a culture that was still significantly
oral in character (chapters 5 and 8).
Similar to Paulin Hountondji, Oruka insisted that our
essentially linguistic approach, because it did concentrate
on shared meanings in African languages, resulted in just
another example of philosophizing on the “tribal” scale. He
therefore demanded that the term philosophical sagacity
be reserved for his own research: devoted to recording
the potentially critical and consequently unique views and
insights of individual sages and elders about conventional
beliefs and practices in African cultures. Neither I nor Olubi
Sodipo ever had any objection to this. In fact we too were
distressed by some commentators’ failure to appreciate our
efforts to develop a form of analytic philosophy suited to
the African context and therefore, as well, preferred and
prefer not to be identified or associated with Oruka’s philo­
sophical sagacity.^
To return to the discussion of the essays included in part
III, perhaps the single most significant hypothesis arising
from my work on Yoruba discourse, is that concerning the
interrelations between epistemology and ethics—what has
come to be known, in shortened form, as “moral epistemol­
ogy” (chapter 9). This involves the claim that, because the
Yoruba prefer to classify information that has not been
witnessed firsthand as akin to belief rather than to knowl­
edge, and given that in an oral culture such Information is
usually obtained from other persons, the moral character of
the informant becomes an important criterion of its reli­
ability. And, symmetrically, the proven reliability of the
information provided by an informant becomes an impor­
tant criterion for determining the quality of his or her
moral character. When contrasted with the standard episte­
mological criteria arising from English-language discourse,
where so much secondhand (or propositional) information
is or must be regarded as knowledge and true, it becomes
clear that the natural languages of different cultures may
give rise to very different viewpoints on what is to be
regarded (in cross-cultural terms) as the criteria that define
 African Philosophy: The Analytic Approach
6
and determine knowledge, belief, certainty, truth, good
moral character, bad moral character, and so forth.
The next two chapters in section III (10 and 11) set out
to argue that Yoruba discourse includes terminology care­
fully crafted to designate individual intellectual and artistic
sophistication and genius (chapter 11). At this point such a
step might seem redundant but, again within the context
of the “practice” of medicine or of Ifa divination in an
African society such as that of the Yoruba, this claim needs
to be made explicit given the past and present penchants
of scholars to explain either healing or divination proc­
esses as magical, consisting primarily of rituals or, more
recently, of “performances”—but still the consequences of
formalized behavior—rather than the results of individually
gifted intellects (chapter 10). Similarly, attempts to impose
equivalents of Western notions of witchcraft upon African
conceptual systems have helped to sustain images of the
societies concerned as primitive and have largely ignored the
facts that the individuals concerned frequently are said to
have both superior moral characters and intellects (chapter
11).
I am attracted to African art history and aesthetics (part
IV) involving the Yoruba and, by implication, Africa gener­
ally because so much material has been published on these
topics that it offers an obvious basis to and from which a
philosopher might relate and derive inspiration. One scholar
whose work is celebrated in this regard is the American art
historian Robert Farris Thompson. But after careful consid­
eration of some of his published works, I felt constrained
to publish a critique of them—or at least those elements
of his Yoruba aesthetics where I suspect he is overstating
his case and attributing various priorities and criteria to
the culture on an insufficient evidential basis (chapter 12).
My own understanding of one role of the aesthetic links
specific aesthetic priorities or criteria to certain ethical or
moral priorities in Yoruba discourse, and these in turn are
consistent with the previously mentioned epistemological
concerns regarding the reliability of secondhand informa
tion. In effect, the truly beautiful person has a good moral
character because, at least in part, their words can be trusted
Introduction: Philosophy In The African Context 7
(chapter 13). It would be absurd for me to say this simple
equation sums up the whole of epistemology, morality, or
aesthetics in Yoruba culture. At the most it may indicate
some intriguing cultural and conceptual interrelations that
merit further study.
I enjoy a self-appointed role as a kind of intellectual
kibitzer or “backseat driver” vis-a-vis my African art his­
torical colleagues. I enjoy their continuing efforts to define
their discipline, both methodologically and topically, in no
small measure because this parallels what is happening in
African philosophy. And because they regularly maintain
that African art has “meaning,” and that these meanings
may be expressed in discursive form, I see their trials and
travail as things to which African philosophers, struggling
to elaborate African abstract beliefs and practices, can and
should relate. For this reason I occasionally feel the need to
address myself to Africanists generally about interests and
concerns that African art historians and African philoso­
phers seem to share (chapters 14 and 15).
On occasion I give in to the temptations aroused by
these overlaps that I see between African art history and
African philosophy and venture to write essays that high­
light aspects of art and/or performance studies that, while
still essentially analytic (chapter 16), go beyond the bounds
of what is conventionally regarded as academic philosophy.
Since I consistently defend the interdisciplinary character
of African studies, I can see no reason to exclude this type
of exploratory analysis from this volume because of exces­
sive concerns about disciplinary rigor.
Finally, the notion of authenticity (Conclusion) is of
perennial interest to scholars engaged in African studies,
most recently because of ever-increasing interest in the con­
sequences of globalization. This relates to what is happen­
ing and what should be happening with reference to what
Africans wish to claim as their patrimony versus what is
being inflicted upon them by non-African cultures that have
the economic and political resources to privilege themselves
internationally in this historical age. My analyses of various
African and non-African views on authenticity with regard
to culture, art, and literature are meant to demonstrate that.
8 African Philosophy; The Analytic Approach Introduction: Philosophy In The African Context 9

ultimately, it must be Africans themselves who determine enunciating the basic themes on which this text is grounded.
what that patrimony will be, and that there are any number But, as importantly, it is ‘Skip’ Gates’ continuing support
of African intellectuals who are keenly aware of and informed over the intervening years that has enabled me to improve
about this vital interest. upon and promote these ideas that I hope will eventually
This volume is a composite of chapters that have not make some contribution to that very vibrant field that has
been published before and of others that were published come to be known as African philosophy.
but have in most cases been substantially revised, updated,
and interrelated in the hope that it will be received as a
coherent but wide-ranging whole. Publications in which the NOTES
original versions of some chapters appeared are as follows' 1. English phonetic pronunciation as in “oh-knee-shay-gune”
African Philosophy^ A Critical Approach, Prentice-Hall (this last to rhyme with the English-language “dune”).
(chapter 1): Philosophy 70/273, The Royal Institute of Phi­ 2. Oruka later reclassified our work as “hermeneutics,” appar­
losophy (chapter 6): Secrecy^ African Art that Conceals and ently because it emphasized uncovering the ‘philosophy’
somehow latent in Africa’s cultures (1990, xx-xxi).
Reveals, The Museum for African Art (chapter 7); Insight
and Artistry, Smithsonian Institution Press (chapter 10);
Dialogues of Witchcraft, Ohio University Press (chapter 11);
The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 37/3 (chapter
12); African Studies Review 38/1 and 40/1 (chapters 14 and
15).
Thanks are due to my colleagues at Morehouse College for
providing the sense of fraternity and intellectual stimula­
tion that is essential to doing productive academic work.
Carla De Benedetti, as always, has helped throughout with
the production of this manuscript in too many ways to
enumerate. 1 thank my friend and colleague, Tsenay Sere-
queberhan, for introducing me to Kassahun Checole, the
Publisher and President of Africa World Press and Red Sea
Press. Damola Ifaturoti became a friend as well as an editor
during the period the manuscript for this book was being
finalized and put into production. Patricia Allen, my copy
editor, went through the manuscript with such scrupulous
care that I have her to thank for refining my rhetorical
style.
Last, but far from least, I thank Henry Louis Gates, Tr.
for his ever generous support, encouragement, and friend­
ship. It was my initial appointment as a Fellow of Harvard
University’s W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and
African American Research, of which he is currently Direc­
tor, that provided me with the optimal environment for
the scholarly research that in no small measure led to my
 Part I

Critiques
1
CHAPTER 1

ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY AND

"TRADITIONAL"THOUGHT: A CRITIQUE
OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY
his chapter challenges certain assessments by social
T and cultural anthropology about both the character of
indigenous African thought and the excessively limited role
these social sciences grant philosophy for understanding and
assessing that character. I argue that “traditional” thought
can be of considerably greater philosophical interest than
some scholars allow. What these social scientists mean by
a traditional culture is one where, when its members are
asked to justify fundamental ideas or beliefs, they reply
along the lines of= This is what the old-time people told us.
In other words, such explanations and justifications them­
selves amount to little more than an appeal to tradition.
One reason such people have not felt the need to go
beyond this rather uninteresting form of appeal to author­
ity is because the various concepts, beliefs, and practices
that constitute their culture all relate to one comprehensive
worldview that dominates the population without competi­
tion. The fundamentals of this worldview, as far as tradi­
tional thought is concerned, are usually to be found in the
“religious system” that, as the social anthropologist Robin
Horton has argued in various intriguing pdblications, may
be seen to be “forming more or less coherent systems of
postulates [read “theories”] which serve to display the unity
underlying the apparent diversity of everyday experience,
the order underlying apparent irregularity, the causal
enchainment underlying apparent randomness” (1993, 83).
However, though the anthropologist is able to describe
it as such, it would be too much to expect the traditional
person to regard his own religion as an instance of theo-
 Part I: Critiques
14
retical explanation. For the religion and the worldview,
of which it is a component, exercise virtually an absolute
monopoly over the minds of the traditional community.
There is no alternative. Part of being traditional is to regard
the ideological basis of one’s society in a matter-of-fact
manner. Consequently traditional thought may effectively
be described as non-critical or non-reflective. For it is only
when a people are faced with having to choose between
fundamentally different worldviews that they find it nec­
essary to work out some sort of reasoned' criterion on the
basis of which to do so. Horton links the development and
continuing importance of logic and epistemology as subdivi­
sions in Western intellectual history to precisely such a need.
A culture that has never had cause to doubt its worldview
does not appreciate how difficult it can be to identify and
to describe the fundamental components of experience with
language. Belief (and the language with which it expressed)
is assumed to mirror reality. Words (incantations, etc.) are
therefore believed able to capture and to convey the powers
of that experience in a magical manner.
Social anthropology does not deny that traditional people
do reason and do use logic. Nor does it deny that compo­
nents of their worldviews respond to change and develop
in piecemeal fashion. But it has insisted that they do so
in a nonreflective, noncritical manner, which would mean
that such societies generally are not conscious of the logical
structures, qua logical structures, underlying their dis­
course or of the intellectual significance of the changes
they undergo. And as philosophy is essentially critical, i.e.,
reflective and therefore second-order in nature, traditional
thought should be of little intrinsic interest to the philoso­
pher.
The impression one gets from anthropologists when
they speak of asking the question. Why do you believe x?
is that they are looking for a reasoned justification—such
as= We say that one is entitled to believe x, because of y,
or If you want to understand x, then consider the example
of y. Instead the traditional’s response is, because this is
what the forefathers said. The only traditional culture with
which I have significant firsthand acquaintance is that of
Analytic Philosophy And “Traditional" Thought 15
the Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria. And there I think it
is often the case that when a Yoruba responds by saying.
Because this is what the forefathers said, as they do, they
are actually taking the question as one about the origin of a
particular belief or custom. They are giving the same sort
of response Westerners would be likely to give if asked how
they came to believe in shaving the hair off their faces.
However, if one goes further and asks a Yoruba to explain
what a belief means, a more sophisticated response is often
forthcoming.^
Anthropologists might object and say that they are in no
way prejudging what would constitute an adequate response
to the question. Rather, they are only reporting the way
people within the society do respond to one another in eve­
ryday conversation when justifying a belief or a practice.
And that when encouraged to speak on an abnormal level
because, for example, they are specifically asked to explain
something to a foreigner who cannot be presumed to share
the same cultural context, one might well expect them to
introduce or to invent unusual and therefore more interest­
ing responses. My response to this is that there are levels of
everydayness as well. In that there are specialized, profes­
sional sources within Yoruba society wherein explanations
are more sophisticated than the ordinary person’s (even if
they still concern the ordinary person) and therefore do
prove of intrinsic interest to the academic philosopher. I
shall shortly attempt to justify this claim by introducing
an example of this sort of reasoning.
The crucial question about which we must first be clear is
this: Precisely what is the transition that must be undergone
in order for a process of thought to be regarded as critical
or reflective? In Robin Horton’s account, it is when a people
are confronted by and have to choose between a plurality
of competing worldviews. But surely this is merely the
occasion for whatever then must happen. In other words,
what kind of thought must a person (or culture) display in
order to be regarded as critical or reflective? Karl Popper,
who agrees that traditional thought is essentially noncriti­
cal, does propose a more specific criterion:
 Part I: Critiques
16
I we can "free ourselves froni the taboos o'f a tradi
j tion, and we can do that not only by rejecting it,
but also by critically accepting it. We free ourselves
1 from the taboo if we think about it, and if we ask
I ourselves whether we should accept or reject it. In
order to do that we have to first have the tradi
tion clearly before us and we have to understand
in a general way what may be the functions and
significance of a tradition. (1962, 122)
Popper’s reflective criterion may be divided into three
stages:
1. A person must first identify a tradition as a tradition
(which may be provisionally defined as a custom or a
belief observed by a significant group in a society):
’ 2. A person must display an awareness that this tradition
has certain consequences for the members of the society
and on that basis is relatively important or unimpor-
, tant:
1 very strong medicines which will make them light
3. A person must display an awareness of at least one sig­
nificant alternative to the tradition, and on some critical
i basis then choose to reaffirm or to reject it.^
If the above may be taken as criteria suitable for measur­
ing the powers of reflection or criticism in any society,
one is likely to find any number of examples of reasoning
in societies that anthropology would type as ‘traditional
that would satisfy them. And it is extremely important to
make use of concrete examples in a critique of this sort. For
the entire subject of the “traditional-modern” divide is a
very sensitive one. Frequently contestants allow themselves
j to become ideologues, arguing in terms of what they feel
' traditional thought must or must not be (rather than is) in
I order to satisfy their own ideological predispositions on the
’ subject (McClean 1994). At the same time it is impossible to
J ignore the large body of carefully documented studies by
social anthropologists on the basis of which certain cultures
are characterized as traditional and magico-religious. With
all this in mind I now propose to examine the following
statement, made to me in the course of my research, by
Analytic Philosophy And “Traditional” Thought 17
Chief Z—a Yoruba om'$egiin,* i.e., herbalist, practitioner of
alternative medicine, or (perhaps best) just plain doctor:
It is the power of medicine. When you prepare your
medicine and you say it is your deity (6ri$a)® which
told you to give it to people, if the medicine should
cure the type of illness to which it is applied, they
[people] will regard your deity (orisa) as powerful
and will think that it is its [the deity’s] power that
you use to do whatever you do, not knowing that
[really it] is your medicine.
For example, there are people [on/seg'un] who may
have prepared a medicine [and then put it] inside
a container. When they open the container it will
cause people around to sneeze. If this person [the
om'segiin who placed the medicine inside the con­
tainer] is the worshiper of a particular deity (dri^a),
they [people] will say it is the power of the deity
which made the power of that person [the herbalist]
displayed there. There are some people who ingest
[in terms of body weight] and then they will be
enabled to perform many acrobatic dances [as in a
masquerade]. If the person is attached to a certain
deity, people will believe it is the power of the
deity that he uses to perform his acrobatic dances.
For example, if there is a person who is an expert
at a certain thing, if he or she should come to boast
that he could do the thing without the power of
the supreme deity (Qlgrun), if other people should
know of his or her boast, they will not allow the
thing to be possible. This is because they are not
pleased by his or her pride in disconnecting the
supreme deity from his power. For people would
not respect the power [of the om^egiin as only
human] and they [also] might [then come to] regard
the deities as nothing.
One [on/jegun] can tie a white cloth in the corner
of his room, put a stone there and put oil on it
[thereby creating an altar or a shrine]. He or she
will put medicine inside this place which he or she
will be giving to people who complain of headache
or any kind of disease. If a person comes and com-
 Part I: Critiques
18
plains of a certain disease, he or she will enter into
the shrine and remove some medicine and tell the
patient, “My deity (6ri$a) asked me to give you this
medicine.” He or she may also give the medicine to
all the people around. Since the medicine can cure
the kind of disease to which he or she applied it,
they will agree that the deity is powerful [i.e.,
the giving of the medicine to the patient and to
“all the people around” are not simultaneous; once
the patient has been cured and reported back, then
the om$egiin may dispense it generally as a proven
remedy].
Among those who are learned there are many titles
which they use to honor themselves. These are with
regards to the knowledge a person has got
academic pursuits. People who are called B.A., Ph.
D.,” and those who reach the stage of elementary
schools generally will be referred to as people who
“know book” [are literate]. When we [om^egiin] ask
someone to go and worship a certain deity so that
a disease should leave him or her,® the person will
know inside himself or herself that there has been
some bad behavior which he or she indulged in. For
example, if they [on/$^girn] ask a barren woman
to make sacrifice to a certain deity, people [the
oni^egiin] will advise her privately to desist from
having sexual relations with many people. After
she has made the sacrifice to the deity, there are
certain medicines which they will give to her. They
will advise the lady that the deity will not listen
to her prayer if she does not behave well towards
her husband. If they are trying to cure a disease
in a person, they may ask him or her to worship
a certain deity, and tell him or her that the deity
asks him or her [indirectly] not to go to the farm
for seven days. They might [do so by] say[ing] the
deity has asked him or her not to cross a river.
[All] this would be to keep him or her at home for
a rest.
The Yoruba believe in a number of lesser divinities, or
6ri?a, each having its own distinctive personality and rela­
tions with humankind in general. Each individual, family,
and often profession as well owes allegiance to a particular
Analytic Philosophy And “Traditional” Thought 19
bri^h as a kind of guardian or protector and potential source
of power and influence. An individual’s 6ri$a is therefore
appealed to in time of need and honored in time of success.^
The tradition of dri?a worship is well-known and observed
by the Yoruba generally, so there is nothing remarkable
about Chief Z’s mentioning it. What is of interest is the dis­
tance, the unmistakable element of objectivity, with which
he assesses the tradition’s role and importance in the com­
munity. He does not even deal with the question of whether
the dri?a really exist. It is somehow not relevant. What is
important is that dri$a worship—attributing one’s skill and
success, in particular, to a divine agency rather than to only
oneself—helps to elevate the origin and thereby source of
treatment, as well as to mitigate and to deflect the jealousy
and suspicion that could otherwise very definitely be the
response of the community to the on{$egiins role in the
overall prescriptive process. So, though Chief Z is convinced
that it is his own ability that is responsible for a medi­
cine’s potency and thereby a patient’s recovery, he is always
careful to attribute it to the dri$a.®
As evidenced by the last paragraph of Chief Z’s remarks,
a further advantage to the herbalist’s using the bri^a as a
screen for his prescriptions is that it also helps to conceal
the common-sense element that is always part of his rem­
edies. Rather than telling the barren woman to sleep with
her husband on a more regular basis, he tells her that only
by beginning to do so will the dr'i$a consider listening to her
petition. The sick farmer is told that in order to worship
the bri?a properly, he will not have time to work on his
farm. Or, if the oni'$egun happens to know that a stream lies
between his house and farm, he is forbidden by the dri$a to
cross water for that period of time—in order to keep him
quiet in his house so that he can get sufficient rest.
Clearly, then. Chief Z is well up on the functional sig­
nificance of the tradition for his own profession and that
of the community generally, and he recognizes that it is
significant. This last stage of Popper’s criteria requires that
an individual be capable of counterpoising continued observ­
ance of the tradition with an alternative and of finding
some genuine reason for choosing between the two. This
 Part I: Critiques
20
I think Chief Z does when he considers the consequences
of abandoning the tradition, of the herbalist’s taking sole
responsibility for his actions. He does not consider what
this would do in instances of failure (perhaps because he
himself is usually successful), but in cases of success he
argues that personal self-interest, jealousy, and envy could
then become inflamed to a dangerous degree. At the same
time, somewhat paradoxically, if the herbalist were only
human, his influence and professional status in the com­
munity would be diminished.
Before reviewing Chief Z’s remarks in light of some
anthropologists’ characterizations of traditional thought, it
would be efficacious to insert a bit of information here
about the context in which he made them. Chief Z is a herbal
doctor, has no formal education (or extramural training in
medical sociology from the local state hospital personnel),
and regards himself as committed to his cultural heritage. (I
have observed him plan and monitor shrewd and successful
strategies when, for example, influential Christians in the
town have tried to use various forms of intimidation upon
masqueraders (individually) in order to prevent a festival
from taking place.) Early Christian missionaries in Nigeria
would have labeled him a witch doctor. His statement was
totally unsolicited, prefaced by the explanation that if 1 ever
was to appreeiate how the herbalist or alternative medical
doctor in Yoruba society worked, 1 would have to know
this. From his manner it was clear that he felt his remarks
contained original elements of his own thought. Yet he was
sure that other oni$egiin and babalawo would agree. But,
since it was an important professional confidenee, if ever
1 discussed the matter with others, I had to promise that
I would never reveal he was the one to have first told me.
In his remarks Chief Z is both explaining and evaluating
the social merits of a specific tradition from a basically
functionalist point of view. In any society this is ^he
sort of analysis one would expect from the ordinary man
in the street.” But Chief Z is someone who, because of his
exceptional training and knowledge as an oni^egim, is not
speaking as the ordinary man.
Analytic Philosophy And “Traditional” Thought 21
Some anthropologists argue that significant critical
powers can only develop in a situation where there is a
plurality of conflicting worldviews. 1 would suggest that
they may also develop within the context of a single world­
view as an outcome of competing social elements and their
viewpoints. For the Yoruba worldview is constituted by a
variety of often competitive soeial and professional groups,
each with its own critical standpoint. Chief Z clearly real­
izes the potentially damaging consequenees, both to himself
and his society generally, if the basis of his critical opinions
became public. But 1 do not see why, for example, in periods
of serious internal economic, social, or political stress, such
revelations could not erupt and, if they prevailed, lead to
significant changes, even of the radieal sort anthropologists
might have in mind, within that worldview.®
In other words, the kind of model proposed here as an
alternative to anthropology’s noncritical, single worldview
is a somewhat Hegelian one. We may take it for granted
that there is always the level of ordinary, everyday dis­
course where the reasons for a particular belief, praetice, or
language usage need not be explieitly artieulated. But it may
also bd the case that many soeieties classified as “'traditional”
contain different and competitive ideological groups that
are normally kept in relative balanee. Some of these profes­
sional or ideological groups (or at least particularly talented
individuals therein) are in a position to develop signifleant
and rival powers of critical awareness. In a time of internal
stress one or more might move into positions of power or
influence that would have significant consequences for the
beliefs of the entire soeiety.*®
But enough of such speculation. It is time to return to
the core of my argument with social anthropology: whether
traditional thought ean be of philosophical interest in its own
right. For though Chief Z’s remarks may provide evidence
of a kind of sociological theorizing, is this philosophy? It is
certainly of genuine theoretical interest, even in Horton’s
terms, given the analytic philosopher’s interest in the types
of explanations offered by the social sciences. However, the
matter should not rest there. For as I stated at the outset,
as with Horton’s characterization of traditional thought, it
22 Part I: Critiques
is difficult to accept anthropology’s role for philosophy in
the study of traditional thought.
For example, in Horton’s view one of the principal tasks
of contemporary academic philosophy should be to act as
a kind of grand conceptual “translator,” both on an inter­
disciplinary and intercultural level. “ As, for example, the
philosophy of science enables the nonscientist to understand
the kinds of theoretical concepts and standards of verifica­
tion relevant to that discipline, so might the philosophy
of traditional culture enable us to understand what distin­
guishes it as an explanatory type from others. The philoso­
pher’s “tools” of translation are to be certain techniques of
analytic philosophy that he or she applies to select areas
of a worldview. One hopes Horton will at some point be
more specific about all of this and thereby improve upon
his rather general references to logic and to epistemology.
In lieu of this, assuming he practices what he preaches, it
should be possible to find examples of this kind of approach
in his published works. Two essays that seem particularly
relevant are his “The Kalahari World View= An Outline and
an Interpretation” and “African Traditional Thought and
Western Science.” In both he attempts to draw parallels
between the functions of and the criteria for theoretical
concepts and explanations in science with certain terms and
patterns of explanation evidenced by traditional thought.
Horton has on occasion been unjustly maligned for
attempting to prove in these papers that traditional thought
is essentially unscientific and even irrational. But jumping
to these conclusions misses the point of the whole exercise.
That point is that both papers are experiments in translation
on a theoretical, conceptual level. He begins with a certain
set of concepts from a discipline (science) and then sees what
resemblances or similarities he can establish between it and
concepts in another area (traditional religious thought). In
doing so he places himself in opposition to a long and distin­
guished tradition in both philosophy and the social sciences
that maintains there are no significant parallels.'^ What is
disturbing about this as a general approach is that it is
apparently all that he thinks analytic philosophy’s relation
with traditional cultures can be. Once again this appears to
Analytic Philosophy And “Traditional” Thought 23
derive from the importance he attaches to being reflec­
tive or, in Popper’s terms, critical. As I have suggested in
footnote 9 (above) in time he did become more specific and
flexible about what these terms mean to him. But I think
it is safe to assert, on a very general level, that he is still
thinking along the same lines as Popper in the following:
. . . what we call “science” is different from the
older myths not by being something distinct from
a myth, but by being accompanied by a second-
order tradition—that of critically discussing the
myth. Before, there was only a first-order tradition
.... This second-order tradition was the critical
or argumentative attitude. It was, I believe, a new
thing and it is still the fundamentally important
thing about scientific tradition. (1968, 127)
Popper is the champion of a certain narrow-minded and in
itself hard-line version of rationalism, but this is counter­
poised in his work by an equally vigorous emphasis upon
the making of “bold hypotheses” and “radical conjectures.”
It is this complementary emphasis on speculation as well
as analysis that I find missing from some anthropologists’
general approach to philosophy. They may feel that the
examples of conceptual analysis their work has so far dis­
played—as with Horton’s claims about theoretical think­
ing in traditional thought—are in themselves sufficiently
radical conjectures. But surely there can be other topics
suitable for philosophical analysis in African discourse. And
this is where the first and second halves of this chapter
come together. For I suggest that more careful study of
traditional thought systems arising, perhaps, from analysis
of the criteria governing ordinary usage of the language in
which they are expressed can be a source of critical, specu­
lative hypotheses about certain common human situations,
institutions, and problems that should be of interest to the
academic philosopher. Or, as in the case of Chief Z, analysis
of the thought processes underlying more specialized pro­
fessions that have their own critical, intellectual content.
The particular, “orthodox” philosophical tradition I have in
mind here is enunciated by W. V. O. Quine in a forthright
manner when he argues that immediate experience does
 Part I: Critiques
24
not “present” itself as ordered and categorized. It is human
genius, and the languages and theories it constructs as tools
and instruments to cope with that experience that define
meaning and order. The totality of our so-called knowledge
or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and
history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even
of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric . . .
(1961, 42).
I would argue that, in the study of African cultures,
certain “exotic” and “bizarre” theoretical elements have
been attributed greater explanatory significance than they
merit. Here I have in mind the kinds of African beliefs that
have come to be associated with topics like fetish, taboo,
totem, witchcraft, magic, sorcery, divination, and so forth.
I am not disputing the fact that many of these beliefs
and their theoretical underpinnings do differ from com­
parable Western conventions. What I am disputing is the
relative significance attributed to them as elements of a
worldview—the tendency to type cultures as African or
non-African, as traditional or modern, on the basis of their
adherence or non-adherence to them.
I would argue that in non-Western cultures generally
there is a good deal more that should be of intrinsic inter­
est to the analytic philosopher. For example, the articulated
criteria for evaluating and grading information, as from
the more to the less reliable, can be of direct relevance to
epistemology. For example, the kinds of articulated reasons
used to justify and to explain certain types of behavior can
be of direct relevance to ethics. And it is along dimensions
such as these that I believe more fruitful comparisons of
common interests and concerns will lie, which may also
serve to diminish the (intellectual, moral, aesthetic, etc.)
gulfs that are sometimes assumed to distinguish traditional
cultures from their modern Western counterparts.*®
A philosophical analysis of traditional thought of the sort
Horton proposes is of interest and value as an experimen­
tal exercise in cross-cultural interpretation and comparison.
But as for implying this is the only responsible way for
philosophers to relate African cultures to their discipline,
I cannot agree. Standards of verification, moral paradigms,
Analytic Philosophy And "Traditional” Thought 25
and aesthetic criteria as embodied in and expressed by dis­
course in an African language—all provide examples of the
human genius that invents languages and thereby imposes
empirical and theoretical order on immediate experience.
These are important areas of African theoretical enterprise
that should challenge philosophers to demonstrate that the
methodological tools of their discipline are applicable to
non-Western discourse. In this regard, non-Western cultures
have as important a contribution to make to the academic
philosophical enterprise.
NOTES
1. This term is used here with the general sense of being “criti­
cal,” as later defined by Popper in this chapter.
2. On this point see also Appiah 1992, 126-27. For subsequent
discussion of Yoruba expressions equivalent to “This is what
the old-time people told us,” by the om$egun themselves, see
Hallen and Sodipo 1997, 67-68. They suggest that information
or “knowledge” inherited from the past—oral tradition gen­
erally—can only be regarded as hypothetical (possibly true).
It cannot be proven or established as true until actually tried
and tested, and thereby verified. In other words, “this is
what the old-time people told us” should be treated as a kind
of verbal trope whose meaning is “this information may be
true but it cannot be relied upon as such until tested and
thereby proved to be so.”
3. See also Appiah 1992, 126-27.
4. Oni$egiin (for suggested English phonetic pronunciation see
Introduction, footnote 1) can be translated literally as “master
of medicine,” and may be used locally to refer to anyone
who is a qualified herbalist and/or diviner. Alternatively, but
used less frequently in Chief Z’s locale, is the more conven­
tional term for diviners, babalawo (baba-la-woe), which can be
translated literally as “father of secrets.”
5. For a more specific explanation of the term 6ri$a, see pp. 18-
19 below.
6. For the remainder of this paragraph the om$egiin aims to
characterize the level or kind of erudition (analogous to the
B.A. or Ph.D.) that distinguishes those who practice his pro­
fession.
26 Part I: Critiques

7. In some situations the roles of the dri$a may be compared

with those of the saints in the Catholic faith. For a detailed
discussion of this aspect to Yoruba culture, see Barber 1981.
8. The importance of not flaunting one’s talents or skills in
Yoruba culture is discussed from a different but relevant CHAPTER 2
perspective in chapter 3 (The Secrecy of the AJe) of Hallen and
Sodipo 1997. "PHILOSOPHY" DOESN'T TRANSLATE:
9. In a subsequent publication, Robin Horton (1981) makes impor­
tant revisions to his model of traditional thought systems, as RICHARD RORTY AND MULTICULTURALISM
is evidenced by the passage from his work quoted at length
on pp. 74-5 below.
10. The story of Orunmlla establishing himself at Ile-Ife and the
We have become so open-minded that our brains
remarkable spread of his influence, resulting in his eight
sons becoming important kings in other parts of Yorubaland, have fallen out.
all at least partially due to the introduction and burgeoning Richard Rorty, “On Ethnocentrism: A Reply to
influence of Ifa divination, might attest to just such a devel­ Clifford Geertz”
opment. See, for example, Abimbola 1975, 51-67: 1976, 3-8.
11. There are interesting similarities between Horton’s views of
philosophy in this respect and that advocated later by the INTRODUCTION
philosopher Richard Rorty in such essays as “Solidarity or
n a radically multicultural world every culture becomes

12.
Objectivity” (1991a) and “Inquiry as Reconceptualization= An
Anti-Dualist Account of Interpretation” (1991a).
The emotivist-symbolist “school” of interpretation of magico-
religious thought includes L4vy-Bruhl and Rudolf Carnap. Its
viewpoint may be typified by the following: The real dif­
ficulty in the understanding of primitive thought is not
as some philosophers suppose, that its ‘supernatural’ beliefs
are refractory to rational understanding, but that symbolism
is linguistically untranslatable and its ideas encapsulated in
action, ritual, and social institutions: that is, they exist at a
sub-verbal level” (Hallpike 1979, 485).
13. For a philosophical analysis of Yoruba discourse that examines
some of its epistemological underpinnings, see chapter 2 (An
African Epistemology: The Knowledge-Belief Distinction and
Yoruba Thought) of Hallen and Sodipo 1997.
I entitled to its own science, its own art, and, more impor­
tantly for our interests, its own philosophy. The narrative of
academic philosophy in (sub-Saharan) Africa has involved the
denunciation of ethnophilosophy, the elaboration of generic
methodological specializations (analytic, Marxist, phenom­
enological) and recently an interesting spate of generalized
studies of the discipline in an African context—either in
historical, thematic form or as topical essays about the role
of philosophy in African societies (Appiah 1992: Oyewumi
1997: Serequeberhan 1994; Wiredu 1996, 2004).
Richard Rorty has been an important analytic figure in
American philosophy, aligned with the pragmatic tradition,
for a good many years. Unlike many of his more specula­
tively conservative colleagues, he has also sought to develop
broad, critically methodological, historical, and cultural per­
spectives upon the whole of what has become identified as
the “Western philosophical tradition.” As we shall see, he
has come to assume some radical positions internal to that
tradition, particularly with reference to the “deaths” of
epistemology and metaphysics.
 Part I: Critiques
28
What is of more direct concern to the interests of this
study are the ramifications of his work for philosophy as
a cross-cultural enterprise. The opening quotation expresses
Rorty’s displeasure with contemporary laissez-faire attitudes
towards cultural patrimonies. As the standards that define
disciplines cross-culturally continue to become more flex­
ible,” he believes that what may be labeled “philosophy in
one culture will be so different from what is awarded the
same label in another that nothing significant will remain
to compare. The road to multiculturalism can become a road
to insipid generalization.
In his more recent work Rorty has carried these rumina­
tions about “what is (Western) philosophy” and “the nature
of non-Western (including African) thought” a good deal
further. Indeed he has concluded that there is little of
intrinsic philosophical substance to non-Western (including
African) cultures generally. The assessments on the basis of
which he arrives at this controversial conclusion are scat­
tered through essays that have been published over the past
twenty plus years.*
Of course, the issues of the philosophical character of
indigenous or traditional African thought and of the role of
philosophy in Africa generally have been subjects of debate
for many years and have given rise to both vigorous and
emotional exchanges. The reasons for raising them here
again are several. Rorty is becoming increasingly influ­
ential in contemporary philosophical and cultural circles.
Therefore he cannot be ignored. Furthermore the perspec­
tives that underlie his observations and arguments about
the, in effect, cultural exclusivity of (Western) philosophy
are original and admittedly ethnocentric. Therefore they
deserve to be addressed.
This chapter attempts to represent and to interrelate
a limited number of arguments I have extrapolated from
Rorty’s writings because of their eventual relevance to his
position on the status of African thought and philosophy.
Because the central thrust of my approach is related to
the status of African thought and philosophy, it would
be irresponsible on my part to suggest that this material
might also serve as any kind of more general introduc­
'Philosophy” Doesn't Translate: Richard Rorty and Multiculturalism 29
tion to Rorty’s overall philosophical position. Also in this
chapter, I will attempt to develop the implications of some
of Rorty’s arguments for the problems of abstract or theo­
retical translation between African and Western languages
and for why he can agree to a limited degree of disciplinary
multiculturalism but must insist that this cannot extend
to the existence of non-Western, in particular to African,
philosophy.
THE ANALYTIC TRADITION
The idea was that there is a rough equivalence
between being scientific and being rational.
Richard Rorty, “inquiry as Recontextualization”
According to Rorty, despite the growing hegemony of
science as a model for knowledge in the twentieth century,
the vision that philosophy should endure, as the discipline
whose perspectives and problems presuppose, underlie, or
transcend those of all others, survived (WHR 50-3). At the
beginning of the last century, students of epistemology
(the area of philosophy responsible for defining the locus of
any special “philosophical” knowledge) were instructed that
its transcendent subject matter was something called “expe­
rience,” which could be subdivided into a subjective pole
(mind or consciousness) and an objective pole (objects of con­
sciousness: physical objects, dreams, other persons, etc.). As
the influence of the empirical sciences grew, mind became
the domain of psychology (and now biochemistry), and the
objects of which consciousness is conscious—the so-called
world or universe—became the special interest of assorted
physical sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, etc.).
In need of an alternative transcendent subject matter
that was not being invaded or contested by science, in other
words a replacement for experience, a number of philoso­
phers elected language. “The replacement of ‘mind’ or ‘expe­
rience’ by ‘meaning’ [the “stuff” of language] was supposed
to insure the purity and autonomy of philosophy by pro­
viding it with a nonempirical [a priori] subject matter” (HCP
50). In either its formal/artificial (logic; technical scientific)
or natural (English, Chinese, Yoruba, etc.) forms, language
30 Part I: Critiques “Philosophy” Doesn’t Translate: Richard Rorty and MulHctdturalism
31

was said to underlie all disciplines in that they must use it philosophy—most notably in the person of the later Witt­
to define and to express themselves. genstein (that of the Philosophical Investigations)—is that it
As is their habit, philosophers approached the subject explicitly recognized this unsayableness and impossibleness.'*
of language by asking distinctively fundamental (read= According to Rorty, Wittgenstein recognized that language
“transcendent”) questions such as: “What precisely is the could not provide an adequate vehicle for philosophy’s
relationship between language and thought?” “What is it transcendence over all other disciplines, and that the most
for something (a word: a proposition) to have a ‘meaning ?” singular consequence of the various attempts to do so was
“What precisely is the nature of the relationship between that the philosophy of language had demonstrated its own
language and the (non-linguistic) things (physical objects, impossibility.®
etc.) it is used to name, to describe or to which to refer”
THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL TRADITION
(WHR 54-9)?
Apart from analytic philosophy, the other major tradi­
One good reason for asking these questions was that,
tion in contemporary philosophy is phenomenology.® Rorty
without such activities as naming, describing and referring,
regards phenomenology as another philosophical fantasy
there could not be a language—any language. Therefore the
about a kind of knowledge that can transcend all others.^
investigation and analysis of these so-called conditions of or
Martin Heidegger, a philosopher in whom Rorty takes a
prerequisites for language also excited interest because they
special interest, is conventionally identified with this tradi­
could provide a new source of that very special philosophers’
tion. Rorty suggests that entirely too much is made of this
delight—a priori knowledge (universal and necessary condi­
phenomenological “connection,” and dismisses it as “at most,
tions that must be satisfied before any language could be a
an aberration of his [Heidegger’s] early middle age” (PWM
language, could function as a language).^ The still pervasive
74).® Thereafter Heidegger in his own right became hostile
eminence of scientific rigor was manifested by the emphasis
to philosophies of transcendence.® He denounced phenom­
placed upon the formal, technical nature of this philosophy
enology and much of previous philosophical thought (begin­
of language, which today has come to dominate the philo­
ning with Plato and ending up with Husserl and Carnap) as
sophical tradition known generally as analytic philosophy. metaphysics,” as banal and fruitless speculation.
For Rorty, the problems caused by transcendence that
The Heidegger that emerges from Rorty’s ruminations
are relevant to this tradition may be expressed by a series
is very much a product of Rorty’s own philosophical priori­
of queries. Is there such a thing as Language (with a capital
ties. These may be introduced here by suggesting that, since
“L”)—in its entirety and its infinite, intimate detail—avail­
he wants to conclude that transcendence is methodologically
able to the philosopher for examination and dissection in
impossible, the implications of this notion’s traditional con­
the manner required? What language does one use to talk
ceptual opposite/antithesis—immanence'®—may become rel­
about all language(s), about the conditions that must obtain
evant. For as we shall see, theories and methodologies that
for there even to be language? Where/how does one dis­
pretend to transcend will eventually be recast as fallacious
cover these conditions? Or, to rephrase the same point, how
products of (an always culturally, linguistically, histori­
is the philosopher to explain his experience (and knowl­
cally immanent) human imagination. Human understanding
edge) of them? Rorty argues that his interpretation of the
generally, wherever and whenever it occurs, will be inter­
later Wittgenstein and concomitant critique of the various
preted as having no choice but to begin from the beliefs
responses to these questions that have been ventured by ana­
and conceptual resources of the particular language-culture
lytic philosophy prove that, as problems, they are insoluble;
within which it finds itself.
and, as questions, they are unanswerable and possibly even
unsayable.^ For him one commendable achievement of analytic
32 Part I: Critiques
Given his own analytical background, it is understand­
able that the stronger attraction of Heidegger for Rorty is
that philosopher’s work on language. “On [Heidegger’s] . . .
account, the aim of philosophical thought is to free us from
the language we use by reminding us that this language is
not that of [universal] ‘human reason’ but is the creation
of the thinkers of our historical past” (PSM 16). This is a
Heidegger who insists that the words and meanings that
constitute our discourse at any particular point in time are
contingent. “The importance of appreciating contingency . .
. . begins when somebody says ‘maybe we don’t have to talk
the way we do’” (HCP 43). The danger of not “saying” this
is that we will give in to that all-too-human inclination to
reify, objectify our forms of discourse and insist that our
words really do name, that our truths really do correspond
to the way the world is in some transcendent and timeless
sense.
. . . we [Westerners] have to think of ourselves
as, first and foremost, the people who used—who
just happened to use—those words [e.g., as centu­
ries passed, the increasingly philosophically impor­
tant “creator,” “reality,” “causality,” “objectivity,”
“freedom”]. This is hard for us to do, because our
[Western] tradition keeps trying to tell us that it
isn’t the words that matter, but the realities which
they signify. Heidegger, by contrast, is telling us
that words do matter: that we are, above all, the
people who have used those words. We of the West
are the people whose project consisted in running
down that particular list, in riding that particular
escalator. There was no more necessity about getting
on that escalator than there is about a poet’s use of
a given metaphor. (HCP 35-6)
Heidegger reminds us that it is human genius that created
the many different language-cultures and conceptual schemes
that have existed throughout history, each with its unique
perspectives and “truths” about the world. This is the most
important “truth” about language that ean be known (HCP
42-3).
The task, then, is to circumvent eonvention—not via
any leap of transcendence but, by altering our beliefs, our
“Philosophy” Doesn’t Translate: Richard Rorty and Multiculturalism 33
presumptions, from within our partieular language-culture.
From this point of view, for example, it is possible to re­
view the so-called specialization of knowledge as nothing
more than an amalgam of conventions that has allocated
forms of thought to academic disciplines (to avoid conven­
tional terminology Rorty will prefer to call them genres)
in an arbitrary manner (TAL 91-2). Heidegger challenges the
criteria underlying these divisions (scientific, artistic, etc.)
as relative to a particular ‘worldview. For example, with ref­
erence to the process of revising beliefs that are expressed
in language, modern thought tends to see figurative speech
generally, and metaphor in partieular, only as ornamental,
literary, artistic. He argues that figurative speech may be
of as much or even more value to suggest, to broach the
possibility of, new ways of regarding old beliefs, or new
beliefs altogether (NRP 124-5).
To think of metaphoripal sentences as the fore­
runners of new uses of language, uses which may
eclipse and erase old uses, is to think of metaphor
as on a par with perception and inference, rather
than thinking of it as having a merely ‘heuristic’
or ‘ornamental’ function. (PSM 14)"
Rorty agrees with this line of thought, and I will develop it
further in ehapter 3 when evaluating elements of his own
version/vision of a reformed pragmatism.
Onee transeendence is finally ruled out, every language
is “pulled down” and sited unequivocally in its social and
cultural contexts.*^ Understanding, whether everyday or
philosophical, becomes eonventional to a particular histori­
cal culture. This realization itself does not imply a form of
transeendence (WHR 61: HCP 43).
Rorty suggests that Heidegger demonstrates his aware­
ness of the eonventional nature of eulture and soeial prac­
tice, and of language as a manifestation of soeial praetice, in
those early seetions of Being and Time, where he does use
a phenomenological approach to isolate the epistemologieal
priorities of “modern,” technologies! soeiety.'^ One impor­
tant insight that eomes out of this, which Rorty thinks
approximates a pragmatic point of view, is the primacy of
social practice over belief. To say this is a restatement of
34 Part I: Critiques
the banality that we are all products of a society would be
too elementary. To say that the language and beliefs we
are born into and must use to understand the world are
things we have no choice but to begin from and to theo­
rize with(in), in other words cannot transcend, would not
(PMN 365-6; RST 151). This theme somehow touches upon
what Wittgenstein had in mind when he wrote of “forms
of life,” and what in the present day is debated under the
banner of multiculturalism}*
RADICAL INTERPRETATION: THE FIELD LINGUIST
AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE
The philosophical alternative Rorty advocates—one that
he thinks has been intimated by the epistemologically con­
tinent Wittgenstein and Heideggei—is a synthesis of prag­
matism with a series of anti’s that punctuate his rejections
of transcendence: antirealism (lAR 96-8), antiessentialism
(lAR 99-101), antirepresentationalism (RST 151-61), antifoun-
dationalism (PMN 317) and, of interest later for its cultural
ramifications, anti-anti-ethnocentrism (OEG 203-210).
The prohibitions of the first four of these anti’s are
complementary in one significant respect. This may be dis­
tilled into the admonition that philosophy should renounce,
once and for all, its quest for the real and the true nature of
things. Philosophers must divest themselves of the delusion
that they can be privileged to discern the veritable, universal,
cross-cultural essence of anything, if meant to mean more
than what people who are products of a particular language-
culture imagine (believe*®) it to be. For if a transcendent
perspective and universal, cross-cultural standards no longer
apply, all that remains for us to work with is the language
and beliefs of our own given cultural milieu. Whether the
topic being investigated is mind, body, appearance, reality,
language, or fact (and the nature of the relationships
between them), human genius has demonstrated that it can
fashion remarkable and intricate theories. But because of
the impossibility of transcendent experience, an experience
that would allow the philosopher to, in some neutral and
objective fashion, compare different theories with reality
“Philosophy" Doesn’t Translate: Richard Rorty andMulticidturalism 35
and confirm which in fact do correspond, humankind can
never proceed beyond the level of mere belief.
One immediate consequence of these proscriptions is the
rejection of any form of correspondence theory of truth.
The notion of correspondence only makes sense in an epis­
temological situation where the “knower” is in a position
to compare, to contrast, to “confront” reality, on the one
hand, with his “scheme” for representing that reality on
the pther. As this process implies, indeed presupposes, an
act of transcendence (how else could I be in a position to
confront reality with my scheme for representing that
reality and be able to judge it accurate/inaccurate, true/
false?), any significant process of comparison between them
is ruled out.
As we shall see, this position will have profound conse­
quences for Rorty’s overall position, and for the theoretical
alternatives he will propose to supplant epistemology'® gen­
erally and the conventional, philosophical (correspondence)
notion of true/truth. Indeed, much of Rorty’s published
work since Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature is devoted
to hammering away” at (deconstructing) our conventional
presuppositions about truth and reality on a variety of
fronts, and at demonstrating the advantages of his alterna­
tive perspective(s) upon them.
Anti-foundationalists . . . are making the rather
specialized philosophical point that objectivity is just
inter-subjectivity, truth is what we can agree on
rather than some correspondence to fact. (CRR 34)
Rorty is explicit about his desire to eliminate epistemol­
ogy as a philosophical discipline altogether (PMN 299-311;
PDT 132-9). At the same time he recognizes that certain of
its concerns, such as how language works, what understand­
ing means, and how our beliefs are related—to one another
and to experience—must still somehow be addressed in the
absence of correspondence, etc. To introduce his alternative
perspectives upon them he has recourse to contemporary
philosophy s classic case of the field linguist, in particular
as interpreted by the philosopher Donald Davidson.*^ The
exemplar of the field linguist originates in Quine’s seminal
thought (gedanken) experiment in Word and Object (26-79).
36 Part I: Critiques
Both Davidson and Rorty have obviously given it, and the
“Indeterminacy Thesis of Radical Translation” that it serves
to introduce, considerable thought. Their own understand­
ings of the empirical and methodological constraints rel­
evant to such a translation situation will eventually differ
from Quine’s own. Nevertheless they share in common the
essential scenario: to examine the empirical and methodo­
logical constraints applicable to a field linguist who is out to
ascertain the meanings of an alien language (not a cognate)
that has never before been translated when he/she first
encounters it. Important consequences of this argument
are also meant to apply to “established” general schemes of
translation between natural languages that have been insti­
tutionalized in standardized bilingual dictionaries and lan­
guage instruction. But the analysis can be more to the point
and less cumbersome if modeled upon a first encounter.
This scenario of the field linguist is important to Rorty,
because it gives us a relatively practical and concrete, rather
than elaborately theoretical, model for what is involved
when a trained professional is “trying to make sense of
our linguistic behavior” (PDT 132). Moreover, since in this
case it is alien linguistic behavior, the situation presents an
occasion for better appreciating what is involved when one
begins from “outside”*® the language-game one is trying to
understand.
All the linguist has to go on is his observation of
the way in which linguistic is aligned with non-
linguistic behavior in the course of the native’s
interaction with his environment, an interaction
which he takes [assumes] to be guided by rules for
action . . .[“rules for action” may be expressed in
more conventional philosophical terminology as
“beliefs,” or as “intentional behavior”]. (PDT 133)*®
Guiding the linguist’s interpretations of alien behavior will
be the “regulative principle^** that most of the native’s rules
[intentions/beliefs] are the same as ours, which is to say
that most of them are true” (PDT 133: my italics). Why the
same and why true?
The underlying pattern of analysis and argumentation
used to clarify these points begins with Rorty asking us to
“Philosophy” Doesn’t TmnslaU: Richard Rorty and Multiculturalism 37
consider the consequences of their negative interrogatives.
To wit: Why not the same? How could any field linguist
begin from the alternative that beliefs which are true for
her have little or nothing in common with beliefs which are
true for alien peoples? Quine, Davidson, and Rorty all seem
to agree that something that must be tempered throughout
any translation-interpretation exercise is the tendency to
impute exotic and bizarre beliefs to another culture simply
because it appears in unfamiliar guise. When siting/citing
the aliens and their beliefs in their natural environment,
therefore, in translation the field linguist “‘must, in the
plainest and methodologically most basic cases, take the
objects of a belief to be the causes of that belief. . . . Commu­
nication begins where causes converge: your utterance [the
aliens’, for example] means what mine [the field linguist’s,
for example] does if belief in its truth is systematically
caused by the same events and objeets’” (PDT 133).^* In other
words, the field linguist will prefer to interpret the aliens
as speaking about things like “rocks and diseases [what the
field linguist would normally talk about if he/she were
in the alien’s place] rather than about trolls and demons
[the sort of things someone with an overactive imagina­
tion might attribute to “exotic” and “bizarre” aliens]” (PDT
133). If this seems trite or a truism, it is also essential
to keeping the exaggerative powers of human imagination
under control.
The, in a sense, elementary good sense of this claim is
underscored once more by pointing out that the only beliefs
and truths the field linguist brings to the translation situ­
ation are those of her own natural language-culture. She
cannot begin from a blank tablet, to interpret the alien
behavior on the basis of nothing at all—without any presup­
positions. Her own empirieal eommonsense, logic, etc. must
be presupposed as elements of the overall translation situ­
ation—“the Quinean insight that knowledge both of causa­
tion and of reference is (equally) a matter of coherence with
the field linguist’s own beliefs” (PDT 134). Once again, this
is because there is no longer any neutral, objective, concep­
tual perspective that transcends both cultures (the aliens’
and the field linguist’s).
38 Part I: Critiques
If we find our reaction to this recommendation to be
one of doubt, suspicion, and dissatisfaction—that something
does not seem “right” about the field linguist proceeding
in this way—it is likely because we find an interpretative
process whereby the linguist begins by assuming the alien’s
beliefs are just like hers to be less than objective, unfairly
ethnocentric, too culturally biased in favor of the field lin­
guist’s own cultural background.
Rorty’s response would likely be that this suspicion is
motivated by inherited intellectual prejudices arising from
our imaginary beliefs about what objective understanding is
supposed to be when still defined in terms of conventional
notions of correspondence and transcendence. If we have
followed Rorty’s critical analyses of these notions to this
point, they have been demonstrated to be exaggerated, imag­
inary. What he now wants us to recognize is that in their
absence what other choice does the linguist really have but
to begin from her own commonsense beliefs and notions of
coherence as a basis for interpreting those of other peoples?
For she no longer has a methodological avenue via which she
can transcend such a translation situation and be entitled
to demonstrate, in any absolute manner. Aha, that really is
what they mean by that expression.
According to Rorty, these limited options available to the
field linguist in a situation of radical interpretation-transla­
tion may be better appreciated if we divest ourselves of the
presumption that all human cultures are confronted by, and
must come to terms with, some common objective experi­
ence called “reality.” Humankind is not confronted with or
by reality. It is situated in various physical environments,
with which it interacts on a stimulus-response basis.In
the absence of correspondence and of reality, “knowledge”
should be recast as “belief,” and any system or “web of
beliefs”^^ [as represented, for example, by a particular aca­
demic discipline (genre^^) or culture] as “adaptations to the
environment” or as “habits of acting” (INT 10).
For pragmatists the desire for objectivity is not
the desire to escape the limitations of one’s commu­
nity, but simply the desire for as much intersub-
jective agreement as possible, the desire to extend
“Philosophy” Doesn’t Translate: Richard Rorty and Multiculturalism 39
the reference of us” as far as we can. Insofar as
pragmatists make a distinction between knowledge
and opinion, it is simply the distinction between
topics on which such agreement is relatively easy
to get and topics on which agreement is relatively
hard to get. (SOO 23)
With respect to our (shared) natural languages and the
(shared) clusters of beliefs constitutive of our cultures, each
of us has no choice but to begin to act, to understand,
to theorize, to explain from within our specific cultural
context, which is effectively a further dimension of the
environment.
. . . think of [physical] objects as what we find
it useful to talk about in order to cope with the
stimulations to which our bodies are subjected. . .
what precedes positing is just stimulation and not
knowledge. (lAR 107)^®
This point of view, which Rorty calls “holism” and which
is a further manifestation of what I referred to cautiously
as immanence, is compatible with the pragmatic tradition
because, in the absence of correspondence, the basis for com­
parative evaluation becomes a belief’s (or a web of belief’s)
instrumental value for the advancement of human interests.
Rorty cautions against the impulse to conclude that because
certain systems of beliefs are found to be particularly useful
or helpful, the things those beliefs talk about are estab­
lished as real (and the beliefs as true) in any independent
manner.2® The physical sciences may be distinguished by the
unanimity among professionals as to what their theories and
methods are. But this does not make abstractions like “atom”
or “gravity” true or representative of the world as it really
is. Commonsense, the hardest of the hard sciences, or the
most refined of the arts—each is constituted by a distinctive
cluster of more or less specific beliefs, and each has its own
useful role to play in the advancement of human interests.
If it should happen, as also is likely, that specific dif­
ferences in meanings and beliefs emerge in the course of a
translation process, this does not mean the aliens interpret
important fundamentals in essentially different terms.^^
Granted that people in all cultures may acknowledge that
40 Part I: Critiques
certain of their specific beliefs may not be entirely true, or
may not be entirely consistent with other specific beliefs,
this still is not enough to stigmatize the whole. The point
here is that such differences and inconsistencies not be
presumed as fundamental and obstructive from the outset.
Nothing entitles the linguist to begin from a presupposi­
tion that the aliens’ beliefs are not internally coherent in
some fundamental and conventional manner.
Imagine the consequences f or any translation process that
was undertaken with the assumption that most of what a
people were saying, were believing, was not in accordance
with commonsense and coherence, was in effect incoherent
and false? Indeed one of the noteworthy conclusions of both
Quine and Davidson is that any translation exercise that does
produce such a result would itself thereby be discredited,
proved false, become unacceptable, because it had, quite liter­
ally, failed to make sense of the alien linguistic behavior.^®
Now that we better appreciate what may be involved in
viewing alien linguistic behavior from “outside,” let’s ask
the field linguist to “put the shoe on the other foot” and
view the (verbal and non-verbal) behavior of members of
her own culture in the same manner.^® Let’s ask the field
linguist how easy she would find it to regard the beliefs
of her own culture generally as less than true, as less than
coherent. Then what would entitle her to do this to the
aliens’ culture?
The general picture of the translation process that
emerges from all of this is of the field linguist as a species
of semantic tinker(er),^° with a marked preference for
translations that favor conventional and banal interpreta­
tions of alien beliefs.^' Rorty quotes Mary Hesse’s synopsis of
theorizing in science with approval as a parallel case: “it has
been sufficiently demonstrated . . . that the logic of science
is circular interpretation, reinterpretation, and self-correc­
tion of data in terms of theory, theory in terms of data.”^^
Parallel because the field linguist first identifies meaning
(theory) on a provisional basis. The field linguist then relies
upon additional observation of and communication with the
aliens (data) to revise that meaning (theory), and then goes
back for further face-to-face experiences (data) for further
“Philosophy” Doesn’t Translate: Richard Rorty andMulticulturalism 4l
refinements (theory), etc. To return to the scenario of the
field linguist and to link it to this interpretation of the
relationship between theory and data in science:
... we cannot understand the parts of a strange
culture, practice, theory, language, or whatever,
unless we know something about how the whole
thing works, whereas we cannot get a grasp on
how the whole works until we have some under­
standing of its parts. This notion of interpretation
suggests that coming to understand is more like
getting acquainted with a person than like follow­
ing a demonstration. In both cases we play back and
forth between guesses about how to characterize
particular statements or other events, and guesses
about the point of the whole situation, until gradu­
ally we feel at ease with what was hitherto strange
(PMN 319)
AFRICAN TRANSLATION
To focus in a more specific manner on problems that might
arise from translating African^ meanings into Western lan­
guages, especially those of some theoretical abstraction, we
must reconsider^^ Rorty’s characterization of the knowledge
institutionalized in any particular culture as a belief system,
as a web of beliefs. Based upon preceding discussion, we
should begin by acknowledging, not just hypothesizing,^®
that an African web is, on the whole, internally coherent
and true (as its Western counterparts are presumed to -be).
For sensible translation purposes we should also begin from
the explicit assumption that, on the whole, the Africans are
talking about the same kinds of things that would be talked
about if a Westerner were in their place.
These methodological “bridges”®® between languages/
beliefs may provide useful guidelines for cross-cultural
understanding on the everyday, commonsense level (the
level of experience that has come to be referred to in philo­
sophical literature as “the world of banally intercultural
middle-sized dry goods” (lAR 105): ‘“the ordinary material
objects that surround us’” (lAR 103: as quoted from Taylor
1985, 255)). But is there not also an important qualitative
difference in the degree of theoretical abstraction and the
42 Part I: Critiques
difficulty of understanding involved when comparing the
belief, for example, on the part of the Yoruba of West
Africa, that there are things in the world called Igi (usually
translated into English as “tree”) with the belief that there
are things in that same world called or/ (more recently
translated into English as the “individual person’s destiny”)?
Would not such comparatively more abstract beliefs require
extra measures to ensure representative translations?^^
Rorty’s response would likely be that the phrasing of
this second question—the very word abstraction—implies
the covert influence of correspondence theory, in that the
igi belief is being treated as a report, a representation of an
empirical fact, while the or/ belief is treated as something
more, in that it does not correspond to things that are
indisputably empirical in an immediate and direct manner.
Because of his inflexible rejection of correspondence, Rorty
cannot accept the implied model of language as composed of
theories erected in a somewhat “loose” (underdetermined) or
comparatively speeulative manner upon relatively objective
statements reporting everyday empirical experience that
take correspondence with reality or the external world for
granted.^® This conventional objectivist view would also be
reflected by the attitude that people in other language-cul­
tures may not talk about something equivalent to or/, but
that they almost certainly will talk about something clearly
equivalent to igi.
This can only be an issue for someone who is still trapped
in that philosophical cul de sac where transcendence—a
concern with certain types of statements as being more tied
to reality and therefore more objective than other types—
reigns. Aecording to Rorty, we must continue to resist the
temptation to presume that African and Western cultures
view the same objective reality, and that each consequently
proceeds to formulate its language and beliefs f or understand­
ing and explaining that common reality. There no longer is
a neutral, objective, common reality to which one can appeal
for comparative and evaluative purposes. There are only the
different languages and webs of belief between which we
must strive to establish lines of communication (PMN 310).
“Philosophy" Doesn’t Translate: Richard Rorty and Multiculturalism 43
There is no sueh thing as “knowing what some­
thing is” as distinct from knowing that it stands
in certain relations to other things. (lAR 107) . . .
two groups are not talking about the same things if
they talk about them very differently—if wildly
different beliefs . . . are aroused in them by these
things. (lAR 103)
From the standpoint of understanding, both igi and on'
should be viewed as examples of beliefs devised by a particu­
lar culture in its efforts to come to terms, instrumentally,
with particular natural and social environment(s). From
the standpoint of the translation of these African mean­
ings into Western languages, Rorty would suggest that we
replace the conventional distinction between the empiri­
cal and the abstract (with objective experience as its point
of reference) with a distinction between those beliefs that
are easy and those that are difficult to understand and to
translate interculturally (with successful intercultural com­
munication or dialogue as its point of reference).
Apply the Principle of Charity. The latter condition
amounts to saying that our form of life and the
natives already overlap to so great an extent that
we are already, automatically, for free, participant-
observers, not mere observers. Davidson thinks that
this overlap in effect reduces the intercultural case
to an intracultural one—it means that we learn to
handle the weirder bits of native behavior (linguis­
tic and other) in the same way that we learn about
the weird behavior of atypical members of our own
culture ... all the people who express paradoxical
beliefs and desires in (mostly) familiar words of
our mother tongue. (lAR 107)
Adapting T. S. Kuhn’s (1962) distinction between normal
and revolutionary science to the task of intercultural/intra-
cultural understanding and translation, Rorty would define
normal intercultural/intracultural communication and
translation as=
. . . that which is conducted within an agreed-upon
set of conventions about what eounts as a relevant
eontribution, what counts as answering a question,
what counts as having a good argument for that
44 Part I: Critiques
answer or a good criticism of it. (PMN 320: my
italics)
With reference to our examples of the Yoruba beliefs in igi
and on', for translation purposes we can reasonably suggest
that the translation of igi would fall within the bounds of
normal discourse. OH would likely be a different matter,
in the sense that the process of making it cohere with,
of linking it to, the context of a Western web of beliefs
would prove more difficult^® (we must continue to resist
any temptation to explain why on the basis of the degree
of its theoretical abstraction from an objective, empirical
experience).
. . . that we must be ethnocentric, is merely to
say that beliefs suggested by another culture must
be tested by trying to weave them together with
beliefs we already have. It is a consequence of this
holistic view of knowledge. . . (SOO 26)
The policy that the practice of the field linguist recom­
mends to us is to begin to experiment with making certain
elements of Western belief systems equivalent to on on a trial
basis.^ He would then “listen” to further examples of Yoruba
discourse to see whether translation was thereby facilitated.
. . . the difficulty of explaining why other people
disagree with us, of reweaving our beliefs so as
to fit the fact of disagreement together with the
other beliefs we hold.......... dispose of the anthro­
pologists’ distinction between the intercultural and
the intracultural. (SOO 26)
If the field linguist’s trial equivalence results in making
further relevant Yoruba discourse incoherent or patently
false, this is the best reason for modifying or rejecting
it altogether. Other translations should then be proposed.
Perhaps no clear-cut equivalent can be found, so that it is
not possible to arrive at a translation via which the Afri­
cans are expressing any succinct Western belief. In which
case an explanation can eventually be provided for why, in
this particular case, the two language-cultures do not ever
appear to speak of precisely the same belief.
“Philosophy” Doesn’t Translau: RichardRorty andMulticulturalism 45
. . . the notion of a language untranslatable into ours
makes no sense, if "untranslatable” means ""unlearn-
able.” If I can learn a native language, then even if
I cannot neatly pair off sentences in that language
with sentences in English, I can certainly offer
plausible explanations in English of why the natives
are saying each of the funny-sounding things they
say. I can provide the same sort of gloss on their
utterances which a literary critic offers on poems
written in a new idiom or a historian of the “bar­
barism” of our ancestors. (CWE 215)
Indeed, referenee to this particular belief might prove so
cumbersome, so approximate in the proposed language of
translation that the bilingual field linguist would prefer
to diseuss the eoneept at any length only in the original
African language (lAR 104).
If one adopts, on an experimental basis, this perspective
that Rorty is proposing for the translation of African beliefs,
one should view the various attempts on the part of Western
and African ethnographers over the years to suggest English-
language equivalents for on as evidence of this kind of piece­
meal, experimental linkage between the web of beliefs of
one language-culture (English) and that of another (Yoruba):
“guardian spirit” (Ellis 1894/1974): “god of fate” (Johnson
1921): “guardian deity” (Talbot 1926/1969): “deification of
good luck” (Lucas 1948): “ancestral guardian soul” (Bascom
1956): “personality-soul” (Idowu 1962): “locus of intelligence”
(Verger 1971): “human destiny” (Abimbola 1971).
One who is persuaded that meanings are relative to a con­
ceptual system,'** and that an African conceptual system may
represent a fundamentally different perspective on human
experience from its Western counterparts would likely con­
tinue to protest about the reductionist tendencies of Rorty’s
scheme for intercultural translation. It may make things
more convenient for a field linguist if she can make all
sorts of assumptions about African meanings that justify
her equating them with those of the English language. But
what if an African conceptual system really does represent a
fundamentally different perspective on the world?
What if it does “carve up the world differently” (lAR
104) and does project a radically alternative worldview to
46 Part I: Critiques
that enshrined in the basic conceptual categories of the
English language? All of this would be lost, indeed ignored,
by a translation process that, in effect, rationalizes Western
ethnocentrism.
We might claim that all he [Donald Davidson] could
possibly do is show that we cannot verify the exist­
ence of a language which gives a true description
of the world unless it is translatable into our own,
and that this would not show that there cannot be
one. (PMN 305)
This is a sensitive issue, and one that has been of concern
to philosophers in Africa for some time (Hallen and Sodipo
1994: Oruka 1990b; Wiredu 1992a). It is also an issue that
Rorty (again via Davidson) addresses. He does so when consid­
ering what it would mean for there to be: (j) an alternative
conceptual scheme which (ii) was true and (iii) untranslatable
into or by the meanings of another (PMN 299-311).
He argues that a language that was truly untranslatable
by another language would therefore be unlearnable, un-
understandable in cross-cultural terms. Members of one of
the language-cultures Involved would, therefore, never be
able to appreciate, to recognize, to understand the truths of
the other as alternative. Therefore such truth could have no
sense, no significance in intercultural (translatable) terms.
Better to recognize this imaginary possibility—of a radi­
cally alternative but true conceptual scheme—for what it
really is= the product of an overactive philosophical imagina­
tion. This is the sort of impossible challenge that is framed
by the theoretical skeptic who pretends to be able to tran­
scend, who pretends to therefore be able to understand, and
thereby to confound intercultural translation. But when we
take a closer look at the consequences of this challenge—if
interlinguistic translation were somehow to be achieved so
that, for example, when expressed in our terms such a belief
system would become fundamentally incoherent and false,
as would our own when expressed in it—can it really make
sense as a genuine alternative?^^
Davidson can say . . . that most of our beliefs
are true. This claim follows from his claim that
we cannot understand the suggestion that most
“Philosophy” Doesn’t Tratislate: Richard Rorty and Multiculturalism 47
of them are false—a suggestion which has sense
only when backed up with the phony notion of an
“alternative, untranslatable, conceptual scheme.” . . .
Davidson ... is saying that we cannot project from
the fact that this or that central belief turns out
to be false ... to the possibility that all of them
will turn out so. Only in the context of general
agreement does doubt about . . . truth . . . have
sense. (PMN 309)
If, empirically, a linguist does someday come across a lan­
guage that he cannot learn and therefore cannot translate,
perhaps we will have to look at this possibility anew (PMN
311). In the meantime it is best that we remain sensible and
practical, in accordance with a pronouncement that Rorty
makes any number of times: “The philosophy of the field lin­
guist is all the philosophy of language we need” (PDT 139).^^
MULTICULTURALISM
There are any number of ingredients in Richard Rorty’s
narrative and critique of the Western intellectual worldview
that might be interpreted as favoring the integrity and
intellectual importance of non-Western, more particularly
African, webs of belief(s).
. . . our best chance for transcending our accultura­
tion is to be brought up in a culture which prides
itself on not being monolithic—on its tolerance for
a plurality of subcultures and its willingness to
listen to neighboring cultures. (INT 14)
The multicultural vision that Rorty might be interpreted
as defending would be one in which intellectual expression
becomes intrinsically historically, linguistically, and cultur­
ally relative: a vision in which there no longer is that false
objective reality that serves to denigrate the perceptive
powers of some cultures and to promote the interests of
others. Rorty’s exercises in deconstruction could have a pro­
foundly liberating effect upon peoples who have been made
to believe that non-Western is equivalent to in-ferior.
No petal on a cherry blossom is more or less a petal
than any other. (EHO 39) . . . we have to think
of the West not as the place where human beings
48 Part I: Critiques
finally got clear on what was really going on, but
as just one cherry blossom alongside actual and
possible others, one cluster of “understanding of
Being” alongside other clusters. (HCP 37)
Once knowledge is cut adrift from that elusive and illusory
objective reality, there is no alternative but for it to become
culturally relative. As humankind must begin to theorize as
well as to criticize from within its given linguistic and cul­
tural contexts, so must its philosophical ideas originate and
relate. This may mean that outsiders to any culture would
have to develop some appreciation of a cultural context (what
Rorty likes to call “environment”) before they can appreciate
the relevance of its mechanisms for theoretical explanation,
prediction, and control (what Rorty likes to call “genres”).
But is that not, in effect, what the Western world has been
demanding of the non-Western world for centuries—with
its various internationalized programs and initiatives for
development,” “modernity,” and “democratization”?
I argue that . . . the liberal culture of recent times
has found a strategy for avoiding the disadvantage
of ethnocentrism. This is to be open to encoun­
ters with other actual and possible cultures, and to
make this openness central to its self-image. This
[Western] culture is an ethnos which prides itself
on its suspicion of ethnocentrism—on its ability to
increase the freedom and openness of encounters,
rather than on its possession of truth. (INT 2)
PHILOSOPHY DOESN’T TRANSLATE
“the suprasensory world, the Ideas, God, the moral
law, the authority of reason” . . . are dead meta­
phors ....
Richard Rorty, “Philosophy as Science, Meta­
phor, Politics”
An openness to non-Western cultures would imply an
openness to non-Western philosophies. According to Rorty,
what has come to be known, rightfully, as Western philoso­
phy—the discipline that laid claim to transcending all other
disciplines as well as cultures—has been reduced to a cultur­
ally relative intellectual enterprise. This relativization of
"Philosophy" Doesn’t TransIaU: Richard Rorty and Multicidturalism 49
Western philosophy to Western culture could, presumably,
expand philosophical horizons immeasurably in that every
culture would now be entitled to prima facie philosophical
content.
... a number of American philosophers—notably
Richard Rorty, Stanley Cavell, Cornel West—have
become preoccupied with questions about what is
distinctively American about American philoso­
phy—or distinctively European about the philo­
sophical culture of Europe. In these circumstances
the philosophical climate is ripe for lessons from
African work= both because, in exploring the dif­
ferences between philosophical practices in dif­
ferent places, one is able to approach the question
that interests Cavell, Rorty, and West, and beeause
there is a certain openness to new possibilities at
the present moment .... (Mudimbe and Appiah
1993, 116)
Rorty recognizes that a radicalization of cultural rela­
tivity could lead to an unlimited number of intellectually
incommensurable worldviews.
... if we say that there is no such thing as episte-
mology and that no surrogate can be found for it . .
. we may be seen as saying there is no such thing as
rational agreement and disagreement. . . . [This posi­
tion would] seem to license everyone to construct
his own little whole—his own little paradigm, his
own little practice, his own little language-game—
and then crawl into it. (PMN 317) .. . that “there is
no unity of language, but rather islets of language,
each governed by a system of rules untranslatable
into those of the others.” (PMN 215)^^
But, as we have seen above, he argues that carrying things
to this extreme ignores the invaluable lessons to be learned
from the tried and tested instrumental measures exempli­
fied by the field linguist at work. Coming down on the side
of incommensurability, or on the side of indeterminacy, is
an error of the armchair philosopher, who is deceived by the
preconditions of her own thought (imaginary) experiment
into adopting an obstinate skepticism, with its impractical
and unrealistic demands for indisputable proof. This shows
50 Part I: Critiques
just how far beyond the bounds of good sense speculation
can carry us.
Surprisingly, disappointingly, with particular reference
to philosophy, Rorty refuses to acknowledge that there is
a multicultural dimension. Western philosophy is indeed
relative to Western culture, but it is also unique. In other
words, Rorty does not see historical or cultural evidence
of intellectual activity elsewhere in the world that can be
meaningfully compared with the idiosyncratic discipline in
Western societies that has inherited the title “philosophy.”
I think that looking around Africa and Asia and
asking “Where is the philosophy?” is probably a
pointless enterprise. You would have to do work at
such a broad level of abstraction that philosophy
would become synonymous with “culture.” (CRR
43)
To those in non-Western societies who may feel that such
a perspective arbitrarily excludes them from a prestigious
area of intellectual endeavor, Rorty is there to reassure that
his position does not imply cultural prejudice or intellectual
apartheid.
People think that if they ean get control over
philosophy, they will somehow get more cultural
power. This seems to me silly. Philosophy is a very
peripheral academic discipline .... (CRR 45)
Non-Western cultures have no reason to feel culturally
deprived. Their intellectual status is not demeaned by its
absence. They have expressed their intellectual talents by
other means, in other dimensions as defined by their own
terms.
Precisely because it has become relative only to Western
culture,^® in cross-cultural terms philosophy—the disci­
pline—is no longer important. It was Western intellectual
arrogance that caused so much to be made of this minor
intellectual tradition that had the audacity, the naivete to
take on the world and declare itself the arbiter, indeed
the definer, delimiter of every culture’s truth. The ideo­
logical imperialism attached to Western philosophy was of
the same variety that made Western literature and Western
‘Philosophy” Doesn’t Translate: Richard Rorty and Multiculturalism 51
art—indeed Western education generally—into cross-cul­
tural paradigms.
To again focus on Africa in a more specific manner,
Rorty would also argue that the subcontinent’s lack of
indigenous philosophical substance is a consequence of sup­
plementary reasons/causes. The particular tradition of
thought that happened to arise with the Greeks and was
then nurtured with varying degrees of enthusiasm during
the course of European/Western cultural history was and is
unique to Europe/the West. If there is one single theme that
distinguishes this tradition from other human intellectual
endeavors (and we shall see that this is an “if” about which
Rorty is sometimes diffident), it is the quest for tran­
scendence—the disinterested search for something called
the truth or reality that was universal and necessary for
humankind.
The tradition in Western culture which centers
around the notion of the search for Truth, a tra­
dition which runs from the Greek philosophers
through the Enlightenment. . . . The idea of Truth
as something to be pursued for its own sake, not
because it will be good for oneself, or for one’s real
or imaginary community, is the central theme of
this tradition. (SOO 21)
But this search was never without its own historical and
cultural roots. In other words, the “quest” for disinterested
truth arose with and despite very specific and very complex
Western cultural circumstances:
[The] point was that what we in the West call
“philosophy” is something that has evolved in the
context of quite specific conflicts, between, the
Greeks and the Christians, the Newtonians and the
Catholics, and the like. The philosophical problem­
atic of Europe is a function of particular European
quarrels. (CRR 43)^®
In other contexts Rorty is reluctant to link the whole
of Western philosophy to a single quest: “For my purposes,
the important place to draw a line is not between philoso­
phy and non-philosophy but rather between topics which
we [Westerners] know how to argue about and those we do
52 Part I: Critiques
not” (DTP 122). Sometimes, he notes, the discipline is identi­
fied by listing its principal individual thinkers and saying
something about their common (or uncommon) concerns.
Sometimes it is used to refer to an academic discipline that
studies and teaches a kind of cultural grab bag of diverse
intellectual pursuits and interests (DTP 122). Sometimes the
name is used to refer to speculative thinkers whose primary
concern was to present the most encompassing of world­
views. Sometimes to excessively detailed analytical analyses
of the most minute elements of an argument (DTP 123). In
fact the institution of (Western) philosophy has grown to
encompass all of these interests and the methodologies that
accompany them. Nevertheless, the central, underlying, his­
torically-rooted premise remains—all came to be because of
the dynamics particular and internal to Western culture.
Philosophy is a parochial European phenomenon,
and is the discussion of certain particular questions,
questions which a lot of people in other cultures
did not have to bother answering. So you will not
find philosophical insight in those cultures—you
will find insight into something, but it will be
difficult to say which department at a university
would be the proper place to teach those insights.
(CRR 43)
Furthermore, the problems, questions, and topics with which
philosophy is concerned, and the methodologies which it
has devised, cannot be appreciated, cannot be seen as truly
relevant, unless sited and situated in (their distinctively cul­
turally peculiar) Western historical and cultural contexts.
The effect is to modulate [Western] philosophi­
cal debate from a methodologico-ontological key
into an ethico-political key. For now one is debat­
ing what purposes are worth bothering to fulfill,
which are more worthwhile than others, rather
than which purposes the nature of humanity or of
reality obliges us [Westerners] to have. (lAR HO:
my italics)
Forty’s self-appointed role, as a (Western) philosopher, is to
convince us that the ‘quest’ after transcendence has failed,
in fact proved to be self-defeating. But this need not lead
‘Philosophy” Doesn’t Translate: Richard Roriy and Multiculturalism 53
to the demise of (Western) philosophy, for in the course of
its failure it has nurtured certain ethical and political values
that have become institutionalized in the ideals of what
Forty likes to call Western liberal democracy.
Amongst the various schools of (Western) philosophy.
Forty argues that those values are most effectively enunci­
ated and practically implemented by pragmatism. But, even
if a philosopher rejects professional identification with
that technical philosophical approach, the fact that these
same values have become fundamental to the cultures of the
Western liberal democracies generally, promotes the sort of
intellectual atmosphere that makes a de-epistemologized and
de-metaphysicalized future for (Western) philosophy pos­
sible.
The traditional Western metaphysico-epistemo-
logical way of firming up our habits simply isn’t
working anymore. It isn’t doing its job. It has
become as transparent a device as the postulation
of deities who turn out, by a happy coincidence, to
have chosen us as their people. So the pragmatist
suggestion that we substitute a “merely” ethical
foundation for our sense of community—or, better,
that we think of our sense of community as having
no foundation except shared hope and the trust
created by such sharing—is put forward on practi­
cal grounds. (SOO 33)
What might such a philosophy do? It is at this point
that Forty’s doctrine of anti-anti-ethnocentrism^^ becomes
relevant. I refer once more to the quotation from his work
that introduces this study. He views humankind as distrib­
uted among a variety of different cultures, with different
values, with different ways of expressing their beliefs, and
different attitudes towards them. He is therefore unhappy
about the efforts of some contemporary intellectuals (he
calls them “wet liberals”^®) who, under the banner of multi­
culturalism, insist that every culture is entitled to a prima
facie integrity that assigns it an intrinsic, unquestionable
value—neither greater nor less but—equal to any other. It
is this position that has become identified with anti-ethno-
centrism.
 54 Part I: Critiques
It is an attitude that defends positions such as the abo­
rigines having as authentic and sophisticated a philosophy as
the West, even if expressed in inarticulate (pictorial, musical,
poetic) terms.'*® Rorty argues that making the extension of
such technical terms as “philosophy” so flexible, so sloppy,
deprives them of content. What ends up being described as
philosophy is some vague notion of culture. Moreover, such
vague and generalized criteria—(every culture has its phi­
losophy)—are a covert way of reintroducing equally vague
notions of universality, of those cross-cultural standards
that have been found methodologically indefensible.
The point of an anti-anti-ethnocentrism is that, in
this multivalued, multicultured world where there are no
absolute standards, it makes better sense to acknowledge
the integrity of a degree of ethnocentrism. For example,
the Western liberal who explicitly embraces, who seeks to
better articulate and implement, the values underlying his
own culture'
. . . can only be criticized for taking his own com­
munity too seriously. He can only be criticized for
ethnocentrism, not for relativism. To be ethnocen­
tric is to divide the human race into the people
to whom one must justify one’s beliefs and the
others. The first group—one’s ethnos—comprises
those who share enough of one’s beliefs to make
fruitful conversation possible. (SOO 30)
One question that naturally arises at this point is, What
are these ethico-political values that Rorty finds to be so
important and so distinctive of the West? The answer is
indicated by his frequent references to the Enlightenment,
presumably as represented by the social philosophies of
thinkers like Locke, Rousseau, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben­
jamin Franklin, and of documentary enunciations of human
values such as the (American) Declaration of Independence.
I do not think it necessary to recite them in more precise
form here.®° But presumably these two dimensions of the
underlying issue are interrelated (perhaps in “chicken or
®88 ^li'st fashion): namely, that African cultures do not
manifest indigenous philosophies because they did/do not
enshrine these values, and these values are not fundamen-
“Philosophy” Doesn’t Translate: Richard Rorty and Multicidturalism
55
tal to African cultures because there was/is no indigenous
philosophical tradition.
CONCLUSION
Representing and interpreting the arguments of a col­
league is always a delicate task, demanding the utmost
responsibility. It is an unpardonable academic sin to create
straw man, the culpable and false image of
the other that suits one s own purposes and prejudices.
I have endeavored to reproduce and to interpret Richard
Rorty s ideas here at considerable length because I am aware
of their potentially controversial nature. In effect, he intel­
lectually tribalizes the world in a manner that could provoke
explosive responses. Yet Rorty is careful to argue his points,
and the evidence that has persuaded him of them, in consid­
erably more detail that I have been able to document within
this limited format.
NOTES
1. To facilitate references to Rorty’s published works and inter­
views, the following table of abbreviations will be used.
Unless otherwise noted, titles of essays that are followed
by the letter a in parentheses (a) are to be found in Objectiv-
ity, Relativisin, and Truth (Cambridge^ Cambridge Universitv
Press, 1991).
Those followed by the letter b in parentheses (b) are in
Essays on Heidegger and Others (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni­
versity Press, 1991).
Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature is an earlier and com­
plete work in its own right (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980).
Stories of Difference: A Conversation with Richard
Rorty,” Gaurav Desai, SAPINA (Society for African Philosophy
in North America) Bulletin V/2-3 (July-September 1993): 23-
45.
CWE = “Cosmopolitanism Without Emancipation: A Response
to Jean-Fran^ois Lyotard,” 211-22 (a)
DAC = “Deconstruction and Circumvention,” 85-106 (b).
DTP = “Is Derrida a Transcendental Philosopher,” 119-28 (b).
HCP = “Heidegger, Contingency, and Pragmatism,” 27-49 (b).
HLP = “Habermas and Lyotard on Postmodernity,” 177-92 (b).
56 Part I: Critiques
lAR = “Inquiry as Recontextualization= An Anti-Dualist Account
of Interpretation,” 93-110 (a).
INT = “Introduction: Antirepresentationalism, Ethnocentrism,
and Liberalism,” 1-17 (a).
NRP = “Non-Reductive Physicalism,” 113-25 (a).
OEG = “On Ethnocentrism: A Reply to Clifford Geertz,” 203-
10 (a).
PDT = “Pragmatism, Davidson and Truth,” 126-50 (a).
PMN = Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature.
PSM = “Philosophy as Science, as Metaphor, and as Politics,”
9-26 (b).
PWM = “Pragmatism Without Method,” 63-77 (a).
RCD = “a Pragmatist View of Rationality and Cultural Differ­
ence,” Philosophy East <S West 42/4 (October 1992): 581-89.
RST = “Representation, Social Practise, and Truth,” 151-61 (a).
SOO = “Solidarity or Objectivity?” 21-34 (a).
TAL = “Texts as Lumps,” 78-92 (a).
WHR = “Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and the Reification of Lan­
guage,” 50-65 (b).
2. ... to ask questions as to the essence of language, of
propositions, ... to ask questions whose answers would be,
as he [the later Wittgenstein] says, ‘given once for alb and
independently of any future experience.’”
“This last phrase sums up the idea that there is a nonem-
pirical discipline which can tell us about the conditions ... of
all possible languages ...” (WHR 60).
3. In relative terms Rorty appears to grant analytic philosophy
at least a modicum of propriety: “I argue that the temptation
to go transcendental (i.e., to search for noncausal conditions
of possibility) is lessened (though not, alas, eliminated) once
the ‘linguistic turn’ is taken” (DTP 124, fn. 15).
4. Rorty quotes Michael Devitt 1983, 89-90: “. . . any propositional
knowledge of a language that a person has is something over
and above his competence, something gained from theorizing
[speculating] about the language” (PDT 147).
5. Linguistic philosophy was, however, too honest to survive.
When, with the later Wittgenstein, this kind of philosophy
turned its attention to the question of how such a ‘pure’ [a
priori] study of language was possible, it realized that it was
not possible—that semantics had to be naturalized if it were
to be . . . ‘preserved as a serious subject’” (WHR 50).
‘Philosophy” Doesn’t Translate: Richard Rorty and Multiculturalism 57
6. Rorty explains his disinclination to discuss contemporary
Marxism in a footnote (PSM 10, fn. 3).
7. There is no time here to go into methodological details about
the phenomenological approach. Given Rorty’s own back­
ground, as an important analytic figure who has made sub­
stantial contributions to the philosophy of language, it would
also not be relevant to the central thrust of this chapter.
Regardless of his controversial interpretations, it is clear that
Rorty has a good deal more than a passing acquaintance with
the phenomenological tradition.
8. Rorty is careful to note that Heidegger himself did not think
his position changed at all over time (HCP 40, fn. 24).
9. Heidegger’s euphemism for the transcendent perspective
is the “mathematical”—which is for Rorty another expres­
sion for that crystal-clear realm of universal and necessary
formal-a priori knowledge (PSM 11). “Heidegger thinks of
himself as having tracked down the assumption common to
Plato, the skeptic, and the pragmatists—the assumption that
truth has something to do with evidence, with being clear
and convincing, with being in possession of powerful, pen­
etrating, deep insights or arguments—insights or arguments
which will put you in a commanding position vis-a-vis some­
thing or somebody else . . . (HCP 30-31). Every such power
play is, for Heidegger ... an expression of the [false] hope
that truth may become evident, undeniable, clearly present to
the mind” (HCP 33-4).
10. To my knowledge Rorty never uses the term immanence,
although he does at several points refer to Hilary Putnam’s
notion of internalism” or “internal’ explanations” in an
affirmative manner in that they take place as a form of
dialogue within a particular cultural tradition, e.g.. Western
(PMN 341: SOO 27).
11. “. . . we Westerners tend to think of poets referring to the
same old beings under fuzzy new metaphorical,descriptions,
instead of thinking of poetic acts as the original openings up
of the world, the acts which let new sorts of beings be” (HCP
45-46). A further extension of this line of thought, which
has become topical in this postmodern age, is that all of phi­
losophy should be read as literature, as telling “stories” about
what some creative minds have imagined the world to be. For
Forty’s views on philosophy as literature, with reference to
people like Derrida, see (DAC 85-106).
58 Part I: Critiques
12. . . the distinction between assertions and the social prac­
tices which gave meaning to assertions . . . , assertion is a
derivative mode of interpretation” (WHR 64).
13. ... we do not construct final vocabularies. They are always
already there: we find ourselves thrown [born] into them”
(HCP 38): the tendency of normal epistemologically centered
philosophy to block the road by putting itself forward as
the final commensurating vocabulary for all possible rational
discourse” (PMN 387): Rorty also mentions Husserl’s reference
to Being and Time as “merely anthropology” (WHR 63).
14. “This means forgetting that there have been other beings
around, beings which we are covering up by playing the lan­
guage-games we do, having the practices we have” (HCP 45).
15. In the absence of transcendence, Rorty prefers to describe
the information institutionalized in the various human cul­
tures as systems or “webs (i.e., interrelated) of beliefs” (see
pp. 38-40 below). From this point of view= “. . . ‘knowledge’
is, like ‘truth’, simply a compliment paid to the beliefs we
think so well justified” (SOO 24). The influence of Quine and
Ullian’s The Web of Belief (1970) is acknowledged by Rorty.
16. Because it is another philosophical subdiscipline that claims
knowledge of ultimate and transcendent truths, Rorty would
also dispense with metaphysics.
17. Rorty adapts rather than simply adopts a variety of perspec­
tives/analyses from Davidson’s work and then uses them for
his own purposes. For an example of Davidson’s response to
this interchange, see his “Afterthoughts, 1987.” Davidson’s
interpretation of the field linguist scenario is to be found in
Davidson 1984, 183-98.
18. Rorty anticipates criticisms that this implies the reintroduc­
tion of a form of transcendence: “[Davidson’s] outside stand­
point is not the metaphysical standpoint of the idealist . . .
. Rather it is the mundane standpoint of the field linguist
trying to make sense of our linguistic behavior. Whereas tra­
ditional theories of truth asked ‘what feature of the world is
referred to by “true”?,’ Davidson asks ‘how is “true” used by
the outside observer of the language-game?”’ (PDT 132: my
italics).
19. Compare with Quine’s original: “All the objective data he [the
linguist] has to go on are the forces that he sees impinging
on the natives surfaces and observable behavior, vocal and
otherwise of the native” (1960, 28).
20. What Quine sometimes refers to as a Principle of Charity or
a sense of “language analogy” (1960, 69: also see Hallen and
’Philosophy" Doesn’t Translate: Richard Rorty and MultictdturaUsm 59
Sodipo 1997, 21, 31-2): and what Davidson refers to as the
“principle of humanity” (1973, 443).
21. Davidson as quoted by Rorty from LePore 1986.
22. “Davidson takes off from Darwin rather than from Descartes:
from beliefs as adaptations to the environment rather than as
quasi-pictures” (INT 10).
23. “. . . a belief is what it is only by virtue of its position in
a web ... it is just a disposition to respond in various ways
to various stimuli (lAR 98). . . . You don’t find out anything
about objects at all .... You never get outside your own head.
. . . Reweaving a web of beliefs is . . . all anybody can do” (lAR
101).
24. “. . . by reclassifying culture in terms of genres [e.g., science,
literature], as opposed to ‘subject matters’ and ‘methods’ [both
of which imply distinctions that are objective and cross-cul­
tural]. . . . Pragmatism treats every such division of the
world into ‘subject matters’ as an experiment, designed to see
if we can get what we want at a certain historical moment by
using a certain language [e.g., talking about our environment
in scientific terms, religious terms, etc].”
Each new language [e.g., relativity theory, postmodern-
istic deconstruction] creates or modifies a genre—that is, a
sequence of texts, the later members of which take earlier
members into account. These sequences may intertwine ....
But there are no [objective] rules for whether they should or
shouldn t intertwine .... Nor is there any ranking of these
disciplines according to degrees or kinds of truth. . . . There
is no synoptic [transcendent] view of culture ...” (TAL 91-
2).
25. The positing of bodies is already rudimentary physical
science” (Quine 1975, 67).
26. “. . . eschewing the idea that the expediency of a belief can be
explained by its truth” (PDT 128).
27. For further discussion of this more radical alternative, see pp.
45-7 below.
28. Rorty phrases Davidson’s negative sense of the regulative
principle as: “any translation which portrays the natives as
denying most of the evident facts [“facts” because if he/she
were in the alien’s place, the field linguist would take them
as such] about their environment is automatically a bad one”
(PDT 133: my italics).
29. “. . . if we want an outside view of our own language-game,
the only one available is that of the field linguist” (PDT 135).
60 Part I: Critiques
30. Perhaps Levi-Strauss’ original notion of “bricolage” becomes
newly relevant here.
31. Another methodological safeguard previously articulated by
Quine= “The linguistic ideal in any event would be a humdrum
sort of discourse on the native’s part and anything startling
or surprising would be prima facie evidence of error” (David­
son et al. 1974, 495).
32. Mary Hesse (1980, 173), as quoted in HLP 166. Quine puts it
more succinctly: “What he [the field linguist] must do is
guess from observation and then see how well his guesses
work” (1960, 29).
33. The term African is used here as nothing more than a variable
that may stand for Akan, Samburu, Yoruba, and so forth.
34. See fn. 15 and pp. 38-9 above.
35. This could be interpreted as pejorative.
36. See the Postscript to Horton 1993 for further relevant rumi­
nations on this point.
37. Or as Quine puts it= “These statements are felt, therefore,
to have a sharper empirical reference than highly theoreti­
cal statements of physics or logic or ontology. The latter
statements may be thought of as relatively centrally located
within the total [language] network, meaning merely that
little preferential connection with any particular sense data
obtrudes itself” (1953, 44).
38. One implicit target of Rorty’s reinterpretation of Davidson’s
interpretation of Quine’s scenario of the field linguist is
Quine’s skepticism about our ending up with precisely the
same meanings—via translation—for the alien terms as the
aliens assign to them. The argument, contra Quine, would be
that we can’t do anything more to ensure precise translations
than what the field linguist does do. If, after this, one con­
tinues to express reservations about the accuracy of transla­
tion, this is the sort of impossible demand and guarantee that
only the abstract philosopher could “dream up” and insist
upon (also see pp. 45-6 below). My response to this criticism
of Quine’s Indeterminacy Thesis of Radical Translation is that
it is not enough to counter the (logical and empirical) pos­
sibility that another translator could come along, completely
independently of the first, who would work out an alterna­
tive schema, an alternative interpretation, of the meanings of
alien linguistic behavior that differed in significant respects
from that of his predecessor, and therefore would produce a
different (but still “coherent” and “true” in Rorty’s terms)
“Philosophy” Doesn’t Translate: Richard Rorty andMulticulturalism 61
version of the alien beliefs in translation, and that proved
equally effective for communication purposes.
39. “The difference between banally intercultural and contro­
versial objects will be the difference between the objects you
have to talk about to deal with the routine stimulations pro­
vided by your familiars [peoples’ whose language and beliefs
you are used to], and the objects required to deal with the
novel stimulations [unfamiliar language and beliefs] provided
by new acquaintances (e.g., Aristotelians, Polynesians . . .)”
(lAR 107).
40. Rorty labels the process of coming to terms with abnormal
discourse generally as “hermeneutics” (PMN 320-22).
41. For Rorty the expressions “conceptual system” or “conceptual
scheme” and “normal discourse” are interchangeable, even if
indicative of different perspectives on the philosophy of lan­
guage (PMN 346-7).
42. “l do not see how we could tell when we had come against a
human practice which we knew to be linguistic and also knew
to be so foreign that we must give up hope of knowing what
it would be like to engage it” (CWE 215).
43. “. . . if one sees language-learning as the acquisition of a skill,
one will not be tempted to ask what metaskill permits such
acquisition. One will assume that curiosity, tolerance, patience,
luck, and hard work are all that is needed” (CWE 216).
44. The quotation within the quotation is from Lyotard 1984,
61.
45. “. . . we do talk about Western philosophy, for a specific
reason, namely that Europe became a cultural whole around
the thirteenth century, and that’s an excellent reason” (CRR
44).
46. Rorty attempts to be more specific about some of the differ­
ences that make non-Western societies non-philosophical in
RCD.
47. See p. 34 above.
48. “These liberals hold on to the . . . notion that there is some­
thing called a common human nature, a metaphysical substrate
in which things called ‘rights’ are embedded, and that this
substrate takes moral precedence over all merely ‘cultural’
superstructures” (OEG 207: for “wet liberals,” see p. 203).
49. So that “the culture of Western liberal democracy is somehow
‘on a par’ with that of the Vandals and the Ik” (OEG 203).
50. Examples mentioned by Rorty include: “freedom, equality”
(HKD 68): “tolerance” (HKD 81): “procedural justice” (OEG 208):
62 Part I: Critiques

“free enquiry, and the quest for undistorted communication”

(SOO 29): “ability to listen ... to outsiders who have new
ideas” (INT 13).

CHAPTERS

THE RETURN OF THE "CLOSED" SOCIETY:

A CRITIQUE OF RICHARD RORTY

INTRODUCTIONt PHILOSOPHY AS EXCLUSIVELY

WESTERN
he previous chapter discusses the background to Richard
T Rorty’s contention that philosophy is, effectively.
Western philosophy. By this he means that the problems,
questions and topics with which it is concerned, and the
methodologies which it has devised, cannot be appreciated,
cannot be seen as truly relevant, unless sited and situated in
Western historical, intellectual, and cultural contexts. Con­
versely, he finds no substantial evidence of its equivalent
in non-Western cultures. Therefore he argues that it would
be misguided to refer to something called “non-Western
philosophy” as any kind of genuine counterpart or alterna­
tive. In this chapter I hope to examine in a more careful
way exactly how Rorty arrives at his assessments of the
intellectual character of non-Western, in particular African,
thought. Based on the evidence to be derived from at least
one African culture, I will argue that his assessment is false.
I will then conclude that there are genuine reasons for rec­
ognizing that Africa has been a part of the philosophical
universe all along.
No doubt the majority of the great philosophers,
throughout history, would object to this narrowing of
the cultural relevance of their work. From Plato through
Quine, philosophers’ ruminations and arguments are con­
cerned with human understanding rather than with species
they regard as peculiar to the Greeks or to the West. It is,
therefore, a radical and dramatic challenge that Rorty issues
to these intellects of sophistication when he reduces their
ideas as relevant only to a specific cultural context. Rorty
64 Part I: Critiques
is aware of this, of course, and much of the argumentation
of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature is devoted to sup­
porting his controversial interpretation of the history of
philosophy.
Those arguments have generated vigorous responses and
counterarguments from his Western colleagues. But these
will not be of direct concern in this chapter. My interest
remains with the status of African philosophy. I shall there­
fore prefer to begin by looking for sources of the evidence
and the arguments upon which Rorty bases his conclusion
that the intellectual endowments of non-Western, most par­
ticularly African, cultures are of insignificant philosophical
substance.
With reference to the departments of philosophy that
exist in sub-Saharan African universities at the present
time, and the contents of the courses that they teach, one
clear implication of Rorty’s position is that all of African
philosophy becomes a footnote to Western philosophy. To
qualify as philosophers, African teachers and practitioners
of the subject have to have been schooled in the Western
tradition and then seek somehow to apply it, extend it,
complement it, rediscover it—to, with, or in African cul­
tural contexts.
Also presumably from Rorty’s standpoint, efforts to
develop specifically African philosophies could very likely
result in intellectual hybrids that are neither truly philo­
sophical nor African, because they impose the categories and
concerns of (Western) philosophy upon alien cultural con­
texts. This would help to explain complaints about the arti­
ficiality of efforts by people like Tempels, Kagame, Mbiti,
Oruka, Sodipo, Wiredu, and, I suppose, myself to present
African beliefs and concepts somehow in philosophical form.
Paulin Hountondji (1983, chapter 1), whose ideas will be dis­
cussed in the next chapter, has therefore been on the right
track all along with his denunciations of “ethnophilosophy.”
Philosophy cannot be extracted, like a wisdom tooth, from
African cultures that have not had to wrestle with the
same epistemological and scientific traditions as the West
(Wiredu 1980b, chapter 3: Hallen 1996: Appiah 1992, chapter
6; Horton 1993, chapter 7).
The Return ofthe “Closed” Society: A Critique ofRichard Rorty 65
This chapter will therefore be devoted to a critique of
Rorty’s arguments about the preferred channels for inter-
cultural understanding, about the cross-cultural character
and potential of philosophy, and to the discussion of several
of his implicit, underlying assumptions about the nature of
culture generally. Finally, I will argue that his work contains
a number of insights about the problems involved in cross-
cultural studies that may be extrapolated and refashioned to
provide positive methodological stimuli for philosophers at
work in and on Africa.
THE STATUS OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL DIALOGUE
. . . there is no Supreme Judge and no One Right
Description, . . . there is no escape to the Wholly
Other.
Richard Rorty, “Heidegger, Kundera, and Dickens”'
Anthropology is the discipline Rorty thinks profession­
ally entitled to speak for and about African cultures to
the West, “it’s every humanist’s favorite social science. . . .
They entered into novel relations with other humans” (CRR
39). Anthropology today is not distinguished by unanimity
among its proponents, either about methodologies suited
to or characterizations of the African intellectual heritage.
Therefore it becomes important to identify, in more precise
terms, with which anthropological “school”—even if implic­
itly—Rorty aligns himself.
Before undertaking this, however, there is one inter­
esting and important methodological reform that Rorty
himself strongly recommends that anthropologists them­
selves institute. This reform is a further consequence of his
rejection of any transcendent methodological 'perspective,
and it follows from another line of thought that Rorty
adapts from the work of Donald Davidson (LePore 1986).
The proper role for anthropology, Rorty believes, is to
promote what he likes to call “dialogue”—communication,
understanding—between African cultures and the West.
However, the discipline’s effectiveness in this regard has
been crippled by excessive concern with a cluster of exclu­
sively theoretical entities that sometimes become of greater
interest and importance than the flesh-and-blood, real-life
66 Part I: Critiques
African societies to which they are meant to apply. Rorty tags
these theoretical abstractions with the Latin tertium quid
or tertia. These are the singular and plural, respectively, for
a “third something(s).” In the present context Rorty means
an abstraction that is meant to stand “between” the subject
(as one “something”) and “reality” (as a second “something”),
and that is somehow meant to represent the quality, the
character, the true nature of the epistemological relation­
ship that the subject bears towards that “reality.” Relevant
examples of the theoretical abstractions Rorty has in mind
are classifying: African peoples’ thought as “traditional”:
the African mentality in qualitative terms as “preliterate”:
or the cognitive character of an African conceptual scheme
as “symbolic.”
The effects of such tertia upon the epistemological
ranking of African thought systems have been profound.
Ideas, conceptual systems, mentalities that are characterized
as traditional or as symbolic immediately become less than
objective, less reliable. But, as follows from the scenario of
the field linguist in chapter 2, anthropologists themselves,
even as social “scientists,” do not have access to an objec­
tive, neutral reality or an objective level of experience that
transcends all cultures. They are therefore not entitled to
write or to speak as if they do, and can thereby characterize
the general attitudes of a people, a language, or a conceptual
scheme towards, or in relation to, that reality.
These theoretical abstractions, therefore, are only con­
structed, imagined (never on the basis of evidence that could
be sufficient) about the intellectual attributes of African
peoples. The danger is that they then become reified as tran­
scendent attributes, as generalized characterizations, that
are as significant as the more specific meanings involved in
any process of direct communication. Indeed they become
objects of inquiry in their own right (What are the char­
acteristics associated with the traditional?). But all of this
is methodologically unjustifiable and only serves to distract
the attention of anthropologists from what really is impor­
tant—to further communication with African cultures, to
help outsiders better understand the specific beliefs that
motivate their people’s behavior.
The Return ofthe “Closed” Society: A Critique ofRichard Rorty 67
One consequence of such tertia is to exacerbate and to
harden the qualitative differences between the intellectual
attitudes associated with Africa and with the West. By
dispensing with them the anthropologist is encouraged to
approach any project that involves the interpretation of
African meanings, initially, by imagining what he would
say, given his own (Western) linguistic and cultural back­
ground, in a similar situation. As we have seen in chapter 2,
as far as Rorty is concerned the anthropologist has no other
choice. The danger of the tertia is that this is precisely
what they, unjustifiably, do provide—other interpretative
alternatives. The imagined attributes associated with “how
a traditional people think” can result in their commonsense
being presumed uncommon.^
To those who express reluctance at severing anthropol­
ogy from so much of its hard-won theoretical superstruc­
ture, Rorty is there to reassure them that in fact the point
is to free this most useful discipline of the ideological trap­
pings it has inherited from the delusive Western obsession
with objectivity, and to redirect it towards the pragmatic,
instrumental role it can serve for facilitating communica­
tion and common understanding between peoples who, at
first impression, may appear to be very different from one
another.
This is not to deny the possibility that some African
beliefs may be very different, indeed virtually inexpressible
in literal terms, in Western languages.^ But it is to suggest
that: (i) the anthropologist is advised not to begin by pre­
suming Africans express themselves (verbally and non-ver­
bally) in fundamentally different terms: (2) the anthro­
pologist’s theoretical training in the various methodological
approaches—functionalism, poetic-symbolism,' structural­
ism—is based upon clusters of (now suspect) tertian (3) that,
as the anthropologist is herself the product of a specific
cultural background, the more sensible way to begin inter­
preting the (verbal and non-verbal) behavior of Africans is
to imagine how her cultural self would behave (verbally and
non-verbally) in their place in an analogous situation.
The most important consequence for a reformed anthro­
pology would be that the distinction between intercultural
68 Part I: Critiques
and intracultural communication would be minimized. By
emphasizing dialogue, Rorty means to emphasize what he
believes to be the point of anthropology as a discipline^
. . . [anthropologists] insist that there are people out
there whom society has failed to notice. They make
these candidates for admission visible by showing
how to explain their odd behavior in terms of a
coherent, if unfamiliar, set of beliefs and desires—
as opposed to explaining this behavior with terms
like stupidity, madness, baseness or sin. (OEG 206)
“Dialogue” in the sense that the anthropologist acts as a
cultural entrepreneur, a skilled and sensitive middleman/
woman between cultures, whose role is to learn how to
communicate with an African people and then to translate-
interpret their behavior and beliefs into Western meanings
so that they become understandable in Western terms (SOO
25).''
For the different cultures involved in such dialogues,
Rorty sees at least two important consequences. The behav­
ior of people who are alien, who are not “part” of Western
culture, who are the “Other,” becomes understandable. To
better illustrate his viewpoint on the processes of interpre­
tation involved, 1 attempt to edit and to modify what I see
as the relevant terminology in an example he gives about
Native Americans:
Anthropologists . . . are the people who are expected
and empowered to extend the range of society’s
imagination, thereby opening . . . doors ... to
people on whom they had been closed. . . . Why is
it, after all, that the [African became a person for
contemporary Western society]? Roughly, beeause
anthropologists have made them so. . . . Because of
the absence of sympathetic interpreters who could
place their behavior in the context of an unfamiliar
set of beliefs and desires, [Africans] were not part
of [the early twentieth] century [Western world].
. . . The [Africans] . . . were non-persons, without
human dignity. . . . The anthropologists made it
hard for us to continue thinking of them that
way [I surmise Rorty might agree to the impact of
Colin Turnbull’s The Lonely African as an appropri­
The Return ofthe “Closed” Society: A Critique ofRichard Rorty 69
ate example]. . . . To be a part of society is, in the
relevant sense, to be taken as a possible conver­
sational partner. . . . The media, prodded by the
intellectuals in general and the anthropologists in
particular, have been making such partners of the
[Africans]. But if the anthropologists had not sym­
pathized with, learned from, even sometimes loved,
the [Africans, then Africans] would have remained
invisible [non-persons] .... (OEG 206)
Even if Westerners cannot, and have no desire to, become
African, anthropology provides them with the potential to
appreciate the reasons, the beliefs, that motivate African
behavior in any given situation. What the anthropologist
must continue to resist is the intellectual temptation there­
after, somehow, theoretically to reconcile differing, pos­
sibly contradictory, beliefs of African and Western cultures
on some “higher” level of theoretical synthesis. For this
immediately invites the reintroduction of those theoreti­
cal tertia that compel the anthropologist to relate to them
as different perspectives on somekind of common reality.®
Continually improving communication about specific beliefs
between cultures is to be encouraged, but such theoretical
reductions and subsumptions are delusory.
The second important consequence of anthropological
dialogue is that it helps us appreciate that our own cultur­
ally-induced beliefs are not universal, that there may be
genuine, even radical, even reasonable alternatives (“anthro­
pologists . . . have done such a good job of exhibiting the
contingency of various putative necessities” (OEG 208)). We
begin to realize, not just that different cultures talk about
the same things in different ways than we do, but that
they also talk about entirely different things.'
To conclude this subsection, 1 can anticipate that some
African professionals, anthropologists included, may object
to Rorty s analyses for their apparent Western bias. He
appears to consider the problems involved only from the
viewpoint of the West understanding Africa and never the
reverse. I can imagine (and I stress the significance of this
verb) what Rorty’s responses to this might be. First, that
this is more properly a task for an African “Rorty”—someone
who can truly represent an African perspective upon com-
70 Part I: Critiques
munication with the West. Second, that we must be careful
about treating the cultural divisions between Africa and the
West as too absolute. There is a growing number of intel­
lectuals in today’s world who are equally conversant with a
plurality of cultures, and it is to them as well that we must
look for new insights into the problems and products of
inter/intracultural dialogue (RCD 593).
AFRICAN TRADITIONAL THOUGHT
Despite what I presume would be his protestations to
the contrary, 1 find there to be a fundamental ambiva­
lence and possible inconsistency in both Forty’s rhetoric
and argumentation as it would apply to Africa and the
characterization of the intellectual character of cognition
in indigenous “African” cultures.® I place the word African
in quotation marks because Forty does not believe there is
evidence sufficient to support the argument that there is
some distinctive corpus of beliefs that has been established
as intrinsic to all African cultures (CFF 43-44). With this 1
would agree and presume that when he does use this adjec­
tive it is meant geographically, acting only as a variable that
can represent more specific ethnic groupings such as Akan,
Samburu, Yoruba, and so forth.
The consequences for “African” thought that follow
from his rejection of transcendence, of a privileged perspec­
tive upon reality (objectivity), and tertia are promising:
. . . we shall no longer think of ourselves as having
reliable sources of knowledge called “reason” or
“sensation,” nor unreliable ones called “tradition”
or “common opinion.” (OEG 208)
All such abstractions, which imply a relationship with
reality, and the possibility of evaluating that relationship in
terms of its epistemological reliability, are challenged: “the
more concrete absurdity of thinking that the vocabulary
used by present [Western] science, morality, or whatever
has some privileged attachment to reality which makes it
more than just a further set of descriptions” (PMN 361).
Generalized, objective assessments of a particular culture’s
intellectual standards no longer apply: “we do not counte­
nance any generalized . . . skepticism about other minds or
The Return ofthe “Closed” Society: A Critique ofRichard Rorty 71
cultures . . . but only detailed skepticism about this or that
belief or cluster of beliefs” (lAF 97).
Forty would therefore condemn anthropological theo­
retical perspectives upon African systems of thought—as
represented by structuralism and poetic-symbolism, for
example—that treat them as the products of a fundamen­
tally different kind of mentality or cognition than that
associated with Western science and ratiocination.^ In an
incisive passage, based upon insights derived from Quine
and Hilary Putnam, he argues that:
. . . alternative cultures are not to be thought of
on the model of alternative geometries. Alternative
geometries are irreconcilable because they have axi­
omatic structures, and contradictory axioms. They
are designed to be irreconcilable. Cultures are not
so designed, and do not have axiomatic structures.
(SCO 26)
The combined effect of these epistemological reforms
could be considerable for relieving African cultures from
many of the stereotypical characterizations that Africans
themselves find false and offensive. For the effect of a
tertium quid, like “traditional,” is to prejudge the intellec­
tual character of an entire thought system. By refocusing
attention exclusively upon specific beliefs, rather than the
(imagined) system of beliefs of which they are said to be
components. Forty hopes that the falsely universal and in
fact ethnocentric standards that have been used by the West
to label African traditional systems of thought as some sort
of distinctive species will be eliminated.
Despite these promising beginnings, the ambivalence
and possible inconsistency in Forty’s overall position that
I referred to at the beginning of this chapter arise from
the relatively specific examples that Forty uses to illustrate
the differences between non-Western, more particularly
African, and Western cultures. In chapter 2® brief reference
was made to the different social values (and their differ­
ent intellectual consequences) fostered by Western and non-
Western cultures. He now proceeds to outline some of the
more practical consequences of those differing values:
72 Part I: Critiques
The terms of praise [values] used to describe
[Western] liberal societies will be drawn from the
vocabulary of the liberal societies themselves. Such
praise has to be in some vocabulary, after all, and
the terms of praise current in primitive . . . socie­
ties will not produce the desired result. . . . there
are lots of views which we simply cannot take seri­
ously. (SOO 29: the latter is my italics)
. . . beliefs ... as the pre-epistemological native sees
them (as rules for action). (PDT 139; my italics)
“Philosophy” is precisely what a culture becomes
capable of when it ceases to define itself in terms
of explicit rules, and becomes sufficiently leisured
and civilized to rely on inarticulate know-how, to
substitute phronesis [prudence?, good sense?] for
codification. (SOO 25; my italics)
Consciousness of one’s surrounding is a matter of
degree .... So, I think that personhood, conscious­
ness and all the rest are matters of degree. (CRR
31-2).
[Interview response to “the effects of talking
about personhood as a matter of degree is that if
one shifts the locus of analysis from individuals
to whole cultures, then it seems to imply a cul­
tural evolutionism, with some cultures more fully
developed than others”:] But I want to say that too.
(CRR 32)
[Interview response to “You do want to say that?
You want to retain an evolutionary schema for
understanding cultural difference?”] Oh, yes. Some
cultures provide their inhabitants with more room
to manoeuvre, more imaginative space, more life
chances than others. (CRR 32)
[Interview response to “And those would be the
better, or fuller cultures?”] Yes, in the same sense
that we say of people who are undernourished,
uneducated, humiliated, that they have “never
much of a life.” In that sense, it seems to me that
the Australian aborigines “never had much of a
life.” (CRR 32)
The Return ofthe “Closed" Society: A Critique ofRichard Rorty 73
Obviously Rorty would never say that all non-Western
cultures illustrate these differences in equal measure. Any
more than he would be disposed to say this about all African
or even all sub-Saharan African cultures. His evolutionary
scale allows for a wide and divergent spectrum of innumer­
able combinations of practices he (as an admittedly eth­
nocentric, Western, liberal, democratic pragmatist) would
commend as well as disparage. This could mean, for example,
that upon closer investigation Akan practices and beliefs
would be found significantly more enlightened than those
of the Samburu. Nevertheless Rorty’s choice of terminology
[“pre-epistemological,” “natives,” “primitive,” “codification,”
“rules” (one wonders how strong the resemblance might be
between these and what used to be called “traditions”?)], and
that terminology’s close (anthropological) associations with
the tribal cultures of sub-Saharan Africa certainly suggest a
definite connection between the two in his exposition.
The combined effect of these relatively specific charac­
terizations, presumably meant to be relevant to indigenous
African societies and cultures, is to reinstate their intel­
lectual propensities under a rubric that appears very similar
to the one that was supposedly abolished when we dispensed
with the tertium quid of the “traditional.” The only change
I can see is that the underlying inferential process is being
reversed. Rather than beginning with an established abstract,
theoretical model of “traditional thought” and deducing
from it the attributes that must follow for the intellectual
propensities of a given ethnic group, on the basis of these
relatively specific characterizations, using something like
induction, we will arrive at a similar conclusion.
The vision/version of African traditional society that
Rorty, in effect, would reintroduce by means of this ques­
tionably inductive process is familiar. It resembles, if not
replicates, the picture of the “closed society” as enunciated
by Karl Popper (1967)= “the [inlability to hear, the [injability
to have a sense of contingency of one’s words and practices,
and thus of the possibility of alternatives to them” (HCP
48).®
The most frequently mentioned attribute that distin­
guishes the closed society in Rorty’s writings is its relative
74 Part I: Critiques
intolerance of change, of behavior that diverges from the
established (“codified” as “rules”) norm, of ideas that chal­
lenge the established “set” of beliefs:
To say that they [another culture] have “institu­
tionalized norms” is only to say . . . that knowledge
is never separable from powei—that one is likely
to suffer if one does not hold certain beliefs at
certain times and places. (SOO 26)
The social values underlying the communal sanctions that
enforce'® consent rather than criticism or novelty are what
distinguish these cultures from their more liberal counter­
parts:
tolerance, respect for the opinions of those around
one, willingness to listen, reliance on persuasion
rather than force. These are the virtues which
members of a civilized society must possess if the
society is to endure. (SAS 37: my italics)
A culture’s intellectual horizons are never closed because
its people’s “laws of thought” or because the quality of cog­
nition arises from a radically different axiomatic base (SOO
26). On empirical grounds this is evidenced by the fact that
“anthropologists have . . . shown us that the preliterate
natives have some ideas and practices that we can usefully
weave together with our own” (OWE 219: my italics). If the
basis for their thinking was fundamentally different from
that of our own, even this limited form of dialogue would
not be possible.
With reference to the analysis of African systems of
thought, the limitations and advantages to be derived from
the model of traditional societies as “closed” have been
explored in the greatest detail by Robin Horton. And it is
Horton who in the end concludes:
Most readers. . . . insist that the tradition-bound
thinker is more critieal and refleetive, and less eon-
servative, than I make him. . . . So far as the world­
view associated with a society is concerned, they
insist that the typieal traditionalistic world-view
is far more open to change and external influenee
than I allow. . . . Although I could claim that the
eritics have ignored some of my cautionary qualifi­
The Return ofthe “Closed” Society: A Critique ofRichard Rorty 75
cations, I think that by and large they have proved
their point. (1993, 307-8)
Indeed I suspect that Rorty’s estimation of the specific
intellectual practices (rather than generalized cognitive
attributes) of closed African societies is by comparison con­
siderably more conservative than Horton’s original own."
On the basis of his references to the “pre-epistemologi-
cal native,” which I take to be a synonym for the more
familiar prereflective, to beliefs as “rules for action” rather
than as reasons for action (another mark of the prereflec­
tive), African (verbal and non-verbal) behavior is relegated
to the protorational. Protorationality is “latent” rationality
and therefore must be revealed, unearthed by the (Western)
fieldworker or anthropologist who, by observing the
native practices and beliefs, as evidenced by interaction
with their natural and social environments, discovers (and
not Just interprets-translates) their rational underpinnings,
“it is not just a matter of ‘seeing the other fellow’s point
of view’, essential though that is. The problem is the very
much more difficult one of comprehending the unacknowl­
edged and unanalysed standpoints from which his views are
taken” (Beattie 1966, 76: my italics).
When the need for this sort of fundamental interpreta­
tive process is coupled with the exorcism of all theoretical
anthropological abstractions that qualify as tertia, the effect
upon that discipline’s methodology would be dramatic. In the
absence of so many theoretical-methodological guidelines, it
is not clear how the anthropologist is to proceed. The meth­
odological basis for the interrelation (between cultures) of
specific beliefs, for translations based upon experimental
equivalences between the beliefs of Western .and African
cultures that is to serve as the initial basis for dialogue, is
sketched out in brief and vague fashion. For a “just-like-us”
mentality coupled with a “this-translation-makes-sense-of-
relevant-African-(verbal and non-verbal)-behavior” would
constitute questionable criteria on which to interpret the
meanings of African cultures, especially on the compara­
tively abstract or theoretical level.
There are ambiguities to us (the West) as well when it
comes to the beliefs relevant to a particular environment or
76 Part I: Critiques
situation. And, even if we agree with Rorty to substitute
the notion of beliefs that are more difficult to translate
for (implicitly, objectively referent) abstract beliefs,'^ with
regards to African culture, those redescribed as “harder to
translate” may likely involve some of an African culture’s
more novel and intriguing ideas. Since, in this kind of
problematic situation, the anthropologist can make refer­
ence neither to successful translation nor to a just-like-
us mentality—indeed the harder-to-translate situation has
arisen because these criteria have failed as interpretative
techniques—what is one to have recourse to? If there is a
weakest point in Rorty’s exposition, where the relevance of
Quine’s indeterminacy thesis reasserts itself in a prominent
manner, this is it.
It is noteworthy that Rorty characterizes anthropology
as “every humanist’s favorite social science.” This harkens
back to Evans-Pritchard’s well-known remark=
The thesis I have put before you, that social anthro­
pology is a kind of historiography, and therefore
ultimately of philosophy or art, implies that it
studies societies as moral systems and not as natural
systems, that it is interested in design rather than
in process, and that it therefore seeks patterns
and not scientific laws, and interprets rather than
explains. (1962, 26)
But the Intellectualist or neo-Intellectualist tradition in
anthropology, as represented by people like Evans-Pritchard
and Robin Horton, is a distinct, if nonetheless significant,
minority in the discipline as a whole.
This humanistic theme is indicative of a further dimen­
sion to Rorty’s rejection of transcendence that becomes rel­
evant here. Following the abolition of truly objective terms
of reference, the status of conclusions reached on the basis of
scientific methodology is no longer epistemologically privi­
leged. Similarly, the supposed subjectivity associated with
various forms of literature (myths, legends, poetry, etc.),
as a negative criterion of non-objectivity, is neutralized.
Both the literary and the scientific are thereby legitimated
as formats for the expression of information and ideas.
Rorty hopes, very much in line with his postmodern col­
The Return ofthe "Closed” Society: A Critique ofRichard Rorty 77
leagues, that this line of argument will liberate literature,
in Western society especially,'^ and cause it to be regarded as
important a vehicle for expressing that society’s ideas and
insights as anything that science has to say.
It is possible to draw implications from this line of rea­
soning that may be even more revealing of Rorty’s attitudes
toward African culture(s). The social mores that reinforce
the “closed” character of the traditional African intellect
are said not to allow for substantial scientific achievement.*®
1 think this would influence Rorty to enthusiastically
embrace the viewpoint that traditional African cultures
are distinguished by the fact that they express themselves
intellectually, primarily, in literary, metaphorical, symbolic
terms. In other words, towards a reformed (deprived of its
tertia) poetic-symbolism.
Working with such a reformed poetic-symbolism could
make the interpretative task of the anthropologist even
more difficult. Deprived of its theoretical superstructure,
the job of the anthropologist with reference to interpreting
African symbols, we may assume, would be similar to what
she does when interpreting African beliefs. For example,
she would assign them just-like-us status—the meaning of
a symbol in its African context would be assigned the same
meaning the same symbol (or whatever might be imagined
as its equivalent) has in her own culture. The limitations
inherent in this kind of approach have been pointed out
by Suzanne Blier with reference to the iconology (symbolic
analysis) of African art=
When we are removed in time and place from the
work’s artist and intended audience—or focus on
periods or cultures that are generally concerned
less with verisimilitude than with other aesthetic,
expressive, or iconic means—there is a real danger
of misreading even the most elementary feature of
a work. (Blier 1988, 77)
78 Part I; Critiques
ETHNOCENTRISM ON THE BASIS OF A VALUE JUDGMENT
/ have no deep premises to draw on from which to
infer that it [Western culture] is, in fact, bettei—
nor to demonstrate our own superiority over . . .
the non-Western present.
Richard Rorty, “Inquiry as Recontextualization”
By comparison with closed (traditional) African society,
the liberal, democratic traditions of the West are said to
encourage “toleration, free enquiry, and the quest for
undistorted communication” (SOO 29). Western societies cer­
tainly have their own very serious problems, but in Rorty’s
opinion even these are distinguished in a positive manner
because of the cognitive attitudes manifested by the West
towards them'
It is a culture which has become very conscious of
its capacity for murderous intolerance and thereby
perhaps more wary of intolerance, more sensitive
to the desirability of diversity, than any other of
which we have record. (HKD 81; my italics)
With the abolition of transcendence, Rorty has effec­
tively erased any methodological possibility of proving, on
some kind of objective grounds, that a Western intellectual
context produces more true beliefs than an African one. But
this does not prevent him from making value judgments
(rather than objective judgments) to a similar effect:
The pragmatist’s justification . . . can only take
the form of a comparison between societies which
exemplify these habits [social and intellectual prac­
tices epitomized by Western values] and those which
do not [comparative practices as epitomized, for
example, by “traditional” African values], leading up
to the suggestion that nobody who has experienced
both would prefer the latter. (SOO 29)
In Rorty’s world there are any number of cultures that
enunciate, in words and/or practice, diverse beliefs that also
embody diverse values: “a lot of ‘cultural others’ to the West
already have a well-shaped identity, that is, a way of think­
ing of themselves, a way of describing themselves” (CRR
26-7). It may require an anthropologist to extrapolate and to
The Return ofthe “Closed” Society: A Critique ofRichard Rorty 79
interpret the values of a traditional African culture, but it
is the institutionalization of those values that has made such
societies closed in the first place.
In Rorty s view, the difference is that such exclusivity,
such diversity (remember that we began from a just-like-
us interpretative standpoint) relates to specific beliefs and
practices rather than to the fundamental character of intel­
lect or cognition. In other words, we can learn to think
enough “like” the traditional African so that we can appre­
ciate his point of view on a given situation or topic. But this
by no means implies that we must agree with that point of
view, much less adopt it as our own.
What one recognizes finally is that Rorty’s point about
fundamentals is strictly addressed to what are more con­
ventionally termed “meanings” by philosophers. Because he
unconventionally dispenses with the notion of “meaning”
(it involves a kind of objective reference, again) and sub­
stitutes that of “belief,” conventional linguistic usage can
delude one into assuming that everyone’s beliefs somehow
end up as the same. But that is not the point. The point
is that meanings available to all the language users in this
world are said to “overlap” sufficiently so that different
cultures’ beliefs, even when really bizarre (to one another),
can somehow be expressed in their respective languages. In
other words, no matter how foreign the beliefs of another
culture might be to me, 1 can still learn to understand them
in the language of that culture, and somehow manage to
express them, even if only metaphorically, in the language
of my own culture.'®
For any two or more cultures to dialogue in a meaning­
ful mariner, to exchange ideas and information, to discuss
the relative merits and demerits of their differing webs of
belief(s), they must share certain basic standards or values
in common:
... we cannot justify our beliefs (in physics,
ethics, or any other area) to everybody, but only to
those whose beliefs overlap ours to some appropri­
ate extent. (This is not a theoretical problem about
untranslatability,” but simply a practical problem
about the limitations of argument: it is not that
80 Part I: Critiques
we live in different worlds than the Nazis or the
Amazonians, but that conversion from or to their
point of view, though possible, will not be a matter
of inference from previously shared premises.).
(SOO 31, footnote 13)
If there is not this requisite overlapping of beliefs about,
for example, the importance attached to discussion, the basis
for logical argument, the significance of new ideas, the
ability to acknowledge error and admit change—then dia­
logue may fail or only arrive at a point where the cultures
involved agree to disagree, as the expression goes.
Given the substantial differences between different
societies’ social and intellectual values, the model that Rorty
fantasizes for the international community is a kind of mul­
ticultural bazaar in which each of the various “tribes” has its
own private, residential quarters (in the fantasy described as
“private clubs”) behind its public kiosk, into which a culture
may withdraw at the end of a day’s haggling (intercultural
communication) to operate and repose exclusively on its own
terms. Africans are therefore as fully entitled to retaining
and maintaining their traditional values as the West is with
its own:
. . . the exclusivity of the private club might be a
crucial feature of an ideal world order. ... If we
attend ... to the reports ... of diversity, we may
agree with Levi-Strauss that such exclusivity is a
necessary and proper condition of selfhood. . . . we
can see how such strong, ethnocentric, exclusivist
selves might cooperate in keeping the bazaar open.
. . (OEG 210)
Rorty’s portrait of African societies as “closed” (we are,
in effeet, back to “traditional”) would limit their eognitive
resourees in encounters with the West. The trained, profes­
sional anthropologist would be in a much better (intellectual)
position to study, understand, and interpret the beliefs of
an Afriean eulture than the “native” would be of the West.'^
The “codified,” “rule-oriented” (traditional) character of
African beliefs would not be likely to encourage the toler­
ant mentality helpful for appreciating the beliefs and prac­
tices of an alien eulture. Such a vision of one-sided exchange
The Return ofthe “Closed” Society: A Critique ofRichard Rorty 81
is hardly new to the field of Afriean studies. Indeed it
reproduees one conventional Western view of what takes
place during the eourse of fieldwork. But what is important
about its appearanee in the present eontext, and what we
must continue to bear in mind until it becomes appropri­
ate to introduce argumentation to the eontrary, is whether
this portrayal of differences evidenced by African beliefs
and praetices is in faet supported by sufficient empirical
evidence in Rorty’s own narrative/exposition.
Rorty may be entitled to present himself as some sort
of expert about the beliefs and values of his own, preferred.
Western tribe, but from whence derives the expertise that
entitles him to pass negative value judgments upon virtually
all of the other eultures in this world?*® If it comes from
(Western) anthropology, Rorty himself is no anthropologist.
If it comes from studying and summarizing the cumulative
works of (Western) anthropology, there is scant evidence of
this in his published writings. Certainly nothing of suffi-
eient argumentative merit to justify his resurrection of that
shop-worn portrait of the Afriean intellect and mentality as
distinctively “closed.” Especially since this charaeterization of
traditional Africa has undergone serious revision, upon both
methodological and empirical grounds, over the past thirty
years (Appiah 1992; 2004b: Fabian 1983: Gellner 1974, 149-67:
Gjertsen 1980: Gyekye 1997a: Hallen 2002: Hountondji 2002;
Masolo 1994: Mudimbe 1988; Serequeberhan 2000: Taiwo 1999:
Verran 2002). Rorty is simply out-of-date!
Given the above, I have serious reservations about Rorty’s
use of anthropological studies to arrive at his conclusions
about the intellectual character of non-Western societies
generally. He criticizes the anthropologieal establishment for
its use of abstraet models of non-Western thought systems.
(From my point of view what is equally important about
these models is that they portray their targets in compara­
tively unflattering intellectual, epistemological terms.) Yet
Rorty then proceeds to rely upon that same establishment
as a source of the attitudes and values he says underlie non-
Western beliefs. He has to. There is no alternative souree
available to him for such information. The reformed version
of anthropology he advoeates (without tertia) exists only
82 Part I: Critiques
as a program rather than as a practice, only in the pages
of Rorty’s published works. Surely there is somekind of
inconsistency here—to rely upon the analyses of a discipline
whose methods one has previously condemned as misguided.
Given the impossibility of transcendence, and the con­
sequent absence of any objective standard on the basis of
which to determine what kind of human culture or society
best approximates to some universal ideal, Rorty argues that
the reasons for choosing to which society or culture one
wishes to belong become ethico-political. In effect, in con­
ventional philosophical terms, the decision involves a kind
of value judgment-
If you give up on the project of escaping from
human peculiarities and perspectives,” then the
important question will be about what sort of
human being you want to become. (INT 13)
It is comical to think that anyone could transcend
the quest for happiness, to think that any theory
could be more than a means to happiness, that there
is something called Truth which transcends pleas­
ure and pain. (HKD 74)
One might well raise the issue of how many human
beings in the world at any given point in its history have
had the information or the means that would enable them,
in any meaningful sense, to so choose and to implement
their choice.*® For the absolutely overwhelming majority
have had neither choice nor opportunity to do anything but
remain where they were bred and born, and so to represent
whatever beliefs prevailed within those indigenous social
and intellectual parameters.
But mere physical limitations would not be enough to
dissuade Rorty of the underlying, philosophical point' there
is a diverse lot of cultures in the world and, if one has to
choose between them, the only remaining basis on which to
do so is which one seems to offer the best chance of “hap­
piness.” Happiness itself is admittedly a relative criterion,
and different peoples will have different conceptions of it
and therefore of the society best suited to provide it for
them.
The Return ofthe “Closed” Society: A Critique ofRichard Rorty 83
Rorty would agree, and to return to his fantasy about
the international community as a bazaar, he acknowledges
that in consequence our world remains divided up among
a diverse lot of tribes, of ethnic groups with different
values. He can therefore see the good sense, since from his
point of view there is no objective alternative, to embrac­
ing ethnocentrism, to committing oneself to one tribe, one
ethnos, on the basis of a value judgment
. . . the pragmatist, dominated by the desire for
solidarity, can only be criticized for taking his own
community too seriously. He can only be criticized
for ethnocentrism, not for relativism. To be ethno­
centric is to divide the human race into the people
to whom one must justify one’s beliefs and the
others. The first group—one’s ethnos—comprises
those who share enough of one’s beliefs to make
fruitful conversation possible. (SOO 30) . . . ethno­
centrism in the more controversial sense is saying
that there is one particular ethnos that is better
than all the other ethnoi—that of Western liberal­
ism. (CRR 26)
Unremarkably, Rorty himself chooses the culture of
which he is a product as that best suited to provide for
human happiness generally'
To sum up, anti-anti-ethnocentrism [the double
prefix makes it into, in effect, ethnocentrism]. . .
.It is just a bit of ad hoc philosophical therapy . . .
. It urges [Western] liberals to take with full seri­
ousness the fact that the ideals of procedural justice
and human equality are parochial, recent, eccentric
cultural developments, and then to recognize that
this does not mean they are any the less worth
fighting for. It urges that ideals may be local and
culture-bound, and nevertheless be the best hope of
the species. (OEG 208)
With this choice Rorty appears to embrace most of the
baggage that comes along with a Western liberal ideology.
Indeed that baggage becomes the real basis for the choice'
. . . [Some] liberals hold on to the Enlightenment
notion that there is something called a common
human nature, a metaphysical substrate in which
84 Part I: Critiques
things called “rights” are embedded, and that this
substrate takes moral precedence over all merely
“cultural” superstructures. . . . they think it would
be shockingly ethnocentric to say “So what? We
Western liberals do believe in it, and so much the
better for us” . . .
Anti-anti-ethnocentrists [the ethnocentrism Rorty advo­
cates, here in its Western incarnation] suggest that liberals
should say exactly that . . . (OEG 207)
The ongoing task of the Western intellectual,
including the philosopher, will be to promote, to
more fully institute, the liberal values that dis­
tinguish the cultures of these societies from the
relative intolerance and ignorance of their “closed”
counterparts. This should also extend to decon­
structing a naive faith in science as the solution
to all outstanding problems. The Western quest,
for happiness and for understanding, must be kept
open-ended.^°
CONCLUSIONt PHILOSOPHY IN AFRICA
Nothing is so valuable for the hermeneutical*
inquirer into an exotic culture as the discovery
of an epistemology written within that culture.
Nothing is so valuable for the determination of
whether the possessors of that culture uttered any
interesting truths (by—what else? —the standards
of the normal discourse of our own time and place)
than the hermeneutical discovery of how to trans­
late them without making them sound like fools
(PMN 346: my italics).
Perhaps I am being overly sensitive and treating a normal
turn of phrase with far greater significance than it merits.
Yet I cannot help but wonder whether Rorty’s choice of the
word written is a further sign of the low standard of criti­
cal, intellectual awareness that he associates with preliter­
ate cultures. Of course epistemology generally is still to be
written off as a failed quest for truth. His point here would
be that an alien text on something like the subject of epis­
temology would be an invaluable clue or key to interpreting
that culture’s web(s) of beliefs.
The Return ofthe “Closed” Society: A Critique ofRichard Rorty 85
The characterization of preliterate discourse, as defined
by the anthropological West, effectively portrays it as
lacking critical epistemological content (Rorty included, if
one recalls his use of “pre-epistemological”). This stereotype
of the African intellect as essentially pre/non-reflective
at one point created very serious problems for linking a
philosophy syllabus to Africa’s indigenous cultural base.
For Africa was not introduced to academic philosophy as an
unknown—the problem was not simply a lack of informa­
tion about “traditional” modes of thought. The problem was
that the subcontinent’s indigenous intellectual attributes
appeared to be virtually diametrically opposed to critical
thought as defined by academic philosophical tradition.
For philosophers at work in and on Africa, the alterna­
tives were clear: Either the stereotype had to be challenged
and amended, or philosophy had to be taught as some alien
(Western) abstract discipline that had little fundamental
relevance to indigenous African cultures.
Because the “tribal” peoples of sub-Saharan Africa were
typed as generally preliterate and prereflective, academic
philosophy had generally manifested intellectual indiffer­
ence towards their systems of thought, which were dubbed
“worldviews” (the connotation being a cluster of beliefs
inherited from previous generations and preserved in a
relatively unchanged and passive manner). Worldviews were
used to provide an example of the pre-philosophical, and
the oral literature by means of which they were expressed
(proverbs, myths, and legends) was treated as illustrative
of the symbolic, emotive expression people gave to beliefs
that had yet to cross the threshold of conscious, critical
reflection.
My own philosophical approach to examining the eviden­
tial basis for this stereotype has been analytic in character.
It is in conjunction with this that 1 think some response
should finally be made to Rorty’s charge that anyone who
adopts an analytic approach to things philosophical, by
implication if not by explicit admission,is committed to
some sort of foundational epistemological position about the
“true” way to approach and to understand the nature of
“reality.”
 86 Part I: Critiques
My interest in the techniques of analytic philosophy,
more particularly linguistic analysis, has been primarily
instrumental.^'* By this I mean that in the interests of
cementing a relationship between academic philosophy and
African cultures, I was not concerned to become in'volved
with those larger issues such as the nature of meaning, ref­
erence, or of language’s status in the discipline of philoso­
phy itself. I say this because, to repeat once again something
that is taking on the status of a refrain in my published
work^S: African philosophy, insofar as it may deal with the
analysis of African languages (or meanings) and the evalu­
ation of African beliefs expressed in these languages, will
not even be in a position to begin until we are assured, as
philosophers, that such meanings can be correctly under­
stood and translated in a reasonably determinate manner.
1 can find no prima facie basis for denying the philoso­
pher the right to become involved in this sort of endeavor.
Comparable studies of English-language discourse have for
long been incorporated into orthodox twentieth-century
philosophy. Exaggerated, negative prohibitions against the
philosopher’s doing “fieldwork,” going “outside” of the
university environment, and becoming directly “involved”
with alien cultures, concede too much to popularized notions
of Africa as a remote place where people are intellectually
exotic.
Rorty criticizes the analytic tradition for its “tunnel
vision,” the narrowness of its interests when dealing with
specific philosophical topics (PSM 21-4). I suspect that my
own further “narrowing” of the linguistic tradition to an
instrumental role to further our understanding of African
meanings and our appreciation of the intellectual character
(heretofore deemed prereflective) of African beliefs would
be regarded by him as a form of cultural anthropology^^
(with a semantic bias). In his view this would be perfectly
acceptable, possibly even commendable, in its own right.
But the consequence again would be to segregate this type
of analysis from the philosophical corpus.
With this I must disagree, and in doing so what I shall
dispute is the narrowness of Rorty’s own philosophical
vision—that the only point of orthodox philosophical analy­
The Return ofthe “Closed” Society: A Critique ofRichard Rorty
87
sis can be to “get at” the “truth” about something called
reality. 1 certainly do not see my interest in experi­
menting with effective techniques for the translation and
analysis of relatively abstract/difficult/harder-to-translate
beliefs between different language-systems as involving me
in issues about the “nature of” reality. And 1 suspect that
many other philosophers, those who become involved with
the specific topics that constitute the analytic tradition
today, would feel the same way.
1 prefer to view the analytic tradition as involving two
distinct but related tasks' to understand and to assess.^®
The first of these involves the description and clarification
of concepts, discourse, and beliefs. The second does imply
weighing the arguments and evidence in favor of alternative
systems of understanding, although the skeptical remove
inherent in an instrumental ( positivist”) perspective on
such exercises, such as that of Quine, is a step up from the
realism associated with elementary correspondence theory.
With reference to description and clarification (analysis),
the academic philosophical tradition has for many centu­
ries been wrestling with a stable of conceptual distinctions
(knowledge-belief, free will-determinism, mind-body, etc.)
that have, been examined from any number of methodologi­
cal perspectives (idealism, materialism, Marxism, phenom­
enology. process philosophy, etc.). Although to Rorty such
debate may seem interminable and demonstrative of its own
impossibility to arrive at truth, the underlying motive or
reason for its persistence is the conviction that there is still
more to understand, more to discover, more to resolve, about
the topics symbolized by such conceptual distinctions.
It is this side of the analytic tradition with which 1 align
myself with reference to African philosophy. If academic
philosophy, which is increasingly described as Western, is
to play a vital role in inter/multicultural matters, then it
must demonstrate that it can relate inter/multiculturally,
both in terms of relevant methodologies and topics/prob­
lems. It has already been noted that the cumulative corpus
of anthropological studies of African belief systems is not
notable for its philosophical relevance or depth. The situ­
ation therefore has long been one that invited the active
88 Part I: Critiques
participation of philosophers to examine aspects of African
discourse with a view to reviewing its philosophical prepos­
sessions.
There is also a metaphilosophical dimension to all of this
that cannot be ignored.^® Philosophy’s scope is intimated by
the following quotation from the work of Thomas Nageb
philosophy is not like a particular language. Its
sources are preverbal and often precultural, and one
of Its most difficult tasks is to express unformed
but intuitively felt problems in language without
losing them. (1989, 11)®°
That scope is further refined and made analytically explicit
by the following quotation from Quine when discussing the
interests and methods of T.L. Austin, another philosopher
who was accused of “reducing” philosophy to a form of
English-language cultural anthropology:
Austin’s manner of semantic inquiry. . . . gained
objectivity by group introspection. This ... is an
instance of a perhaps more widely useful strategy,
. . . first studying each subject in isolation and only
afterward objectifying by a social summation. . . .
... Is it to be called philosophy? To call it that does
not, from Austin’s point of view . . . say much about
it! philosophy is “a heterogeneous set of enquiries.”
I applaud this casual attitude towards the demarca­
tion of disciplines. ... a scholar is better known by
the individuality of his problems than by the name
of his discipline. . . .
. . . Austin’s work has a genuine tie to philosophy.
... It comes in his choice of idioms for analysis.
(Quine 1969, 87-9: my italics)®*
In a manner that is meant to be imitative of T.L. Austin,
I see my approach effectively as erecting a second-order
bungalow (analyses of ordinary African discourse relevant
to philosophical topics) on a first-order foundation (abstract
translation experiments between African and Western lan­
guages). This is where 1 find the above quotation from Quine
refreshing, cathartic even. To undertake the philosophical
The Return ofthe "Closed" Society: A Critique ofRichard Rorty 89
analysis of select elements of African discourse may today
seem to be a perfectly obvious alternative. But not so many
years ago the issues involved were not this clear-cut. On the
one hand, several early, well-known experiments with the
conceptual analysis of an African language had had a decid­
edly mixed reception.®^ On the other hand, the emphatic
critical rigor of the Anglophone analytic tradition acted as
an inhibition to its ready application to African discourse
that already had been typed as quintessentially noncritical
in character.
In the absence of any well-defined methodological prec­
edent to rely upon, it was therefore in a hesitant and tenta­
tive manner that I undertook the detailed study of select
elements of (oral) discourse among the Yoruba of Nigeria
with my colleague, the late J. Olubi Sodipo. This study
extended over more than ten years but, as it proceeded, this
initial uncertainty receded as—via the application of tech­
niques adapted from the analytic tradition—a comprehen­
sive scheme of markedly critical, skeptical, and empirical
epistemic criteria emerged from Yoruba-language usage.
With reference to evidence for the absence of critical or
reflective thought as constitutive of a distinctive cultural
genre, I have in mind, as well, the work of a cluster of cross-
cultural psychologists and anthropologists who specialize in
studying the “modes” or “patterns” of reasoning (alterna­
tively described as “cognitive development”) manifested by
preliterate (alternatively described as “primitive”) peoples
in their natural and social environmental contexts (M. Cole
1976, xi-xvi; M. Cole, J. Gay, T. Glick, and D. Sharp 1971; M.
Cole and S. Scribner 1974). Here I will discuss the interpre­
tative techniques for cross-cultural understanding recom­
mended by this school as they have more recently evolved
in C.R. Hallpike’s The Foundations of Primitive Thought.^
Hallpike’s analyses of his own anthropological fieldwork,®'*
and his (re)interpretations of the fieldwork studies of col­
leagues, are grounded upon the cognitive psychology of
Jean Piaget. Piaget’s studies of human cognitive develop­
ment, from infancy through adulthood, led him to distin­
guish between two major stages of intellectual development.
90 Part I: Critiques
which are characterized as “pre-operatory”^® and “operatory”
thought or thinking.
The pre-operatory stage is associated with childhood
and characterized by problems in distinguishing between
the subjective and the objective, and consequently with an
imperfect ability to represent objects and qualities that
are relatively permanent, constant, and Independent of the
observer. This form of understanding is therefore char­
acterized as phenomenal. With reference to basic systemic
relations (we’re back to “web(s) of beliefs”), the child’s rea­
soning is said to favor a transductive pattern (Hallpike 1979,
15)—from particular to particular—rather than become
inductive or deductive. “The preoperatory child is also a
conceptual realist (Hallpike 16), in that any capacity for
reflecting upon the instrumental role mind or thought
plays in understanding the world is minimal (we’re back to
the mind as a “mirror” of nature). Indeed children’s inabil­
ity to appreciate the role of language as an instrument for
the representation of reality generally is reflected by their
inadequate verbal skills when engaged in any process of
abstract thought or generalized discussion.
It should be obvious what the transition from pre-opera-
tory to operatory thinking involves^ all of those compara­
tively abstract and sophisticated intellectual operations that
have become associated with “modern” thought and civiliza­
tion, that are said to be essential components of ‘advanced’
human understanding. It is not necessary to itemize them
here, because the relevant redirection of the Piagetian model
of cognitive development that Hallpike advocates is that the
pre-operatory phase should also serve as a model for the
preliterate (primitive) mentality generally. “We shall find
that in general the paradigm of the later stage of pre-
operatory thought ... is the most appropriate to primitive
thought . . . .” (Hallpike
In today s multicultural world, effectively (re)equating
the preliterate with the infantile, and then extending the
equation to the majority of sub-Saharan Africa’s indigenous
(precolonial) peoples, will provoke strong protests. For
example, Hallpike acknowledges that proverbs epitomize a
kind of wisdom in preliterate African cultures. But they
The Return ofthe “Cbsed” Society: A Critique ofRichard Rorty 91
make copious use of localized “allegory, imagery, allusion,
and concrete symbolism” (Hallpike 110), to such excess that
their meanings become incomprehensible to people from
outside the culture. In this they are symptomatic of the low
level of abstraction typical of the closed society that has yet
to formulate a conceptual system than can express erudite
theoretical generalizations.
A multicultural critic would object that Hallpike’s posi­
tion in fact presumes that any genuine abstract knowledge
must be Western in form(at), and that Western intellectual
imperialism in this regard has obscured alternative forms of
theoretical expression, that in fact the forms of theoretical
expression indigenous to African cultures, just as with their
Western counterparts, require and warrant methodological
analysis and exegesis in their own right.^^ Yet Hallpike insists
that he is basing his arguments on scientific evidence, and
that the resultant good sense underlying his explanations
of the differences between traditional and modern cultures
far outweigh the woolly minded alternatives put forward
by other academic colleagues'
... it can be claimed that the concepts and general
model of learning and thinking provided by devel­
opmental psychology are far more precise, theo­
retically coherent, and soundly based in empirical
research than the vague and confused notions hith­
erto employed by anthropologists and philosophers
in their discussions of primitive thought. (Hallpike
32)
This evaluation of the intellectual character of traditional
(preliterate) Af rican thought has also been shared, in impor­
tant respects, by ethnologists who operate under the aegis
of emotivism, poetic-symbolism, and structuralism—even if
Hallpike would argue that their interpretations arise from
a less scientific basis than his own.
I will only summarize here in a most elementary and
introductory manner, but the results of the Hallen-Sodipo
approach to the philosophical analysis of Yoruba discourse
begin from the knowledge-belief distinction as portrayed
in English-language philosophical analysis, and explicitly set
out to investigate whether there is anything with which
92 Part I: Critiques
to compare it in Yoruba discourse. I would now like to sum­
marize certain very select elements of these findings, so
that they may then serve as a basis for an instructive com­
parison, critique, and reinterpretation of one of Hallpike’s
examples of the primitive mentality “at work.”
Although the Yoruba affirm the epistemic importance
of all sensory perception, they single out visual percep­
tion (ir/rpn—seeing something for yourself) as clearer and
more reliable. In academic philosophy this is convention­
ally described as firsthand experience. When conjoined with
cognitive comprehension (pr/ okan: literally “the witnessing
of the mind”) that one is seeing and of what one is seeing,
the two sufficient conditions for imp, (usually translated
into English as “knowledge”) are fulfilled. Experience that
fulfills these two conditions and propositions that recount
such experience are both characterized as bdtp (true). The
emphasis placed upon propositions being true because they
accurately report firsthand experience indicates elements of
a correspondence theory of truth.
When imp is challenged and an argument (ariyan jiyan)
results, the measures recommended for solving the dispute
are complex and interwoven. Often the disputants do not
share the same first-hand experiences. This may be cor­
rected via a process of verification if it is possible to test a
knowledge claim empirically, thereby enabling all to see the
results for themselves. When such testing is not possible,
there is no way that the imp of one person can become the
imp of another.
The above represents only a brief introduction to the
entire system of Yoruba epistemic criteria. But, on the basis
of this brief extrapolation consider the following dialogue,
excerpted from Hallpike. The first speaker (Q) is the anthro­
pological fieldworker, and the second (A) is a supposed prim­
itive. The point of the exchange is to see whether A can be
made to recognize the logical implications of the introduc­
tory syllogism:
Q. In the Far North, where there is snow, all bears
are white. Novaya Zemlya is in the Far North and
there is always snow there. What colour are the
bears there?
The Return ofthe “Closed” Society: A Critique ofRichard Rorty 93
A. There are different sorts of bears.
Q. [The syllogism presented under the first “Q” is
repeated.]
A. I don’t know [=]: I’ve seen a black bear, I’ve never
seen any others. Each locality has its own animals:
if it’s white they will all be white: if it’s yellow
they will be yellow.
Q. But what kind of bears are there in Novaya
Zemlya?
A. We always speak only of what we see [=]: we
don’t talk of what we haven’t seen.
Q. But what do my words imply? [The syllogism
is repeated.]
A. Well, it’s like this= our tsar isn’t like yours, and
yours isn’t like ours. Your words can be answered
only by someone who was there, and if a person
wasn’t there he can’t say anything on the basis of
your words.
Q. But on the basis of my words—in the North,
where there is always snow, the bears are white,
can you gather what kind of bears there are in
Novaya Zemlya?
A. If a man was sixty or eighty and had seen [=]
a white bear and had told about it, he could be
believed, but Tve never seen one [=] and hence I
can’t say. That’s my last word. Those who saw [=]
can tell, and those who didn’t [=] can’t say anything
(Hallpike 117-18).3“
I have used bold characters for some words and inserted
the sign for equality within certain passages in this dia­
logue because I believe they exemplify an epistemic attitude
towards firsthand experience that resembles, if not repli­
cates, one that occurs in Yoruba discourse. I cannot empha­
size too strongly how many times I personally heard the
refrain: “What you have not seen for yourself may not be
true, and you cannot say it. But if you use your own eyes to
 Part I: Critiques
‘touch’ it, like this [gesture], you will understand it. You’ve
used your own eyes to see it.”
Hallpike, on the other hand, finds the exchange illus­
trative of a primitive people s inability to reason, to draw
Iri^’sr'finces, from information that would carry them beyond
immediate experienee:
. . . [this example should be interpreted as a] problem
in deductive inference [presented] to an illiterate
Kashgar [Uzbekistan] man, thirty-seven years of
age, from a remote village. (Hallpike 118)
Each time the fieldworker tries to move the inferenee
along, the gentleman refuses. But 1 would want to argue
that he refuses not, simply, on the basis of a logical inca­
pacity but on the basis of an epistemic principle, which
he enunciates elearly and repeatedly and does reason from
in a logical manner. What in faet is demonstrated by this
dialogue is the lack of communication that can follow when
individuals from different language-eultures evaluate hypo-
thetical^ situations (in fact no one present is in a position
to “see” the bears of the Far North) on the basis of very
different epistemic criteria. The principle that “one must
be able to see for oneself in order to know” serves as the
veritable linehpin, keystone, mainstay—the central princi­
ple upon whieh all else in Yoruba epistemology depends. And
if an interloeutor attempted to sidestep its relevance in the
same fashion as is illustrated here, the response would be,
repeatedly, the same.
That there do indeed prove to be a selection of subtle,
different, yet interestingly cross-culturally comparable
Yoruba epistemie criteria that may serve as premises on
the basis of whieh to evaluate information in an eminently
logical manner does, I would argue, introduce a viable way
of involving analytic philosophy with everyday African dis­
course. Also, a way of demonstrating that the techniques of
linguistic analysis can apply as fruitfully—philosophically
fruitfully to African cultures as they ean to Western.^®
As importantly, the actual processes of language anal­
ysis, of analyzing Yoruba discourse, of understanding in
preeisely whieh cireumstanees the application of specific
epistemological criteria are justified (or not), would not
The Return ofthe "Closed” Society: A Critique ofRichard Rorty 95
have been possible without the aetive, on many occasions
leading, participation of “preliterate” members of Yoruba
society. In other words, they became the principals involved
in proeesses of reflection upon the meanings of these terms
and the criteria governing their usage.^ It was not a sce­
nario of comparatively “active” fieldworkers reeording and
tabulating the occasions and circumstances in which the
comparatively “passive” Yoruba uttered eertain linguistic
expressions.
If these representations and analyses of Yoruba epistemie
diseourse are accepted as worthy of consideration, then we
are required to revise our presumptions about the intellec­
tual character of what used to be referred to as preliterate
beliefs. One exception (the proverbial black swan) is suf­
ficient to undermine a generalization. Preliterate peoples
can be explicitly, critically conscious of the inferential
processes underlying ordinary discourse. They can reflect
(and not just for the benefit of the alien fieldworker) upon
the reasons for rules governing ordinary usage. And when
denotative definition needs to be supplemented by other
kinds of explanations of meaning, they ean have recourse to
original metaphor as a deliberate propaedeutic.'**
To return to the question of whether this sort of exer­
cise should qualify for inclusion in the corpus of ortho­
dox philosophy: This approach to the analysis of Yoruba
diseourse shows, at least in a preliminary manner, that it
evidences philosophieal sensitivities that immediately invite
comparisons with mainstream aeademic philosophy derived
from English-language discourse. If philosophers of an ana­
lytic persuasion in Africa continue to select out fields of
discourse that are relevant to the academic .philosophical
corpus as the targets of their linguistic inquiries, I see no
reason why any number of such studies should not qualify
as eminently philosophieal in content and form (Gyekye
1997; Wiredu 1996b, 2004). To finally diseredit the stere­
otype of the preliterate African mentality as elosed, more
studies by African philosophers of specifie issues and topics
directly relevant to orthodox philosophical topics need to be
undertaken.*^ And they must not be undertaken as exposi­
tory—as descriptive narratives or “stories” about a people’s
96 Part I: Critiques
worldview. This immediately disqualifies them from inclu­
sion in the academic philosophical corpus/^ and relegates
them once more to the realm of the prephilosophical.
I would like to conclude by remarking on the unfortu­
nate intellectual polarity latent in Rorty’s characterizations
of cultures as Western and non-Western. It is this “claim”
that denies the relevance of philosophy as a cross-cultural
discipline to most of the world. And it is this “claim” that
I find not to be empirically substantiated in his work. The
paradoxical thing about the Rorty corpus is that taken as a
whole, roses and thorns, there is much that could be used
methodologically to promote the interests of African phi­
losophy. I have in mind points such as the following:
1. The legitimacy of the relativity of terminology and
standards of objectivity between different cultures (HCP
35-6)
2. The questionable methodological and empirical under­
pinnings of many theoretical or abstract terms (tertia)
associated with African cultures (the conventional bifur­
cation between “reason” and “tradition” being one of the
more prominent) (lAR 97> OEG 208)
3. The emphasis placed upon appreciating the influence of
particular natural and social environments highlights
the importance of context** for appreciating differences
between cultures (lAR 107)
4. That the process of understanding is never definitive—
there is always “room” for improvement in the inter­
pretation and interrelation of beliefs between different
cultures (PMN 349-50)
5. That new insights about and moves to revise the conven­
tional beliefs of one culture may follow upon appreciat­
ing the points of view underlying those of another (Here
I am thinking of Africa influencing the West rather
than merely the reverse.) (PMN 360)
6. That incoherence between and among the beliefs of any
culture is never a given. Contradictions or inconsisten­
cies between beliefs (explicit or implicit), rather than
taken as indicative of a prelogical mentality, may be
The Return ofthe "Closed” Society: A Critique ofRichard Rorty 97
signs of divergent views within a single culture, or of
a process of development of new web(s) of beliefs that
differ from what for some is still convention (PSM 15)
7. The importance assigned to “the cultural role of imagi­
native literature (and, more generally, of art, myth, and
religion. . . )”: metaphor as “an essential instrument in
the process of reweaving [revising! changing] our beliefs
and desires: without it there would be no such thing
as a scientific revolution or cultural breakthrough, but
merely the process of altering the truth-values of state­
ments formulated in a forever unchaneine! vocabulary”
(NRP 124)
8. That a non-Western culture need not contain individuals
explicitly identifiable as the equivalent of the philoso­
pher in Western culture in order to qualify as of intel­
lectual relevance (footnotes 18 and 40 above)
This is not meant to be an exhaustive inventory. But
these points are of sufficient prime facie merit to warrant
further study of Rorty’s work by African philosophers
in order to more carefully extrapolate and experimentally
redirect these potentially positive insights and perhaps to
incorporate them into a revised methodological framework.
The pity of it all is that despite the potential value of these
insights to the study of non-Western ideas, in Rorty’s own
work this could never happen. As Cornel West observes:
ironically, his project, though pregnant with rich
possibilities, remains polemical and hence barren. It
refuses to give birth to the offspring it conceives.
Rorty leads philosophy to the complex world of
politics and culture, but confines his engagement
to transformation in the academy and apologetics
for the modern West. (1985, 268)
African philosophy, as originating from distinctive
cultural bases, has already progressed from the domain of
ethnography to mainstream philosophical thought. In this
regard it is no different from other “new” philosophical
developments like feminist thought or applied ethics. All
are areas where the introduction of new topics (issues) are
challenging philosophers to show that the methodological
 1
98 Part I: Critiques
tools of their discipline can cope, can adjust, can improve.
One must appreciate the past, where the philosophical dis­
cipline was Greek before there was a “West.” One must also
look to the future, where a discipline that is still dynamic
is finding itself involved with fields of endeavor that are
indeed intercultural.
NOTES
1. To facilitate references to Rorty’s published works and inter­
views, the following table of abbreviations will be used.
Unless otherwise noted, titles of essays that are followed
by the letter a in parentheses (a) are to be found in Objectiv­
ity, Relativism, and Truth (Cambridge= Cambridge University
Press, 1991).
Those followed by the letter b in parentheses (b) are in
Essays on Heidegger and Others (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni­
versity Press, 1991).
Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature is an earlier and com­
plete work in its own right (Oxford' Blackwell, 1980).
CRR = Stories of Difference' A Conversation with Richard
Rorty, Gaurav Desai, SAPINA (Society for African Philosophy
in North America) Bulletin V/2-3 (July-September 1993)' 23-
45.
CWE = “Cosmopolitanism Without Emancipation' A Response
to Jean-Franfois Lyotard,” 211-22 (a).
HCP = “Heidegger, Contingency, and Pragmatism,” 27-49 (b).
HKD = “Heidegger, Kundera, and Dickens,” 66-82 (b).
lAR = “Inquiry as Recontextualization' An Anti-Dualist Account
of Interpretation,” 93-110 (a).
INN = “Is Natural Science a Natural Kind?” 46-62 (a).
INT = “introduction' Antirepresentationalism, Ethnocentrism,
and Liberalism,” 1-17 (a).
NRP = “Non-Reductive Physicalism,” 113-25 (a).
OEG = “On Ethnocentrism' A Reply to Clifford Geertz,” 203-
10 (a).
PDT = “Pragmatism, Davidson and Truth,” 126-50 (a).
PMN = Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature.
PSM = “Philosophy as Science, as Metaphor, and as Politics,”
9-26 (b).
RCD = “a Pragmatist View of Rationality and Cultural Differ­
ence,” Philosophy East & West 42/4 (October 1992)' 581-89.
The Return ofthe “Closed” Society: A Critique ofRichard Rorty 99
SAS = “Science as Solidarity,” 35-45 (a).
SOO = “Solidarity or Objectivity?” 21-34 (a).
2. [Rorty disagrees with those who maintain that the task of
the anthropologist is to describe] ‘“savage narrations and
their rules according to cognitive rules, without pretending
to establish any continuity between the latter and his own
mode of discourse’. . . .[Rorty argues that] surely this is over­
stated. The anthropologist and the native agree, after all, on
an enormous number of platitudes. They usually share beliefs
about, for example, the desirability of finding waterholes,
the danger of fondling poisonous snakes, the need for shelter
in bad weather, etc. If they did not, as Donald Davidson has
remarked, it is hard to see how the two would ever have been
able to learn enough of each other’s languages to recognize
the other as a language user” (CWE 215; the initial quotation
within the quotation is from Lyotard 1984, 61).
3. “To say that we cannot understand a foreign culture if we
insist on Whiggishly interpreting it as holding ‘too many’
of our own beliefs and desires is just a generalization of the
Kuhnian point that we cannot understand past scientists if
we insist on doing the same thing to them. This can itself be
generalized to the claim that we should not assume that the
vocabulary used so far will work on everything else that turns
up. The problem is not that spirits are inherently resistant to
being predicted, but simply that there is no reason to think
(and much reason not to think) that our own spirit has now
got hold of the best vocabulary for formulating, hypoth­
eses which will explain and predict all the other spirits (or,
perhaps, the other bodies)” (PMN 349-50).
4. With reference to the reverse process, for example of express­
ing English-language biblical idioms in African languages,
there are some entertaining examples in Wiredu 1992a.
5. “l want to claim, on the contrary, that there is no point
in trying to find a general synoptic way of ‘analyzing’ the
‘functions knowledge has in universal contexts of practical
life’, and that cultural anthropology (in a large sense which
includes intellectual history) is all we need” (PMN 381).
6. If the label “African traditional thought” is used to denote
distinctive intellectual attributes, a specific type of concep­
tual scheme, etc. it would become a further example of a
tertium quid.
7. As exemplified, for example, by the quote from Hallpike in
chaper 1, fn. 12 above.
8. See chapter 1, fn. 50 above.
100 Part I; Critiques
9. To extrapolate these attributes I have negated some of the
distinctive characteristics that Rorty identifies with Western
liberal democracy. At another point the West is characterized
as-' the well-windowed monad we live in is no more closely
linked to the nature of humanity than the relatively win-
dowless monads [I read as "closed societies”] which surround
us” (OEG 204).
10. “. . . the pragmatist attempt to see the history of humanity
as the history of the gradual replacement of force by pei—
suasion, the gradual spread of certain virtues typical of the
democratic West” (CWE 216).
11. Rorty narrates the traditional obstacles to rationalist philoso­
phy in Western society as "convention,” "superstition,” and
the lack of a proper epistemological understanding of man’s
ability accurately to represent nature” (PMN 367).
12. See chapter 2, pp. 41-7. Rorty also illustrates the distinction
as follows^ when these patterns of behavior differ wildly,
we shall say that we have different Weltanschauungen, or
cultures, or theories, or that ‘we carve up the world differ­
ently’. But it would create fewer philosophical problems just to
say that when these patterns differ, communication becomes
harder and translation less helpful. Translation may become so
awkwardly periphrastic, indeed, that it will save time simply
to go bilingual” (lAR 104). To compare with Quine’s= "Where
I have spoken of a very alien conceptual scheme I would have
been content ... to speak of a language awkward or baffling
to translate” (1981, 41).
13. So-called because it maintains that the belief systems of
African cultures should be regarded, first and foremost, as
theoretical constructions designed to explain, predict, and
control events and phenomena.
14. Most eloquently in HKD.
15. Intellectualism may stress the theoretical interpretation of
African worldviews, but it does not stress an African con­
sciousness of what it means to have a theoretical viewpoint or
understanding.
16. “Spirit is whatever is so unfamiliar and unmanageable that
we begin to wonder whether our ‘language’ is ‘adequate’
to it. Our wonder, stripped of mirror-imagery, is simply
about whether somebody or something may not be dealing
with the world in terms for which our language contains no
ready equivalents. More simply still, it is just wonder about
whether we do not need to change our vocabulary, and not
just our assertions” (PMN 352-53). Also “untranslatability does
The Return ofthe “Closed” Society: A Critique ofRichard Rorty 101
not entail unlearnability, and that learnability is all that is
required to make discussability possible” (INN 48).
17. “We cannot leap outside our Western social democratic skins
when we encounter another culture, and we should not try.
All we should try to do is to get inside the inhabitants of
that culture long enough to get some idea of how we look
to them, and whether they have any ideas we can use. That
is also all they can be expected to do on encountering us. If
members of the other culture protest that this expectation
of tolerant reciprocity is a provincially Western one, we can
only shrug our shoulders and reply that we have to work by
our own lights, even as they do, for there is no supercultural
observation platform to which we might repair” (CWE 212-
13).
18. Rorty’s denial of philosophy to all non-Western peoples,
including the Indians and the Chinese, will arouse strong pro­
tests from those quarters. He attempts to explain his position
with reference to the intellectual orientations of the Orient
in RCD. But here again there is a disturbing ambivalence in his
published work about how much he knows of alien cultures,
as evidenced by the following: “We need to be on the lookout
not just for Japanese Heideggers, Indian Platos, and Chinese
Humes, but for Chinese Sternes and Indonesian Rabelaises. I
am too ignorant to know whether there are any people of the
latter sort, but I hope and trust that there are. Somewhere in
the East there must have been people who enjoyed unweaving
the tapestries which the saints and sages [note his avoidance
of use of the word philosophers] had woven” (HKD 73). If he
does know so little, what can possibly entitle him to arrive at
discriminate conclusions about the specifically non-philosoph-
ical character of such cultures’ intellectual achievements?
19. “it is, of course, rare for a native to have been granted this
sort of free choice. We Western liberals have had the Gatling
gun, and the native has not” (CWE 218-219).
20. “One task of the intellectuals in these [Western] societies will
be to help their fellow citizens live with the thought that we
do not yet have an adequate language, and to wean them from
the idea that there is something out there to be ‘adequate’ to.
This amounts to suggesting that we try to eschew scientistic
pronunciamentos which take for granted that we now have
a secure grasp on the nature of society, or of the good. It
means admitting that the terms in which we state our com­
munal convictions and hopes are doomed to obsolescence, that
we shall always need new metaphors, new logical spaces, new
102 Part I: Critiques
jargons, that there will never be a final resting-place for
thought, nor a social philosophy which is a strange Wissen-
schaft” (PSM 19).
21. Rorty’s notion of “hermeneutics” is unconventional and
should not be confused with its phenomenological namesake.
In the absence of any transcendent epistemology, the role of
the philosopher to stimulate, to facilitate, intellectual com­
munication between professionals from diverse intellectual
backgrounds becomes more pronounced (PMN 315 ff.).
22. On the various controversies involved in evaluating the intel­
lectual character of African beliefs, see Hountondji 1983, 2002i
Mudimbe 1988i Appiah 1992, Hallen 2002.
23. ... a tacit presupposition. . . . Analytic philosophers are not
much interested in either defining or defending the presup­
positions of their work” (PSM 21).
24. See chapter 6.
25. As is evidenced by the fact that the sentence which follows
is restated on p. 144-145 below.
26. See fn. 5 above.
27. I am grateful to the late Dorothy Emmet for bringing this to
my attention.
28. See chapter 6.
29. “In the end, the issue is going to be decided on a high metaph-
ilosophical plane — one from which we look down upon the
philosophical tradition and judge its worth” (PDT 146).
30. It is Rorty’s use of this quotation as illustrative of a philo­
sophical orientation he rejects that first brought it to my
attention (PSM 22).
31. The similarities between Austin’s methods and those used in
the Hallen-Sodipo translation-interpretation exercise with
Yoruba epistemological criteria are discussed at length in
chapter 6.
32. Placide Tempels’ disputed representations of Bantu meanings
are too well-known to warrant more than mention (1959).
Alexis Kagame’s indisputably insightful linguistic systema­
tizations of Bantu categorical systems were handicapped by
implicit scholastic paradigms (1956). John Mbiti’s portrayal
of a Bantu concept of time devoid of a sense of the future
as generally representative of African thought was received
with outrage (1970).
33. See chapter 1, fn. 2 above.
34. His published works include books on the Konso of Ethiopia
and the Tauade of Papua-New Guinea.
The Return ofthe “Closed” Society: A Critique ofRichard Rorty 103
35. The use of “operatory” signifies that substantially different
types or levels of cognitive operations are associated with
each of these levels.
36. Piaget was more cautious about extending his model to primi­
tive societies (Piaget 1974). Hallpike disagrees, and says= “I
would go further and assert that in many primitive societies
a great deal of thinking is equivalent to that of the pre-
operatory stage” (1979, 24, note 11).
37. The writings of Karin Barber (1991) and Olabiyi Yai (1989,
1994a) introduce some interesting new methodological per­
spectives on the interpretation of African oral literature.
38. This fieldwork interview is excerpted from A. R. Luria 1976.
To be fair to Hallpike, he has reservations about the lack
of information regarding Luria’s sources. Nevertheless his
explicit reasons for using this example do not absolve him of
my criticisms.
39. See chapter 6.
40. “. . . philosophers .... all hanker after essence and share a
taste for theory as opposed to narrative. ... So we have to be
careful not to let this taste seduce us into the presumption
that, when it comes to other cultures, only our counterparts,
those with tastes similar to our own, are reliable sources of
information” (HKD 71).
41. See Hallen and Sodipo 1994 for an example of an original
metaphor fashioned by a “traditional” thinker to elaborate
{not to substitute for) meaning.
42. See Wiredu 1992-93 and 1996b for examples of this kind of
critical approach.
43. I acknowledge the (multicultural, postmodern) arguments of
those who are challenging the criteria that define the philo­
sophical corpus as culturally biased.
44. See chapter 6.
CHAPTER 4

TRIBAL PHILOSOPHIES AND ORDINARY

LANGUAGE: A CRITIQUE OF
PAULIN HOUNTONDJI
he significance of Africa in the philosophical spectrum
T has undergone considerable and welcome change in the
latter decades of the twentieth century. Nevertheless the
cross-cultural, cognitive ranking of Africa’s cultures and
their indigenous intellectual heritage continues to be an
enduringly controversial topic. What I propose to do in this
chapter is to review some of these changes and their conse­
quences with regards to the arguments of one of the subcon­
tinent’s most distinguished philosophers, Paulin Hountondji.
For the past twenty-five years Hountondji’s literary voice
has been raised in protest against a network of institutional­
ized double standards that govern relations between devel­
oped and developing countries. North and South, sub-Saharan
Africa and the West. By “double standards” he means “dis­
crimination —and the disparities so engendered are as much
intellectual as they are physical. Some of the international
spheres of influence in which he finds double standards to
be at work are= the political, the economic, the scientific, the
intellectual, the cultural, and—with particular relevance to
the subject matter of this volume—the philosophical. Afri­
ca’s indigenous heritages in each of these spheres have been
denigrated and marginalized—labeled inferior.
More important for all becomes the question, ‘What is to
be done?’ Paulin Hountondji is not out to scapegoat any one
party at the expense of others. He blames everyone con­
cerned—South and North. His point is that it is not simply
their problem or our problem. His point is the continuing
inequities caused by these double standards and the dispari­
ties they engender should be everyone’s problem. In this
 106 Part I: Critiques
chapter I will concentrate on one specific double standard
that applies to philosophy in the African context. The first
thesis 1 would like to advance is this= Academic (Western)
philosophy has been delinquent by not playing a more sig­
nificant role in the study and evaluation of the intellectual
character, the rationality, of Africa’s indigenous cultures.
I introduce this as a thesis because the problem I will use it
to address is one that has vexed Hountondji for some time.
Namely, how to arrive at a positive, fruitful relationship
between Africa’s indigenous intellectual heritage and tech­
nical, systematic, academic (Western) philosophy.
At times Hountondji has gone so far as to suggest that
the encouragement of academic philosophy in Africa should
not be a priority. Precious resources and personnel would
be better allocated to developing a scientific infrastructure
for research and development. Once this was established,
as a kind of technical spin-off, problems arising from the
posing, testing, and comparing of competing technological
and scientific hypotheses would engender the second-order
thinking that has become conventional to academic philoso­
phy (Hountondji 1990).’
I see at least two problems with this line of thought' (i)
There are already hundreds of African philosophers at work
in African departments of philosophy today. It doesn’t
make sense to ignore them and, knowing philosophers, they
will not go quietly: (ii) This line of development offers
no clear solution to Hountondji s complaint that a program
for fruitfully integrating Africa’s indigenous intellectual
heritage with academic philosophy has yet to be devised. I
hope to outline at least one portion of such a program. But
first I will return to my initial thesis concerning the delin­
quency of academic philosophy. It would not be sufficient
excuse, in my opinion, for philosophers to argue that theirs
is a second-order discipline, and therefore that they are
not equipped to “study” firsthand, to undertake some form
of empirical “fieldwork” research upon, African modes of
thought. Although it is certainly true that, with respect
to the cultures of sub-Saharan Africa, this kind of research
became the prerogative of subdisciplines of the social sci­
TribdPhibsophiesAnd Ordinary Lan^ge: A Critique OfPaulin Hountondji 107
ences—ethnography, social and cultural anthropology, for
example.
I have two reservations about this division of (discipli­
nary) labor' (i) As a product of the social sciences, anthropol­
ogy certainly is entitled to undertake the study of things
like kinship and social institutions from, for example, a
functional point of view. But when anthropology proceeds
to the study of beliefs and values and draws conclusions
about the modes of thought that are imputed to their for­
mulation and observance. I’m not so sure.^ Anthropologists
who can lay claim to a degree of technical, philosophical
training with reference to such topics are rare.^ Yet they
are philosophical topics; (ii) Conventional academic philoso­
phers have for the most part remained aloof from these
anthropological analyses and evaluations of the African
intellect. In fact they seem to have received anthropologi­
cal findings that African modes of thought are precritical,
prereflective, prelogical, protorational, etc. as “proof” that
Africa s intellectual heritage does not merit their special
interest. Except perhaps for negative examples of how not
to reason.^
Because of academic philosophy’s initial, and in some
respects continuing, reluctance to tackle the issue of African
rationality, much of the early scholarship in this area that
lay claim to be African philosophy, was in fact guided by
anthropological methods.® As would seem appropriate to
‘philosophical” studies engendered by the social sciences,
their scope is collective or tribal in scale. The offensive
double standard implied by declaring this kind of work to
be “African philosophy,” in contradistinction to its Western
counterparts, should be fairly obvious. No provision is made
for philosophies that are linked to individual thinkers. In
Africa philosophy becomes a collective description of beliefs
and values frequently linked with the term (tribal) world-
view- Zulu philosophy, Ashanti philosophy, and so forth.
Hountondji has developed important arguments for reject­
ing this anthropologization of African philosophy, which he
terms ethnophilosophy. He would have had no objection to
this kind of scholarship if it had identified itself as a form
of cultural anthropology. But when it began to represent
108 Part I: Critiques
itself as African philosophy, or as the proper methodologi­
cal rendering of African philosophies, a demeaning double
standard was introduced.
A second thesis I would like to advance is that academic
(Western) philosophy has developed and legitimized its own
form of ethnophilosophy. Here 1 am thinking of the twen­
tieth century analytic tradition as it applies to the philoso­
phy of language, and the movement within it that has come
to be typed as ordinary language philosophy. Some of its
defining and comparable characteristics are= (1) an emphasis
upon ordinary, common, and collective uses of a natural
language (in academic philosophy the language of choice has
usually been English); (2) greater importance being attached
to clarifying such meanings (analysis) rather than to criti­
cism of them.
Before I proceed to elaborate this thesis, there is one pos­
sibly misleading implication of it that I must correct. I do
not mean to imply that the analytic tradition has not been
represented in other respects among African philosophers.
In Anglophone Africa today this is the tradition that pre­
dominates, and much of the work that has been published
by African philosophers under the rubric “African philoso­
phy” is meant to be analytic in orientation. Something I
find to be remarkable about the fairly substantial corpus of
published articles that can be grouped under the heading,
analytic African philosophy,” is the minimal, very minimal
impression it has made upon the discipline of academic phi­
losophy as a whole. More specifically I can point to the
large number of articles that have been published with
variations upon the title: “The So-and-So’s Concept of ‘X’.”®
For So-and-So substitute the name of any Afriean ethnic
group. For “X” substitute a concept like “beauty,” “truth,”
mind, etc. In this kind of article, utilizing source material
derived primarily from oral traditions—proverbs, parables,
etc.—philosophers, situated for the most part in Africa, set
out to analyze the meaning of a concept that occurs in an
African language, one that they believe to be of philosophi­
cal prepossession and interest.
For Hountondji this rather diffused form of conceptual
analysis is nothing more than a further metamorphosis of
Tribal Philosophies And Ordinary Language: A Critique OfPaulin Hountondji 109
ethnophilosophy. But my first concern is to ask why this
class of papers has been largely ignored by the Western
philosophical establishment? Could it be that their disinter­
est signifies a tacit endorsement of Hountondji’s denuncia­
tion? Or could it be that they are not inclined to treat the
philosophical analysis of a single concept extracted from an
African language seriously, when they are already persuaded
that the conceptual network, the entire language, of which
it is a product was developed and is used by a people whose
mentality has been typed as prelogical, precritical, etc.?
To review the relationship between academic (Western)
philosophy and African cultures from a slightly different
perspective, how and why is it that there has been so little
interest in the mainstream academy to applying the techni­
cal tools fashioned by analytic philosophy to non-Western
languages in a systematic manner? By “systematic” I mean
the analysis of something more than isolated, individual
concepts. I mean the analysis of conceptual networks,
fields of discourse, language games or portions thereof. Is
it simply that the distances between cultures—the physical
and linguistic differences—become such serious impediments
that appropriate opportunities can very rarely arise? Or is
it again that old stereotype of the precritical mentality
that influences philosophers to discount the possibility of
turning their attention to natural languages that have been
typed as of no intrinsic philosophical merit or interest?
I appreciate that it would be helpful if I could provide
an example of the kind of systematic approach to African
philosophy that I have in mind. What I can try to do is
to suggest several interrelated, outlined, systematic per­
spectives to give some idea of how this variety of analytic
approach would work. Let me begin from a philosophical
problem or topic that is regarded as comparatively dense:
but try to summarize it in a manner that will not cause
readers to wonder why philosophers always resort to rheto­
ric that fails to communicate. That topic is the status of
what is known as “propositional knowledge.”
More than 90 percent of the information many people
who are reading this claim to “know” and can state in prop­
ositional or sentential form (e.g., “I know that Tokyo is the
 110 Part I: Critiques
capital of J"apart. ) relates to things they themselves have
never witnessed or likely will be in a position to test or to
verify in a firsthand manner. Whether it is how many
planets orbit our sun, the cholesterol count of Sarah Lee
cream cheese cake, who was the king of Ethiopia in A.D.
1231, or what a friend says her sister did to her yester­
day—all of this information comes from things we “learn”
or hear about and may decide to accept as true but usually
never bother to question or confirm. Yet, if challenged,
many would probably insist that they can and do know
them.
What if there was a culture in which people refused to
accept anything as knowledge or as certain unless they had
witnessed or verified it in a firsthand manner? This need
not mean they would reject all other varieties of informa­
tion, including the examples I’ve just mentioned, as false.
Rather they might insist that until and unless such infor­
mation could somehow be verified in a firsthand manner,
it deserved to be regarded as nothing more than belief—as
information that might possibly be true. Furthermore,
what if this apparently idiosyncratic culture happened to be
an oral culture? This would mean that all such information
must come out of someone’s mouth. Would this mean that
listeners would also likely take a speaker’s moral character
into account when evaluating the reliability of their state­
ments? What would be the status of statements purporting
to report oral traditions—information inherited from the
past? Would it be regarded as firsthand or secondhand—as
knowledge or as belief?
I cannot pretend to answer any of these questions in this
chapter, whose central theme is the disciplinary status of
what Hountondji has categorized as ethnophilosophy. But I
hope readers will see the manner in which they are inter­
related, in which one question leads into or might involve
the next. This is the kind of approach I have in mind
when I advocate being systematic. And I would suggest
that models or paradigms of cognition that might emerge
from answers to these questions could be different from
those used to define rational cognition in (Western) aca­
demic philosophy.
Tribal Philosophies And Ordinary Language: A Critique OfPaulin Hountondji 111
To return to my advocacy of an ordinary language
approach in African philosophy as a form of collective phi­
losophizing that I once imagined Hountondji might find
acceptable, let me enumerate the following specifics:
1. The study of ordinary language usage provides philoso­
phers with an independent, empirical data base from
which to undertake the systematic analysis of African
meanings:
2. As is the case with ordinary language philosophy that
targets the English language, there needs be no pre­
sumption that this kind of study will either solve or
dissolve the traditional problems of philosophy;
3. The role and value of ordinary language analysis in the
African context is instrumental, as a tool that will enable
philosophers to come to terms with pieces or portions of
African fields of discourse:
4. By identifying essential vocabulary, paradigm cases,
examples of correct and incorrect usage, empirical
content and criteria for the correct application of a
term, etc., philosophers will have at their disposal sys­
tematic, rather technical, fairly rigorous guidelines for
the analysis in their own right (and for the translation
into other languages, such as English, etc.) of African
meanings:
5. Most of the existent philosophical analyses of individual
concepts in African languages take their source and ref­
erence materials from oral literature—a concept as it
occurs in proverbs, parables, poetry, divination verses,
etc. [This is that same genre of diffused conceptual
analysis that Hountondji thinks can never achieve philo­
sophical rigor. Introducing a methodology that places
its emphasis directly upon the use of the concept in the
give and take” of everyday discourse or the ordinary
use of language enables philosophers to better site it
in the semantic context (or the conceptual network) of
which it is a part and thereby to identify more clearly
the criteria governing its usage]:
112 Part I: Critiques
6. And, once again, since ordinary-language analysis is
admissible as a methodological approach by the academy,
no double standard is introduced.
What would Hountondji’s reaction to the above likely be?
An objection he has raised in the past about Alexis Kagame’s
work^ is that “scientific rigor should prevent us from arbi­
trarily projecting a philosophical discourse on to products
of language which expressly offer themselves as something
other than philosophy” (Hountondji 1983, 43i second italics
mine). By “products of language” Hountondji means pieces
of oral literature like proverbs, parables, songs, etc. Would
he likely claim that ordinary discourse—language as used in
everyday life—is also a product of language and thereby
vulnerable to the same criticism? I suspect that he would
and, if so, this is where we must disagree for a variety of
reasons. I would argue that ordinary language or everyday
discourse is not so much a product of language as it is the
basis for or the prerequisite to any products of language.
Without ordinary language to work with and to elaborate
there would be no proverbs, parables, songs, etc.
I would also argue that ordinary language is not scien­
tific in the technical sense that Hountondji attributes to
that term. But if he remains insistent that the subject
matter of genuinely philosophical thought must itself be
rigorously scientific in nature, it appears we would have to
consign much of the philosophy of language and of what
has come to be conventionally known as analytic philosophy
to the same trash receptacle as other examples of ethnophi-
losophy. Foundational analytical pieces, such as J.L. Austin’s
work on performative utterances (1962a) and W.V.O. Quine’s
indeterminacy thesis of radical translation (1960) would be
reclassified as, at best, second-order ethnophilosophy. The
probable consequence being that if Hountondji were to insist
upon his now clearly unrealistic criterion for the philo­
sophical, his critique would lose much of its significance.
Regardless of the standards one would like a discipline to
observe, if that means denouncing the discipline as practiced
for not being that discipline—science for being unscien­
tific, economics for being uneconomical, analytic philosophy
for not being philosophical—in other words challenging a
Tribal Philosophies And Ordinary Language: A Critique CfPaulin Hountondji 113
mainstream tradition as not entitled to be a mainstream
tradition—I wonder whether this kind of criticism would
attract anything more than marginal interest?
I also find Hountondji’s use of the term scientific coun­
terproductive because it invokes the orthodox view of cogni­
tion—that there is a single cognitive or rational norm that
different cultures must more or less approximate. This is
the same standard that has been invoked to assign African
cultures to the ‘less approximate’ end of the rationality
spectrum, thereby attracting adjectives such as prelogical
and protorational. If one of the responsibilities of African
philosophy today is to determine and to define the nature
of the intellectual heritage of Africa’s indigenous cultures,
then I would also advocate it free itself from this cross-
cultural rational standard that is so indisputably of Western
origin. In this era of postcolonialism, multiculturalism, and
postmodernism anthropologists are deconstructively apolo­
gizing for and correcting their own precipitate and erro­
neous analyses of African systems of cognition.® African
philosophers have taken advantage of this change of wind
to wrest control of the description and analysis of cog­
nition and rationality in African cultures from the social
sciences and to make it, formally and finally, part of their
own domain.
To further liberate African philosophy from having to
prove that, somehow and in some way, African cultures live
up to the orthodox paradigm of cognition and rationality as
defined by the West, I also applaud the efforts of African
philosophers to experiment with alternative views of cogni­
tion. Cognition itself may be defined as the “forming and
revising of beliefs and other cognitive states” (Stich 1993,
92). According to this more flexible view, which would be
relativistic and pluralistic, different cultures may go about
the business of cognition, of forming and revising their
beliefs, in significantly different ways.
The point to stress here is that relatively empirical
explorations of different systems of cognition undertaken
by philosophers, such as the above, can provide invaluable
examples and evidence of these alternative systems of rea­
soning. We no longer have to rely upon anthropological
 114 Part I: Critiques
monographs, or upon the “pure” thought experiments, or
musings upon our conceptual limitations—a la Susan Haack
(1993)—which usually support the orthodox view of reason­
ing in any case. To the contrary, the “orthodox” view of
rationality and cognition becomes just one more alterna­
tive, culturally relative, Western rendering of cognition
and rationality. For example, the noteworthy empirical
and skeptical elements that are informed by the alternative
epistemic criteria regarding firsthand information that 1
hypothesized earlier in this and the previous chapter: (1)
the insistence upon testing before a piece of information
may be certified as true • (2) the reluctance to accept as
true anything that has been received as mere “opinion,” as
secondhand; (3) the hypothetical status of belief. Another
important concern in Hountondji’s writings is how best to
inculcate a critical, scientific attitude in African societies. I
would suggest that if there might already be elements such
as these in African cognitive systems to build on and from,
that task may have been underway for some time.
In his more recent work. The Struggle for Meaning
(2002), Hountondji is concerned to clarify and, in some
respects, to amend his position regarding “African tradi­
tions of thought” (phrasing he prefers to “African tra­
ditional thought”) (187). He is willing to allow for the
culturally unique, as long as the meanings involved are rela­
tively superficial and not symptomatic of a fundamentally
alternative rationality (which he continues to insist must be
universal) (201).
He also continues to be dismissive of orality as a sound
basis for the expression of theoretical knowledge, and to
insist that it is only on the basis of written texts that
significant intellectual exchange and innovation can take
place. This is distressing because it still de jure bars many
of Africa’s indigenous cultures a place in the philosophical
marketplace (89-90).®
What I would continue to suggest is that, as is common
practice in contemporary Western analytic philosophy, treat­
ing any one of the roughly 6,000 existent natural human
languages on the basis of its various fields of discourse,
whether expressed orally or in written form, promotes the
Trihal Philosophies And Ordiftary Language: A Critique OfPauUn Hountondji 115
possibility of exploring new forms of meaning(s) that may
prove of philosophical interest and value. Analytic philoso­
phy, as practiced, is not associated with the annunciation
of worldviews. It is associated with the exploration and
clarification of meanings, and of their usefulness or sig­
nificance for making sense of the various dimensions of
human experience. T. L. Austin did not invent performa­
tive utterances.He noticed them, latent in everyday oral
discourse in the English language, and thereby provided yet
another philosophical insight into that human genius that
we all share and yet also sets us apart.
NOTES
1. The following quotation from Abiola Irele’s “introduction” to
Hountondji’s African Philosophy (1983) is also relevant: “The
claim that Hountondji frequently makes that philosophy is,
by its historical constitution and ultimately by its essential
nature, a second order of science in its empirical practice,
nothing other than the form of its reflection . . .” (28).
2. See the quote from Beattie on p. 75 above.
3. Carol Pearce’s controversial critique (1992) of the whole of
African philosophy as culture philosophy or cultural anthro­
pology also ignores the parallels with ordinary language phi­
losophy.
4. With rare exceptions. See Stich 1990.
5. See chapter 1.
6. The bibliographies in Wiredu 2004 contain numerous exam­
ples.
7. The comparatively hermeneutical (uncover the basic ontologi­
cal categories), cosmological (demarcate the “worldview”), and
metaphysical (the way the world is”) aims of Kagame’s work
with the Bantu language place him in a different tradition
from that of contemporary analytic philosophy of language.
8. See almost any of the numerous articles, books and edited col­
lections by James Clifford and/or George Marcus. One rep­
resentative example: Writing Culture^ The Poetics and Politics
of Ethnography (1986).
9. For Hountondji, in effect, “African philosophy” [a term he
considers of Western origin in any case (190)] did not begin
until the onset of contemporary, academic, written philoso­
phy by African philosophers in African universities, etc.
116 Part I: Critiques

10. ... it indicates that the issuing of the utterance is the per­
forming of an action—it is not normally thought of as just
saying something • When I say, before the registrar or altar,
etc., ‘I do’, I am not reporting on a marriage: I am indulging
in it (Baird and Kaufmann 2000, 31 1j quoting Austin from
his How To Do Things with Words).

Part II

Methodology
 'IP

CHAPTERS

A PHILOSOPHER'S APPROACH
TO "TRADITIONAL" CULTURE

INTRODUCTION TO INTERCULTURAL PHILOSOPHY

\
I inguistic philosophers have sometimes argued that the
L discovery of empirical truth was the task of the scientist.
The philosopher could do his or her bit to rid our language
of misleading terms of reference and to help us, on the
basis of the vocabulary of our particular natural language,
to understand better the meanings of the more important
concepts in terms of which we describe our experience. But
it was for the scientist to determine how much empirical
evidence there was to substantiate a claim to “know” that
something really was the case about the “world.”
It is now recognized that science itself is not completely
objective when it comes to the falsification of established
theories and the proposing and testing of new hypoth­
eses (Feyerabend 1975: Kuhn 1962; Fuller 1993, 2004). For
example, the scientific establishment is said to operate on
the basis of paradigms that channel the scientist’s vision
so that certain theoretical perspectives on the world, e.g.,
materialism, are given a status privileged in excess of the
criterion of mere truth or falsity. One thing the philoso­
pher might therefore do is to broaden scientists’ horizons
of theoretical alternatives by bringing their attention to
bear upon hypotheses or theories that are not in vogue.
Where is the philosopher to come by these “other” theories?
The point of this chapter is to suggest that another poten­
tially rich source for theoretical alternatives in which the
philosopher should interest himself are the languages, the
fields of discourse, of non-Western cultures.
In the course of their development the English-speak­
ing peoples have created a language based upon conceptual
120 Part II: Methodology
abstractions that reflect those features of the world that
strike them as of special distinction. It is therefore not
really fair when the linguistic philosopher who works in
and upon the English language claims not to be involved
in empirical questions of what may or may not be true of
the world. A conceptual system, or language, does reflect a
view of reality (Whorf 1964: Duerr 1985). Anthropology and
comparative linguistics have helped to show us how wide a
variety of conceptual systems, of perspectives on what is
“true,” there are in the world today. And each of these has
been developed by a society of human beings seeking to cope
with problems that are in significant measure common to us
all (Stich 1990: Wiredu 1996b). How can truly intercultural
philosophers, then, avoid taking an interest in the theo­
retical alternatives developed by cultures other than their
own, particularly when they may be of value in solving the
problems of their societies and in rendering their experi­
ence more coherent and intelligible?
THE PHILOSOPHER AND THE SOCIAL SCIENTIST
One objection to the philosopher’s playing this sort of
role would no doubt be, why not leave it to the anthro­
pologist? As was intimated in chapter 1, he or she has
undergone the specialized training, he or she undertakes
the fieldwork from which our information about such cul­
tures is derived, and he or she is best qualified to perform
the critical analyses that go beyond the data and attempt
to understand non-Western cultures in terms of their real
significance. How can the philosopher possibly compete?
It need not be a competition. The philosopher’s contribu­
tions would be complementary more than anything else, but
valuable because of his or her special interests and training.
There are certain problems or areas of human endeavor that
are generally regarded as the philosopher’s own preserve.
Problems such as: what it means to be rational: the question
of what human beings can know: notions of the good and
what sorts of lifestyles will lead to the greatest happiness:
paradigms of beauty. It should be the philosopher’s right
to enquire whether other cultures address themselves to
these problems and, if so, to introduce their points of view,
including their not even being considered problematic, and
A Philosopher’s Afproach to “Traditional” Culture 121
why. In making such comparisons the philosopher must
take care not to distort the non-Western view by unfairly
reducing it to a theoretical alternative already developed
by, for example. Western philosophy. This sort of ethno-
centrism must be avoided on both an academic and cultural
level. The non-Western and the Western must be granted,
de jure, equal and reciprocal elucidatory value as theoretical
alternatives.
A second justification for the philosopher’s direct par­
ticipation in what has heretofore been anthropology’s busi­
ness is that, historically, the relationship this discipline
established with non-Western informants had limitations
for eliciting their points of view on general theoretical
questions. It has been the case that what is now being
called non-Western was frequently labeled “traditional,”
and what was called traditional was sometimes associated
with the “precritical” and “prereflective,” and therefore
less capable of entertaining a theoretical question, much
less of producing a coherent system of beliefs. Such an
attitude may no longer be professionally defensible, but it
still seems to be the case that Western scholars frequently
tend to favor the familiar. Western scholars wh6 no doubt
believe they are being completely objective in their analyses
and evaluations of other cultures are prone to rating them
lower on their scale of “objective” knowledge (Kuper 1988,
1999: Rigby 1996: Rorty 1991a, 1991b).
For example, the observation made, especially of “tradi­
tional” Africans, that would seem to militate against their
serving as objective, theoretical spokespersons for their cul­
tures. This is that they are too close to their own cultures,
too intimately involved with them and too ignorant of
others, to be capable of the distance and objectivity required
to participate meaningfully in an enquiry into the “real”
significance of their societies’ beliefs. Consequently some
scholars still tend to treat such sources of information (even
if as “named” informants) purely as sources of oral tradi­
tions, as products of a virtual reality. It is then for these
scholars, on the basis of their own private, insightful cogita­
tions, to go beyond what such peoples say of themselves, and
to understand these things in terms of their true signifi-
 122 Part II: Methodology
cance (Fabian 1983). Consequently the impression one gets
is that the traffic on the street linking Western scholars to
such informants is still one way—they receive information
but, above and beyond this, they contribute the theoretical
models that then structure it. Richard Rorty’s discussions
of tertia in chapter 3 also are relevant here.
INFORMANTS VS, COLLEAGUES
The prevailing idea of the relationship that exists
between anthropologists and their informants may be dis­
puted on several fronts. First, because it is not always true.
Anthropologists themselves admit to overemphasizing their
own originality and to underestimating the theoretical con­
tributions of their informants. This was documented long
ago in some detail by Professor loan Lewis (1973), who went
on to say:
I am not of course claiming that these indigenous
analyses of the operation and significance of such
major cultural phenomena as witchcraft beliefs
necessarily coincide exactly with the objective
picture which the anthropologist can elicit from
a meticulous investigation of actual case-histories.
But I do hold that, at the very least, they consti­
tute a kind of meta-theory which provides us with
many of our essential clues and are consequently
the original, if self-effacing, source of much that
passes for advanced anthropological theory. (1973,
20: also see Kuper 1988)
The point of Lewis’ argument is that “traditional” man and
woman are not so wrapped up in themselves, are not so
blind to the very human needs the beliefs of their society
may serve, as not to be able to speak of them in objective
terms. This, it is suggested here, would justify a move
in the direction of regarding the elder or wise man as a
colleague^ more than as an informant—as someone whose
theoretical opinions (as well as factual information) are of
value and to be actively solicited. It is this kind of enquiry,
in particular, that would be an important element of the
academic philosopher s concern when dialoguing with non-
Western cultures (Oruka 1990b).
A Philosopher’s Approach to “Traditional” Culture
123
Certainly the elder, alternative medical doctor, diviner,
or person of comparative stature who is the repository of
oral traditions is not treated by other members of his or her
community as simply a mouthpiece of oral literature. His
or her role is much more complex and difficult—mediating
disputes, solving problems, giving advice and explanations
that, though they may relate to oral tradition, also provide
the vital service of linking often seemingly obscure passages
in that tradition to the immediate situations of practical
concern and significance in which communal members find
themselves in everyday life. Interwoven with this are his
or her own personal powers of empathy and understanding,
as well as insightful creative powers that may be used to
introduce novel forms of performance or verbal expression.
Usually the person who becomes known for his or her abili­
ties in this regard would have to demonstrate his or her
prowess in all of these areas. For this reason he or she is
someone who is sufficiently sensitive, knowledgeable and
worldly-wise to merit consideration by the researcher as a
genuine colleague.
The colleague relationship would be based upon a number
of different points of emphasis:
1. that these people can, in a real sense, be treated as com­
petent and objective authorities on a variety of topics of
general theoretical interest from the standpoint of their
own culture:
2. that, in such a relationship, the researcher will not play
as passive and information-gathering a role as anthro­
pologists sometimes recommend (the “fly on the wall”
metaphor): because the researcher regards his or her
sources as colleagues, he or she will give out information
as well as receive it, inviting general discussions as well
as soliciting information, even to the point of deliber­
ately asking leading questions:
3. that the researcher can do this because he or she regards
such people as capable of distinguishing the theoretical
from the factual, the traditional from the non-tradi-
tional, and their own supplementary insights and ration-
 Part II: Metliodology
alizations from what generally is or is not held to be
the case.
If the philosopher can find social scientists who are willing
to accommodate this point of view, perhaps the anthropolo­
gist could undertake the fieldwork and then arrangements
made so that the philosopher would have access to the data.
If not, it may be necessary for intercultural philosophers
to undertake some form of “fieldwork” on their own (or
perhaps along with the anthropologist). This might be pref­
erable in some cases because the sort of first-order experi­
ence they would have in doing such research will give them
a better understanding of the anthropologist’s task and of
the difficulties and hazards of intercultural communica­
tion.
CONSISTENCY VS, INCONSISTENCY
As an experiment along these lines I, as one trained in
philosophy, have done research among the Yoruba people in
the Ekiti region of Ondo state, Nigeria. The individuals I
attempted to work with as colleagues were a dozen men
between the ages of forty and fifty-five who were regarded
by the community as some of its more accomplished om$egiin.
This word may be translated literally as “master(s) of medi­
cine and was used locally to refer to anyone who was a
qualified herbalist and diviner. This was and is a highly spe­
cialized profession but, unfortunately, there is neither time
nor space to describe it in any detail here. However, if there
was anyone in the particular Yoruba community concerned
who occupied a position of knowledgeable distinction, who
spent their time counseling other members of that commu­
nity as to what would make them happy and successful, and
as to why things that went beyond ordinary commonsense
happened, it was these individuals.
Initially the most enjoyable part of the experience was
the satisfaction of laying aside dry philosophical texts and
the university itself and going out quite literally into the
marketplace. This is something we are told philosophers
used to do before they became encapsulated by our academic
institutions. And on the basis of my own experiences I
believe it might do us all (and perhaps even society) some
A Philosopher’s Approach to “Traditional” Culture
125
good if we became less intellectually removed from the
philosophical dimensions to life as experienced by the eve­
ryday man and woman and more considerate once again of
the very real problems attendant upon being a person in
that marketplace. In my own case I soon found that because
the Yoruba conceptual scheme appeared to be so different
from my own I first had to become generally familiar with
it (in the course of learning about the language) in order to
be able to appreciate a Yoruba point of view on any theo­
retical topic. Fortunately the project had a Chief Research
Assistant who was of inestimable help during this difficult
transition period.^
I should now like to make several tentative suggestions
as to how certain Yoruba beliefs might prove of philo­
sophical interest, particularly from the standpoint of an
intercultural philosophy. Interest will center on a cluster
of beliefs concerning the individual’s destiny. My most
general and perhaps controversial thesis will be that appar­
ent inconsistencies between various Yoruba beliefs regard­
ing destiny may be resolved if one interrelates them by
means of an overview (of destiny) which the om'?egiin also
occasionally articulate.
The Westerner tends to think that the time and place
of an individual’s birth are things of which he or she has
no foreknowledge and over which he or she has ncf control.
He or she suddenly finds himself or herself “thrown” into
the world and from that moment must learn to cope with
an infinite number of possible choices. This is emphasized
in Existentialist philosophy, where human beings are also
faced with that final, unavoidable possibility that implies
the negation of everything they have struggled to achieve—
their death.
The meaningless and stark isolation of this Existentialist
philosophy of life is in complete contrast to that of the
Yoruba. They believe that each person (eniyan) undergoes
an indefinite series of reincarnations.^ Perhaps the most
important difference between the Yoruba and Eastern reli­
gions with reference to this belief in incarnations is that
the individual is somewhat free to choose what his or her
next life will be. The individual spirit i?mi) continues to live
 126
Part II; Methodology A Philosopher’s Approach to “Traditional” Culture 127
after death, when it is bereft of its earthly body as well become, equally importantly (to the Yoruba, at least) there are
as free of the destiny (ori) that determined every event
ways in which the two do not resemble one another. The or/
of significance during its previous lifetime. Prior to its is not in any sense identified as the source of an individual’s
next incarnation the appears before the supreme deity passions or emotions. To the contrary, the or/ is described as
(named Qlgrun) to select any one from a multitude of new
the prescient pathfinder that guides the individual through
destinies (or/) that it will live out in its next incarnation.
life, more knowledgeable of the attendant perils than he or
Its free choice of this destiny is then confirmed by Qlgrun
she is, and therefore hopefully constantly helping a person
(who makes no effort to influence the decision), making
overcome any obstacles that are encountered. So much so
that destiny fixed and unalterable. As I’ve said, the destiny
that when in peril one of the most powerful intervening
or on chosen by the individual supposedly encompasses forces to which the individual will appeal is his or her or/.
every event of significance that will take place during his Some scholars have remarked upon the fact that “tradi­
or her lifetime, including time and manner of both birth
tional” Yoruba appear to hold beliefs about destiny that are
and death.^ Furthermore reincarnation is lineal in nature:
inconsistent, depending upon their most pressing emotional
an individual may change sexes in different lifetimes but
needs at a given point in time. For example, a Yoruba will
he or she will always be reborn into the same family The
sometimes say that once a destiny is “fixed” by Qlgrun it
Yoruba believe they have means for determining, a short
cannot be changed. Nevertheless on other occasions the same
ime after birth, just which deceased ancestor it is that has person might say that it is possible to “miss” the destiny
been reborn.
one has chosen and been assigned, in the sense of feeling
Though an individual should know what his or her lost and confused during one’s lifetime and/or finding
destiny is if he or she chooses it just before coming to the
oneself in disadvantageous situations. Or to remark that an
world, the traumas of birth and infancy gradually obscure external force is “interfering” with one’s destiny in a nega­
this memory until the person can no longer remember what tive manner. Or to “propitiate” one’s destiny in an effort,
he or she is predestined to become. I should now like to pay
apparently, to improve it.
particular attention to this relationship between the embod-
All of these possible alternatives may be reconciled and
led individual and this destiny (ori) he or she can no longer
proved to be consistent if one concentrates on the sense
recall. Though the gnii is the conscious, deciding self, what
of the phrase “missing one’s destiny” or, more colloquially,
It decides is determined by the ori. a part of the self that “missing road.” The paradigm case is that of the individual
IS not part of self-consciousness. Because the or/ is not the
who feels they are failing to succeed and therefore becomes
conscious person, it must be described as somehow exter­
unhappy, dissatisfied, and frustrated by anything ranging
nal to or other than the self, and as unknown. Although
from their present position to their general lot in life. In
fundamentally linked to the gm/ and the most significant
such cases it is normal for the person to consqlt a diviner or
influence on its life, the conscious self cannot know it
on/gegiin. It is not necessary here to detail the machinations
Nevertheless in stress situations the individual will appeal
of the divination process. The point of consulting a diviner,
to his or her destiny for help. On other occasions a person
of course, is to identify the source, the cause, of failure and
will address it almost as if it were a second self, cognizant
to obtain a prescription that will correct it, remove it. One
of what he or she is doing even if he or she cannot be so
can still ask what is the point of even consulting diviners if
of it. ®
everyone’s life course is predetermined? What is the point
Though the or/ resembles a form of the Freudian uncon­ of trying to “do” something about a past, present, or future
scious, in that it is not part of self-consciousness and is an which supposedly cannot be changed?
enormously important determinant of what a person will
 128
Part II: Methodology
The underlying, consistent sense to such consultations is
that missing road” does not mean that one has strayed from
one s true destiny so much as that one is experiencing a
period of comparative hardship in the overall destiny previ­
ously chosen. That events or periods of unhappiness may be
equated metaphorically with missing one’s way makes good
sense in a semantic context where the underlying strateoy
is that the point of choosing a “good” destiny is that one
win then be happy, content, and successful for as much of
a lifetime as possible (but no lifetime is perfect!). There­
fore even the decision to consult the diviner or om?hgiin,
and whatever steps they recommend one take thereafter
become constituent parts of the overall destiny governing
that particular lifetime. They too are things that were
predetermined to happen.
Some scholars have suggested that such apparent incon­
sistencies are one of the more obvious signs of the rudimen­
tary theoretical sensitivities of “traditional” peoples. But as
the above analysis shows, apparently contradictory beliefs
involving a person’s destiny, which should in principle be
termed theoretical, need not be inconsistent. One explanation
that has been given for this apparently “confused” aspect to
traditional belief systems is that analytic thinking cannot
develop in societies whose members must devote all or most
of their energies to the necessities of daily -life. Because
many traditional” societies have not been able to afford
the leisured luxury of a class of professional thinkers or
philosophers, as this line of thought goes, their conceptual
and belief systems have not been as rigorously systematized
as those of some other societies.
Proposing or accepting this as an explanation is disturb­
ing because again it involves an element of the superior-
inferior culture dispute by implying in a very direct way
that African systems of beliefs are not as sophisticated as
their Western counterparts. Perhaps African scholars who
are unhappy with having to make this admission feel they
have no other choice because consistency is consistency—in
any system of beliefs. Granted that consistency is con­
sistency. other considerations may cause it to be expressed
and managed in a different manner than we find it in
A Philosopher’s Approach to “Traditional’’ Culture 129
the paradigmatic Western model, the so-called classic hypo-
thetico-deductive system. In simple terms this is a system
in which, given certain basic premises or axioms, theories
can then be systematically derived from them and submit­
ted to testing. The system would be found inconsistent
if it were possible to deduce contradictory theories (p and
not-p) from the same set of basic assumptions.
In my own research I have found the oni^egiin very
much aware of what inconsistency is and capable of giving
numerous other possible conflicts derived from their belief
system—if it is used in a manner different from that for
which it appears to be designed. The alternative suggested
here—at least with respect to discourse about destiny in
Yoruba culture—is that it not be viewed as of as rigor­
ously deductive character, beliefs descending in an abso­
lutely schematic manner from the general to the particular.
Rather the various beliefs that may be called upon when
an explanation or projection is required should be compared
to the various dimensions of human life as lived, and of
the measures human beings revert to as of primary impor­
tance, even while remaining components of an overview
that makes them all perfectly consistent.®
CONCLUSION
If the intercultural philosopher’s role is to explore new
theoretical perspectives that could lead to fundamental reo­
rientations in the ways we think of our experience, or at
least to a better understanding of the way we think of our
experience, or at least to better understanding of the way
other points of view approach that experience, the above
may facilitate at least a small step in that direction. There
are, in addition, other roles philosophers may play with
relation to non-Western culture that fall more in line with
what it is conventionally thought they should be doing at
the present time.
Besides taking a look at the beliefs themselves a philoso­
pher should also take an interest in how people reason to—or
on the basis of—their beliefs, and also how they explain
their beliefs. Of course the philosopher must allow for the
possibility that people may sometimes be unable to provide
 130
Part II; Methodology
or at least ^ providing premises
at least good reasons for a certain conclusion But this
may happen in any culture-Western or non-Western. In
Jo w" can still direct his or her attention
to how people explain the things they believe, e.g. “if you
want to understand x. consider the case of y” ^ ^ their own fallibility—all of these are important if they are
ining the various kinds of understanding or knowledge
other disciplines claim to have. The philosopher of scienc^e
for example, concerns himself or herself with the methods
lifiiSrThaJ to make the world intel-
gible. that is. with scientific method. What then is to
prevent the philosopher from treating non-Western sources
as part and parcel of established or even new disciplines
and from analyzing their (perhaps individually unique) tech­
niques for understanding and explanation-for mOkino the
world mtolljglble? Philosophers will also benefit in seveed
Other ways from the first-order experience of doing their
own fieldwork research: for instance, it will give them a
better understanding of the problems encounired wlJLn
mea^^'T V1, cultures and the methods by
means of which scholars must attempt to cope with them
of this, philosophers will have to spend con­
siderable time educating themselves regarding th^ methods
wilfTr^'T^ selection, and analysis. They
iTlLl discipline for methodo-
JltuaJ on^^^' ' kind of
situat on. For example, the present text suggests that ordi­
nary language philosophy or analysis should be viewed as a
promising (but not exclusive!) candidate.^ But philosophers
research must not allow themselvL to
become a naive and vulgar parody of the anthropologist
t seems very easy indeed to stick a microphone under an
informants nose and ask. What do you believe about x?” It
IS possible to put words in people’s mouths or to push them
into advocating things they may not even agree with Th^
respect academic philosophers have for the^ cultures they
are dealing with, the sampling of people they talk with
he care they take in phrasing their remarks, the time they
spend in collating individual discussions to identify genL^
A Philosopher’s Approach to “Traditional” Ctdture
131
or exceptional trains of thought, the sensitivity they show
to other, non-verbal aspects of the culture; a sense of col­
laboration rather than competition with their colleagues in
African studies generally, and most of all a cognizance of
at last to create a significant relationship between them­
selves and non-Western, let us now say so-called traditional
cultures.
NOTES
1. I am grateful to the late Dorothy Emmet for this sugges­
tion.
2. I am forever indebted to Femi Osatuyi for his assistance with
the overall project, and for his devotion to his native Yoruba
culture.
3. This is discussed at length, even if from deliberately phe­
nomenological and existentialist perspectives, in one of my
earliest published essays (Hallen 1976). My suggestion in that
essay to adopt the term Transition for obituary headings
(rather than Deceased) somehow found its way into many of
Nigeria’s daily newspapers.
4. For more detailed discussions of the Yoruba notion of destiny
see Abimbola 1971, Gbadegesin 1991a, 2004, and Horton 1983.
5. Robin Horton, in his article Destiny and the Unconscious in
West Africa,” points to certain parallels between this concept
of an individual destiny and the Freudian notion of an uncon­
scious. Horton does not specifically refer to the Yoruba or/
in this article. However he does do so in Horton 1983, 41-82.
6. See chapter 3 of Hallen 2000 for a more elaborate interpreta­
tion of what may be involved in changing a “fixed” destiny
in Yoruba culture.
7. The work of T.L. Austin (1961, 1962a, 1962b) and his followers
serve as useful precursors.
r

CHAPTER 6

ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY
IN THE AFRICAN CONTEXT

INTRODUCTION
his is a chapter about philosophical methodology or,
T better, methodologies. Most of the material that has been
published to date under t]ie rubric of African philosophy
has been methodological in character. One reason for this is
the conflicts that have sometimes arisen when philosophers
in Africa attempted to reconcile their relationships with
both academic philosophy and so-called African traditional
systems of thought. A further complication is that the
studies of African thought systems that become involved
in these conflicts are themselves products of academia—of
disciplinary methodologies.
Because of the emphasis placed upon these methodologi­
cal ruminations, many of the methodological approaches to
African philosophy that have been proposed have remained
hypothetical or speculative—they have yet to be applied.
One relevant difference about the methodology that is out­
lined in this chapter is that it has been “tried and tested.”
Whether it has also been proved “true” is a subject still very
much under discussion, and likely to remain so for some
time.
INDETERMINACY
The Indeterminacy Thesis (IT) was first proposed by W.
V. O. Quine in I960.* Over the years it has remained one of
the more fiercely debated major-minor issues of contempo­
rary philosophy. Its critics are numerous, and the critical
interpretations and attempted ref utations it has engendered
comprise a substantial body of literature. ^ Today its contro­
versial status endures, in no small part because of Quine’s
 134
Part II: Methodology
sustained efforts over the years to elaborate the thesis in a
continuing dialogue with his critics.
Recasting the technical philosophical arguments of the IT
into severely shortened summary form can become a very
masochistic undertaking. As the existent literature demon­
strates, amply, this kind of strategy promotes caricature.
Ihe issues involved become more simplistic than is the case,
and this tends to dramatize disproportionately some of the
paradoxical, counterintuitive consequenees of the thesis.^
What I would prefer to do in this chapter is to concen­
trate upon some of Quine’s formative insights about the
nature of language, the nature of meaning, and the rela­
tionships between languages, that arise from the IT They
too are controversial, and at best I hope to persuade others
to try them on as alternatives to our more conventional
views of language and then to consider some of the inter-
esting consequences that might follow for the translation
of Afriean beliefs and abstract ideas.
1. Let us begin by regarding each natural language (English,
Chinese, Yoruba, etc.) as a unique human creation that
has its own intricate conceptual network(s)—ontologi­
cal, epistemological, aesthetic, etc.—with distinctive
semantie predispositions. Our immediate experience of
the world is not self-explanatory or neatly categorized.
It is humankind, by means of its creative genius, who
invents languages and imposes empirical and theoretical
order on that experience.
2. Let us also suspend our tendency to assume that in their
heart of hearts all of our languages share in common a
group of universal meanings or propositions. By “univer­
sal propositions’’ Quine refers to the belief that, while
the word for “destiny” may be different in Yoruba
from what it is in English, the underlying meaning is
the same. Quine’s view is not, specifically, a defense of
relativism. It is a critique of the idea that we have any
direct experience of universal meanings.®
3. A belief in the universality of meanings may be of
empathic value to someone who is a stranger to another
language-culture or of heuristie value to the lexicog-
Analytic Philosophy in the African Context 135
rapher devising a bilingual dictionary, but it tends to
negate the possibility of uniqueness that we began with.
It can also be said to promote a form of ethnocentrism,
ifi that a translator who believes in universal proposi­
tions, or does translation between two languages as if
there are universal propositions, will likely favor the
meanings of their own natural language—English, for
example—effeetively universalizing them into proposi­
tions, and then proceed to impose English meanings upon
other languages via the process of translation.
4. Let us also suspend our conventional notion of meaning.
When an English-language translator sets out to com­
municate with an alien, the psychological predispositions
of his or her own language may subliminally persuade
him or her to conceive of the “inner” alien person as a
mind, as a consciousness inhabiting a body. They may
also persuade him to presume that consciousness contains
the meanings he needs to “reach” and to “study” in order
to formulate accurate translations of the alien language.
Worse still, he may be deceived into thinking that the
translations of alien meanings that he eventually does
propose derive their accuracy from the fact that they
really do correspond to “meanings” in the alieh mind.
In fact we never have direct access to another con­
sciousness. What we do have direct access to are alien
words coming out of alien mouths. Strictly. from a
methodological point of view, therefore, it is deceptive
for the translator to operate in anything other than a
behaviorist universe.®
5. Familiarity with an alien language on the relatively
empirical level is not sufficient to enable us to predict
the nature of alien theoretical or abstract beliefs. The
gap between the accidental spilling of salt and the beliefs
that interpret it as bad luck is vast.
6. The hopes for objectivity, for proof of accuracy in trans­
lation, differ substantially between the relatively empir­
ical (“It is raining.”) and the abstract (“Truth is beauty.”).
Translations of empirical statements are susceptible to a
degree of public, verifiable testing of meaning. Theoret-
 136
Part II: Methodology
leal abstractions are relatively immaterial in character.
Translation on the abstraet level is aceordingly much
more difficult to control or to verify.
7. The translators who are bilingual are not excepted from
these problems. They may be perfectly fluent in each
of the languages that are targeted by a particular bilin­
gual translation.^ But when they begin to affirm that
a certain term “extracted” from one of the languages
means precisely the same as a certain term in the other
language, they still are imposing the meanings of the
one languages conceptual network upon the other in
hypothetical fashion.
8. Any extended translation process between two languages
as found, for example, in a work of cultural anthropol­
ogy or a bilingual dictionary is an elaborate, interrelated
network constructed of innumerable hypotheses that
stipulate the meanings of English-language words as
equivalent to alien-language words. Each definition of an
alien word becomes, in effect, an interpretation rather
than a translation, a working hypothesis, a rendering
based upon a network of other translated renderings.
Looking at things from this perspective the approxi­
mate nature of the entire process is made manifest As
well as the possibility that another translator could come
along who would disagree with the schema worked out
by his predecessor and introduce an alternative schema,
an alternative interpretation, that differed in impor­
tant respects, and therefore would produce a different
version of the “African beliefs” in translation.
9. What objective criteria can one appeal to in order to
determine which alternative translation is determinate,
is closest to the true (alien) meanings? There are none
that would be sufficient. This, admittedly in castrated
form, is the point of the IT.
Quine is not advocating a ban on translation, nor is he
implying that published studies of African abstract beliefs
that are based upon translations of African languages are
false. Quine is advocating a degree of skepticism about
purportedly rigorous, objective, detailed analyses of alien
Analytic Philosophy in the African Context
137
abstract ideas in translation. Once one recognizes the weak­
ness of the empirical constraints placed upon the com­
munication of meanings between two languages that may
historically have no cause to share a single cognate, what
exactly is the objective basis upon which we assign virtually
literal accuracy to theoretical translations?
From the standpoint of indeterminacy, studies of African
abstract meanings in translation are built upon a more
fragile basis of interpretation than their rhetorie implies.
This needs to be recognized more widely than it is. Especially
when sueh studies serve as an empirical basis for attribut­
ing oddities in reasoning and/or theoretieal understanding
to an African conceptual system. A prelogical mentality
could be the creation of a prelogical translation. One who is
persuaded by the possibility of indeterminacy would prefer
that we be more flexible, more open to the possibilities of
misrepresentation, approximation by translation, especially
on the level of abstract thought. On this level there may
be no such thing as literal translation. Everything becomes
free translation, interpretation.
In the absence of secure objective criteria for determin­
ing which translation schema is more accurate, Quine pro­
poses several translation guidelines that he thinks may at
least reduce the risks of producing translations of African
meanings that are offensive as well as indeterminate (Quine
1960, 73-9; Hallen and Sodipo 1997, 30-4).
Some consequences of these alternative criteria would
be as follows. One would become suspicious of translations
of African meanings that propose to assign a plurality of
meanings to the same term in an African conceptual system.
A translator might justify this by saying that these are
dependent upon the circumstances or the context in which
the term is used.
Given indeterminacy an alternative reason could be
that translators have tactical recourse to context-depend­
ent meanings beeause they—perhaps unwittingly/unknow­
ingly—have been unsuccessful in coming up with a deter­
minate meaning. In effect, then, the translator attributes
his/her own confusion to the alien conceptual system. This
 Part II: Methodology
makes the aliens appear somehow exotic or bizarre when in
fact the real culprit is the translation.
Suspicion should also be focused upon cases in which the
African is made to mean something empirically bizarre and
mappropriate to a situation’s commonsense circumstances.
Ihis may indicate a situation in which Inadequate transla­
tion results in Africans apparently affirming transparently
false statements and therefore becoming less than rational
Given indeterminacy an alternative explanation could be that
there are problems in the conceptual translation network
that cause African meanings to take on apparent absurdity
in the language of translation.
To conclude: Quine is not saying that people are always
rational. His skepticism about the entire process of translat­
ing the meanings from one language into another moves
him to caution us that we have as good reason to suspect
our systems of translation as we do to suspect the African
of being responsible for apparently exotic, bizarre, or irra­
tional statements in any given context.
ETHNOPHILOSOPHY
Ethnophilosophy is a four-letter word, an intellectual’s
invective. I don t know of anyone in African philosophy
today who voluntarily identifies themselves as an ethnophi-
losopher. It is a category invoked by a critic when he wants
to express disapproval of the work of someone in African
philosophy.
The term was originally coined by Kwame Nkrumah.
But, as was indicated in chapter 4, it was clearly defined and
popularized by Paulin Hountondji, a philosopher from the
Republic of Benin (1970: 1983. chapter 1). Hountondji uses
Placide Tempels
(1959), Alexis Kagame (1956), Leopold Sedar Senghor (1964),
Marcel Griaule (1965), and Germaine Dieterlen (1951), and as
was also indicated—if disputed in chapter 4—the linguistic
(analytic) approach to any culture as a basis for authen­
tic philosophy. His intention is to condemn the intellectual
injustice that he believes to be enshrined in publications
purporting to be African philosophy when they display the
following characteristics:
Analytic Philosophy in the African Context 139
1. Ethnophilosophy presents itself as a philosophy of peoples
rather than of individuals. In Africa one is therefore
given the impression that there can be no equivalents to
a Socrates or to a Kant. Ethnophilosophy speaks only of
Bantu philosophy, Dogon philosophy, Yoruba philosophy:
as such its scope is collective, of the worldview variety.
2. Ethnophilosophy’s sources are in the past, in what is
described as authentic, traditional African culture of the
pre-colonial variety, of the Africa prior to modernity.
These can be found primarily in products of language-
parables, proverbs, poetry, songs, myths—oral literature
generally.
3. From a methodological point of view ethnophilosophy
therefore tends to present African beliefs as things
that do not change, that are somehow timeless. Dis­
putes between ethnophilosophers arise primarily over
how to arrive at a correct interpretation' of historical
traditions. African systems of thought are portrayed
as placing minimal emphasis upon rigorous argumenta­
tion and criticism in a search for truth that provides
for discarding the old and creating the new. Tradition
somehow becomes antithetical to innovation.
If this material had been presented as cultural anthropol­
ogy or as ethnology, Hountondji would have no objection to
it. But when it is introduced as philosophy, as African phi­
losophy, the subcontinent’s indigenous intellectual heritage
is portrayed as one that excuses African philosophy from
having critical, reflective (it becomes, in effect, prereflec-
tive), rational, scientific, and progressive content in any
significantly cross-culturally comparative sense.
Hountondji does not hold the perpetrators of an unau-
thentic African philosophy personally responsible for
their crimes. In their day, in their own intellectual circles,
they believed they were doing something revolutionary,
something genuinely radical and progressive, by daring to
link the word philosophy directly to African systems of
thought.
Also, Hountondji appreciates the difficult circumstances
of Africa s intellectual history during the colonial period.
 140
Part II: Methodology
Academic philosophers—African or expatriate—were a rare
species. The principal initiatives for serious scholarly studies
of African cultures came from ethnography and anthropol­
ogy. Given the holistic parameters of the social sciences, it
is understandable if still not ideologically acceptable—that
these early ethnophilosophers began to approach the subject
of African philosophy on such a collectivized, tribalized
scale.®
LINGUISTIC PHILOSOPHY
As an academic philosopher who had become interested
in the translation of abstract African meanings, my atten­
tion was naturally drawn to some of the promising work
that has been done this century in the philosophy of lan­
guage. Since a good deal of philosophy is devoted to the
study of problems for which no standardized solution has
been found, the philosophical perspectives on problems of
translation are diverse. Quine’s IT is only one example of
this diversity.
There is a cluster of philosophers and of philosophical
movements in twentieth-century academic philosophy that,
by prescription or example, place a premium on description.^
Although many of these philosophers preferred the terms
analysis or analytic philosophy for describing their efforts,
in effect that meant a form of minute, painstaking descrip­
tion. For some it was the description of language usage (as
in the cases of the later Wittgenstein and T.L. Austin). For
others it was the beliefs and the conceptual contents of
commonsense (Gilbert Ryle). These efforts were approach­
ing a kind of intellectual crescendo in 1959 with the publica­
tion of Sir Peter Strawson’s book. Individuals. This was said
to be an exercise in descriptive metaphysics, which meant
something like detailed analyses of the meanings of primor­
dial concepts in the English language, such as “bodies” and
persons.
It is possibly unfair to characterize these traditions in
contemporary philosophy as a Western species of ethnophi-
losophy—if for nothing else because of the very specific
terms of reference Hountondji has in mind for his criti­
cisms. But the emphasis placed upon “mere description” as an
Analytic Philosophy in the African Context 141
alternative to critical argumentation, and the concentration
upon “language” (as assimilated by written rather than oral
cultures) as used and everyday meanings and beliefs indicate
that certain essential attributes are shared in common.
My primary concerns were methodological, instrumen­
tal. I was in need of practical techniques for the study of
concepts or abstract meanings. The most important crite­
rion for adoption was that they might be useful in the
African context.
I was not concerned—at this initial stage—to become
involved in the more profound disputes over the nature of
language, of meaning, of reference, or of language’s role
in the posing of philosophical problems. Given the disre­
pute of ethnophilosophy and the general lack of technical
philosophical content in anthropological literature (Appiah
1992, 94)," there was an obvious need for some first-order
work—collection, analysis, and systematization of African
conceptual meanings—by scholars with philosophical sensi­
tivities.
In the course of my methodological borrowings, in a thor­
oughly eclectic manner, I intermixed insights and techniques
from different schools of thought that are normally not
regarded as compatible—from positivism (Quine) and from
ordinary-language philosophy (J.L. Austin) for example. 1
found some of Austin’s procedures*^ for the collection and
the analysis of meanings plausibly practical for the African
context. Deliberately adapted rather than merely adopted,
and as amended, they may be summarized as follows:
1. Select a field of discourse in an African language to con­
centrate analysis upon, preferably one that is related to
the concerns of academic philosophy.
2. Collect all vocabulary that may be relevant to this subject-
area.
3. Work with a group of indigenees, more or less as col­
leagues, rather than as an independent researcher, which
is better for collecting such information:
— this is particularly helpful when dealing with a culture
that is significantly oral;
 142
Part II: Methodology
this is also helpful to any principal researcher who
is targeting a language that is not his or her own first
language.
4. Encourage the different members of the group to agree
to accept the same general methodological approach to
the research.
5. Collect and/or construct paradigm cases.or examples of
situations where this vocabulary is used in the correct
way.
6. Also pay attention to examples of wrong usage—where
the terms should not apply.
7. Again, with reference to the examples of usage, amplify
the meanings of key terms on the basis of extensive
discussions with one’s indigenous colleagues (this point
might pain Austin).
8. As much as possible, pay special attention to the empirical
conditions, criteria, and content of each term. In some
cases these may be sufficient to make one alternative
translation of a theoretical term preferable to another
(even if, according to Quine, this “preferable” transla­
tion ultimately also remains indeterminate).
9. Do library research on what other scholars (philosophers,
anthropologists, linguists, ethnologists) may have had to
say about this specific field of discourse in whatever
African language you have chosen. Also enquire about
directly comparable studies in the same or some other
natural language.
10. Resist wholesale importation of academic philosophical
theories as vehicles for the explication of African mean-
ings. Careless application of a technical vocabulary can
skew sensibilities and create confusion.
I suppose a good deal of this might seem carelessly inf or-
mal to the trained professional linguist. The most I can say to
justify this approach is that it seems to have produced some
interesting results. For example in working with Yoruba-
language translations, one area of discourse that proved of
interest was what in academic philosophy corresponds to
Analytic Philosophy in the African Context 143
epistemology or theory of knowledge (Hallen and Sodipo
1997, chapter 2) In plain talk this would encompass the
vocabulary and the criteria used by the Yoruba to evaluate
and to grade any type of information—as from less to more
credible.
AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY
My aim is neither to criticize nor to censure my eth­
nographic colleagues. It was never a part of anthropolo­
gy’s brief to suppress African philosophy. Nevertheless the
assessments made of African “modes of thought” in any
number of anthropological studies did not encourage the
interest of academic philosophers in their theoretical intel­
lectual potential. Characteristics such as noncritical, prere-
flective (associated with being “traditional”), nonreasoned
(associated with being “emotive,” “symbolic”), non-individu-
alized (associated with being “tribal”) are symptomatic. This
assessment was a further formative influence upon eth-
nophilosophy. The reported relative absence of an articulate
and analytically reflective intellectual tradition in African
systems of thought inclined those in search of African phi­
losophy to seek it in alternative sources, such as myths and
proverbs.
The stereotype of the African intellect that arose from
these anthropological studies created serious problems for
linking a philosophy syllabus to Africa’s indigenous cultural
base. For Africa was not introduced to academic philoso­
phy as an unknown—the problem was not simply a lack of
information about African traditional modes of thought.
The problem was that the subcontinent’s indigenous intel­
lectual attributes appeared to be virtually , diametrically
opposed to critical thought as defined by academic philo­
sophical tradition.*^
Some African philosophers have responded to this appar­
ent dilemma by arguing, astutely, that it was based upon an
unfair comparison between widespread popular beliefs (so-
called “folk philosophy”) in Africa and theories that were
the product of deliberately intense and highly sophisticated
research (science, academic philosophy) in the West. Western
cultures were gradually coming to terms with negative ele-
 144
Part II: Methodology
ments of their own folk philosophies (superstitions, etc.) on
the basis of reasoned assessments and consensus. The more
practical course for Africa would be for its peoples to deal
with their popular beliefs in an analogous fashion.'® The
problem with this response is that it does not effectively
counter the claim,'® supposedly itself scientific, that on a
more primordial level than popular beliefs Africa’s intel­
lectual predispositions—including those underlying the
conceptual networks used to articulate African abstract or
theoretical ideas—are quintessentially symbolic, emotive,
and prereflective in nature.
When my colleague, the late Olubi Sodipo, and I agreed
to join forces for a philosophical investigation of Yoruba
epistemological discourse, using the IT as a foil, we antici­
pated complaints from our colleagues in both anthropology
and philosophy. We expected them to accuse us of behav­
ing too much like anthropologists—doing something very
like fieldwork—when professionally we were only qualified
as academic philosophers. What we did not anticipate was
that, because of our extensive efforts to re-present Yoruba
meanings in analytic, systematic, and somewhat determi­
nate form, they would be characterized by several critics as
mere description or merely descriptive” and thus branded
a further example of ethnophilosophy.'^
Such labeling is misguided, and only made possible by
yanking the Yoruba material out of its wider context and
treating it in isolation from the discussion about meaning and
problems of translation. For the point of the entire Hallen-
Sodipo translation exercise is to test Quine’s IT by exploring
the limits of determinate translation (into English) with
reference to a cluster of reasonably abstract concepts (from
Yoruba) that are relevant to the theory of knowledge.
When viewed from such a perspective, the exercise is
certainly of philosophical substance. It is also crucial to the
entire enterprise of African philosophy. For African phi­
losophy, insofar as it may deal with the analysis of African
languages (or meanings) and the evaluation of African
beliefs expressed in these languages, will not even be in a
position to begin until we are assured that such meanings
Analytic Philosophy in the African Context 145
can be correctly understood and translated in a reasonably
determinate manner.
A second argued consequence of this translation enter­
prise concerns the challenge posed to the evidential status of
that troublesome stereotype of traditional African systems
of thought as prereflective that has been inherited via eth­
nography, and that has for long obstructed the academic
philosopher’s dialogue with African cognitive systems.
Initiating our topical study of Yoruba discourse from this
special interest of Western epistemology was deliberate. For
this characterization of traditional discourse, as defined by
the West, effectively portrays it as lacking critical episte­
mological content. Yet the conceptual network that emerged
from our analyses of Yoruba meanings of, for example, the
terminology and underlying criteria used to rate informa­
tion as more or less reliable, evidences an epistemology that
is by comparison markedly critical, skeptical, and empirical
in character.'® In fact, it proved so out of line with what one
was led to expect by the stereotype of “traditional thought”
that initially we queried our own conclusions and searched
anew for possible underlying mis-translations, mis-repre-
sentations. That there does indeed prove to be a selection
of subtle, different yet interestingly comparable Yoruba
epistemic criteria introduces a viable way of doing analytic
philosophy into Africa.
Quine’s remonstrances about refashioning alien thought
systems according to one’s own cultural “images” was one
source of caution here. The Western academic philosopher
has been schooled in very specific traditions of “rational­
ism” and, at the same time, conditioned to place a high value
upon aspects of empirical testing and verification. The two
combined could influence him to inflate approximate ref­
erences in non-Western discourse to anything resembling
either far beyond their true significance.
Indeed it was a continuing awareness of the pitfalls of
indeterminacy and possible misinterpretations that per­
suaded us not to treat our English-language translations of
Yoruba meanings immediately as reliably representative.
We made a published appeal for corrective criticisms from
!
other Yoruba scholars.'® It seemed advisable to do this before
 146 Part II: Methodology
consolidating them into a further false orthodoxy that
would further mislead people about the nature of African
“thought.”
I now think that sufficient time.has passed so that we
can be assured of a reasonable consensus. Our model of the
conceptual network has passed some kind of test. The general
structure remains intact.^° It is time to move on. To what,
one may ask? The task embraced by academic philosophy is
twofold- to understsnd (let it serve here as another expres­
sion for to describe”) and to assess. Philosophy is not a
science and the solutions it offers may not be so convincing
that a targeted problem is finally resolved. But that does
not absolve the academic philosopher from a responsibility
to consider the evidence and argumentation in favor of each
of the various alternative systems of understanding—for
example, of each of the conceptual networks constitutive of
the various natural languages in our world—and then try to
determine which among them prove the better instruments
for understanding, the more empirically convincing or (to
put it most imposingly) true.
Another alternative would be to opt for relativism—the
relativity of truth—and to argue that what the Yoruba find
true may not be what the English find true, so there are
many truths and there the matter rests. Accurate descrip­
tions or the cataloguing of the various systems of concep­
tual understanding in the world would then become all that
is required. This might also seem to be a consequence of
indeterminacy but, as the thesis is presented here, it does
not follow. The problems in capturing the meanings of one
conceptual system with the meanings of another need not
imply that both may be true.
Judging the truth of the conceptual systems of the
world’s various natural languages in terms of any abso­
lute criterion (which itself would have to be expressed in
language) might seem a preposterous enterprise.^* But if
reduced to more manageable proportions—for example, the
relative merits and demerits of different systems of episte-
mological concepts and criteria when judged as instrumental
tools—it does not seem so impossible.
Analytic Philosophy in the African Context 147
At this point I would opt for, as a further step towards
responsible cross-cultural comparative research in African
philosophy, aiming at a better understanding of why a spe­
cific conceptual network with its peculiar (possibly unique)
conceptual components may be suited to a particular African
cultural context. The conceptual network of any natural lan­
guage does not explain or justify itself in the didactic argu­
mentative manner that has become conventional to academic
philosophy. Such reasons must be educed from a language
by siting it^^ in its wider cultural and social contexts. Some
may object that this sounds more like the sociology of lan­
guage than philosophy, but it is another facet of that com­
prehensive understanding academic philosophers are obliged
to attempt before they pass comparative judgments.
CONCLUSION
I appreciate that many of the suggestions and admoni­
tions I have expressed may already be incorporated into the
methodologies and research activities of other disciplines
involved with African studies. Nevertheless, one role of the
IT in African philosophy can be to sensitivize those com­
mitted to dealing with the translation and assessment of
abstract ideas on the basis of cross-cultural comparisons to
the limitations of conceptual networks generally for the
representation and analysis of alien meanings. And this
caution should extend as much to African interpretations of
Western meanings as to Western interpretations of African
meanings.
One of Hountondji’s complaints about ethnophilosophy is
that its focus is collective, tribalized rather than defined in
terms of the views of individual African thinkers. Adapting
linguistic philosophy as a methodological basis for African
philosophy should qualify it as an exception to this proscrip­
tion. Linguistic philosophy is concerned with the study of
languages, and languages function as means of communica­
tion on the basis of shared meanings.
Such technical, philosophical analyses of African concep­
tual networks can, it is hoped, be of a more rigorous meth­
odological order than the more classic studies that somehow
“extract” a so-called traditional system of thought from
 148
Part II: Methodology
the oral literature of an African culture. Whether, inte­
rior to an African language, there is a special vocabulary, a
unique form of conceptual network, or a particular form of
discourse that is somehow peculiar to whatever is defined
as the distinctively indigenous (rather than the discredited
traditional ) is a possibility that invites further—what
else?—philosophical analysis.
NOTES
1. See especially chapter 2 (Translation and Meaning) of Quine’s
Word and Object.
2. A comprehensive bibliography of major interpretations, criti­
cisms, elaborations, and defenses of the IT is to be found in
Kirk 1986, 259-65. A much-quoted “informal” discussion of
the IT by many of the principals involved (including Quine),
remarkable for its plain talk about complex philosophical
^sues, is to be found in “First General Discussion Session,
Conference on Intentionality, Language and Translation,”
Synthese 27 (July/August 1974)= 467-508.
3. Those interested in a more detailed examination of the IT,
with specific reference to possible consequences for African
philosophy, are referred to Hallen and Sodipo 1997, chapter 1
(Indeterminacy and the Translation of Alien Behavior).
4. In the literature of African philosophy, the earliest reference
to the IT that I have been able to identify occurs in a foot­
note to Henri Maurier, “Do We Have an African Philosophy?”
m the second edition (1979) of Wright’s African Philosophy^
An Introduction. Interestingly the footnote is editorial, i.e.,
added by Wright himself. It contains an explicit recommen­
dation that the issues raised by the IT should warrant the
special interest of African philosophers.
On a more generalized level, one of the earliest African
analytic philosophers to recognize and enunciate clearly the
theoretical potential of African languages for African philos­
ophy, a position he has continued to refine up to the present
day, is Kwasi Wiredu. See Wiredu 1996, 11.
I am indebted to Robin Horton for first drawing my
attention to Quine’s IT, and for many invaluable conversa­
tions about translation. His collected thoughts on the subject,
which should by no means be treated as his final word, are
comprehensively available in Horton 1993.
Analytic Philosophy in the African Context 149
There was substantial discussion of the IT in the philosophy
of the social sciences and in anthropology before it became
an issue for African philosophy. A particularly informative
interdisciplinary collection is to be found in Hollis and Lukes
1982.
5. T.T. Katz compares the effects of Quine’s critique of meaning
to those of Hume’s skeptical analysis of causality in Katz
1988.
6. For purposes of this discussion it is enough to say that the
form of behaviorism being introduced is methodological
rather than the reductive psychological species enunciated by
Skinner and Co. Quine is not denying the existence of the
conscious “mental” self, of personal feelings, or of intro­
spection. But these experiences are private to each individual
rather than public.
7. There is anticipation of indeterminacy in the following
edited quote from Hountondji in which he derides the usually
unspecified methods used by these ethnophilosophers to educe
African philosophy from oral literature: “The discourse of
ethnophilosophers, be they European or African, offers us
the baffling spectacle of an imaginary interpretation with no
textual support, of a genuinely ’free’ interpretation, inebri­
ated and entirely at the mercy of the interpreter, a dizzy
and unconscious freedom which takes itself to be translating
a text which does not actually exist and which is therefore
unaware of its own creativity. By this action the interpreter
disqualifies himself from reaching any truth whatsoever,
since truth requires that freedom be limited, that it bow to
an order that is not purely imaginary and that it be aware
both of this order and of its own margin of creativity” (1983,
189, fn. 16: his italics).
8. For a postmodernistic defense of ethnophilosophy, see Salem-
ohamed 1983. For a comparatively strident condemnation of
virtually the whole of “African philosophy” as non-philoso­
phy, as too culturally specific and descriptive (in other words,
as ethnophilosophy yet again), see Pearce 1992.
9. Most prominently by the phenomenological movement, even
if not discussed in this volume. See Hallen 1976 for an explo­
ration of phenomenology in the African context.
10. See chapter 4.
11. Robin Horton is of course one distinguished exception.
12. As more technically reconstructed by Urmson 1969.
 150
Part II: Methodology Analytic Philosophy in the African Context
151
13. Appiah gives an example of this with reference to Cartesian
dualism, a theoretical parallel frequently drawn in contempo­ 23. Perhaps imaginatively, as Quine does in the radical translation
rary African philosophy (1992, 100). experiment used to introduce the IT. See also Stich 1990,
H. An opinion that unfortunately is still all too common. This 24. T.T. Bedu-Addo 1983 makes a perceptive cross-cultural com­
parison of the significance of knowledge via direct experi­
same sentiment is echoed by Appiah in the following; “ ence (what has become known as “knowledge by acquaintance”
. that African philosophy just is ethnophilosophy has been
largely assumed by those who have thought about what in academic philosophy) and its roots in orality in the Greek,
African philosophers should study” (1992, 94). Akan, Yoruba, and Latin languages, pp. 232-3 and especially
fn. 13, p. 232. Also see Appiah 1992, 98.
debate about this issue may be found in Horton
1967 (reprinted in Horton 1993): and in Wiredu 1980. Also see
chapter 1 above, and Appiah 1992, chapter 6 (Old Gods, New
Worlds).
16. The real difficulty encountered in the understanding of
primitive thought is not as some philosophers suppose, that
its supernatural beliefs are refractory to rational under­
standing, but that symbolism is linguistically untranslatable
and its ideas encapsulated in action, ritual, and social institu­
tions: that is, they exist at a sub-verbal level” (Hallpike 1979
485). Also see Masolo 2000: McClean 1994: and Taiwo 1999.
17. The late Peter Bodunrin, in an article that remains contro­
versial among both friends and foes of African philosophy
was the first to criticize our work for its ethnophilosophical
tendencies. See Bodunrin 1981a; reprinted in Richard Wright
1984. ®
18. See chapters 8 and 9, or also see Hallen and Sodipo 1997, chapter
«; tradition generally is not classified as
true (ootp). Its status is hypothetical.
19. “We would be pleased if the. response to this chapter gen­
erates information about additional empirical content that
may lead to even more determinate translations” (Hallen and
Sodipo 1997, 83).
20. A. G. A. Bello (1986) has made and continues to make insight­
ful and constructive criticisms of our work.
21. A great deal has been done in this regard with artificial lan­
guages, but the connection between artificial or ideal and
natural languages is still subject to dispute. For an early but
still seminal analysis of this debate, see J. Katz and J. Fodor
1962.
22. Rodney Needham discusses the limitations of the English-
language concept “belief” as a vehicle for cross-cultural trans­
lations in Belief. Language, and Experience (1972). See also
Donald Davison s seminal “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual
Scheme.
CHAPTER?

SECRECY AND OBJECTIVITY IN THE

METHODOLOGY AND LITERATURE
OF IFA DIVINATION'
O the Western mind, the word divination evokes ref­

T erences to ancient (and extinct) Greeks using animal

intestines to predict the future. Contemporary astrology
is essentially divination by means of select celestial bodies:
but as a form of knowledge it has been judged unreliable,
and banished to the comics’ page of daily newspapers. It is
therefore more properly characterized as light, even trivial
entertainment than as a form of art, science, or religion.
Yet millions in the non-Western societies of today’s world
still rely primarily on divination for making important
decisions. In fact, they consider divination one of the most
objective and authoritative sources available to them for
matters of explanation, prediction, and control.
The gap between the comics’ page and a high order of
objective knowledge is enormous. Must the same be said of
two different types of society, one that dismisses divination,
another that embraces it? More often than not, the Western
answer to this question has been yes. And the determining
factor in distinguishing between these types has been the
presence or absence of what is termed scientific method in
the society in question.
The dichotomy, supposedly, is radical, and the Western
belief in it certainly helped give rise to the extremely
controversial distinction that has been made between the
“primitive” and the “modern” (Peek 1991, 1994), and that
endures as “traditional” versus “modern” today. We would
argue, however, that the evidence from which that dichot-
omy emerged, and indeed its entire argumentative basis,
are mistaken that the use of the scientific method as a
 154 Part II: Methodology
paradigm of thinking has led to misleading comparisons,
obscuring rather than illuminating the methodologies of
non-Western systems of knowledge. The methods of such
systems may be not only different from their Western ana­
logues, but coherent and objective in their own terms. This
we can illustrate by examining the functions of secrecy in
the West African and more particularly the Yoruba system
^^ow’ledge known as Ifa, which makes instrumental use
of divination.
SECRECY AND SCIENTIFIC METHOD
Geoffrey Parrinder defines divination as “foretelling the
future by magical acts” adding that it is also sometimes used
to explain past events (1974, 119). And E. E. Evans-Pritchard,
discussing the Azande of Sudan, describes divination as “a
method of discovering what is unknown and often cannot
be known by experiment and logic” (1937, 11; our italics).
Robin Horton, discussing the structure of divination more
than the explanations it provides, observes that the par­
allels between divination and science are broader than is
generally acknowledged: for the diviner is interested in
discovering the identity of the spiritual forces responsi­
ble for particular happenings in the visible, tangible world,
and the reasons for their activation” (1967, 167), just as the
theoretical scientist sets out to explain “how the [some­
times unobservable] processes envisaged by the theory are
related to empirical phenomena with which we are already
acquainted, and which the theory may then explain, predict
or retrodict” (Hempel 1967, 72-3). Yet Horton also argues
that divination is unlike science in that it lacks an articu­
lated experimental method of testing and verification, and
consequently suffers the vices of secondary elaboration and
of resistance to significant alteration in its basic theoretical
system (1983, 222-24).
All three of the above scholars agree that divination is
used to provide information about past, present, or future
events by means of a methodology that is significantly
unscientific. All three also agree that this is because its
explanations and predictions are not based upon an experi­
mental method equivalent to that which is the bulwark of
empirical science, in which all claims to knowledge must at
Secrecy and Objectivity in the Methodology and Literature ofIfa Divination 155
least in principle be testable and provable through experi­
ments that are repeatable and reproducible, and that can be
observed by a reasonable person. Secrecy, of course, is an
obscenity for Western science (see Gellner 1974). For inher­
ent in the scientific tradition is a resistance to knowledge
that is exclusive, esoteric, or secret in nature, even if it
works—even if its applications are effective.
It was secret knowledge of this sort that Robert Boyle,
an early defender of the experimental method, had in mind
when he wrote, in his Sceptical Chymist of 1661, that:
by having thus drawn the chymists doctrine out
of their dark and smoky laboratories, and both
brought it into the open light, and shewn the
weakness of their proofs, that have hitherto been
wont to be brought for it, either Judicious men
shall henceforth be allowed calmly and after due
information to believe it, or those abler chymists,
that are zealous for the reputation of it, will be
obliged to speak plainer than hitherto has been
done, and maintain it by better experiments and
arguments. (1744, 461)
European accounts of African divination often echo
Boyle’s indictment: “if an individual wishes to be initiated
into future mystery with regard to the termination of
disease, the success of matrimony, or some other projected
plan, resort must be had to the old priest who, if cowries
be forthcoming, will render an answer—false or true to be
determined by future development” (Clarke 1972, 280). From
the scientist’s point of view, clearly, diviners value secrecy
because it helps them conceal the fact that much of their
knowledge could not withstand the test of rigorous experi-
mentatioh. Whether or not the future will confirm their
predictions is primarily a matter of chance or of factors
external to the divination process, “in order to escape fal­
sification they destroyed the testability of their theory”
(Popper 1962, 37).
 Part II: Methodology
AWO IN THE IFA SYSTEM OF KNOWLEDGE
Most scholars agree that Ifa, as a system of knowledge
in which divination plays the essential role, originated in
Yoruba society in the distant past. Among the Yoruba, Edo,
Ibo, Igala, Jukun, Nupe, Fon, and Ewe peoples of Nigeria,
Benin, and Togo, it continues to serve today as a reposi­
tory of ethical values, folklore, traditional medicines, and
other classes of belief (Abimbola 1976, 3-8: Maupoil 1943,
3-31). The complexity of Ifa varies in these different social
groups, but among the Yoruba it is organized into 256 dif­
ferent categories known as Odii, each a poetic whole with its
own thematic identity. Although Ifa is an oral system, the
diviner beginning a divination sitting establishes an Odiis
signature” through a binomial writing process of inscrip­
tions made in a yellow powder derived from camwood (see
Abimbola 1977, 4-11: Bascom 1969b, 34-5). These inscriptions
are written, as in Chinese and Arabic, from top to bottom
and from right to left. Once the signature is established,
the Ifa priest chants the poems belonging to that Odu or
category of knowledge.
It is believed that each Odii has at least 600 different
verses, for an astounding total of around 153,600 verses
shared and known by all of the system’s practitioners.
Equally remarkable is the extreme care that the divination
priests have taken in preserving Ifa, which, as a body of
intellectual material, is simultaneously conservative and
dynamic: utterances are inherited and passed on as common
property from one priest to another, but are also intermin­
gled with or altered by additional contributions represent­
ing the creativity of each priest.^
Having survived the ravages of colonialism and of the
slave trade, this extremely complex system of divination and
knowledge functions vitally in West Africa, South America,
and the West Indies today. One of the principal reasons for
its survival is its use of awo (secrecy) as an essential, if vari­
egated, element of its methodology. Ifa has been the subject
of a significant number of books and monographs (Peek
1991, bibliography). None of these, however, has focused on
secrecy in Ifa as understood by the Yoruba themselves—in
Secrecy and Objectivity in the Methodology and Literature ofIfa Divination 157
other words, on how awo is understood by the Ifa priest,
and by Ifa itself as a system of oral knowledge.
Awo is the collective term for various classes of secret
information in Yoruba culture. Most important of these
are four institutions: Awo Egiingun, the secrets concerning
the worship of the ancestors: Awo Orl, the secrets con­
cerning the worship of the or! (or destiny): Awo Isese, the
secrets pertaining to divination and medical practice: and
Awo dtgboni, the secrets of a society based on the worship
of the earth. These four forms of awo all revolve about Ifa,
which provides the oral literature through which they are
defined and interpreted. Ifa also provides the ritual code,
or ei>p (sacrifice), that affords communication between the
human beings who follow these institutions and the divini­
ties or dri^a of traditional Yoruba religion.
That awo is important in Ifa is clear from a number
of key terms that incorporate the word. Most obvious is
babalawcf - “The Yoruba word for an Ifa priest [diviner] is
babalawo, which can roughly be translated into English as
‘father of secrets’” (Abimbola 1975, 5). The Babalawo Olodii
“are full Ifa priests who have been initiated into the secrets
of Odii, the mythical wife of Ifa” (Abimbola 1976, 13). In
addition there are Qmq Awo, “an Ifa apprentice . . . known as
a child of secrets” (Bascom 1969b, 83): Awo Egan- “The lowest
grade of practicing Ifa diviners are known as . . . ‘'secret of
?gan [a special type of medicines]” (Bascom 1969b, 81): and
Oluwo, a word meaning “master of secrets” or “chief of
secrets” {olu awo), and referring to any of the three highest
grades of diviners (Bascom 1969b, 83).
Secrecy has three primary functions in Ifa. First, it is
a safeguard against the indiscriminate use of power. The
awo of which one is said to be a child, father, or master is
knowledge peculiar to the Ifa system and is arranged in a
hierarchy of grades of increasing complexity and power.
Entry into each grade (as well as into the Ifa cult itself)
is rigorously selective, and is controlled by a series of ini­
tiation ceremonies. To advance a grade (which one may do
either at one’s superiors’ invitation or by personal applica­
tion), one must have demonstrated one’s professional compe­
tence on the preceding level, and have proven that one can
 158 Part II: Methodology
exercise power responsibly and with discretion. A wo, then,
both prevents the uninitiated layman from acquiring and
misusing the power of Ifa, and acts within the profession
to situate the Ifa priest at the level of expertise for which
his own personal talents and abilities equip him (see Hallen
and Sodipo 1997, 13-14, 116).
At the death of the Alaafin of Oyo, traditionally the most
powerful of the Yoruba kings, the highest echelon of Ifa
priests oversee the essential details of the burial. Obviously
the greatest restraint and responsibility are required where
the highest spiritual and political powers merge. Similarly,
the incantations of aasan, /fa’s highest grade of knowledge,
are said to be so powerful that their accidental utterance
would destroy any hapless object or individual in the path
of the priest who spoke them! hence the great care taken
to ensure that those to whom they are entrusted would not
use them in an irresponsible or immoral manner.
A second function of awo is to promote objectivity. The
Ifa priest acts as a kind of intermediary between the spir­
itual power of Ifa and the human client who has come to
consult it. But the client knows that a variety of motives—
the priest’s own entrepreneurial position, his knowledge
of the client’s personal history and problems, or perhaps
his incompetence might prevent the babalawo from being
fully objective in his proceedings and interpretations.
Several forms of awo therefore promote the objectivity of
the client-priest relationship. For example, the problem that
troubles the client is kept secret from the priest. As William
Bascom reports. The client may sit through an entire per­
formance of a diviner, while the verses are recited and spe­
cific questions are answered, without revealing what he has
come to learn” (1941, 48). One must articulate a request to Ifa
of course, but this is generally done by whispering to a coin
or into a cowry shell, while shielding one’s mouth from
the priest with one s hands. Thus the priest is prevented
from arranging a recitation of verses suitable to the client’s
concerns.
Furthermore, any personal information that the client
does tell the priest is confidential. In the great majority of
cases, the client is consulting Ifa about a medical problem.
Secrecy and Objectivity in the Methodology and Literature ofIfa Divination 159
Despite their access to Western medicine, many Yoruba still
consult diviners on questions of health, for they believe
that spiritual causes of illness are as important as physical
ones; And one can appreciate a client’s/patient’s reluctance
to discuss an illness candidly unless he or she is sure that
the information will be strictly confidential. The farmer
being treated for leprosy does not wish to become the talk
of the marketplace. Secrecy or confidentiality of this kind
is no different from that between the Western doctor and
patient.
Finally, awo protects against antisocial forces (see Favret-
Saada 1980, 31-91). The opening lines of almost every verse
of the 256 Odii give a figurative name for the historical
babaliwo whose divination prescription this particular text
records. These professional aliases may strike the uniniti­
ated as delightful poetic figures: “Quietly I go, smoothly
I return”: “Noise-making is the task of birds, trembling
is that of invalids! an invalid is the one who knows what
immoral persons (ajf) can do at night: welcome: goodbye”:
“Lightning flashes: it touches earth: it touches heaven.” In
fact the purpose of these lines is much more sober, to dis­
guise the identity of the Ifa priest (who, after all, is also a
human being) and to protect him from malevolent antisocial
powers. These powers are of two major kinds' the Ajogun and
the Eniy'an or Among the former are death, disease,
infirmity, and loss. The latter are the equivalent of socially
unscrupulous, immoral, or even psychotic personalities and
“have no other purpose in life than the destruction of Man
and his property” (Abimbola 1976, 151-52).
It is taken for granted that the general welfare of
mankind is furthered by any advice Ifa offers an individ­
ual. Ifa priests, in fact, are in the forefront of humanity’s
opposition to the immoral or malevolent agents that aim
to subvert the social order. To safeguard themselves from
the Ajogun and such Mn'iyan, then, and their identity as the
sources of the many individual prescriptions that constitute
the Odu, the priests adopt these secret names, their refer­
ents known only to the initiated.
160 Part II: Methodology Secrecy and Objectivity in the Methodology and Literature ofIfa Divination 161

INTERDISCIPLINARY AND CROSS-CULTURAL COM­ alternative varieties of the secret. But no less than any of
PARISONS the sciences, each is set in the context of its own distinctive
In response to the argument we are making here, defend­ discipline. Therefore, if we are not to repeat the errors of
ers of the scientific method would probably say something our defenders of science, we would first have to establish
like: “So what? It’s all very well and presumably true that that Ifa is fundamentally religious or poetic and symbolic
these are the justifications for secrecy given within Ifa. in inspiration.
But the issue remains whether or not awo protects and Reductive disciplinary comparison (“it’s basically reli­
thereby helps to perpetuate a false system of knowledge, gious” or “it’s basically symbolic”) is an approach that social
even as a secondary consequence. For is it not still true that scientists have been experimenting with for some time. We
if the theories and methodology of Ifa were to be tested in would like to resurrect a different, “old” approach that
the clear light of day (or the laboratory), their credibility also warrants further exploration. If sophisticated knowl­
would collapse?” edge systems such as Ifa are capable of providing alternative
This challenge is based on the assumption that awo is definitions of such staples as secrecy, why could they not
secrecy of the same variety that the methodology of science also do so for other staples such as methods of discovery, of
condemns as prescientific. And if awo is this deceptive type medication, of testing, and of verification?
of secrecy, then its negative consequences could easily be
demonstrated by contrast with the emphasis on publicity
of science’s experimental method, lending credibility to the NOTES
assertion that, an indigenous African system of “knowledge” 1. This essay is coauthored with the distinguished Afri­
like Ifa is not genuine knowledge. From our point of view, canist and scholar of Yoruba culture, Wande Abimbola,
this entire line of thought is open to a charge of circularity: who has graciously consented to its inclusion in this
it takes insufficient account of the possibility that a system volume.
like Ifa has developed and maintains an objective methodol­ 2. See chapter 8.
ogy in its own right, a vital component of which is secrecy 3. In English-language terms its phonetic pronunciation
or awo. The conclusion that the form of secrecy found in may be reproduced as “bah-bah-la-woe.”
Ifa serves as evidence of the entire system’s falsity, then, is
too hastily reached.
Indigenous African systems of knowledge are often
criticized (as in Boyle’s and Karl Popper’s remarks above) for
using secrecy to shield empirically unsound theories from
scrutiny. But /fa’s justifications for awo as a methodological
element belie this accusation. Secrecy in Ifa, we have found,
is motivated by a blend of professional ethics, social control,
and personal security. Awo is therefore a very different
species of secrecy from what the defenders of science have
in mind.
Might another Western discipline—religion, perhaps, or
the creative arts—have a tradition of secrecy more suit­
able for comparison? Mysteries of the faith, and private,
inexplicable moments of creative inspiration, may provide
CHAPTER 8

THE OPEN TEXTURE OF ORAL TRADITION

ver the years I have written various essays in which I

O advocate that philosophers take another look at indig­
enous African abstract or theoretical thought.* 1 have sug­
gested that they would find it of greater philosophical
interest, in its own right, than certain stereotypes may
have led them to believe. Since that time 1 have tried to
practice what 1 preached by doing research on the culture
of the Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria, and it is therefore
appropriate if 1 begin to air some of my preliminary con­
clusions about theoretical thinking in societies that are still
significantly oral in character.
1 will begin by pointing out several omissions in this
earlier work that have since come to light. I recommended
that the academic philosopher seek out his traditipnal coun­
terparts or colleagues and then, treating them as professional
equals, attempt to engage them in discussions of philosophi­
cal significance. This fails to take into account whether it
is realistic or legitimate to assume that individual profes­
sionals in such societies who are noted for their intelligence
and abilities, the legendary traditional “wise men,” will look
upon the academic philosopher as their equals or colleagues.
The oni?egun^ devotes the greater part of his time to first-
order, practical endeavors—curing illness, providing marital
or business counsel, etc. The academic philosopher has long
since surrendered his or her special claims to do these kinds
of things to other more specialized and qualified profes­
sionals. One afternoon at the conclusion of our discussions
1 therefore found myself being asked by an om'?egiin what
1 actually did to earn a living! In other words, sitting and
166 Part III: Moral Epistemology
talking in his sitting room was something of a luxury that,
he presumed, would have to be supplemented by something
more practical. 1 may have been prepared to look upon my
“traditional” counterparts as colleagues. But 1 am not sure,
even now, that they would be prepared to do the same with
me. I sometimes find myself slipping into the role of an
apprentice. The om$egun are certainly prepared to enter
into frank and lengthy discussions about their thought
system. But they are also concerned that 1 should develop
and broaden my own skills so that 1 too can make more
substantive and practical contributions to society.
A second flaw is that in my earlier work 1 tended to
gloss over the very real problems of translation.^ Translating
meanings between languages may be possible on the level of
simple empirical statements, but when one has to deal with
theoretical abstractions of some complexity the problem of
interpretation becomes much more difficult. This is a topic
1 will return to later on in this chapter. A recommenda­
tion 1 did originally make and which 1 have found to be of
enduring value is that the academic philosopher direct his
attention to the kinds of explanations and reasons produced
by his “traditional” colleagues.^ This is what 1 intend to do
in the present chapter with reference to the subject of oral
traditions. What do the om'$egiin themselves have to say
about the epistemological status of this extremely important
source of information?
Thanks to the social sciences there is a contemporary par­
adigm (or stereotype) of oral traditions as systems of infor­
mation. According to it oral tradition is the most important
locus of knowledge in nonliterate cultures. However the
form in which the information is recorded and learned says
something about the character of intellectual life in such
societies. For example, because it is passed on, supposedly
essentially unchanged, from generation to generation, less
emphasis is placed upon the underlying reasons, explanations,
and reflections that might be given to support or to refute
the information. Oral tradition therefore becomes collective
rather than personal, rote-learned rather than reasoned.®
This last point, as has been previously mentioned, has led to
its being dubbed as of minimal philosophical interest.
The Open Texture ofOral Tradition 167
The paradigm that emerges from my discussions with
the omsegiin differs fundamentally from the above. In
normal discourse the Yoruba use any number of expressions
to indicate an appeal to tradition: Agbg wipe (We hear from
our people that . . .), Awon baba nla wa ni 6 so eyi (Our fore­
fathers used to say that . . .), Bayi ni awon ara kan liso (This
is what our people are saying . . .), Bayi awon baba nla wa sq
fdn wa (This is what our forefathers told us . . .). But the
Yoruba do not classify oral tradition as knowledge, at least
in terms of the Yoruba-English equivalents proposed by the
most widely disseminated dictionary (Abraham 1958). The
problem with bilingual dictionaries is that they usually fail
to say whether the criteria governing usage of one term
in one language are the same as those governing its sup­
posed equivalent in the other language. In the absence of
any qualifying statement the dictionary user assumes that
they are the same.
In the case of the Yoruba equivalent for knowledge this
would be misleading. The two basic categories by means of
which the Yoruba classify information are Imp and igbagbt?.
Bilingual dictionaries usually translate the first as “knowl­
edge” and the second as “belief.” Neither is entirely accurate.
Yoruba will regard something as imp if they are a witness
to its happening (as part of their own personal experience)
and if they understand, comprehend, what is happening at
the time. Other information that they assimilate second­
hand in the course of a lifetime, to which they are not a
witness, is regarded as igbagbc? (which can be translated as
“agreeing to accept what one hears from someone else”).®
A model for oral tradition frequently referred to by the
Yoruba themselves occurs when a father wants to pass on
information to his offspring:
When you have a child you begin to teach him
wisdom. When the father becomes old, then he
will begin to say, “‘This’ and ‘this’ are the things
which they told us.” Whatever he has seen [i.e.,
mp] or heard [i.e., gbagbdl, he will be saying the
same thing [in turn] to his son. But the son has not
seen all of this. Whatever we have not seen but of
which we are told is something of which we say,
“‘This’ and ‘this’ are the things they told us.”^

168 Part III: Moral Epistemology
Yoruba generally will not regard something as knowl­
edge (imp), as certain, as reliable to the highest degree unless
they themselves have been a firsthand witness to it. As
the overwhelming proportion of oral tradition is not wit­
nessed, is received by the individual secondhand via other
human beings, it cannot be regarded as imp, as reliable to
the highest degree:
This is what you hear from other people. This is
what you don’t know but which you are saying.
To what degree, then, is it considered reliable?
In the past, when they taught you medicine, or
when a story was told, they put it “inside” [i.e.,
learned it]. It lived inside. Whatever you are told
as a story now, you put it inside a “book” [i.e., it
is being written down]. And it will appear there
forever. There is no reason for another person to
tell the story again. You just take the book and
begin to read it.
In English-language philosophy, “book learning” is usually
classified as “knowledge-that”—as knowledge of something
which one has not witnessed. I am entitled to say, “l know
that St. Petersburg is a city in Russia,” even though I have
never visited that country and seen St. Petersburg myself.
But Yoruba discourse might not regard the secondhand
information recorded in a book, or oral tradition in general,
as imp, because “What you are told (either in writing or
orally) may not be true.”
If you are a person who asks many questions, you
will ask a question from someone and you will keep
on asking from three or four [more] people. If they
advise you, you will understand more than someone
who keeps quiet. You will understand what you
want from the words of these three to four people
who answered your question. You will have one or
two ideas from what these people told you. When­
ever a question is asked about a similar problem,
you will be able to provide an answer which will be
similar to the answer (to your question) which you
once received.
7
The Open Texture ofOral Tradition 169
Oral tradition is composed of a number of theoretical
and practical possibilities that a person may find useful for
purposes of explanation, prediction, and control. The more
a person is familiar with his traditions, the more possibili­
ties he can bring to bear upon his experience and thereby
better cope with it. It is possible for one of these possi­
bles to change its status from Igbagbp to imp. This happens
when an individual tests or tries out something firsthand
he or she has learned via tradition by applying it to his or
her own experience and finds that it is, indeed, effective.
There is memorization, but there is also memorization plus
testing.
The impression one gets from the stereotype to which
reference was made at the beginning of this chapter is that
oral traditions are to be treated with intellectual reverence.
Their authority and truth transcend the individual. Nega­
tive evidence is therefore suppressed, ignored, or converted
into positive by means of ad hoc devices. I think the above
material and quotations are sufficient to challenge much
Hi
^a
of this. From the outset Yoruba approach the traditions of
their society as things that only may be true. Their evi­
dential status remains in doubt until they withstand actual
testing. They are not then truths. They are much more
like hypotheses, possible truths. This adjectival qualifier
(possible) allows for the contingency that they .may also
be proven false, and be supplanted by new possibles. This
argues against the stereotype of oral tradition as frozen and
resistant to change.
When I have summarized these findings for several of
my colleagues, I have been cautioned against overuse of my
own powers of interpretation to make the opt'^egim sound
“just like us.” In other words, they suggested that the reason
I interpret the Yoruba attitude toward their oral tradition
as hypothetical is likely to be because of my (rather than
their) own familiarity with and allegiance to the scientific
method. This I find it difficult to accept. The gentlemen I
had my discussions with are not literate, speak no English,
and their knowledge of Western culture is incidental. I am
therefore convinced that this is the way they, as traditional
170 Part III; Moral Epistemology The Open Texture ofOral Tradition 171

men of science and philosophy in their own right, regard NOTES

the oral traditions of their society. 1. See, for example, chapter 5.
Although they may sound remarkably “like us” when 2. As previously indicated, om'?egiin may be literally translated
reflecting upon their traditions on a theoretical level, when as “master(s) of medicine.” These are the same professionals
it comes to the actual testing process—to practice—it would who were stigmatized by early missionaries with the title
“witch doctors” and, today, are being recognized as “alterna­
be wise to allow for the possibility that the differences
tive medical doctors.”
become marked. For it is possible that the kinds of evi­
dence (telepathic phenomena, natural phenomena as signs of
3. As represented, for example, by the discussions in W. V. O.
Quine, Word and Object, chapter 2 (Translation and Meaning),
supernatural problems, etc.) as well as the kinds of special­ 1960. Inspired by discussions with Robin Horton and my
ists and their methods (incantations, etc.) that are utilized reading of Quine, I had already decided to try and tackle this
do in the end give oral tradition a significantly different issue head-on, a discussion that was to become chapter 1 of
methodological framework. However 1 still feel that more Hallen and Sodipo 1997 (Indeterminacy and the Translation of
attention ought to be paid to remarks like the above that the Alien Behavior).
om$egim have made in the course of our discussions. They 4. For another example of this approach, see chapter 7.
make it difficult to agree with interpretations of African 5. For a vigorous dissenting opinion, see Goody 1977, chapter 2
systems of thought as being closed (not open to alternatives (Intellectuals in Pre-literate Societies?).
or to new possibilities), relatively inflexible, and as having 6. This thesis also forms the basis for chapter 1 of Hallen and
frequent recourse to secondary elaboration (Horton 1993). Sodipo 1997.
1 indicated that I would also have something more to say 7. Another figure of speech used to indicate an appeal to oral
about the problem of translation. What is the significance tradition.
of the Yoruba preference for classifying “knowledge that” 8. See chapter 12.
as igbagbd (belief) rather than as imp (knowledge)? Does it
matter precisely what criteria a people use to rate the reli­
ability of information, as long as their language system
still makes a place for it somewhere? 1 would suggest that
the answer to this question is “yes.” Therefore it is an error
to conceive of translation as a process of precise one-to-one
correlations between the abstractions of one language and
those of another.® As with the English language, internal
to Yoruba there is a system of epistemological categories
of which igbagbp is one and imp another, and one needs to
explore how they are connected. Knowledge obtained on the
basis of im^ is relatively inflexible because it is so certain.
Igbagbp is not, and because it is not, there is good reason to
recast that misleading stereotype of oral tradition that has
for too long reigned supreme.
Ti

CHAPTER 9

MORAL VALUES AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL

VIRTUES IN AN AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY

ore than three decades ago a definite and deliberate

M consensus had been reached among philosophers in and
of Africa that there had been enough second-order talk
about whether there had been and was “philosophy” in
indigenous African cultural contexts. This meant that it was
time to move on and to produce individualized, specialized
philosophical studies that arose f rom those cultural contexts.
There was also a consensus that to “translate” internation­
ally in scholarly terms this material needed to be presented
or at least introduced in and by formats that would not be

1 entirely foreign to non-African audiences.

In my own case I settled on an adaptation of what has
come to be known in the Western tradition as ordinary lan­
guage philosophy. One good reason for this choice was that
it made sense, in practical terms for someone like myself
who is not an African and who was coming to terms with a
language culture that was not my own, to adopt an approach
that essentially involved learning more about the language as
well as the culture. Also, the ordinary language approach is
implicitly conceptually oriented insofar as concentrating on
correct and incorrect usage can involve identifying the cri­
teria governing the usage of words that are targeted because
of potential philosophical prepossession.
Another central interest I had at the time was to put W.
V. O. Quine’s indeterminacy thesis of radical translation to
some form of empirical test—particularly with regard to
that aspect of the thesis he discusses under the heading of
“radical translation.” I found the open-mindedness of the
thesis regarding the possibility of radically different mean-
174 Part III: Moral Epistemology
ings in radically different languages liberating.' To someone
who had been conditioned to regard paradigms espoused by
English-language analytic philosophy as normative, it opened
the door to the possibility of fundamentally different mean­
ings of the terminology used in everyday, conventional situ­
ations—with their own intrinsic rational integrity—existing
in languages that might not have reason to share a single
cognate in common with English. This of course underlined
the possibility that there might be theoretical networks
intrinsic to Africa’s language eultures that, on philosophical
grounds, had not received their just deserts.
Last but far from least, the ordinary language approach
gave me, as someone whose mother discipline was philosophy
rather than anthropology, a methodology of philosophical
origin that would entitle me to circumvent the rather loud
objections of social science colleagues who insisted that I had
no business undertaking any form of research that involved
anything resembling fieldwork.
Those introductory points noted, let me proceed to the
topie of epistemological virtues. The title does not imply, as
perhaps some might think, that this chapter’s central focus
will involve how it may be possible to establish ethical prin­
ciples or moral values on some sort of secure objective basis,
however tantalizing that prospect may remain. Indeed the
dominance of that presumption, if anything, is one indica­
tion of how important it is to suspend the importation of
preexisting concerns when coming to terms with a “radi­
cally” different language culture’s conceptual system(s).
Abstract thought in Africa’s indigenous cultures has been
said to be expressed primarily in and by myths, stories, prov­
erbs, and rituals. Comparative studies of abstract thought
in the West and in Africa supposedly suggest there is little
point in asking whether its African forms are true because,
even if believed so by members of the relevant eultures,
they are too obviously “fictions” and/or “exercises” invented
to permit Africans at least to feel that they understand and
thereby can exercise some control over the forces underly­
ing life’s sometimes paradoxical events. As such they are
said to fulfill people’s emotional needs as much as or more
than preeminently intellectual ones.
Moral Values and Epistemological Virtues in an African Philosophy 175
Many African intellectuals insist that critical reasoning
also plays an essential role in African systems of thought and
that, in any case, dividing the person up between a rational
self and an emotional self is a hypothesis of Western eultural
orientation (Fanon 1967! 1970! Hallen 1996b: 2000b). Other
African scholars (Wiredu 1980) have suggested that lumping
all African “abstract” thought into a single category and
then comparing it with the theories of so deliberately and
painstakingly refined a subject as academic philosophy is
unfair. Africa has its own folklore, folk thought or folk
philosophy (relatively popular beliefs, superstitions, ete.), as
is also the ease with the West. This distinetion in the two
cultures’ respective modes of thought or beliefs has first to
be made clear before a neutral basis for intercultural com­
parisons can be established. Otherwise elements of African
folklore might end up being contrasted and compared
(unfavorably, of course) with technically abstract, discipli­
nary-specific Western methodologies and theories. Indeed
the disinterest in things African on the part of Western
analytic philosophers was almost certainly a consequence of
the fact that they passively (or perhaps impassively), tacitly,
had acquiesced to the portrait of Africa as a place where
people did not assign a high priority to reason, to eritical
thinking, in formulating their views of the world. For one
oddity about the analytie tradition as practiced vfithin the
academy is that virtually the only language that it has been
used to analyze is English. The most obvious explanation
for this is that analytic philosophy is a product of English-
language culture. But was this really sufficient to explain
why its method and techniques had never been applied in
even an experimental manner to any non-Western language?
Was there not here also evidenee, albeit implieit, of a tacit
judgment on the part of the Western academy that such
endeavors were likely not to be philosophically rewarding?
In any case, the point of what became known as the
Hallen-Sodipo research project on African Thought/Philoso­
phy was to apply the techniques of analytic philosophy, as
adapted for use in a culture that was substantially oral in
nature (Hallen and Sodipo 1997: Hallen 2000b) to the language
of the Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria. Some of the Yoruba
176 Part III: Moral Epistemology
fields of discourse preselected as of particular interest were
those relevant to epistemology or to the theory of knowl­
edge and ethics. It is the interrelations between elements of
the Yoruba conceptual system relating to these two special
interests that has resulted in the coining of the expression
moral epistemology.”
In Western epistemological theory the most problematic
and controversial subcategory of information is what has
come to be known as propositional knowledge. Generally
this is associated with information in written or oral prop­
ositional (sentential) form that is supposed to be knowledge
and therefore true, but which the individual recipient is
in no position to test or to verify. When one reflects upon
what a member of Western society may learn in the course
of a lifetime, it becomes clear that most people’s knowledge
consists of information they will never ever be in a posi­
tion to confirm in a firsthand or direct manner. What they
find out from a history book, see via the evening news on
television, or confirm about a natural law on the basis of
one elementary experiment in a high school physics labo­
ratory—all could be (and sometimes are!) subject to error,
distortion, or outright fabrication.
Propositional knowledge is therefore generally charac­
terized as secondhand, as information that cannot be tested
or proved in a decisive manner by most people who have it
and therefore has to be accepted as true because it ^agrees’
with common sense or because it corresponds to or coheres
with the very limited amount of information that people
are able to test and confirm in a firsthand or direct manner.
Exactly how this coherence or correspondence is to be defined
and ascertained is still a subject of endless wrangling in
(Western) epistemological theory. What is relevant to the
present discussion is that this wrangling is evidence of the
intellectual concern and discomfort (in academic parlance it
becomes one of the problems of philosophy) on the part of
(Western) philosophers about the weak evidential basis of
so much of the information that people in that culture are
conditioned to regard as knowledge, as true.
The distinction made in Yoruba-language culture between
putative knowledge and putative belief reflects a similar
Moral Values and Epistemolo^al Virtues in an African Philosophy 177
concern about the evidential status of firsthand versus sec­
ondhand information. Persons are said to know or to have
knowledge only of experience they have witnessed in a
firsthand or personal manner. The example most frequently
cited by discussants, virtually as a paradigm, is visual per­
ception of a scene or an event as it is taking place. Knowl­
edge is said to apply to sensory perception generally, even if
what may be experienced directly by touch is more limited
than is the case with perception. Knowledge in a Yoruba
context implies a good deal more than mere sensation of
course. Perception implies cognition as well, meaning that
persons concerned must comprehend that and what they
are experiencing. The terms botg/btitQ are associated with
knowledge” in certain respects that parallel the manner in
which true”/“certain” and “truth”/“certainty” are paired
with know / 'knowledge” in the English language. In the
English language “truth” is principally a property of propo­
sitional knowledge, of statements human beings make about
something; while in Yoruba botg may be a property of both
propositions and certain forms of experience. Therefore in
some contexts it is better rendered into English as beins
certain or certainty.
The Yoruba noun form that I am rendering as belief,
igbagbo (and its verb form gbagbg), does in fact arise from
the conflation of gba and gbq.^ The two components are
themselves verbs, the former conventionally translated into
English as “received” or “agreed to,” the latter as “heard”
or understood.” Yoruba linguistic conventions suggest that
treating this complex term as a synthesis of the English
language understood (in the sense of cognitive compre­
hension) and of agreed to” (in the sense of_ affirming or
accepting new information one comprehends as part of
one’s own store of secondhand information) is perhaps the
best way to render its core meaning. Igbagbg encompasses
what one is not able “to see for oneself” or to experience in
a direct, firsthand manner. For the most part this involves
things we are told about or informed of—this is the most
conventional sense of information—by others.
What makes it different from the English language
believe / belief” is that igbagbg can apply to everything
178 Part III: Moral Epistemology
that might be construed as secondhand information. This
would apply to most of what in English-language culture
is regarded as propositional knowledge: the things one is
taught in the course of a formal education, what one learns
from books, from other people and, of particular inter­
est in the special case of the Yoruba, from oral traditions.
While English-language culture decrees that propositional
or secondhand information, since classified as “knowledge,”
should be accepted as true, Yoruba usage is equally insistent
that, since classified as igbaghg (putative “belief”), it can
only be accepted as possibly true (d ^:e e ?e) or untrue (ko $e
e se).
The cross-cultural ramifications of these differing view­
points on the truth status of propositional or secondhand
knowledge are worth considering. Yoruba-language speakers
would likely regard members of English-language culture,
who are willing to assign so much certainty to and put
so much trust in information that they can never test or
verify, as dangerously naive and perhaps even ignorant.
While members of English-language culture might criticize
their Yoruba counterparts’ identification of optimal knowl­
edge with you can only know what you can see as indicative
of a people who have yet to discover the benefits of insti­
tutionalized knowledge and formal education.
The criteria that define the respective extents of and the
interrelations between imp (knowledge) and igbagbp (belief)
in Yoruba stipulate that any experience or. information which
is not firsthand, personal and direct must by definition fall
under the heading of igbagbp (belief). The sense of igbagbi^
(belief) may therefore be paraphrased as= comprehending, and
deciding to accept as possible (as possibly true rather than as
true), information that one receives in a secondhand manner.
Imo (knowledge: as firsthand experience) and Igbagbp (belief:
information gained on the basis of secondhand experience)
together exhaust all the information that human beings have
at their disposal. If and when my imp (knowledge) is chal­
lenged by other persons who have not undergone a similar
firsthand experience and who therefore doubt what 1 say I
actually saw happen, the best way to convince them would be
to arrange for some kind of test whereby they will be able
Moral Values and Epistemologkal Virtues in an African Philosophy 179
to see the thing happen for themselves.^ If I cannot arrange
for this kind of direct testing, the next best I can do is to
ask any others who may have personally witnessed my own
or a similar experience to come forward and testify. In this
case my firsthand experience cannot become the challeng­
ers’ own imp (knowledge), but if they are influenced by the
combined testimony they may decide to ‘believe’ me/us and
accept the information on a secondhand basis, as igbagbp
(belief).
A simple example may serve to clarify things. If I claim
I have seen for myself (imp) that a certain friend drives a
specific make and model of car and another friend challenges
my claim, the best way to resolve the dispute is to visit the
friend and see (imp) what kind of car she actually has. If the
friend lives a thousand miles away, a more practical solution
would be to ask other mutual friends who have seen (imp)
the car themselves to tell us {igbagbd) what kind it is. Or
perhaps to telephone my friend directly and ask her to tell
us iigbagbp) what kind of car she is driving. Speaking to
her directly by telephone still would not be firsthand imp
(knowledge) about the car because one is not actually seeing
it. One is only hearing a further form of secondhand infor­
mation about the car, another form of testimony—albeit a
particularly relevant one given the circumstances.
If and when my igbagbd (belief) is challenged by another
person, again the best solution would be to arrange some
form of empirical test. In this case since this is information
I myself only know secondhand, the most reliable solution
for all concerned would be to test it directly, so that the
information would progress from being igbagbp (belief) to
being imp (knowledge) for all concerned, myself included.
Next best would again be to call upon all relevant witnesses
who may have heard the same or similar secondhand infor­
mation iigbagbp) or, even more definitively, have firsthand
(imp) experience of what I can only claim to know on a
secondhand {igbagbq) basis.
When agreement or a consensus among disputants is
reached on the level of igbagbq (belief), the applicable term
(comparable to the role of “truth” with reference to knowl­
edge, or of botq with regards to imp) is papq, which may be
180 Part III: Moral Epistemology
rendered colloquially as “the words have come together. The
antecedent process of testimony, discussion, and reflection
on the basis of which the consensus is reached is described
as nwadi—an expression whose meaning may be compared
with the English-language “let’s get to the bottom of this
matter.”®
The system that emerges from these criteria appears
to be three-tiered. Imo (knowledge) is the sole category
of experience or of propositions entitled to be regarded as
certain or as true (ddtp). Igbagb^ (belief) that is in principle
open to empirical testing, verification, and thereby trans­
formed into imp that is ddtp (knowledge) is the next best.
Igbagbq (belief) that can never be verified and can only be
evaluated on the basis of testimony, explanation, discussion,
and reflection (nwadi) is the least certain.
The significance of all this for cross-cultural under­
standing and comparisons is complex. The most obvious
and perhaps important point is that Yoruba discourse does
employ terminology and systematic criteria for the evalua­
tion of any type of information. This is a priority to which
African systems of thought were once said not to attach
special importance or about which they were said to be
unclear.
The moral underpinnings to this discussion of Yoruba
epistemology become evident once one recognizes that the
primary source of propositional or secondhand information
in a culture that is significantly oral is other persons. For,
if that is the case, knowledge of those other persons’ moral
characters (iwa)—their honesty, their reliability as sources
of information—becomes a fundamental criterion to evalu­
ating the reliability of secondhand information obtained
from them.
Knowledge of another person’s moral character is said
to be obtained, most reliably, from observing (firsthand)
their behavior (i?esi). And in Yoruba discourse “behavior”
conventionally extends to “what they say” and “what they
do,” which also pretty much corresponds to the standard
Western notions of verbal and non-verbal behavior. But
what is again in evidence here is the priority the Yoruba
place upon hard evidence, upon only being able to “know”
Moral Valttes and Epistemolog^al Virtues in an African Philosophy 181
what you witness in a firsthand manner. For the point is
that a person’s verbal and non-verbal behavior are construed
as firsthand evidence (imp) of their moral character (iwa).
Needless to say, a person’s moral character (iwa) is not
as readily observable as everyday material objects, such as a
tree or a table. Obviously a process of inference is involved
in order to move from observing a multiplicity of indi­
vidual actions to a generalization about character. But with
specific reference to epistemological concerns—the person as
a source of reliable secondhand information—the interplay
between imp (knowledge) and igbagbg (belief) appears to be
as follows. On the basis of a number of specific previous
occasions when you have had the opportunity, firsthand
(imp), to verify the truth (ddtp) of a person’s statements,
you are justified in using these firsthand experiences as the
basis for a generalization about their moral character. This
generalization may then serve as a kind of character refer­
ence for evaluating the reliability of future statements made
by this same person but, strictly speaking, such evaluations
must remain hypothetical or tentative until also confirmed
in a firsthand manner.
What the overall process appears to involve is a kind
of sliding scale for gauging varying degrees of epistemic
certainty about the moral characters of and/or informa­
tion provided by other persons. Those you have' associated
with directly and therefore have had ample opportunity to
observe in a firsthand manner are those whose character you
are in a position to know best, and thereby to judge whether
information of which they are the source is likely to be
reliable or unreliable. Those you have not associated with at
all and therefore have had no opportunity to observe in a
firsthand manner (or even to have heard at least something
about in a secondhand manner) are those whose character
you do not know, and thereby have no substantive basis on
which to judge whether information of which they are the
source is likely to be reliable or unreliable.
A person who makes an informative statement may be
obliged to recount the precise circumstances in which he or
she came by it. A person is expected to say whether there
is any cause for uncertainty or imprecision about the inf or-
182 Part III: Moral Epistemology
mation. Determining whether the information is derived
from the speaker’s firsthand (imp) or secondhand (Igbagbp)
experience is part of this process. A person’s diligence in
doing" all of this also is considered important evidence of
their moral character (iwa). With specific reference to what
is here being characterized as a “moral epistemology,” at
least four positive behavioral values are emphasized: (1) being
scrupulous about the epistemological basis for whatever one
claims to know, to believe, or to have no information about:
(2) being a good listener, with the emphasis upon cognitive
understanding rather than a polite and respectful demeanor:
(3) being a good speaker, with the emphasis upon speak­
ing in a positive, thoughtful, and perceptive manner rather
than mere elocution: (4) having patience, with the emphasis
upon being calm and self-controlled in judgment and intel­
lect rather than merely in manner and demeanor.
The public in Western societies have become concerned
about exercising control over the quality of information
put out by the media. In an oral culture the media are peo­
ple’s mouths. These four values, in effect, set broadcasting
standards for those mouths. Speaking well and hearing well,
as values, further reinforce the importance of providing
accurate information or reliable advice and being forthright
about the epistemological origins of that information and
advice. A consciousness that cultivates patience, especially in
difficult or problematic situations, is more likely to main­
tain self-control and thereby optimal communication with
its environment. Speaking well, hearing well, and patience,
then, are not moral values in any conventional sense. They
are rather epistemological virtues because of their instru­
mental value for promoting the accuracy of information.
One intriguing philosophical point about this Yoruba
alternative epistemology concerns its consequences for con­
ventional Western paradigms of propositional knowledge—
sentences conveying secondhand information expressed as “l
know that ‘X’” statements—and their relation to the legiti­
mizing epistemic criteria routinely specified as “justified,
true, belief” (Feldman 2003, 8-24). The relevance of each of
these three terms to the conventional definition of such
“knowledge” may be summarized as follows. First, is it the
Moral Values and Epistemolo^al Virtues in an African Philosophy 183
case that what a person claims to know must be true? Con­
sider the alternative: that it would be possible for us to have
false knowledge. It might seem to be the case that this does
indeed frequently happen, as when I assume that a certain
article I read in today’s newspaper is true, only to find out
later that it was an outright fabrication. But, in such cases,
would we not prefer to say that we were mistaken, and
that what we thought we knew was in fact false from the
very beginning? In other words, for a piece of information
to in fact be regarded as knowledge it must indeed qualify
as true.
Second, in conventional English-language usage we must
believe what we say we know. To say, “I know it but I don’t
believe it,” may make metaphorical sense in some extraordi­
nary situations (winning a lottery, for example). Yet surely
the conventions of ordinary usage stipulate that we must
believe what we say we know.
Last, but far from least, is the criterion of Justification.
Imagine you were invited to a friend’s home for dinner and
found yourself seated next to her eleven-year old daughter.
During the course of the meal you happen to ask that pro­
verbial question, “And what do you want to be when you
grow up, young lady?” What if the eleven-year old looked
you straight in the eye and said, deadly seriously, “When
I am twenty-one years old I will have a million dollars in
the bank.” Let’s fast forward and say it so happens that
ten years later, when that daughter is actually twenty-
one years old, she does in fact have a million dollars in her
bank account. The crucial question then becomes, was she
somehow justified in making that original statement when
you first met her? Obviously not, because, for one thing,
how was the girl to presume she would still be alive at age
twenty-one, much less have a million dollars at her disposal.
What this indicates, then, is how important it is to have
solid evidence for a knowledge claim if it is to be taken
seriously.
What is of particular interest here is that knowledge
(imp) in Yoruba terms would seem to make two of these
three English-language criteria, which determine whether
a piece of information qualifies as knowledge, either self-
184 Part III: Moral Epistemology
contradictory or much more limited in scope. For example,
the criterion of belief {igbagbq) would no longer apply, since
it would be pointless and confusing to say that one had sec­
ondhand, possibly true information about what one already
knew to be true on the basis of firsthand experience. Also,
the notion of Justification would seem to lose much of its
strength since one would not be obliged to seek the kinds
of supplementary evidence associated with that criterion for
information or experience that already has been validated
directly in a firsthand manner. Only the true criterion
would carry over, as was indicated by the previous discussion
regarding the Yoruba terms dotp/dt/tp.
A further and as interesting consideration is whether
this alternative Yoruba epistemic system would serve to
counter the epistemologically infamous Gettier Counter-
Examples (Gettier 1963). They involve a number of imaginary
situations, outlined by the American philosopher Edmund
Gettier, to illustrate how a person could be said not to have
knowledge (in English-language terms) despite the fact that
the three criteria (justified, true, belief) had been satisfied.
Perhaps the best known of these examples involves one
Mr. Smith who works in an office with one Mr. Jones. Mr.
Smith is in possession of relatively secondhand information
(having overheard a remark made by a person in authority)
that Mr. Jones is about to receive a promotion (for which,
in Smith’s opinion, Jones is fully qualified). By chance
Smith also had the opportunity firsthand to observe Jones
carefully counting the number of coins in his pocket that
day—ten. On the basis of this information Smith perfectly
correctly arrives at the further conclusion (via deduction)
that the person who receives the promotion will have ten
coins in his pocket. But, as it turns out, the person who is
promoted later that day is one Mr. Robinson rather than
Mr. Jones. Yet it just so happens that Mr. Robinson also
happens to have precisely ten coins in his pocket.
If evaluated from the standpoint of English-language
epistemology. Smith was justified in believing that Jones
would get the promotion, even if this important piece of
information eventually turned out not to be true. But his
second conclusion—that the person receiving the promo­
Moral Values and Epistemolo^al Virtues in an African Philosophy 185
tion would have ten coins in his pocket—does turn out to
be true, as well as deduced from information that, at the
time. Smith was justified in believing. Yet we most cer­
tainly would not want to label it, given the circumstances,
as knowledge^ If anything, some sort of coincidence or acci­
dent has occurred. Yet Gettier’s point was that, if such coin­
cidences or accidents can actually occur (as certainly seems
reasonable), then justified, true, belief—as criteria—are not
sufficient to guarantee that a piece of information be rated
as knowledge.
The point of particular relevance here is that the Yoruba
insistence on firsthand experience as a basis for all informa­
tion that is to qualify as knowledge would appear to rule
out the possibility of such apparently irreconcilable deduc­
tions because all the information that they were based upon
would have to have been obtained initially on a rigorously
firsthand basis. Smith would have had to have a firsthand
encounter directly with Jones promotion itself rather than
relying on a comparatively secondhand remark. And this
would then make the status of Gettier’s secondary conclu­
sion about the ten coins relatively uninteresting—even if it
too was obtained on the basis of firsthand experience.
The Yoruba alternative summarized above would also
suggest the novel thesis that what philosophers conven­
tionally refer to as universal propositional attitudes are
in fact culturally relative. Such attitudes are indicated by
the various verbs used to indicate a speaker’s predisposi­
tion with respect to a particular statement they make. In
English-language discourse such attitudes are expressed by:
I know that . . .; I believe that . . .: I hope that . . .: I doubt
that . . .; I fear that . . ., and so forth. TJie point being
that, if the criteria intrinsic to a natural language (English)
that govern such expressions as “l know” or “I believe” can
be very different from those of another natural language
(Yoruba)—most obviously as indicated by the very different
status of firsthand versus secondhand experience—the pos­
sibility should be raised that perhaps other words taken to
refer to universal mental states or verbal dispositions may
be unique and culturally relatively defined as well.
186 Part III: Moral Epistemology
NOTES
1. For more detailed discussion of Quine on translation see
chapter 6.
2. The Dictionary of Modern Yoruba compiled by R.C. Abraham
(1958) usually serves as the standard reference for Yoruba-
English translations of this variety. Abraham treats odtp as a
straightforward equivalent of the English-language “truth,”
and the same is the case with igb'agbQ/gb'agbQ (p. 233) and the
English-language “belief”/“believe.” Both are examples of the
understandably loose translation equivalences that are a neces­
sary evil for the conventional, cross-cultural translation of
everyday matters, and which cannot afford to take account
of all semantic differences, even if they happen to be more
than nuances.
3. One expression used regularly for testing was dan wo (try to
do).
4. Since it may now be said that the various disputants are rec­
onciled.
5. According to Abraham nwadi is a participial conflation of the
verb for “looking” or “seeking” with the noun idi (p. 272)
for “bottom,” “base,” “reason,” or “cause.” See also Hallen and
Sodipo 1997, 70.
CHAPTER 10
VARIATIONS ON A THEME:
RITUAL, PERFORMANCE, INTELLECT
f this chapter does have a central theme, it involves coming
I to terms with “divination” as a form of “ordered behav­
ior” that may be viewed philosophically as both verbal and
non-verbal in character. 1 use the word ordered in order to
exclude behavior that could be interpreted as predominantly
idiosyncratic and spontaneous. Divination processes are gov­
erned by conventions—certain things must be said and done
in order for them to take place.
The academic study of divination in Africa has itself
passed through various stages or phases, depending upon
which interpretation of the relevant behavior was favored
as providing a “key” to its nature. That is the point of
the word variations in my title. For if divination has been
a theme or subject of scholarly research, the variations
that have been played upon that theme were composed by
researchers who claimed to have discovered the correct way
to understand it.
At first divination was viewed as essentially a form of
ritual—a formal procedure that trained practitioners follow
in order to provide clients with advice or help for solving
what was or might become a problem (Bascom 1969b; Devisch
1993). This scholarly emphasis upon the ritual aspect to the
divination process implied that the various things said and
done throughout were prescribed by tradition; the things
said derived from oral texts that were the product of rote
memorization: the things done—the sequence of actions
on the part of the divinei—the product of a more or less
mechanical process repeated during every consultation.
188 Part III: Moral Epistemology
The more recent influence of performance studies upon
the study of divination has focused attention upon the
unique or distinctive contributions of the individual diviner
and the special relationship-rapport each seeks to establish
with clients. This is because viewing divination as perform­
ance favors and enhances the attention paid to individuality,
creativity, and flexibility on the part of diviners, which
should also be related to persuading clients of their exper­
tise (M. Drewal 1991, 1992: H. Drewal 1994: Peek 1991).
The point of this chapter will be to suggest that, in
addition to appreciating divination as ritual and as perform­
ance, a further essential dimension to the entire process is
the intellectual prowess of the diviner, as defined and iden­
tified by the culture concerned. The evidence presented and
the argument advanced to justify this conclusion will have
to be somewhat circuitous, because I cannot pretend to be a
scholar of divination or of the arts of divination. But phi­
losophers become accustomed to apologizing for being disci­
plinary kibitzers, back-seat drivers who don’t know how to
drive, having to rely upon colleagues in other disciplines for
empirical input that helps to fuel their analyses.
In my own work on philosophy in the context of Yoruba
culture I very early on became dissatisfied with the infor­
mation available on the nature of indigenous discourse about
the intellect in African cultures. There wasn’t enough,
and what there was painted a portrait of a mentality that
was qualitatively very different from that championed by
Western intellectual traditions. It is the nature of that dis­
course that has come to concern me throughout my profes­
sional careei—that and how best to approach the rendering
of it into Western language and idiom.
To enhance my understanding of Yoruba views about
human intelligence I undertook a form of fieldwork, an
undertaking that for some became a source of controversy
(Bodunrin 1981a). I had no qualifications in anthropology
or ethnography, and no excuses for inventing them. So
in undertaking this work I tried to rely exclusively upon
one of the very few academic philosophical traditions and
methods that do license the philosopher to undertake empiri­
cal research. As has been previously indicated, that tradition
Variations on a Theme: Ritual, Performance, Intellect 189
is known as ordinary language philosophy. It encourages
philosophers to study the meanings of philosophically rel­
evant or prepossessive fields of discourse in any language by
studying the semantic conventions that govern the usage
of crucial terms in ordinary, everyday speech (Austin 1962a:
1962b).
As also was outlined in a previous chapter, with the help
of a gifted and extraordinarily dedicated Chief Research
Assistant, I was able to set up shop in a village in Ekiti and
to enlist the active participation of a dozen local herbal­
ists, alternative medicinal doctors, or “masters of medicine”
iomsegim)—chosen because in the opinion of local resi­
dents they were said to be more knowledgeable about the
culture than most. My status in this community became and
remained that of the struggling lexicographer. I worked at
identifying networks of philosophically relevant terms, for
example the putative Yoruba equivalents for the English-
language “knowledge” and “belief.” I then tried the patience
of the om'segiin by concentrating on the conventions and
criteria governing their usage, sometimes for years at a
time, by asking why in such-and-such a situation it would
be incorrect to say “l know” rather than that “I believe,” or
“I believe” rather than “l know,” etc. As a result one conse­
quence of the overall research project was that I was able to
become familiar with the criteria on the basis of which the
Yoruba evaluate and grade the reliability of different types
of information (Hallen and Sodipo 1997).
What most obviously entitles me to say somethings at
least related to expertise in divination is the fact that the
individuals from whom I learned these things were and are
herbalists, om^egun. What is the relationship between the
diviner and the herbalist in Yoruba culture, between the
babalawo and the on{$egim1 As is often the case it is dif­
ficult to generalize about an entire culture in this regard.
But in this particular Ekiti village there was no resident Ifa
diviner, and so I can safely say that the herbalists, by force
of circumstance if nothing else had assumed the divination
function with regard to the general population.
I should also confess that I am somewhat sympathetic to
the postmodern suggestion that it may be beneficial to look
 190 Part III: Moral Epistemology
at African studies in Western academic institutions as some­
thing other than an objective exercise carried out by disci­
plines governed by rigorous methodologies.* To use a visual
metaphor, I see African studies as a relationship whereby two
different cultures are trying to dance together, but each is
moving to its own distinctive rhythms and music. For the
philosopher of language, African studies is of interest as an
arena where very different language-cultures are trying to
communicate by expressing some of the most technical and
sophisticated meanings of the one in the language of the
other. If one of the marvels of human genius is that every
language may embody semantic networks that are unique to
it, then it is healthier to regard exercises in intercultural
translation as experimental rather than definitive. I hope
to carry that experimental program one step further with
this chapter.
Wande Abimbola, in his many publications about Ifa divi­
nation, aims at illuminating the performative dimensions
of Ifa divination in Yoruba culture (1975, 1976, 1977), and at
illustrating the conservative constraints and creative liber­
ties that apply to the artistry involved. He also outlines
certain criteria that may be used to assess Ifa divination
when viewed as performance, and how the criteria could
result in one diviner’s expertise being rated better than
another’s (chapter 7 above: Abimbola 2000).
The oni$egun sometimes undertook divination, mainly by
means of kolanuts,^ as part of the general counseling process
they offered their client-patients. But their form of divi­
nation involves a much less technical exercise by comparison
with the instruments and remarkable literary corpus that
pertain to Ifa (Abimbola 1977: Bascom 1980). However, in a
sense they too perform, and in certain contexts they out­
lined to me a variety of behavioral standards on the basis of
which they were able to rate one another’s “performances.”
One point I want to emphasize is that these standards are
as much intellectual and even moral as they are artistic. I
think most people would agree that intelligence plays a key
role in the gifted performer’s artistry.
The intellectual character of the ‘traditional’ African
mentality, and the portrayal of conscious articulated African
Variations on a Theme: Ritual, Performance, Intellect 191
attitudes towards human intelligence, have both been very
delicate and very controversial topics in the past. Adjectival
attributions like “prereflective,” “protorational,” and “pre-
scientific” effectively wrote Africa off the philosophical
map and, for some scholars, even the rational map.
The dimension to divination that I hope to elaborate
revolves around the question of the type of person who
would be likely to give the best performance as a diviner.
Abimbola’s choice of words in his publications is of interest
here. When he wants to rate a babalawo highly, he refers
to him as accomplished.” But what sort of person might
the Yoruba regard as more likely to be so accomplished? Or,
to try and put my point another way, what sort of behav­
ior would the Yoruba associate with diviners regarded as
capable of giving the most talented performances? Recalling
Abimbola’s complaints about his problems with collecting
Ifa verses in either recorded or written form, let’s begin
with the following remark made by one of the om$egiin.
The topic under discussion was whether a person of only
very average intelligence could become a skilled herbalist:
It is possible, but his [the ordinary person’s] medi­
cine will not be as effective as that of those who
have been “given by Qlqrun.” Such people, those
given by Qlt^run,” don’t forget the prescriptions.
They will understand [what is wrong] as soon as you
begin to complain to them. They will not bother
to write anything down. Those who are not “given
by Qlqrun” write all things down. They have to
learn [them] by heart so that they will not forget.
This is because they are not “gifted.” People like us
don t write medicine down, but we know it.
Qlqrun is the supreme deity (analogous to the Christian
God or the Muslim Allah) of the Yoruba. The phrase “given
by Qlqrun” is of special interest. When 1 had just begun
to study Yoruba culture, if called upon to interpolate it, I
probably would have said that this is a way of referring
to a person s destiny (ori)—of explaining why it happens
that some people are more successful than others. (As was
indicated in an earlier chapter, the Yoruba believe that every
human being contains most essentially a spirit or soul {qmi)
 192 Part III: Moral Epistemology
that will be reincarnated an indefinite number of times.
Before each incarnation the is given the opportunity to
choose the destiny (or/) that will apply to its next lifetime.
A destiny (or/) may generally be said to encompass every
event of significance that takes place during an individual
lifetime.) And there the matter would have rested, at least
as far as my exposition of this passage’s meaning would
have been concerned. In this essay I am going to suggest
that we interpret this “given by Qlqrun” phrase as also
meaning superior intelligence and ability.
Within the general class of all human being, that there
can be extraordinary persons should imply that there is
some common measure or basis on which they may be dis-
tinguished from one another and from the ordinary person.
I would suggest that for the Yoruba it is the pm/, inii or
self ’ of the person that provides this basis:
It is the self i^mi) which makes man behave {hii
iwa) as he does. It is the which makes a man
behave in a good manner or in a bad manner.
It is the number of ^mi'/inu, the number of “selves,” attrib­
uted to a single person that also becomes an index of supe­
rior intelligence and ability:
There are some [people] with two “selves” (em/):
a/¥ [one distinctive type of extraordinary person]
has two selves (em/).^ The 050 [a second type of
extraordinary person] has three emi. Those we
regard as wise people have four §mi [yet another].
The strongest alujandn [a fourth type of extraor­
dinary person] has seven ^mi, and every one [of
the constitutive pmi] has its own duty to perform.
Someone with seven will be more powerful
than someone with [only] one. It’s like someone
who has many servants, because they can do much
more work than someone with no servants.
Aj4, o$6, “wise people,” and alujanun are each the name of a
special class or category of persons. In this chapter inter­
est will center on the distinguishing characteristics of the
alujanun,^ and on the consequences if such a person were to
become a diviner (baba/awo) or a herbalist ion{$egiin).
Variations on a Theme: Ritual, Performance, Intellect 193
What is of particular interest in the above passage is that
extraordinary types of persons are said to be distinguished
from the ordinary because they possess multiple em///nu
or ■ selves. The form of diagrammatic representation
suggested is that of an inverted pyramid, with ordinary
persons, described as having one “self” (on/ inu/pmi), at the
bottom and the most extraordinary, the alujanun, described
as having seven “selves,” at the top.
Another distinguishing characteristic of the various
personality-types is said to be their “powers” (agbira)-
This is the point where the creator {^l4daY has
limited our power (agbara), while it does not limit
the power of others. We both have selves
but he makes theirs more powerful. He made their
self {4mi) double. You know there is some cloth
which will cost one Naira a yard, while there is
another kind which will cost double that. There are
many things we use, such as the bicycle, which are
superior to others. We can compare this to those
who have more power (agbara) than the rest [i.e.,
they have a special kind of 4ml that is superior to
others].
But such power is also said to be a consequenee of intel­
ligence and ability:
This is their thought (era <?kan), which they use to
do everything.
I don t know (mp), but those who are intelligent
(gbQn) [would], that is those who know “here” and
“there” [have more than one hml/indl.
There are very few people who can do this. Because
it can be done by people who are very intelligent
igbgn daadaa).
The Europeans (6yinb6) support themselves with
“selves” (inu) which they “turn” [control: apply]
to certain kinds of power (agbara) to make certain
things [technology like the airplane and the auto­
mobile] which surprise us. . . . There are some
people who have that kind of power, but they use
it to draw the rain.’ And there are some people who
also know the medicine to prevent the rain from
 194 Part III: Moral Epistemology
falling. There are medicines which are used to do
all these things, and this kind of wisdom (pgjbpn)
has been in the world for a long time.
What might be the reasoning underlying discourse that
attributes superior intelligence, ability, and invention to
the presence of multiple selves? Are we faced with schizo­
phrenia and Yoruba semantics for multiple personalities?
Choosing that as our course would introduce unnecessary
and erroneous complications. Although it certainly is true,
as is the case with the Western psychological “self,” that
the ^mi/inii is not regarded as materialistic or physical in
conventional terms:
If it were possible to see the “self” (?mi) physi­
cally, the [Western] doctors would have tried to
remove the “self” (pmi) of a good person (eniyan
rere) who was about to die and use it to replace the
“self” (^mi) of a bad person (eniyan buriikii), so that
eniyan burukd would turn to eniyan rere. I think
this would change the behavior of someone who
did not behave well. Then I think he/she would
behave as eniyan rere.
To continue, why choose this form of discourse to express
extraordinary intelligence and ability? In a eonceptual system
where the notion of the “person” is of fundamental impor­
tance, it would make good sense and certainly be consist­
ent to express the remarkable attributes of unusually gifted
individuals as the consequences of additives to the base rate of
the intelligence and ability attributed to the ordinary person.
How do people express analogous meanings in Western ver­
nacular? Someone has more brain cells? A higher I. Q.?
All of the on{$egiin concurred that superior intelligence
and ability cannot be taught. It is inborn, pertaining to
what in English-language culture is sometimes referred to
as native” intelligence. It is a fact of life that human beings
do differ, sometimes markedly, from one another in terms
of their native intelligence or I.Q. It is perhaps in part to
account for these differences that the Yoruba attribute such
disparities to a person’s destiny (or/inu). And this too makes
perfect sense as a way to explain how two different selves
(emi) which, in principle, should be somehow equal simply
Variations on a Theme: Ritual, Performance, Intellect 195
by virtue of both being selves (?mi), can turn out in the
course of a single lifetime to display very different levels
of inborn or native intelligence, with all the consequences
that may entail. That such differences may be attributed
to their respective destinies in one particular incarnation is
certainly a way of representing intelligence as inborn. In a
belief system where every individual is said to undergo an
indefinite series of reincarnations, who would want to be
faced with the prospect of being a less intelligent person
throughout them all? Hence each choice of a new destiny
also gives the “self” a chance® to improve upon its “native”
intelligence and abilities.
It was Tack Goody (1977) who posed the topical ques­
tion: Intellectuals in Primitive Societies?” His response on
the basis of, as always, literacy was not very positive. And
perhaps because the title “intelleetual” is so directly associ­
ated with literacy and the “book” in Western culture, this
particular term does not provide a comfortable cross-cultural
frame of reference. Yet if intellect as a term is also used to
refer to cognition, to the power(s) of human understanding,
certainly persons regarded as exceptionally gifted in Yoruba
culture exemplify this in a superior manner—with all that
implies about knowing and “believing”—in comparison to
ordinary persons. In which case perhaps it is the connota­
tions that have come to be attached to use of the term
intellectual in Western culture that must be chastened so
that its meaning can extend to oral cultures. I have searched
my thesaurus for alternatives and Intermediaries that fall
anywhere between “smart” and “genius,” but I have not
found any other that expresses optimal cognition in a more
suitable manner. The aliijaniin personality-type, therefore,
becomes my candidate in Yoruba discourse for the equivalent
to genius in English-language usage.
If one refers to what is sometimes described as the bible
of the Yoruba language, the well-known dictionary com­
piled by R. C. Abraham, the only English-language transla­
tion suggested for the word aluj'aniin is “evil spirit” (p. 52).
How is one to reconeile this with the obviously contrary
attributes associated with this term by the om$egiinl I don’t
think it is possible. This is simply another example of how
196 Part III: Moral Epistemology
mistakes will inevitably occur when translating abstract
terms between very different language cultures.
Abraham does go on to suggest that the word in Yoruba
derives from the Hausa language aljannu, which in turn is
said to derive from Arabic. The Arabic word apparently
involved would be janna, which in turn is derived from
yajinnu, which a footnote to my copy of the Koran (1983,
319, footnote 929) defines as “to be covered or hidden.” And
yajinnu also happens to be the root of the Arabic jinn or
jinni, from which the English-language “genie” and eventu­
ally “genius” did in fact evolve!
On the inverted pyramid used to rank the relative
powers of the special personality-types, the aliijanun get
the highest rating with “seven selves” and therefore occupy
the uppermost stratum. That having seven selves is equiva­
lent to superior intellect and ability becomes clear from the
behavioral characteristics® recounted by the om'$egun‘
Those that can know (mi>) things best are those
we call aliijanun. These are the people whom others
will come to and ask whether the path they want
to trace is good.
There are some people who will say something and
it will be [happen] like that. When he says so, it
will happen like that. And you can call this kind
of person any kind of name. They will say he is a
“genius” (aluj'aniin). . . . That he has seen everything
before he pronounces it. Later on nobody will try
to disprove whatever he says. They will not want
to conclude a discussion until he is there. They will
say he is in the best position to say which one is
good [e.g., which plan or program].
But those who have “genius” {aliijanun) usually
possess the most effective medicine ioogiin), and
the people [general public] will be making com­
ments that those people are not ordinary babalawo,
that they do not use the “naked” [ordinary] eye to
do what they are doing.
In all three of these passages the om^egun are describing
the most skilled and talented of their number (although
reference is also made to the Ifa diviner or babalawo). That
Variations on a Theme: Ritual, Performance, Intellect 197
such persons can be identified by their superior intellec­
tual powers as displayed via (verbal and non-verbal) behavior
means that there are certain forms of behavior associated
with being aliijantin-
This is only possible by listening to their words
and knowing (mo) what they’re doing . . . [i.e.,
recognizing] that they behave differently and can
do extraordinary things. It is through their works
that we know they are a different kind of person
{eniyan).
These are the people we call aliijanun. They will say
that man is aliijantin. Those who see (ri) how he
behaves {hiiwa) and how he talks (sprp)—people will
say he is a good aliijantin.
That such superior intelligence and ability is inborn or
“native” also was made clear’
You cannot just become aliijantin [via lessons, teach­
ing, etc.].
What more precisely is it about their “seven selves” that
is thought to enable such genius to demonstrate its superior
ability (without having to invoke “spirits” or the supernat­
ural)? When one of the om'$egun was trying to express what
goes on inside the person (emi'/inu) and, by implication, the
mind (okan) of an aliijanun he said the following:
They merely listen and hear the voice, but they
don’t see (ri) and they don’t know imp).
The phrasing again is remarkable. One cannot help but be
struck by the epistemic framework outlined by these terms
of reference. The ideas the aliijanun comes by,are not knowl­
edge (imp) in the conventional sense—what one ordinarily
perceives and comprehends. It is much more intimate, per­
sonal, cerebral, intellectual:
He should have seen the idi (reason: “bottom” of
the matter) of what he wants to use the medi­
cine (obgiin) for. If you come to ask something
from me now, I can tell you to go and come back.
I will put that thing in mind (p/can). And when I
foresee (r/rpn) it, if it is something that will not
198 Part III: Moral Epistemology
be possible, I will say so [i.e., in the interim he will
use the aliijanun to look into it {rirgn here having
the sense of assessing something’s future feasibil­
ity and efficacy)] and be able to tell the person
the answei—whether it is possible or not—when
they return. If it is good, I will tell you to go
there [do it]—that there is nothing [no problem].
It means that I’ve used my [cognitive powers of]
understanding and insight (ojii inu) to see (wo) it.
As ajp and aliijanun, any medicine which I put my
hands on must be good.
Why might this not amount to the description of an
intellectual process similar to what geniuses undergo when
reflecting deeply on problems, eventually to arrive at solu­
tions on the basis of their personal, superior intellectual
prowess? The rhetorical trappings of Yoruba discourse, the
metaphors and images used to describe a person’s intellect
and reflective powers may differ,'® but their sense when
viewed in a systematic context such as this argue for cogni­
tion and the idea of intellect being a basis for knowledge.
From the above, I conclude that a representative English-
language rendering of aliijanun is that it refers to people
of superior intelligence, talent, and ability. Those who come
to be regarded as aliijanun represent the highest intellectual
tier of Yoruba society and culture, and therefore should also
constitute the best herbalists and diviners.
1 am stressing the intellectual dimension to this term
because this is a dimension to traditional African thought
that generally goes underreported. Whether “perform­
ing” an Ifa recitation as babalawo, or counseling a client-
patient as om'$egiin, the aliijanun represents a paradigm of
the attributes associated with superior intelligence, ability,
and moral character that are discussed in detail in chapter
9, above. These involve being epistemologically scrupulous
about what one knows or understands: being both a good
listener and speaker (in the special case of the babalawo,
during a consultation, the emphasis would fall upon recit­
ing and interpreting /fa in a perceptive manner rather than
mere performative artistry and elocution): and maintaining
a calm, controlled persona and thereby an optimally cogni­
zant intellect and physical senses. It is the recitations of the
Variations on a Theme: Ritual, Performance, Intellect 199
babalawo or om$egiin who displays, or is reputed to display,
all of these qualities whose “performance” would be most
deeply informed by artistic excellence. Elocution alone, even
when of a superior quality, should not be enough to earn an
individual the reputation of aliijanun.
In the course of the divination process it may be Ifa
who “speaks,” but it is a human being in the person of the
babalawo who interprets what Ifa says. This is where and
when the divine and the human come together, and in the
person of the aliijanun they eome together in the most posi­
tive possible artistic and intellectual manner.
NOTES
1. See chapters 14 and 15.
2. See chapter 15.
3. “Kolanut remains the choicest present and offering on all
occasions: no ceremony or function, ancient or modern, is
complete without it. Its antiquity and usefulness are further
attested to in its being entrenched in the life and thought of
the people as one of the important symbols used for divina­
tion” (Ojo 1966, 52-3).
4. For a more extended discussion of the aj^ as a personality-
type, see chapter 11.
5. English-language phonetic pronunciation as in: “a-loo-ja-noon.”
6. Another expression for the supreme deity.
7. It is what such power(s) and intelligence may be used to do,
or how they may be evidenced in empirical terms, which test
the limits of Western credibility. Such disputed limits to
the empirical will be the subject of a further study devoted
to the cultural relativities of the distinction between the
natural and the supernatural.
8. In certain respects trying to choose a good destiny becomes
as daunting as trying to choose the winning number in a
lottery.
9. I was reliably informed that no one under the age of thirty
is likely to be referred to as aliijanun.
10. Oju inu may be translated literally as “inside eye,” but is this
so different from the English language “in-sight?”
 CHAPTER 11

"WITCHES" AS SUPERIOR INTELLECTS:

CHALLENGING A CROSS-CULTURAL
SUPERSTITION
iven there are many subjects and issues fundamental to
G a better appreciation of Africa’s cultural heritage that
have scarcely been touched upon by scholarship, why does
“witchcraft” so frequently recur as a topic for discussion?
Of what intrinsic merit can it now be, especially given the
innumerable past occasions when it has been used to type
Africa’s cultures as backward? 1 think some of the con­
cerns expressed by African scholars, which for some time
■;. were responsible for witchcraft’s being relegated to a back
i burner, are worth repeating. Is it acceptable to presume
that witchcraft is a culturally universal phenomenon, so
that what the word was used to mean and to refer to in
the West is substantially the same as what this English-
i
1
language term is used to refer to in Africa today? And the
reverse, of course.
Is witchcraft wherever it occurs essentially a supersti­
tion? By this I mean that it is better regarded as a belief
expressive of what Kwasi Wiredu has termed “folk philoso­
phy” (Wiredu 1980, 37-50)—beliefs arrived at and defended
on the basis of less than satisfactory reasoning and empiri­
cal evidence, and therefore best not singled out as typical of
any culture’s intellectual heritage? In short, given the above,
what possible defense can be made for devoting time and
energy to continued discussion of African “witchcraft?”
Presumably the only acceptable justification would be
that there are new insights, hypotheses, or data that will
lead to a more profound understanding of it. But if certain
African beliefs that, for lack of a more precise term, schol­
arship has termed witchcraft do amount to something other
202 Part III: Moral Epistemology
or more than mere superstition, is it then fair or repre­
sentative to bundle them together and continue to translate
them into the English language with this term, since it is
so fundamentally associated with the category of supersti­
tion?
These introductory misgivings articulated, 1 would like
to begin by sharing some memories from the time when I
attempted to make the witchcraft phenomenon in African
scholarship the topic of a course in African philosophy
that 1 taught to third- or junior-year students at the then
University of Ife, Nigeria. The students themselves were
the first to complain. How could this be a philosophical
topic, they wondered? As a popular and stereotypical belief
or superstition it could be summarized in fairly straight­
forward fashion. But how could it be made any more the­
oretical or reflective than that, they asked? 1 suggested
that one way would be to demonstrate that approaching
the topic from the standpoints of different scholarly dis­
ciplines could result in very different explanations of it.
And immediately proceeded to recruit some of my more
senior Nigerian colleagues in other departments or faculties
to come and lecture us on this apparently theoretically banal
subject.
Our first guest lecturer was the Head of the Department
of Sociology and Anthropology in the Faculty of Social
Sciences. This professor was and is a recognized authority
on Yoruba culture, and in his presentation he more or less
elaborated upon the theme that the individuals a society
identified as witches were those who had already trans­
gressed or been assigned the role of social outcasts, devi­
ants, and/or eccentrics and therefore did not fit models of
conventional human behavior. As such his approach seemed
to parallel that of Mary Douglas in her Purity and Danger,
although 1 do not in the least mean to suggest that was the
source from which this colleague derived inspiration for his
approach to the topic.
Our second guest lecturer was the Head of Religious
Studies in the Faculty of Arts. He spoke to the students
eloquently, at times in a sermon-like manner, of witchcraft
as a universally subversive and evil fraternity headed by the
“Witches” as Superior Intellects: Challen^ng a Cross-Cultural Superstition 203
Devil, and dedicated to making life as miserable as possible
for as many human beings as possible. But he wound up on
a very positive note, maintaining that his Christian faith
and God were more than enough “protection” so that he
personally remained fearless.
The third guest lecturer was the then Head of the
Department of Medicine and Mental Health in the Faculty
of Medicine. Also a serious student of Yoruba culture, this
colleague was a practicing psychiatrist. He portrayed con­
fessed “witches” as mentally ill because they were suffer­
ing from a form of acute depression that compelled them
at a certain point to break down and confess to any number
of heinous but manifestly empirically impossible crimes
against humanity.
The students’ predictable initial reaction to these three
compelling but apparently irreconcilable scenario’s was to
ask who or which one is right? And when 1 reminded them
that this was a question each of them individually, as stu­
dents of philosophy, would have to resolve to their own sat­
isfaction, they groaned aloud, observing that the dependable
trademark of philosophy always was more questions rather
than more answers.
This isn’t quite the end of the story. For it just so hap­
pened that our External Examiner to the Philosophy Depart­
ment that year was a professor from Ghana. (For those
who may not be familiar with the past of the Nigerian
educational system, an External Examiner was a recognized
scholar in the relevant discipline who visited at the end
of the academic year to look over the departmental teach-
syllabus and a sampling of the final exams written by
students with the aim of confirming or improving, rather
than reproving, the department s educational program gen­
erally.) As it turned out this professor did have a special
concern about my course on witchcraft and diplomatically, as
always, at one point took me aside to express it. His concern,
he said, was whether one could treat this topic in a genu­
inely philosophical manner if students in the course already
really believed in it? But 1 believe his concern was somewhat
mollified when 1 told him that the students themselves had
asked me a question similar to his at the beginning of the
204 Part III; Moral Epistemology
course, and when I for good measure added the account of
the three guest lecturers that I have just shared with you.
This trip down memory lane is meant to have some
scholarly consequence as well. For in the course of those
labors, along with my late colleague, coauthor, and friend T.
Olubi Sodipo, I was striving to arrive at my own revisionist
approach to the subject of witchcraft in Yoruba society and
culture. And I will continue by saying something about the
manner in which I now better understand how 1 arrived at
that approach, as well as some of my deliberately tentative
suggestions (rather than conclusions) relating to African
witchcraft as a topic for scholarship. 1 am stressing this
point about the manner in which I arrived at these sug­
gestions because today, with hindsight, I hope that I have a
better appreciation of how profoundly a scholar’s approach
to a topic may be formed or channeled by the discipline of
which he or she is a product. It may seem trivially true to
say that an anthropologist’s findings will be informed by
her anthropological background, an art historian’s by his
art historical antecedents, and the philosopher’s by philoso­
phy. But the point I’m trying to get across is perhaps a bit
more subtle than this.
It’s not just that we’re guided. It’s also that we think
we're right. There is a feeling of conviction that creeps
in at some point during the process of analysis that influ­
ences if not impels us to feel that our insights have hit
some bulls-eye, and that we really have got at the truth
about whatever phenomenon has been the target of our
research. For example, my discipline—philosophy—places
a premium upon the importance of mind or intellect and
their role in human cognition or understanding. Is it any
great surprise, therefore, that my own approach to the
philosophical study or analysis of “witchcraft” in Yoruba
culture has focused primarily on the supposed intellectual
dispositions and cognitive attributes of “witches” as con­
trasted with other recognized personality-types in Yoruba
culture? I would therefore suggest we take a look at the
supposed witch personality in Yoruba culture from such a
deliberately cognitive perspective.
“Witches” as Superior Intellects: Challenging a Cross-Cultural Superstition 205
The term in Yoruba discourse that has conventionally
been translated into English as “witch” is the word As
should by now be expected, the philosophical approach that
will be applied to Yoruba discourse in this chapter is that
of ordinary language analysis. Research on terminological
usage in Yoruba discourse was carried out through discus­
sions with approximately a dozen herbalists or alternative-
medicine doctors (onlsegim), on an individual basis, in the
same village in the Ekiti region of southwestern Nigeria.
With reference to language usage or discourse relevant to
the present text, the omsegiin were expressly requested to
provide (correct and incorrect) examples of everyday usage
of relevant terms. My first substantial published work
arising from this research. Knowledge, Belief, and Witch­
craft- Analytic Experiments in African Philosophy,^ argues
at length against the summary reduction of the ajc phe­
nomenon to being essentially the same as that of English-
language culture’s “witch,” and against Western scholars
using African cultures as testing grounds for their theories
about Western witchcraft. I cannot help but refer inter­
ested readers to that discussion as a useful background to
what follows.
What this present chapter can try to do is to be more
precise about the behavioral dispositions the Yoruba associate
with the kjc as a personality-type. Knowledge, Belief, and
Witchcraft suggests that there is a popularized stereotype
of the hjc phenomenon in Yoruba society itself. In much of
the literature that discusses the witchcraft phenomenon in
Africa it is this stereotype, a polyglot mixture of African
and Western (principally via the influence of Christian mis­
sionaries) superstitions, that predominate-^for example,
Geoffrey Parrinder’s^ Witchcraft^ European and African.
Some of the false distortions worked upon the Yoruba ajc
as a personality-type by this misguided stereotype are as
follows: ajc generally are presumed to be supernaturally
“evil”: always immoral: ajc are always women: aj? tend to be
identified with Halloweenish trappings of Western witch­
craft (making pacts with the Devil, flying off at night to
meet with their coven, etc.).
206 Part III: Moral Epistemology
Let me proceed to challenge this stereotype on the basis
of the discussions with the om^egiin, step by step.
First, that the aj4 are not supernatural beings=
1. They are human beings (eniyan), just like you
and me.
Second, the herbalists {on{?egiin) made it clear that there
are male aj4 as well as female:
2. I: Is it true that aj4 is more common among the
women?
O: This is not true. We call hj4 the "mother of
children” (1yd kv/gn gmgde}, but this is just because
of fear [it is an euphemism that provides a discreet
way to refer to a potentially dangerous person].
We do not say the “father of children” because
that is not how we refer [not the phrasing of the
conventional idiom] to the ajd-
3. And they [women] have ajd more than men.
4. The same [proportion of men are ajg as are
women]. But there may be many among men.
5. Only the supreme deity (Qlprun) knows that
[whether more ajg are women or men].
Next, that the personality can be eminently morab
6. Ajg are [can be] good persons (eniyan rare). Not all
the aj4 are bad persons (eniyan burtiku). There are
some good ones. Since they do not talk (sprp)[about
it], that is why we cannot differentiate (mg soto)
whether this ajg is good or whether this ajg is bad.
If you and I are going out in [wearing] the same
clothing, people will think that I am someone who
knows book” [because one is literate it would be
assumed that his companion was as well] because
they see us “in the eye” [together]. They will not
know (mg) that I do not know book. That is the
case of ^'g.
7. Not all of them are bad persons (eniyan
burdku). There are some of them . . . who do not
say any cruel (ika) thing. If he or she sees a person
who wants to be cruel, he or she will warn them
"Witches" as Superior Inullects: Challenging a Cross-Cultural Superstition 207
not to do so [i.e., warn off another ajg who is a bad
or immoral person (eniyan buruku)]. And he or she
may tell other persons that the people of that place
are bad—to not go there. There are some good ajg
who may want to warn people, but the listeners
will say that, “Do not mind him or her,” that “He
or she wants a favor from you.” They may say
that he or she is saying that [giving the warning]
because he or she wants palm wine. And some may
say he or she is drunk, whereas he or she wants to
say the truth (dotg). But it may be that this person
does not have many things “in hand” [i.e., that he
or she is not important and so others don’t take his
or her warnings seriously]. There are some people
who have something “in hand” [i.e., who are well-
off] who have aj4. There is nothing which can spoil
their things: they can predict how a matter will be
in a day and it will happen.
8. There are some [ajgl who do good things. Ajg is
not meant to be used in bad ways. Ajg is created so
that the world may progress.
9. The ajg behaves according to how its “self” (gml)
is. Not all of them do bad things. There are some of
them who use their own [intelligence and ability]
to develop life.
10. A “good ajg’ (ajg rere) . . . does not do bad
things—he or she doesn’t kill children. He or she
doesn t create fear in the minds of children ....
They can say he or she is a good ajg. A good ajg (ajg
rere) cannot do anything bad. He or she will be
looking for good things.
11. There are some [ajg\ who behave well, if they
have chosen to be so from heaven (grun).* This type
of ajg will not associate themselves with others \.ajg\
who are known to be bad.
12. There are some ajg whose moral character (iwa)
is good.
13. Sometimes they do good things.
The point of introducing so many quotations to refute the
notion that ajg must be intrinsically immoral is that, if
208 Part III: Moral Epistemology
there can be both bad and good aj?, this means that there
can be both immoral and moral persons who have whatever
is this extraordinary ability.
As was suggested in the preceding chapter,^ in Yoruba
discourse one way in which extraordinary human beings
are said to be distinguished from ordinary human beings is
by the number of selves {^mt/inu) they possess. As was
also pointed out, when reasoning in terms of a personalized
causal model, it makes good sense and certainly is consistent
to express the remarkable attributes of unusually gifted
individuals as the consequences of additives to the base rate
of the intelligence and ability attributed to the ordinary
person.
In the resultant hierarchy the aj4 generally are ranked
on the level just above ordinary human beings (who are
said to have only one self) in that they are said to have two
“selves”
14. These are the people who we can refer to as
having two “selves” —aj4.
15. Aj4 has two “selves” {pmi).
This implies that their “powers” for good or ill are rated as
roughly twice those of the ordinary person. But such powers
are clearly linked to superior intelligence and ability:
16. There are some persons [who], whenever they
say something, it is true. And whenever they
behave, they behave in a very correct way. There
are some people like this who themselves are not
aware of it. Other people recognize [them]. People
may call them . . . aj4, and it is possible that they
are . . . [not]. There are some aj4 who recognize
themselves as such and [other] people know that
they are aj4- There are some people who receive
great profit from whatever they do. These [people]
may not be aj4 or any of these [other special types
of] people.
17. This [oju fnul® is [pertains to] the thought (erb)
of the mind (qkan). This is what we call Qginrin-
ringinrin [not in the standard dictionary but can
be equated with 'insight” and “predictive ability”].
When all these small things combine to the knowl-
“Witches” as Superior IntellecU: Challenging a Cross-Cultural Superstition 209
edge of someone, they call that kind of person aj4
because he or she always says the truth. His or her
words never miss.
18. There are some people who are not aj4, but they
behave ihiiwa) like aj4- The supreme deity (Qlgrun)
has given some people intelligence (oye), even more
than the aj4/ Some people are not aj4, but they
have supporters who are aj4. These are the kinds
of things which make it difficult to recognize aj4-
Some aj4 reveal secrets and things that will happen
[in future] to other persons {eniyan). They give
warnings to other persons (eniyan) that they will
deal with them if they do not behave in the way
they like. It is very easy for aj4 to deal with other
persons who are not aj4- . . . This shows how pow­
erful they are. It is very difficult to know [distin­
guish] an aj4 from an ordinary person (oni inu).
19. As some people are more powerful (lagbara jij)
than others, so also their intuitive insight (ojii inu)
is more powerful. There will be two [eyes] outside
and two inside. We call them aj4- You see (ri) that he
or she will be more powerful than someone with
[only] two [two eyes, not two pun]. Some people can
sit down here and may know what is happening
down there [on the other side of the town]. Some
people may open their eyes now [speaking of aj4
and referring to their normal, physical eyes]—tliey
have gone. Their intuitive insight (oju inu) may be
seeing other places. We call them aj4}
At this point I would like to elaborate upon another
thesis intimated in Knowledge, Belief, and Witchcraft (115-
16). All of the om$egiin concurred that the superior intel­
ligence and ability associated with the aj4 cannot be taught.
Again as outlined in the preceding chapter,® a person’s talents
and abilities in a particular lifetime may be linked to their
destiny (or/ inu) in that particular lifetime:
20. These [aj4\ are also persons (eniyan). But the aj4
[ability] has been created with them when they
were coming from heaven (grun). They chose this
as a [destiny] because they liked it.
210 Part III: Moral Epistemology
This would mean that the talents and abilities that are the
product of an individual’s destiny in a particular lifetime
may either be (possibly dramatically) increased or dimin­
ished, in subsequent lifetimes depending upon the destinies
chosen. This then becomes one way in which the Yoruba are
able to explain such inborn, God-given differences between
individuals.
If the foregoing serves to rehabilitate the aj^ as a general,
if exceptional, personality-type, I can now proceed to detail
the more specific types of immoral and moral behavior asso­
ciated with it. What should distinguish such behavior is its
scale or degree, in that the aj? is capable of doing greater
good or greater bad than the ordinary person. It has already
been established that the aj? s talents may be applied to
advance positive moral interests. So first let us take a look
at some examples of immoral behavior that the om^egiin
associated with the aj4.
Although it may seem redundant to some, the first point
to establish is that the aj4 personality can be associated with
a morally bad person {eniyan burukii)-
21. The aj4 may also be an immoral person (eniyan
burukd).
22. The aj4 do bad things because they don’t like
people (eniyan).
23. The difference between them is that the aj4
behaves badly to other persons without any cause
at all, while the ordinary person will have a reason
for their behavior.
With all that implies about having to conceal themselves from
moral persons:
24. Aj4 are just like thieves, because no one who is a
thief would tell others that he was. So also aj4 will
not reveal their identity to any person.
25. Yes, but there are some people [who are aj4\ who
appear dull (gp- “stupid,” “dull,” “foolish”).
26. It is very difficult to know [distinguish] an ajp
for [from] an ordinary person (dm inu).
“Witches” as Superior Intellects: Challenging a Cross-Cultural Superstition 211
Consequently the bad or immoral ajp become very difficult
to identify:
27. They spoil the work of other people, but people
cannot see them because they follow the path of
darkness.
28. It is very difficult to recognize ajp . . . because
we don’t know what their thought is [what they’re
thinking “inside”].
Another relevant topic that was raised in Knowledge,
Belief, and Witchcraft is why it must be the case that moral
persons who are “blessed” with these superior abilities also
apparently must conceal themselves from the general public.
For it certainly is the case that people do not go about in
conventional Yoruba society introducing themselves as aj^.
The explanation suggested for this then was as follows:
Extraordinary ability also demands extraordinary
responsibility. The good ajp recognizes that ordi­
nary people cannot be expected to understand or to
accomplish as much as he or she can. For this reason
he or she cannot expect that, if he or she were to
reveal his or her knowledge to them, they would
use it responsibly and at the same time honour him
or her as the intellectual and spiritual leader he or
she would deserve to be. More likely, because the
basis for his or her special abilities is something
that cannot be shared or taught [i.e., is the product
of inborn or native intelligence], ordinary people
would come to fear him or her and take whatever
steps they could to control or restrain him or her.
So, even the good ajp must conceal him or herself.
He or she may still exercise his or her powers for
the benefit of the community, but only in»a delib­
erately indirect manner. (116)
Supplementary remarks made by the om$egiin seem to
support this interpretation:
29. But it is the ajp who knows the ones that
are not good (kd dara) [who can recognize other
immoral ajpi, but they cannot say it openly. If he
or she says it openly, people will say that he or
212 Part III: Moral Epistemology
she is “prophesying” (ka> behaving in a potentially
dangerous manner).
Even if, as we shall see shortly, there are certain firsthand
manifestations of good moral character (iwa rere) that may
be attributed to the aj^.
Certain forms of immoral behavior can be associated
with the aj4 as a personality-type:
30. They will behave like ajp. For instance, if people
complain that ^'4 are troubling them, rather than
sympathizing with them the aj4 will say they are
not concerned, that no aj4 could come to them, that
they are free from all aj4-
And of moral behavior'
31. If he or she sees a person who wants to be cruel,
he or she will warn them not to do so [i.e., warn
another aj4 who is a bad or immoral person (eniyan
burtiku)]. And he or she may tell other persons that
the people of that place are bad—to not go there.
There are some good aj4 who may want to warn
people.”
32. Some aj4 reveal secrets and things that will
happen [in future] to other persons (Sniyan). They
[also] give warnings to other persons (hniyan), that
they will deal with them if they do not behave in
the way they like.”
I anticipate that this attempt to rehabilitate the intellee-
tual and soeial standing of what has commonly been inter­
preted as the witehcraft phenomenon in Yoruba culture,
the aj4, will be received with grave reservations by scholars
who are persuaded by the more orthodox portrayals of the
aj4 literally as the “witch.” 1 would remind them that the
oni^hgiin with whom I was privileged to hold these diseus-
sions were themselves stigmatized with the title “witch
doctor,” with all of the intellectual scorn that term implied.
If use of that term has been suspended because of a better
appreciation of their genuine abilities, why should the same
not be the case with the use of witches as a name for persons
(refleeting the personalized eausal model) whose abilities and
talents elearly exceed those of the ordinary human being?
“Witches" as Superior Intellects: Challen^ng a Cross-Cultural Superstition 213
NOTES
1. English-language phonetic pronunciation as in' ah-jay.
2. Hallen and Sodipo 1997. For a more detailed discussion of mate­
rial relevant to cognition and personality types in Yoruba
culture, see Hallen 2000b.
3. Geoffrey Parrinder, I have repeatedly been reminded by
anthropological colleagues, is not a social anthropologist.
4. As has been pointed out, the Yoruba believe in reincarnation,
and think that every self is given the chance in “heaven” to
choose the destiny that will govern its lifetime before being
reborn into the world.
5. See pp. 193-8 above.
6. The “picturing” powers of this faculty are sometimes linked
to the paranormal, so that it takes on vestiges of “second
sight,” or of foreseeing the future in a supernatural manner.
But the remarks of the omsegiin give equal weight to ren­
dering the oju inti into English as “insight,” when defined
by the Concise Oxford English Dictionary as “penetration
[via the intellect] into character, circumstances, etc. with
the understanding.” One of the most valued consequences of
such insight would be more acute predictive and explanatory
powers.
7. Qlgrun is the supreme deity who approves or enacts whatever
destiny the individual happens to choose.
8. Whether this is interpreted as evidence of natural (exceptional
insight and an acute predictive ability) or supernatural (clair­
voyance, prescience) talents need not be a point of concern
for the present discussion.
9. See p. 192 above.
10. As a ruse, to disguise themselves.
11. This is a restatement of a portion of quotation no. 7 above.
12. This is a restatement of a portion of quotation no. 18 above.
 Part IV

Aesthetics
CHAPTER 12

THE AFRICAN ART HISTORIAN

AS CONCEPTUAL ANALYST

INTRODUCTION
ne of the enduring characterizations of indigenous
O African cultures is that they were insignificantly criti­
cal or reflective in character. Therefore, although they may
have produced interesting works of art or religious world­
views, it is presumed that if one were to have enquired
of the people why they styled a piece of sculpture in a
certain way or why they maintained a certain belief, ulti­
mately their articulated response would have amounted to
nothing more than “because we’ve always done it this way”
or “because this is the way the forefathers did it.” It is at
least partially for this reason that some Africanists argue
that these cultures express their abstract ideas in symbolic,
poetic, or literary forms. By this they mean that reasons
given or explanations made for why something' was done
or believed were in the form of appeals to historical tradi­
tions (via oral history, stories, or proverbs, etc.) rather than
discursive arguments.
However, academics who make these cultures their pro­
fessional concern do prefer to use discursive arguments
and other analytic techniques (rather than p'roverbs) when
explaining them in lectures and publications. The result has
come to be an increasingly distinct and unfortunate polarity
between' (1) the poetic-symbolic level of expression assumed
appropriate to indigenous peoples; (2) a second, meta-explan-
story level on which Africanists and other scholars, using
their own discursive, analytic techniques (e.g., structural-
functionalism), try to provide more satisfactory reasons for
why such people believe what they can only say they do.
218 Part IV: Aesthetics
In the study of African arts this second, meta-explana-
tory level has produced theories such as William Fagg’s
principle of dynamism, which explains sculptural forms as
potent symbols of growth and increase (Fagg 1963, 122-
24), and led to the adaptation of Western-derived classifica-
tory terms such as preclassical, classical, and postclassical
to group certain African plastic traditions [Fagg (on Benin)
1965: Willett 1967], No doubt these have been of value in
organizing the material and suggesting certain important
relationships. However, the point remains that ultimately
the operative categories are not generally significant or
meaningful to those whose work they are being applied.*
This polarity has been challenged by Professor Robert
Farris Thompson in a stimulating and provocative series of
papers and monographs (1971a, 1971b, 1973a, 1973b, 1974,
1984). He has argued that at least one “traditional” people,
the Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria, do articulate and
defend a group of concepts or terms that are central to the
critical value judgments they make about art in their own
society. This means, then, that rather than having to rely
solely upon the external, somewhat intuitive, hypotheses of
the academic art historian, it may also be possible to study
the critical concepts applied by traditional peoples them­
selves to view” their art as they do and thereby learn to
appreciate the indigenous standards that apply during its
conception and use.
The primary concern of this chapter is to examine criti­
cally Professor Thompson’s interpretation of Yoruba aes­
thetic thought, primarily in terms of the kinds of evidence
he presents and the arguments he makes from it. For the
onus is upon him to convince us first, that the Yoruba do
think critically in such terms, and second, that his report­
ing/interpretation of their thought on this plane is accu­
rate. To this end Thompson’s arguments will be considered
on two different levels. The first, and in a sense most basic,
level may be described as that of explicit references (to
the Yoruba-language aesthetic criteria) or direct quotations
(from Yoruba informants making aesthetic judgments):
the second as that of the Aesthetic of the Cool (the most
The African Art Historian as ConceptualAnalyst 219
fundamental Yoruba aesthetic and philosophical principle) as
expressed by Yoruba art and, finally, philosophy.
Though this chapter will limit itself to what Thompson
says of the Yoruba^ at each of these stages, this is not to
ignore the fact that he has gone on to expand and incorporate
his Yoruba material into a general African or Afro-American
aesthetics and philosophy as well. Nevertheless, the more spe­
cific criticisms made here should apply, mutatis mutandis, to
the more general as well.
EXPLICIT REFERENCES AND DIRECT QUOTATIONS
If Thompson’s claims regarding the existence of Yoruba
aesthetic concepts are to be substantiated, and if we are to
be able (at least somewhat) to view their art “as they do,”
then one would expect to find the relevant words in the
Yoruba language identified and explained in his published
works, as well as illustrations of critical judgments incor­
porating them. This Thompson does attempt to do, though
his claims as to the meanings of these aesthetic concepts and
judgments far exceed the evidence he presents.
“Yoruba critics are experts of strong mind and articulate
voice who measure in words the quality of works of art”
(1973b, 19). Thompson names eighteen aesthetic criteria^ that
he says Yoruba critics* display in ordinary discourse. “Eight­
een indigenous criteria of sculptural excellence. . . . Each cri­
terion, a named abstraction, defines the categories of excel­
lence by which Yoruba recognize the presence of art” (1973b,
29). But upon closer examination one comes to wonder, for at
least seven of the eighteen,® by exactly whom it is they are
named. For in terms of the data Thompson himself advances
there is no conceptual equivalent in the Yoruba language for
these English-language terms. This means, 'then, that the
Yoruba themselves do not have names for certain of the
“named abstractions” Thompson attributes to them. How
can this be? Here is where we must distinguish between
articulate and inarticulate concepts (or criteria).
Normally a concept is taken to be an abstract idea that
can be named—that has a meaning in the language of which
it is a part (e.g., “beauty”). But what if it can be determined
that I react in a regular and predictable manner to some-
220 Part rV: Aesthetics
thing in my environment f or which there is no name in my
language? For example, 1 as a social person might respond
cordially only to those whose speech evidences a certain kind
of accent. 1 myself might not be aware of this behavioral
idiosyncrasy, and the language 1 speak might have no special
name for the accent to which I respond. Yet it still could be
noticed and commented upon, either by myself or others.
In other words, for an articulated concept to be a concept,
there must be a name for it. But such is not the case with
an inarticulate one (Overing 1987: Sallis 2002).
Thompson does not explicitly make this distinction, or
necessarily observe it, but it seems to be the only way to
make sense of certain of his passages. For when he refers to
the criteria as “collective rationalizations” (1973b, 22) or as
“canonical notions developed by the investigator” [Thompson]
(1973b, 29), the implication clearly is that even though the
Yoruba may have no explicit abstract term with which they
identify each criterion, they da make aesthetic judgments
that make Thompson believe he is justified in extrapolating
and postulating these inarticulate concepts.
However, again based on the evidence presented, one
wonders whether the inference from the particular (judg­
ment) to the abstract (criteria) is always justified, particu­
larly in view of the disproportionate richness of meaning
of the latter. For example, Thompson justifies the positing
of a Yoruba criterion of proportion with a number of inter­
esting direct quotations in which the speakers clearly are
concerned with comparing the relative proportions of one
part of a piece of sculpture with those of another part. But
when it comes to defining the underlying general princi­
ple of proportion in a precise manner, he claims that the
Yoruba are unable to do this and ultimately has recourse to
the statement of a single informant who says, “We take
our measurements from our heart” (1973b, 45). Thompson
therefore suggests that this criterion is better described as
one of emotional proportion.
The introduction of the word emotional is justified by
the possibly anomalous rationalization of a single inform­
ant. A further point for concern is his imposition upon
the Yoruba conceptual scheme of a loaded English term like
The African Art Historian as ConceptualAnalyst 221
emotional. Much of Western personality theory, as well as
ordinary discourse, are based upon the assumption that the
emotions may (even should) be rigidly distinguished from
intellect or reason. Thompson’s imposition of even one half
of this dualism on the Yoruba implies—without justifica­
tion—that they think along the same (conceptual) lines.
Thompson’s apparent justification is his informant’s
reference to the heart. But then he must in addition assume
that when the man refers to his heart he is referring to his
feelings or emotions in the same way a Westerner would.
However, assuming that in his original statement the man
used the standard word for heart, pkan, in fact the most
important function of the heart for the Yoruba is to act as
the repository of mind or consciousness.® So the term heart,
which Thompson took to refer to the emotions, in fact
was being used to describe something much more like the
Western concept of mind or reason.
Thompson’s central criterion of relative mimesis (1971a,
3/1) is potentially troublesome also. The conclusion he
wants to establish is that the Yoruba ideal for the repre­
sentation in sculpture of any specific person falls midway
between the polar extremes of exact replica and something
that barely manages to convey the human form. The most
important evidence he submits in support of this claim are
the single-statement critiques of twenty different Yoruba^
who, upon viewing examples of Yoruba carved representa­
tions of human beings, made assessments to the effect, “O
Jq eniyan” {“it resembles/looks like a person”).
Thompson finds this assessment to be of significance
because, rather than identifying one of the carvings as being
of a particular person with a proper name (e.g., “That looks
like my cousin ‘Tunde”), the critics never seemed concerned
to move beyond the level of general human representation.
From this he concludes that an important criterion inform­
ing Yoruba carvings of human beings is that they be no
more than generally or relatively representational of any
real person, including the particular individual they are
meant to portray.
In describing his techniques for soliciting such opinions
in the field, Thompson tells us that his general approach was
222 Part rV: Aesthetics
to place a selection of carvings on public view in a village,
and then solicit critical evaluations of them from curious
onlookers. In tabulating the identities of these informants,
he comes to several interesting conclusions' (1) With only a
single exception, carvers refused to comment on their own
work (1973b, 28; my italics), (2) The owners of carvings
were generally reluctant to contribute to critical discussions
about the artistic merits of their possessions (1973b, 26), (3)
In particular, no woman could be persuaded to comment
upon her own ibeji, carvings of deceased twins she bore in
the past and keeps as representatives of them (1973b, 27).
The combined force of these three qualifications is to
make one wonder whether, in general, Thompson’s inform­
ants had sufficiently detailed information about the carv­
ings (since they were neither their carvers or owners) to
say anything more than that they looked like carvings of
“people.” The statement they made (O jg eniyan) is what
might be expected of the curious but proud, and thereby
guardedly cautious, Yoruba male whose aesthetic opinion is
solicited in an unorthodox manner (for money) and there­
fore in an unorthodox situation, by a foreigner of whom he
has no intimate acquaintance.
If Thompson were to protest that this is a misrepresen­
tation of the meaning of his informants’ remarks, what
evidence does he offer to convince us that his own is the
better? Little that may be called concrete or convincing.
For there is a step in his argument that is missing. At one
extreme he is able to tell us that twenty individual Yoruba
made statements to the effect that the carving resembles a
person. At the other he claims to be able to tell us that what
the speakers mean by this is that when they see a statue or
carving, they do not see it as a particular person. They always
see it as eniyan—as human-being-in-general. But nowhere is
Thompson able to provide us with an analysis or explanation
of the O jg eniyan statement by a Yoruba^ that supports his
own extremely theoretically weighted interpretation.
Thompson’s justification for not providing this sort
of explanation appears to be that, in effect, the Yoruba
don’t talk (or explain their remarks) in this way, for he
has described their aesthetic judgments in the following
The African Art Historian as ConceptualAnalyst
223
terms' Characteristically phrasing was lexically simple but
conceptually rich” (1974, 3). In other words, simple state­
ments of the O jg eniyan form are deceptive in view of
their “hidden” conceptual richness.
However, there do seem to be topics with reference to
which the “lexically simple but conceptually rich” Yoruba
can extrapolate and elucidate their own meanings as well as
concepts. For example, in a series of individual discussions
with Yoruba om'gegiin revolving about the topic of eniyan,
they repeatedly stressed that the bad things (or evil) in the
world were caused by and the responsibility of mankind
rather than the gods. “They [bad things] are the work of
entyan, eaeh said to me on at least one occasion. But, rather
than leaving it at this, they were all willing to go on and
discuss what they meant' namely, whether there were bad
people who chose bad destinies before coming to the world
[yes], what to look for in deciding whether any given indi­
vidual is good or bad [behavior], whether there are dif­
ferent categories of bad people [accidental, deliberate, etc.]
and hence bad actions, whether such people are conscious of
themselves as bad [yes], etc.
In short, a remark like Thompson’s O jg eniyan, like
the om'seguns “They are the work of eniyan,” usually does
(or certainly can) occur within the context of a fuller or
more complete statement. And it would be of imhiense help
in appreciating and agreeing with the meanings Thompson
wishes to attribute to his critics’ statements if he were
to provide a fuller and more explicit rendering of that
context. Otherwise the banal but alternative interpretation
suggested above is no less compelling.
Thompson set out to make us understand Yoruba art as
that people talk about it. In fact it appears that a number of
the aesthetic criteria he attributes to them are not named
by them as their own. It is Thompson himself who reads
the criteria into certain kinds of statements the Yoruba
make about their art. When we considered examples of these
aesthetic statements or judgments we found that sometimes
the meanings he attributes to them are not warranted or
justified by the evidence he presents.
224 Part IV: Aesthetics
African scholars are by now accustomed to having
recourse to the comparatively few “world” languages that
can today be used for the popular dissemination of cross-
cultural information. But Thompson would have to be much
more explicit in his exposition before any of the above com­
plaints could be excused as being due to the ever-present
problems of translation, though it also appears that the
liberties he sometimes takes with translations are excessive.
Such specialized English-language terms as proportion, com­
position, and symmetry are too full of Western theoretical
connotations to represent a Yoruba point of view. Thompson
does much better when he attempts to “work” upon English
terms so they will better represent the Yoruba viewpoint and
so comes up with expressions such as “pleasing angularity,”
“sinister bulges,” and “shining smoothness.” Though even
here, because many of the original Yoruba expressions hinge
upon a verb (to shine, to round, etc.), Thompson would have
better conveyed the original meaning by translating them
as gerunds, e.g., “smoothing,” “proportioning,” “rounding,”
etc.
AESTHETIC OF THE COOL
For a civilization to persist through change and
adversity, I assume there were organizing principles
and philosophic insights which kept their world on
course. What these values were, and continue to be,
is implied in Yoruba myth and stated forthrightly
in aesthetic .... (1971a, 1/1)
Our original interest in Thompson was kindled as much
by his methods as by the theories to be derived from them,
for he set out to let Africans finally “speak for themselves”
about the arts of their cultures, suggesting “that Yoruba
critics surpass all but the most professional of Western
students of Yoruba art in fluency of verbalization” (1973b,
25).
The euphonious aesthetic of the cool is the most cel­
ebrated remaining part of Thompson’s overall theory, yet it
is difficult to make clear. For the cool is said to be a funda­
mental principle of the whole of the Yoruba philosophy or
worldview as well as of Yoruba art. “Myths and art extend
The African Art Historian as Conceptual Analyst 225
a common heritage, but they are not merely illustrations.
They seem joint bearers of Yoruba sensibility” (1971a, 2/1).
Initially, purely for expository purposes, we shall dis­
tinguish between the cool in art and in the worldview,
philosophy or myth. But as the two are so fundamentally
interrelated in Thompson’s own exposition, the artificiality
of this division must inevitably become manifest, and the
theory reconsidered as the coherent whole he obviously feels
it is. The aesthetic of the cool thereby becomes an aesthetic
of life, and the beautiful merges with the good.
a. In Art
Thompson describes the cool as “a matrix . . . the crite­
rion of coolness seems to unite all the other canons” (1971a,
2/2). In terms of aesthetic canons or criteria, this would
mean that the preceding eighteen criteria in some sense
derive from and are united by that of the cool. Exactly
what Thompson means by this is not easy to determine.
As with the other aesthetic criteria, he offers several
quotations in which Yoruba seem to refer to their art as cool.
Statements such as “because its face is cool [one carving is
better than another]” and, “If someone is beautiful, he has
a cool face” (1971a, 2/2). Neither of these is supplemented
by additional quotations in which the same speaker explains
what he means by the word “cool” {tutu) itself. In Thomp­
son’s exposition the first of the above quotations is imme­
diately followed by the sentence, “The face of the image
was rounded and the features were balanced and composed”
(1971a, 2/2). But it appears that Thompson here is again
immediately beginning to interpolate and thereby himself
supplementing a speaker’s remarks for us, rather than para­
phrasing (and why paraphrase?) additional remarks made to
him by the informant.
The same must be said for the argument that the cool
underlies all other aesthetic criteria. Thompson tries to
explain the meaning of this claim in the following:
Seen as a unit, Yoruba aesthetic criteria form an
exciting mean, vividness cast into equilibrium.
Mimesis, as Yoruba understand it, strikes a balance
between abstraction and literal likeness: artistic
226 Part IV: Aesthetics
representations are neither faint nor conspicu­
ous, lackluster nor blatant, too young nor too old.
Compare the Yoruba folk novelist, Tutuola, describ­
ing a beautiful woman' “She was not too tall and
not too short, she was not too black and not too
yellow.” And when a young Yoruba told Justine
Cordwell that his favorite color was blue—“it is
midway between red and black. It is not too con­
spicuous as red and it is not so dark as black. It is
cool and bright to see”—he spoke with the full
authority of his ancestors. (1971b, 378-79)
Elsewhere he describes the cool as “divine energy in juxta­
position with a composed human mask of equilibrium and
control” (1971a, P/1); and as “the calm expression of energy,
which in degree of control and restraint loomed far more
impressive and intimidating than mere unleashed naked
power” (1971a, 12/6).
We must temper our exposition here somewhat so as not
to forsake the realm of art entirely for that of philoso­
phy. However, the sense of “coolness” that begins to come
through is of a mean between opposing forces that blends
a stabilizing, attractive order and composure with the “hot”
vitality and energy that animates (in excess, destructively)
the whole of life. Thompson’s Yoruba aesthetic criteria
apparently express this same sense of proportion in that
the aesthetically pleasing mimesis is midpoint—between
hypermimesis and excessive abstraction. When just propor­
tion is exceeded the art object becomes unattractive and may
be characterized by such negative criteria as “Nonpleasing
Protrusions” and “Sinister Bulges.”
Nevertheless, Thompson is still unable to back up his
generalized principle of the cool in art with a parallel Yoruba
statement of the same magnitude. It is not enough for him
simply to say the Yoruba don’t talk this way. There must be
additional sources of evidence to warrant his feeling justi­
fied to extrapolate and to posit a Yoruba principle of such
considerable theoretical intricacy. One of these other kinds
of evidence is Yoruba art itself. But here again, when we
examine examples of his analyses of this art we will be
forced to conclude that the balance, indeed preponderance,
of his general theory on this level too is due primarily to
The African Art Historian as Conceptual Analyst 227
his own amazingly syncretic (but non-Yoruba) powers of
artistic observation and interpretation.
Notions of coolness, character, and force are inter­
woven in a thousand different ways in Yoruba art.
In a sense, each program of sculpture for each god
is a dialect of the cool, a restorative of affirmation
from a different point of view. (1971a, 20/2)
In different contexts Thompson assigns different mean­
ings to the cool, in that it is sometimes referred to as the
polar opposite of the hot [“The hot and the cool seem a
metaphor of life’s opposing forces” (1971a, 2/2).]: and at
others as the valued reconciliation of the hot and its oppo­
site [“Balance is achieved by recognition of the elements of
bad which complement the elements of good” (1971a, 2/2).].
Nevertheless we may take it that for Thompson the second
meaning is the dominant one.
Given this basic model of the hot and the cool, Thomp­
son’s primary concern in his analyses of the various forms
of Yoruba sculpture is to demonstrate how each reflects the
tension between these extremes and their reconciliation—the
latter being the “cool” keystone of his Yoruba aesthetic. E^ii
(Bascom 1969a, 79: Pemberton 1975) is one of the very few
divinities whom the Yoruba will allow to be represented in
graven-image form. His primary task is to act as messenger
to the gods, in that whenever a person consults a diviner
he is in effect communicating with the brifa (divinities),
and it is the E^iis task to transmit messages between the
two parties. In addition to this the E^ii is well-known as a
kind of “trickster” or mischievous troublemaker for both
gods and man. When one encounters unpredicted trouble
or calamity (sometimes fortune) it may Ije attributed to
his intervention. Since the outcome of any divination pre­
scription is never absolutely assured—is always somewhat
unpredictable—these two sides to his character may not be
entirely unrelated.
In spite of this, the Yoruba certainly do not regard him
as an intrinsically evil or malicious character. His helpful­
ness and opposition, service and disservice, are inextricably
and unpredictably combined. Even so, those who suffer his
misfortunes often genuinely deserve them because of their
228 Part IV: Aesthetics
own sins and omissions. In any case, many of his escapades
are recounted with humor because the E$u is not one to be
feared so much as placated and avoided.
Thompson’s problem is that this popular image of an
ambiguous and unpredictable E$ii does not suit a model
of polar extremes. He is therefore forced to construct a
“deeper” level of analysis. “Although the common image
of the deity elaborates his nature as trickster, catalyst,
and mischief-maker, the visual and verbal arts combine to
suggest further, positive dimensions. Eshu-Elegba, to use
his famous double name, resembles the dark side of the
ideals of the Yoruba, a kind of fallen king whose dignity
can be restored by devotion” (1971a, 4/1; my italics). Having
hazarded this hypothesis (without explaining what he means
by “dark side” or “ideals”), Thompson again has recourse
to non-Yoruba powers of observation and interpretation in
order to develop the “positive and negative valences” (1971a,
4/1) necessary to justify the application of his model.
In doing so his central reference is to an article on the
interpretation of the art forms arising from the worship
of JGpuby Joan Wescott, which is of methodological interest
in its own right. For Wescott admits that she was totally
unsuccessful [“The Yoruba inability or reluctance to explain
these symbols . . .” (Wescott 1962, 349-53)] in her attempts
to get the Yoruba to discuss the meaning or significance
of the art forms of the E$ii (336-37). The explanations she
did receive [“This is how my father taught me to carve for
Elegba” (340).] were along the lines of what anthropologists
have told us to expect from the members of traditional
cultures. Consequently she was forced to rely upon her own
powers of interpretation as applied to “myths and praise
songs,” supplemented by what she observed “of the use of
[the] sculpture in ritual” (336).
Thompson has affirmed, in the strongest terms, the
existence of and his own predilection for indigenous artis­
tic interpretation. Our surprise is therefore justifiable
when we find him referring to Wescott’s variety of meta-
explanatory, non-Yoruba, interpretative analysis as “defini­
tive” (1971a, 4/2) and incorporating her conclusions into
the body of his work. For it is Wescott, rather than her
The African Art Historian as ConceptualAnalyst
229
Yoruba informants, who hypothesizes that E^ii iconogra­
phy expresses such themes as “phallic power and sexual­
ity, a world of extremes, and “provocation, aggression
and anti-social behavior” (1971a, 4/2: Wescott 349). And it is
Wescott who cautions us that because of her meta-explana-
tory approach these same analyses must inevitably contain
“an element of the arbitrary—a certain degree of subjectiv­
ity” (337).
Let us follow the arguments through which Thompson
attempts to merge his own model of the hot and cool with
the above-mentioned dominant themes Wescott “identifies”
in the £?u corpus. Since Thompson’s model will only allow
him to incorporate these particular themes as elements of
the hot, as hot themes, he is forced to go beyond Wescott
(whose analysis was supposedly definitive) and discover
other cool E^ii themes. “What remains is to limn aspects
of hidden dignity and latent kingship within the art for
the boy-elder who wreaks famous mischief on the world”
(1971a, 4/2).
Somewhat paradoxically, two of his arguments in support
of these cool, kingly themes are that iconographic elements
which were previously interpreted as hot are also cool. He
refers to the statement of an E$ii worshipper in which the
peculiarity of the deity’s headdress (hair style plus pointed
cap) is said to be designed to provoke ridicule from a pas-
sersby, which then provides E$ii with an opportunity to
discipline: a “power” associated with kingliness (1971a, 4/2).
Analogously, he refers to a Cuban-Yoruba verse in which the
E?ii, whose headdress is said to make it physically difficult
to bear a load on his head, is referred to as “Your Majesty”
(1971a, 4/2). The point is that the freedom ,from bearing
such loads (and therefore the headdress) is associated with
the cool, controlled authority of kingliness.
To someone who is familiar with the kinds of explana­
tions (and rationalizations) the Yoruba do make, both of these
arguments are suspect. For that the ordinary man would
ridicule a peculiar headdress and thereby inadvertently be
subjected to the deity’s power is as likely to be a secondary,
chance consequence as a primary cause for its design. It is
like saying that traffic accidents were a cause for the crea-
230 Part IV: Aesthetics
tion of the automobile. As for the E$iis majesty, that must
derive, intrinsically and immediately, from the simple fact
that he is an 6ri?a, a god. This is more likely the reason for
“the burnishing with indigo of Eshu statuary” (1971a, 4/3)
which Thompson again tries to convert into evidence of the
kingly coolness of the
What remains significant is the basic color of the E$ii
statuary to which the indigo dye is applied—black.® This
is symbolic of his ever mischievous, potentially dangerous
nature (Wescott 346). True, the blackness is complemented
by the white cowries also worn by the E$u. However, what
strikes Wescott as significant about these colors, and other
opposing qualities displayed by this peculiar deity, is not
that they are hot and cool (opposing forces which can be
reconciled) but that they are contradictory. She therefore
concludes that the key to the character of the E?ii is ambi­
guity, inexplicability, rather than the balance of opposites
required by the aesthetic of the cool. “The ambiguous nature
of the Yoruba trickster who contains many contradictions,
who belongs nowhere and is involved with everyone, who
destroys for the sake of recreating. . . .” (352, 346 footnote
1).
Statements made by Yoruba om'$egun describing human
behavior that is said to emulate or reflect the character of
the E$ii support Wescott’s interpretation. For the phrase,
“f/n/ [spirit] of E?ii” is used to characterize abnormal behav­
ior in normal situations: behavior that, given the person and
his or her problem, doesn’t make sense or is inexplicable and
therefore ambiguous.
It is the which makes a person become annoyed.
You know, a person can just become annoyed without
anyone offending him or her. When that ?mi of
gets away from his or her heart/mind (gkan),
he or she will say that he or she doesn’t know what
happened to him or her.
In general, the ^mi of the E?ii is said to be opposed by the
cmi of siiurii (patience), i.e. to be the polar opposite of the
cool.
In order to demonstrate the relevance of his hot-cool
model Thompson is forced to have recourse to what he
The African Art Historian as Conceptual Analyst 231
describes as “hidden” or “latent” or “suggested” levels of
meaning contained in Yoruba iconography and myth. As
these levels are repeatedly revealed and explained primarily
by Thompson, one is justified again in worrying about the
distinction between how much he is allowing the Yoruba to
speak for themselves and how much he is speaking “for”
them.
If one does have recourse, again following Thompson’s
own method, to the kinds of statements Yoruba om'$egiin
actually do make about, for example, the E^ii, they do not
evidence the polarity and reconciliation principle requisite
to “proving” the relevance of the aesthetic of the cool. This
again argues that this kind of model, rather than being an
articulated, fundamental artistic or philosophic insight of
Yoruba culture, is in fact of the discursive, meta-explana-
tory variety traditionally used by Africanists as hypotheti­
cal tools of exposition and analysis.
b. In Philosophy
The Yoruba accomplished a monumental synthesis,
guided by a rich and complex series of values. To
learn more of these Yoruba accomplishments, and
learn well, it is necessary to consider Yoruba phi­
losophy and world-view, indissolubly blended with
their life and art . . .
Black Gods and Kings, 1971a,’ 1/5
This final section is concerned with Thompson’s conten­
tion that in order to view things as the Yoruba do one must
relate their art to their philosophy, for the art is expressive
of certain philosophical principles and the reverse. “Carvers
seek to express generalized principles of humanity” (1973b,
35). These generalized principles prove to be essentially
moral values (1971a, 1/1, 2/1),'® and serve as the basis for
Thompson’s account of the relationship between the beauti­
ful and the good.
Briefly, his hypothesis is that certain values contribute
to the form of Yoruba religious, figural" sculpture (1971a,
19/1). These values are both moral and aesthetic. Their observ­
ance by a person may be indicated by his adopting certain
behavioral forms, which are considered (by society) both
232 Part rV: Aesthetics
good and attractive. Correspondingly, in figural carving
these same values may be indicated by certain sculptural
forms, which are therefore beautiful and good (1974, 1).
The most prominent of these values are command, com­
posure, and character (1971a, 20/1). “Yoruba, in brief, assume
that someone who embodies command, coolness, and char­
acter is someone extremely beautiful and like unto a god”
(1971a, P/5). As individual values they are said to reflect the
reconciliation and balance of the underlying cool in that,
for example, the form of composure (“coolness” in the last
quote) that is valued is vitality (hot) tempered by balance
(cool). It is in this way that the aesthetic of the cool under­
lies and structures the morality of the cool, the beautiful,
and the good.
That it may be possible to identify and to relate the
important moral values of the Yoruba in such neat form is
certainly intriguing. But when one examines Thompson’s
writings for evidence in support of the hypothesis, very
little is forthcoming. There are no quotations from inform­
ants [ It is not that traditional Yoruba respond directly to
the moral implications of their sculpture . . .” (1971a, 20/3)],
evidently because the Yoruba don’t make such statements.
When Thompson turns to the myths to, in a sense, make
them speak for the Yoruba [“The values of the Yoruba appear
in art and myths” (1971a, 2/1).] his exegesis of the cool as
a moral principle is even less convincing than it was as an
aesthetic.
He draws his conclusions from brief summaries of two
Yoruba myths that refer to potentially opposing forces,
such as heaven and earth and the hot and the cool. The
exegesis of myth reducing poetic literature to discursive
form—is a controversial and complex process. For, in effect,
it is to determine what a piece of literature means. However,
it apparently presents Thompson with no problems. In the
paragraph of interpretation immediately following the two
summaries (1971a, 2/2), without mention or apparent use of
any sort of method, he simply asserts (rather than proves)
that they say everything about the cool that his argument
requires. In effect, then, he begins the difficult process of
The African Art Historian as ConceptualAnalyst 233
exegesis by assuming that his texts mean what he needs to
find in them. All of this in two pages (1971a, 2/1-2/2)!
What is perplexing is why it must be primarily Thomp­
son who is doing the assuming. Since it is he who introduced
the heading “Yoruba Philosophy,” where are the Yoruba
philosophers? Why not let them speak for themselves and
explain what their myths mean? That Thompson chooses to
use the term philosophy at all is interesting in view of
the numbers of scholars who have argued that traditional
thought is essentially non-philosophical. This is an issue that
has been discussed and assessed repeatedly throughout this
volume. In fact, their position was recounted in the very
first paragraph of this chapter: Because traditional peoples
generally are unable to provide discursive arguments when
justifying their beliefs, they are said to be nonreflective
or noncritical in nature, and therefore non-philosophical.
Academic (Western-derived) philosophy, on the other hand,
is said to be critical because one of its primary aims is to
analyze, evaluate, and, if possible, improve upon the various
kinds of explanatory systems humankind has developed over
the course of history.
A further question, then, is whether Thompson uses the
title “Yoruba Philosophy” with a critical or noncritical con­
notation. His response to this is ambivalent, but interest­
ing nevertheless. He acknowledges that a characteristic of
Yoruba thought is “an overpowering sense of reality where
everyday facts have religious and ritual meaning” (1973b,
24). With this he seems to be agreeing that the linkage
of a specific belief in Yoruba thought to a specific type
of event in Yoruba life is fixed and absolute—rarely ques­
tioned and therefore relatively noncritical. Shortly there­
after, however, he goes on to note that: “If some traditional
Yoruba are endowed with an overpowering sense of reality,
it is difficult to see where their attitude differs from that
of clergymen or philosophers in the West” (1973b, 25).
It may be that the academy must suffer the burden of
some philosophy instructors who “preach” certain species
of criticism as a kind of dogmatic credo and therefore in
an essentially nonreflective manner. But resisting (with
some difficulty) the temptation to be sidetracked by the
 Part rV: Aesthetics
234
sociology of philosophy, let us return to our original ques­
tion, What it is that Thompson sees as the philosophical
content of Yoruba thought, given its “overpowering sense
of reality.” He claims to have identified important critical
elements on the aesthetic level. He elaims that the aesthetic
should not be divorced from the philosophical. May we then
take it that Yoruba philosophy is critical as well?
Though there is no passage in which Thompson explic­
itly replies to this question, judging from his practice the
answer must be “no.” In spite of the fact that he does even­
tually identify the diviner or babalawo as a kind of Yoruba
philosopher:
Yoruba qualitative criteria are consensual. This
means that they are matters of opinion, widely
shared, but perhaps only fully comprehended by
the guardians of philosophic thought. The best
examples of the latter are the priests of the divina­
tion cult. (1973b, 22: my italics)
For that of which the babalawo act as guarantors is that most
important echelon of oral tradition—divination literature,
which includes numerous “myths.” But from Thompson’s
account of his own relationship with the oral literature,
it is clear that the philosophieal principles he extrapolates
from it are products of his own insight and imagination
rather than the teachings of Yoruba babalawo-
Before / began to examine Yoruba myth, I had been
exposed to Yoruba artistic criticism. When I later
began reading translations of vernacular collections
of myth embedded in hunters’ ballads and other
sources, I began to see philosophic points, about com- .
posure and reconciliation, parallel to the collective
testimony of the critics. The people of Yorubaland
evaluating their art and their dance taught me to
regard the following myths as essential statements
of their view of the nature of things. (1971a, 2/1:
my italics)
One is therefore forced to conclude that it is Thompson
who was the initiator of what he terms Yoruba Philosophy,
for it was Thompson who “began to see philosophic points.”
Although he acknowledges a certain indebtedness to the
The African Art Historian as ConceptualAnalyst 235
aesthetic “critics” for making him aware of their cultural
standards on that level, it was then his own genius that
enabled him to see conceptual parallels and extensions of the
aesthetics in Yoruba oral literature generally.
It is now possible to appreciate the significance of the
word myth that Thompson uses to describe Yoruba oral tra­
dition—for him the locus of Yoruba philosophy. Myths, as
a form of expression, belong to the poetic-symbolic level
of non-discursive thought. The role of the babalawo or the
oni^egim, of the Yoruba “philosopher,” is to aet as the reciter
and repositor (“guardian”) of the myths, proverbs, verses,
etc., into which Thompson then proceeds to read meanings.
As a result Thompson’s own position with reference to the
intellectual character of Yoruba culture appears much more
traditional than it at first seemed. The “philosophic” points
he attributes to their culture are developed by him out of
their “poetie” oral literature. He is, in the end, performing
another piece of meta-explanatory analysis of a poetic-sym­
bolic culture: though his conclusions—indeed entire analy­
ses—are often stated in such strong language that one is
misled into believing that “traditional” Yoruba think in the
same terms.
NOTES
1. “The Western scholar may assign value to a work which
would elicit equal praise in the compound of a traditional
king, assuming the work and critics were from the same
African society, but he cannot assume that the reasons for his
choice are present in the mind of the native critic” (Thomp­
son 1973b, 19).
2. The African group (Yoruba) Thompson has apparently studied
in greatest detail and about whom he has published some of
his most original work. In effect, then, his Yoruba aesthetics
serves as the most important cornerstone of his African/
Afro-American aesthetics (1984).
3. Thompson’s eighteen aesthetic criteria: (1) Mindpoint Mimesis:
(2) Hypermimesis: (3) Excessive Abstraction: (4) Visibility: (5)
Shining Smoothness: (6) Emotional Proportion: (7) Positioning:
(8) Composition: (9) Delicacy: (10) Roundness: (11) Protrusions:
(12) Nonpleasing Protrusions: (13) Sinister Bulges: (14) Pleasing
236 Part IV: Aesthetics
Angularity: (15) Straightness: (16) Symmetry: (17) Skill: (18)
Ephebism (1973b, 31-58).
4. Thompson says these may be kings, priests, or commoners,
which would seem to include just about everyone in Yoruba
society (1973b).
5. (1), (2), (3), (6), (7), (8), and (16).
6. For example, a Yoruba oni^egiin (alternative medical doctor)
gave the following explanation of learning [this remarkable
statement is repeated in a different context in chapter 10]:
“You know that the hearing is in the Qkan (heart/mind).
When you use the ear to hear what they teach you, it goes
into the qkan. If your qkan “goes there” [pays attention], you
must know that thing. If your qkan does not “go there” [pay
attention], you cannot know it. It means that you are just
“looking” (wo) [i.e., not really concentrating].”
7. Out of eighty-eight interviewed. (1973b, 26)
8. Compare with the following explanation given by an inform­
ant of something akin to relative mimesis found in Fang
culture: “The figure represents no ancestor. There are many
skulls in the reliquary. Who should we choose to represent?
And who would be satisfied with the choice if his own grand­
father should be ignored? The figures were made to warn
others that this was ‘the box of skulls’ and they were made
to represent all the ancestors within” (Fernandez 1973, 205).
9. The 1975 article by Pemberton contains some excellent photo­
graphs.
10. Thompson also makes reference to a kind of Yoruba ontology
of the cool, according to which everything that “is” exists as
the outcome of balanced but opposing cosmic forces.
11. “In Yorubaland as, I suspect, in most of tropical Africa, people,
not objects, are the essence of art” (1971a, P/4).
CHAPTER 13
"HANDSOME IS AS HANDSOME DOES":
INTERRELATIONS OF THE EPISTEMIC,
THE MORAL, AND THE AESTHETIC
IN AN AFRICAN CULTURE
n academic scholarship the systematic study of indig­
I enous African aesthetic criteria really just began during
the latter decades of the twentieth century. Prior to then
the kinds of objects that are coveted by Western museums
and collectors as constituting “African art” had to undergo
a convoluted process of intercultural aesthetic integration.
In the West they have evolved from being exotic curiosi­
ties picked-up by merchant-sailors and explorers in remote
places into cultural artifacts produced by primitive crafts­
men, and finally into artistic masterpieces that transcend
their cultural origins and are of universal aesthetic distinc­
tion. This latest phase has coincided with a rekindled inter­
est in the aesthetic priorities of the cultures where they
were originally created, and it is this research that is finally
giving birth to a discipline of truly African aesthetics.
In Western culture the title of the “connoisseur” con­
notes a variety of attributes having to do with the highest
sensitivity in matters of aesthetic taste and judgment. How
the Western connoisseur came to be involved with the art
of Africa is an interesting story (Price 1989). But to be clear
about its significance it must first be explicitly acknowl­
edged that the aesthetic standards used to evaluate “African
art” by connoisseurs for and in Western culture were not
of African origin.
The objects found in museum and private collections
(primarily sculpture—masks and figurative carvings) were
created by Africans for more than decorative purposes—to
serve instrumental ends—to worship, to perpetuate the
238 Part IV: Aesthetics
memory of an ancestor, to serve as one component of a
masquerade. It is only when severed from their African
background and context and hung on a museum or gallery
wall that an attempt is being made to transform them into
exclusively artistic works for Western(ized) eyes.
It is difficult to be absolutely precise about when the
arts of Africa were first accorded a significant aesthetic
status by Western connoisseurs. One noteworthy venue that
is regularly mentioned in the literature is the old Trocadero
Ethnographic Museum in Paris. Reference is made to the
encounters Picasso and other early modern artists had with
its collection of African artifacts during the first decade of
the twentieth century.
Repeated viewings of the Trocadero’s permanent ethno­
graphic collection are said both to have provided an oppor­
tunity for and to have marked when an influential number
of Western artists, critics and connoisseurs began to accord
genuine aesthetic merit to African sculptures as “works of
art” (Leiris and Delange 1968, 8). Yet to demonstrate how
extended and relatively recent the process of Western aes­
thetic integration has been, perhaps the second-most fre­
quently mentioned exhibition of what came to be called
African Primitive Art took place in 1984 at the Museum
of Modern Art in New York City (W. Rubin 1984). It was
only in the latter that displayed pieces were unabashedly
accorded the title “masterpiece” (Thompson 1978).
For the Western connoisseur “masterpiece” signifies a
work whose aesthetic distinction transcends its cultural
origins and becomes of universal appeal. Yet one paradox
concerning the relationship between African aesthetic mas­
terpieces and Western connoisseurs was (and in many cases
still is) that this sculpture was said to have been created
by primitive tribesmen who were incapable of substantive
aesthetic sensitivity.
Characterized as irrational and emotive, the inhabitants
of African cultures were rated relatively low on the cross-
cultural index of aesthetic sensitivity. They were said to be
at too elementary a stage of development to have produced
art, much less fine art, in the sense which has become con­
ventional in modern societies. How inarticulate and instinc­
"Handsome LAs Handsome Does” 239
tual primitive tribes were able to create sculpted pieces that
could thereafter be ‘discovered’ and christened artistic and
aesthetic masterpieces by Western connoisseurs is a problem
that has yet to be satisfactorily resolved. And though many
Western connoisseurs claim that their aesthetic sensitivi­
ties are culturally transcendent and in principle universal
in scope, it is difficult to reconcile this with the fact that
they did not award masterpiece status to such objects from
the very beginning.
Though today the status of the connoisseur, at the apex
of the Western aesthetic establishment, remains relatively
secure, such problems have inspired a growing number of
critics to challenge the notion of an aesthetic overlord. Con­
noisseurs are said to be a product of Western cultures, and
as such their aesthetic sensitivities must also be products of
Western acculturation (Clifford 1988). If artistic tastes and
fashions have changed over the course of Western history,
so too have the aesthetic sensitivities that govern the dis­
criminating taste of that culture’s connoisseurs. It was such
underlying processes of cultural change that made it his­
torically appropriate for Western connoisseurs to confer
artistic and masterpiece status on a selection of African
artifacts at a certain point in time.
The history of Western scholarship concerned with
detailing how Africans themselves regard the objects the
West has transformed into ‘African art” is considerably
more complex than this brief discussion arising from con-
noisseurship might imply. Yet one assumption underlying
Western theoretical approaches to the arts of alien cultures,
which is now said to be a distinguishing characteristic of
“modern” Western culture itself (Rorty 1980), is that prop­
erly trained researchers can transcend their Western cul­
tural background and identify the aesthetic priorities of
alien cultures in an objective manner.
Two viewpoints on indigenous African aesthetic sensitivi­
ties, that originated early in the twentieth century and that
are still of consequence today, will be mentioned here. One
is a more expansive version of that detailed above—inarticu­
late primitive tribesmen, carving artifacts to serve a variety
of traditional functions for communities whose members
240 Part rV: Aesthetics
were unable to distinguish between myth and fact, magic
and science, reason and emotion, art and craft. In Western
intellectual history this viewpoint is perhaps most closely
identified with the work of the French philosopher Lucien
Levy-Bruhl (1928).
His analyses persuaded many scholars that African cul­
tures could only be considered authentically primitive—
autochthonous and pristine—prior to the onset of European
imperialism and colonialism. The forceful intervention of
European powers into African societies inevitably resulted in
cultural disruption and contamination. This opinion was later
reinforced by the work of the French anthropologist Claude
Levi-Strauss (1966). As a result museums and private collec­
tors (as well as connoisseurs) have come to place a distinctly
higher value on the authenticity and integrity of Primitive
African Art that was produced prior to colonialism.
A second consequence for African aesthetics that may
be linked to the influence of Levy-Bruhl was the relative
de-emphasis that came to be placed upon the study of indig­
enous African aesthetic criteria or discourse. Art (as well
as thought) in such cultures was said to be fundamentally
emotive, symbolic, and ritualistic in character. The mean­
ings of these preliterate forms and design motifs, if they
could be decoded and expressed in discursive writing, would
“say” something about such people’s feelings for and beliefs
about the world. But for anthropologists to express emotive
forms of expression by means of discursive texts could not
help but fail to distort their emotive nature. As a result
Western aestheticians, anthropologists and philosophers
were discouraged from studying African cultures with a
view to systematizing their aesthetic priorities and sensi­
tivities.
An alternative approach to the study of African aesthetic
sensitivities derives from the work of the anthropologist
Franz Boas (1927). He rejected cultural evolutionism and
argued for cultural relativism—that all cultures should be
regarded as in principle equal and comparable intellectually,
artistically, and aesthetically. Evaluative judgments made by
the members of one culture about the level of development
“Handsome Is As Handsome Does” 241
or sophistication of another therefore inevitably become
ethnocentric in nature.
Boas stressed the importance of empirical fieldwork, of
learning about an alien culture by living in it and becom­
ing fluent in the language. Over-reliance on any form of
scientific or transcendent anthropological theory as a basis
on which to compose a definitive study of alien cultures
(rather than empirical fieldwork), as Rorty similarily sug­
gests in chapter 3, would be a sure source of factual error.
Though this approach has often been overshadowed by the
disproportionate media and popular attention attracted by
exotic notions of primitive peoples with radically different
forms of cognition, its proponents and modern descendants
have stubbornly persevered over the years, and it is today
in a position to become more influential than ever before.
The importance that became assigned to fieldwork as a
sine qua non of anthropological research meant that these
objects were being reintegrated with their native cultural
contexts rather than treated only as museum artifacts
attributed to amorphous primitive peoples. Indeed the next
major step in the history of “African art” was for objects
to be grouped formally and stylistically according to their
tribal affiliations—Dogon “art,” Yoruba “art,” Kuba “art,”
etc.
This notion of “context” grew to be more, expansive
with the passage of time. African ideas and sentiments
about beauty—in effect, aesthetics—that were involved in
the creation, fashioning, and evaluation of “African art”
objects in indigenous African cultures, as well as their use,
became topics for research. In addition, arguments began
to be advanced that “African art” objects were in fact also
regarded as art in the societies where they were created (A.
Rubin 1974).
The Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria have one of
the most widely studied cultures in sub-Saharan Africa.
Among Africanists it is a common-place generalization that
more material has been published on Yoruba art and aesthet­
ics than that of any other African people. Yet the limited
intercultural understanding these publications have yielded
gives a realistic indication of how much remains to be done
242 Part rV: Aesthetics
before a substantive appreciation of African aesthetic sensi­
tivities may be achieved.
In ordinary, everyday Yoruba discourse the term most
frequently mentioned of fundamental relevance to aesthetic
concerns is ?wa, which is normally translated into English
as “beauty.” But rather than being primarily associated with
the arts or crafts, its most common usage, as might be
expected, is with reference to human beings. In this regard
the Yoruba make an explicit distinction between outer (or
physical) beauty and inner (or moral) beauty. The former is
considered comparatively superficial and therefore unim­
portant. The latter serves as a measure of a person’s moral
character, and is said to involve one of the most important
observations that can be made about any human being.
The emphasis placed by the Yoruba upon patience as a value
was, as indicated in the previous chapter, first commented
upon in Western scholarship by Robert Farris Thompson.
Thompson linked the importance of patience to a person’s
being “cool” in his account of a Yoruba aesthetic. One reason
for the cool being an important value in Yoruba culture
was said to be its connection with dignity and kingliness.
To restate the passage from Thompson quoted in chapter
12= “Yoruba, in brief, assume that someone who embodies
command, coolness, and character is someone extremely
beautiful and like unto a god” (Thompson 1971, P/5: my
italics).
But an external patient demeanor or appearance should
arise from an internal patience that is grounded in cogni­
tion. This suggests that its importance as a behavioral cri­
terion is more epistemic than it is aesthetic. A “cool” tem­
perament, the patient person, is far more likely to listen
to and observe carefully what is happening, and to speak
with apperception and aplomb. In other words, that patience
is perceived as a moral or aesthetic value associated with
certain forms of appearance is grounded upon the objective
benefits that derive from it as an epistemic virtue. A mind
distinguished by patience, especially in difficult or prob­
lematic situations, informs a consciousness that maintains
self-control and optimal communication with itself and its
environment.
’'Handsome Is As Handsome Does” 243
As was intimated in chapter 9, the qualities that are
associated with a beautiful,, and therefore good, moral char­
acter are what one might expect in a culture that is still
predominantly oral. For in such a culture all propositional
information must come out of people’s mouths. Persons who
cannot be relied upon to speak the truth—to not be candid
about what they do and do not know—thereby earn a repu­
tation for being irresponsible and hencte for having a bad or
unattractive moral character. This means that a person of
remarkable physical beauty may become notorious for not
possessing “true” (inner, moral) beauty. On the other hand,
a person who is remarkably physically ugly may be praised
for being truly (morally) beautiful.
From an empirical or behavioral rather than an intro­
spective point of view, one consequence of the importance
attached to firsthand experience of a person’s (verbal and
non-verbal) behavioi—what they say and what they do in
your presence—is regarded as the most compelling evidence
of their moral character. Handsome is as handsome does.^
The extreme caution and care with which secondhand infor­
mation is received and evaluated about what a person is
supposed to have said or done (which, after all, includes
even gossip) is a testament to Yoruba prudence about human
fallibility.
Other behavioral but also aesthetic criteria associated with
having a good/beautiful character have epistemic overtones.
Good/beautiful moral character tends to be associated with
persons who generally appear composed, self-controlled,
patient, and alert. Such individuals are thought more likely
to understand what is going on around them and therefore
to be in a better position to provide accurate information
and to give useful advice. Speaking well arid hearing well
are not, then moral values in any conventional sense. They
are as much epistemological virtues because of their instru­
mental value for ensuring the accuracy and reliability of
information or advice.
When beauty i^wk) is attributed to natural or human-
made objects (arts and crafts included) the criteria change.
The explanation given for this is that such things are not
persons and therefore their character (iwa) cannot be judged
244 Part rV: Aesthetics
by the same moral/aesthetic standards. A tree or a chicken
may be appreciated purely for its physical beauty, though
again this is to be regarded as something comparatively
superficial. But if the tree produces succulent fruit or the
chicken is a plentiful source of eggs, both could be said to
have good character and thereby to be exceptionally attrac­
tive because of their usefulness to the human community.
With regards to the human-made—anything that is the
product of laboi—the usefulness of the finished product is
still the ultimate criterion. The farm that provides ample
produce as well as looking well-maintained, the armchair
that proves to be sturdy and comfortable as well as new:
the textile, pot, or basket that is found to be durable as well
as inexpensive—all of these would be regarded as having
character and therefore as being truly beautiful.
The Yoruba attitude to the figurative carvings that
Western collectors have found so aesthetically powerful also
is essentially utilitarian. A carving is made to serve a practi­
cal purpose—to serve as a repository for offerings to a dis­
tinguished ancestor, to comfort a grieving mother or child
when a sibling has died. If it is judged to serve that purpose
in an effective manner, it would be regarded as having
character. As to the types of formal qualities that are pre­
ferred in the sculptural representation of a human being, it
would depend upon the type of person being portrayed. In
the case of an adult, certain figurative qualities have come
to be associated with the representation of good character.
Generally one would expect a figure to be standing upright,
to appear both composed and alert, to appear healthy, and to
be properly attired.
The scholarly impetus generated by sustained interest
in indigenous African notions of beauty was to have several
noteworthy consequences. The importance attached to iden­
tifying indigenous standards of beauty and the substantial
fieldwork resources that have been committed to achieving
this aim are providing the data for a subdiscipline of art
history devoted exclusively to African aesthetics. As of now
there is no consensus about whether certain aesthetic stand­
ards are common to African cultures. Yet there is a consensus
among African art historians that the safest way to proceed
^Handsome Is As Handsome Does” 245
is to study a wide variety of language cultures individually
and then to determine whether there is an inductive basis
for secure generalizations (Van Damme 1996).
One reservation that has been expressed about some of
these studies is the degree to which they actually do repre­
sent what Africans themselves think and feel about aesthetic
matters. A predisposition to treat Africans as a type less
concerned with articulating their sentiments and thoughts
about beauty in a precise manner may tempt field work­
ers into intuiting, articulating, and systematizing them on
Africans’ behalf. The danger with this would be that the
criteria “discovered” by art historians might become more
a product of their own imagined interpretations of African
sentiments than a literal rendering of indigenous African
meanings, as Hountondji suggests is the case with ethnophi-
losophy in chapter 4.
The discovery that Africans have indigenous aesthetic
standards has encouraged African art historians to advocate
a much more diverse program of intercultural comparisons
between Africa and the West. They are now experiment­
ing with intercultural perspectives derived from (Western)
disciplines such as history, literary criticism, performance
studies, philosophy, and psychology with a view toward
better integrating the aesthetic values and practices Afri­
cans may or may not have in common with their wider
cultural contexts (Blier 1990).
Throughout the history of African studies in Western
academia a number of African scholars have expressed dissat­
isfaction with the ways in which their cultures were being
portrayed, and consequently they formulated their own alter­
native theoretical interpretations. The best known of these is
Negritude, but today it too has been supplanted by the work
of university-trained African researchers who believe they
are in a better position to analyze the aesthetic nuances of
their native cultures than many alien fieldworkers.
It was African scholars who expressed reservations about
Negritude as a flattering alternative and as an accurate ren­
dering of the African consciousness (Soyinka 1997). Apart
from its gross generalizations about a mentality supposedly
common to all African societies, they argued that it granted
246 Part IV: Aesthetics “Handsome Is As Handsome Does”
247

too much credence to the advocates of a primitive mental­ Africans and non-Africans—to work together to ensure
ity. that the highest possible professional standards are main­
These critics argued that the African mind was not tained. For it is intercultural dialogue based upon reciprocal
qualitatively different from that of other races. The types language fluency that will best enable researchers to see
of metaphors and other forms of expression characteris­ where Western and African values and beliefs overlap and
tic of African cultures might prove to be distinctive, but where they diverge.
this was insufficient reason to attribute their creation to a
deviant form of cognition. If anything, the tendency to do
so on the part of foreign scholars reflected an insufficient NOTE
fluency in the languages of the cultures they were study­ 1. I am grateful to the late W. V. O. Quine for the suggestion
that this maxim aptly reflects the Yoruba criteria for assess­
ing. This was now said to be the most probable cause of
ing character.
exotic and bizarre renderings of African meanings (artistic
and nonartistic) and of the consciousness from which they
were said to arise.
Of course contemporary non-African anthropologists
and art historians also strongly endorse the indispensability
of fluency in the language of whatever culture happens to
be the subject of research. This is what one would expect,
especially at a time when fieldworkers are targeting the
semantic networks underlying African aesthetic discourse.
Nonetheless there are clear signs of a coincidence of find­
ings and conclusions common to African and non-African
researchers who have become concerned with the aesthetics
of the same African culture.
With regards to the substance of Yoruba aesthetics,
as more comes to be known about the semantic networks
underlying a variety of different fields of discourse in
that language, it appears that the values that underlie epis­
temological, moral, and aesthetic priorities are systemati­
cally interrelated. This means that the criteria enunciated as
ensuring reliable perception and cognition become essential
prerequisites to having a good moral character, while the
latter (as previously mentioned) is regarded as a paradigm
case of the beautiful (Hallen 2000).
Today the study of African aesthetics constitutes one
of the most exciting and dynamic subdisciplines in African
and intercultural studies. Yet because it is also a discipline
in which African meanings must of necessity be translated
into and expressed by one of the few “world” languages
(English, French), it is in the interests of all concerned—
CHAPTER 14

SOME OBSERVATIONS ABOUT PHILOSO­

PHY, POSTMODERNISM, AND ART
IN CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN STUDIES
ithin African studies, one of the few generalizations
W that may be hazarded—without qualification—is that
no area has been more deliberately, consistently, indeed ago­
nizingly self-critical than African philosophy. “Western”
academic philosophy is supposedly well-known for identi-
evaluating, and defending the presuppositions upon
which it grounds itself. With respect to African philoso­
phy, however, a clear consensus has yet to be reached—after
more than thirty years of intensive discussion—about what
its presuppositions should be, much less whether they are
plausible. The wrangling has been incessant and, at points,
counterproductive. ‘
What is meant by presuppositions? Let us take, as one
example, the cultural data-base in Africa from which such
philosophy might be expected to arise, or with referenee to
which it might orientate itself. There is still serious con­
troversy within the ranks of African philosophers over the
intellectual status, and therefore philosophieal potential, of
that amorphous corpus of oral literature: divination verses,
lyrics, myths, maxims, tales, proverbs—indeed virtually eve­
rything in indigenous Afriean cultures that can be classified
as verbalized knowledge or belief—that came to be charaeter-
ized as Af riean traditional thought.
From the epistemological standpoint of philosophy in
Africa, if ever there has been an unknown known, its perim­
eters are defined by this corpus. Initially most Anglophone
African philosophers were predisposed (by their own over­
seas university training) to treat things that had already-
been labeled proverbs and myths—literature generally^—as
250 Part IV: Aesthetics
unreasoned, noncritical raw data better fit for the maws
of religious studies or cultural anthropology than philoso­
phy. A supposedly “scientific” ideology of modernization
dictated that knowledge that was in any sense noncritical
and therefore unreasoned had to be rigorously expunged
from academia before anything that would receive cred­
ibility as African philosophy could emerge (Bodunrin 1981).
At the other extreme were those rebels who rejected what
they regarded as exclusively Western criteria of reasoning
and criticism. They insisted that Africa’s philosophical iden­
tity must be intrinsically linked to its cultural heritage.
If both its verbal form and content exceeded the bounds
of what the Western academic and cultural establishment
stipulated as constituting philosophy, then so be it. There
was room for dialogue, but not for compromise.^ This is
not just intellectual history, by the way. Representatives of
both extremes are still going strong and defending these
positions today (Hallen 2002).
This unknownness of Africa was dramatically, com­
prehensively, and for some Irritatingly compounded by
Valentin Mudimbe in his book The Invention of Africa^
Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge. He draws
attention to the possibility that, adjoining this controversy
over the philosophical status and potential of traditional
thought, there lies another that may be even more fun­
damental. This is that the techniques used to collect infor­
mation about African cultures, much less those then used
to analyze and to philosophize upon such “data,” are less
than objective. With his usage of the term gnosis*—another
expression for the secret or unknown—he suggests that the
images of traditional Africa that have been recorded are
sufficiently distorted so that anything like truth, objectiv­
ity—in short Africa itself—have been lost. Like a numinous
absence, Africa still waits to be discovered, to speak, to be
understood. Not everyone is likely to agree with Mudimbe,
of course. But his admonitions serve, at the least, Ss healthy
reminders to those of us in philosophy of how fine a line
there is between philosophy and ideology, between exposi­
tion, imposition, and creation.
Some Observations about Philosophy, Postmodernism, andArt
251
What also is noteworthy within the domain of African
philosophy, and compatible with the methodology advocated
by this book, are several initiatives that emphasize an ana­
lytic approach to the understanding of concepts in African
languages that may be of philosophical interest. The principal
philosopher I have in mind here is Kwasi Wiredu. Graduate
of Oxford, former Head of the Department of Philosophy
at Legon, Accra, Ghana, Kwasi Wiredu is an astute academic
philosopher who has for long been in the forefront of the
“movement” to clarify the contents as well as the form
of African philosophy. What is perhaps most interesting
and original about his own position is that he manages to
combine conceptual analysis with elements extracted from
the two opposing extremes to which reference was made
above.
When writing about deriving African philosophy from
African languages, he says the following:
This is the time when there is the maximum need
to study African traditional philosophy. Because
of the historical accident of colonialism, the main
part of the philosophical training of contemporary
African scholars has come to derive from foreign
sources. Why should the African uncritically assim­
ilate the conceptual schemes embedded in foreign
languages and cultures? Philosophical truth can
indeed be disentangled from cultural contingencies.
But for this purpose nothing is more useful than
the ability to compare different languages and
cultures in relation to their philosophical prepos­
sessions. In so far as a study of African traditional
philosophy may enable one to do just this, it can be
philosophically beneficial to the African ps well as
the non-African. (1992-3, 52)
And as to possible sources one might turn to in an
African society for reflective observations on the usage and
meanings of such concepts or cultural practices, he says the
following:
There is a recognition that among the traditional
folks of Africa uninfluenced by modern education,
there are genuine philosophers, people capable of
fundamental reflection on man and the world.
252 Part rV: Aesthetics
Earlier students of African traditional philosophy
do not seem to have noted the existence of this
class of traditional thinkers: they seem to have only
sought information as to the folk world-views of
various African peoples. And as far as they were
concerned, all those who gave them information
were simply “informants.” The information they
gathered in this way, without further ado, was
labeled “African philosophy,” and this is largely
responsible for the impression that African phi­
losophy is a monolithic body of non-argumentative
communal beliefs, and nothing else. (1992-3, 49)
Wiredu is a philosopher who practices what he preaches—
by which is meant that he is actively experimenting with,
and writing up the results of, applications of these elements
of his methodology (1996, 2004). Given his impeccable argu­
mentative style, and his clear and conscientious commit­
ments to the role of philosophy in the world as well as in
Africa, this work is becoming and will likely continue to be
a landmark in helping to resolve the crisis over just what
philosophy in the African continent is entitled to encom­
pass and undertake.
A “movement” that has also recently become important
in African philosophy—and which has had to contend with
accusations of being unintelligible or even irresponsible for
its intellectual pronouncements or, rather, denouncements—
is postmodernism.® Kwame Anthony Appiah’s In My Father’s
Houses Africa in the Philosophy of Culture explores several
consequences of the postmodern movement that may benefit
scholarship directed at Africa’s indigenous cultures.
A point of consensus likely to arise out of the acrimo­
nious melee of charges and countercharges that have been
exchanged between the postmodernists and their critics is
that one of the more frustrating experiences of academic
life is to find your published work being criticized for
things you didn’t intend it to say, and that you don’t think
it does say. The uncertainties of conveyed meanings, even
in homophonic (same language) situations can become very
discouraging. Especially when these misleading secondary
sources become part and parcel of the established corpus, and
students and colleagues come to rely upon them as accurate
Some Observations about Philosophy, Postmodernism, andArt 253
representations and well-founded critiques of your argu­
ments.
It is to be hoped that this chapter is not about to become
guilty of the same offense with respect to the work of
Kwame Anthony Appiah. There is space here to discuss only
a few points from the multitude of observations, sugges­
tions, and arguments in his book. Still, fully appreciative of
Appiah’s own serious reservations about the possibilities of
conveying meanings, it would be most unfortunate if he
were to find his work being interpreted here in ways that
are conducive to nonsense, or to only other’s-sense. For the
intention is to do more than simply tell another “story”®
about Appiah’s In My Father’s House.
For several thousand years philosophers have, quite delib­
erately, been fabricating a bizarre and exotic variety of
methods and terminologies that are meant to transcend the
merely culturally relative so that our discipline will be set
apart as, somehow, of universal validity. A place has usually
been made for a token element of relativism, but it has been
kept carefully under guard so as not to become endemic or
“infectious.”
The material consequences, when viewed from a histori­
cal perspective, are a diverse orthodoxy of conflicting, often
contradictory, species of methodological and speculative
interpretations of what is supposed to be the “common”
human experience: Platonism, Marxism, Thomism, process
philosophy, positivism, phenomenology, etc. Now joined,
even if in the opinion of some its influence is beginning to
ebb, by a further theoretical alternative, albeit a somewhat
obscurantist one, that its practitioners have christened post­
modernism.
Given its theoretical flexibility, postmodernism can be
compatible with the healthy skepticism and sometimes out­
right hostility that has been expressed by many scholars—
African and non-African—towards a number of pejorative
theoretical interpretations of African cultures. In Africa par­
ticularly such unfortunate incidents of theory gone astray
have exacerbated suspicions that specially trained “outsid­
ers may not occupy as objective an epistemological position
as some social scientists would have us believe. The relative
254 Part rV: Aesthetics
credibilities—of the theoretically silent African “subject”
and the active, observant “other”—are being reexamined/
In In My Father’s House Kwame Appiah, speaking from
a perspective that might be characterized as postmodern,
suggests that past, current, and future theoretical alter­
natives relevant to the African context must acknowledge
three shared attributes^ (1) that they are all provisional in
nature; (2) that they are all products of historical contexts
and therefore all historically contingent: (3) that there is
no one single, essential truth or meaning to any situation
(1992, 145-55). There is always a place for a plurality of
both. The image of monolithic disciplines in which each
new piece of work,” each successive scholarly contribution,
is another step forward, towards arriving at a more abso­
lute and accurate understanding, towards the truth, is to be
replaced by a multifaceted theoretical harlequin. Not unity
but diversity, in principle and of equal portent.
With his insistence upon the “opening up” of the intel­
lectual spectrum to indigenous conceptual systems and theo­
retical alternatives, Appiah appears to share something in
common with both Wiredu and Mudimbe. If, as the phi­
losopher W. V. O. Quine also has suggested, every African
language is potentially the source of an original ontology,
epistemology, aesthetic, etc. in the ways in which it imposes
conceptual order upon and gives meanings to experience,
then the queue of possible theoretical alternatives becomes
virtually limitless (Quine 1975, 67). Translations of African
meanings (into English, for example) might provide us with
levels of theoretical discourse that are radically different
from those to which we are accustomed by our normal
cultural context. One possibility being that some of these
alternatives might prove of substantial value in helping us
to understand better our own experience and the limitations
of our culture’s theoretical analyses of it. No doubt this is
precisely what many Africanists who labor over translations
of African theoretical subject matter (psychology, religion,
aesthetics, etc.) in the course of their research think they
are doing.
Quine would demur. Because of his rigorous behaviorism®
and the much bandied-about Indeterminacy Thesis of Radical
Some Observations about Philosophy, Postmodernism, andArt 255
Translation that it inspired,® he pulls back from pursuing
this potentially fruitful line of thought about alternative
conceptual networks to its logical conclusion. This is because
he believes that the translation of African meanings into
Western languages—he terms it radical translation—by def­
inition converts the process of communication into one of
interpretation (Hallen and Sodipo 1997, chapter 1). “Where I
have spoken of a very alien conceptual scheme I would have
been content ... to speak of a language awkward or baf­
fling to translate” (1981, 41). Given that there may not be
a one-to-one conceptual correspondence between different
languages, the translator must choose the words from the
language of translation that he feels best approximate—best
interpret—the original African meanings. Accurate trans­
lation and therefore comparisons between the conceptual
systems of cultures that may talk about the world in radi­
cally different terms can therefore never be determinate.
If translation can never be securely literal, the only alter­
native remaining is interpretation, approximation. Yet it is
precisely such approximations, combined with the foreign
observer’s own imagined insights into alien minds and mean­
ings, that have been responsible for pejorative interpreta­
tions of alien beliefs (Quine 1960, 69). As Wiredu observes
in what, for him, is strikingly emotive rhetoric: “As for
‘radical’ translation, God knows that African thought has
suffered enough from it” (1991, 109, footnote 42).
By extending this train of thought, serious consequences
might also arise with regards to the translation of meaning
in African art(s). Here one is thinking principally of the
processes involved in understanding, deciphering, “decod­
ing,” and interpreting—in any determinate manner—mean­
ings as expressed by non-verbal media. Amongst scholars
whose recent professional interests and efforts have been
devoted primarily to the verbal, there are those who have
confirmed that the processes of such translations are, to say
the least, taxing, but possible to a considerably more objec­
tive degree than Quine would appear to allow for (Hallen and
Sodipo 1997, 81-85). Yet it seems an infinitely more daunt­
ing, complex, and difficult undertaking when one must deal
with a “language” that is, without qualification, non-verbal
256 Part IV: Aesthetics
(meanings as expressed by a earved mask, a design pattern,
a melodic refrain, etc.).
A legitimate riposte to one who admits to such reser­
vations is that they are suffering from the well-known
syndrome sometimes characterized as “favoring the famil­
iar.” In other words, since they are used to working with
meanings as expressed in verbal form, the qualitative dif­
ferences assigned to other media, when comparing them
with a verbal one, are unduly exaggerated. A more balanced
view would be to acknowledge the existence of a variety of
media, each with its own distinctive form(s) of “languages”
(some verbal, some visual, some sonic, some tactile, etc.), and
techniques for communication and translation. Certainly
this seems to be the attitude implied by the majority of
scholars in African studies who deal with the arts.
However, someone who has had firsthand experience with
the verbal translation of African meanings into Western
languages would be justified in expressing lingering concern
about whether the degree of indeterminacy—of being able
to identify meanings in a precise manner—is of the same
order when dealing with the non-verbal meanings of an
African culture. This does not mean that every expression of
meaning in every medium must be precise. Especially when
what is being communicated may be somehow unknown,
mysterious, or secret in the first place.*® The primary source
of this concern would be that, in expressing the meanings
of a visual language in a verbal language—what a work of
art is said to represent, for example—and somehow along the
way translating everything into English as well, the schol­
ars involved must somehow cope with the composite inde-
terminacies arising from two “radically” different media
“languages” (the visual and the verbal), as well as those that
follow upon translating everything into a foreign language
(Abiodun 1987).
This is not meant as a criticism, by the way. Only an
observation, which no doubt scholars in the field of African
art(s) have heard before. It is essentially a methodological
point—to say that one is impressed by the multiple problems
of interpretation with which such experts have to contend.
For African art history is a relatively new component of
Some Observations about Philosophy, Postmodernism, andArt 157
academia, and its intellectual and methodological history in
the United States has only recently begun to be reconstructed
in carefully documented form (Adams 1989; Ben-Amos 1989:
Visona, Pynor, et. al. 2001). Such narratives clearly enunciate
a sense of progress—at the least that certain problems have
been more clearly understood.
As mentioned earlier, the academic philosopher who
reflects upon the innumerable theoretical alternatives that
now constitute his own discipline has reason to be more
skeptical about a sense of progress. There may be certain
parallels nonetheless. A relevant anecdote concerns the
novice student who gravely informs his professorial advi­
sors that his reason for choosing philosophy is because he
seeks answers to a number of those big questions that may
confound us all at various points in our lives. Not at all
unsympathetically, the advisors respond that, while they
cannot guarantee the student will find such answers, they
are sure that he or she will arrive at even better questions.
It should again be acknowledged that attempting to
comment upon African studies generally only from a stand­
point of fairly orthodox philosophy of language imposes
certain obvious limitations. For example, it is also important
to recognize and identify with scholars of African art whose
work demonstrates that the existent ordinary language and
technical terminology are insufficient to express’s meaning
they believe they have discovered in an African culture. It
is important to appreciate the efforts of those who feel it
necessary to “work” upon the languages of translation—by
inventing unorthodox expressions, using fools quotations
marks, or even creating new words—to express such mean­
ings.
Some early examples that come to mind are Robert Plant
Armstrong’s (1971) “affecting presence” as descriptive of
aesthetic experience, and Robert Farris Thompson’s charac­
terizations of Yoruba aesthetic criteria by such expressions
as Shining Smoothness,” “Nonpleasing Protrusions,” and
Sinister Bulges” (1973b 37, 51-52). In the work of Rowland
Abiodun, Babatunde Lawal, Nkiru Nzegwu, and Suzanne Blier
there are credible attempts to circumvent virtually the
entire range of insensitive, condescending diseourse eoopted
258 Part rV: Aesthetics
by Western academia to characterize African cultures. Prob­
lems fundamental to “reading” another culture are more
explicitly articulated. One has passed from inferences of the
“if we have aesthetic criteria, so must they” variety to the
methodological problems involved in identifying and under­
standing alien meanings generally (Verran 2002: Visona,
Poynor, et al. 2001).
For example, Suzanne Blier’s ruminations upon the pur­
portedly cross-cultural tools at the disposal of the African
art historian cause her to reformulate basic methodologi­
cal distinctions and techniques. Relevant to our interests is
her reworking of the distinction between iconography and
iconology, between form and meaning. The same form in
an alien culture may have a very different meaning than it
has in our own culture. To learn this alternative meaning
the African art historian must refer to sources outside of
the art object (most likely verbal, as in the case of inform­
ants). This obscures or diminishes the primacy and inde­
pendence of form as a direct source of meaning. Indeed,
according to Blier, in the African societies where she has
done research, there can be no less than four sources of
meaning interpretations: the artists themselves, the patrons
who commission such works, the religious thinkers who
define their ontological significance, and the general public
that views and experiences them (1988, 79-83). Rather than
making any one of these sources of meaning definitive or
primary, Blier argues that each constitutes an aspect of an
object’s total meaning that the African art scholar should
take into account.
The consequences of all of this for translation could be
fairly complex. One who is concerned with arriving at more
determinate translations of the African non-verbal mean­
ings (what used to be called symbolic analysis) would view
the effort to comb through and to correlate a variety of
African sources as a step in the right direction. But the
requisite processes of translation, as with the requisite proc­
esses of comprehension, would become ever more complex.
Would the translated meanings of potentially divergent,
potentially complementary sources need to be reconciled, or
left to stand as somehow contextually related? And if it also
Some Observations about Philosophy, Postmodernism, andArt 259
becomes important to site African art in its (wider aesthetic,
religious/philosophical, historical, popular social) contexts,
who will be responsible for defining that context—for
determining what context (internal to the culture) itself
may mean?
This chapter began by referring to the disputed status
of African philosophy because, it seems, so much about
understanding the myriad of cultures that exist in that
continent still eludes us. In fact, sometimes one wonders
whether people working in African studies generally might
not benefit by being more open about the comprehension/
explanation problems, the confusions, that regularly con­
front them. Complementary to the professional ideology
that each new published study should mark a further step
forward towards understanding a given subject matter,
is the attitude that a paper or piece of work is somehow
unfinished, not ready for publication, until its author can
provide the “key,” the solution, the explanation, that will
allow everything to make sense. One sometimes wonders
whether we would not learn as much from one another
if we were to concentrate as much upon writing up our
confusions as we do upon these “solutions.”
NOTES
1. Publications that make an explicit point of addressing this
issue are Appiah 1992; Bell 2002: Gbadegesin 1991a; Gyekye
1987: Hallen 2000; 2002; Hallen and Sodipo 1997; Hountondji
1983, 2002; Imbo 1998; Makinde 1988; Masolo 1994; Mudimbe,
1988: Oruka, ed., 1990: Serequeberhan 1994; 2000: Smet 1980:
Sogolo 1993: Towa 1979: Wiredu 1980, 1992, 1996; Wright
1984.
2. It is not entirely by coincidence that Valentin Mudimbe
happens to be Professor of Cpmparative Literature, and that
K. Anthony Appiah is expressly interested in the relation­
ship between African philosophy and literature (2004b). Their
professional concerns with the (oral and written) literature
of Africa in general enables them, as philosophers, to reap­
propriate much of the African “thought” that was classified
as non-philosophical in form and/or content (as well as, via
their postmodern identities, to turn the tables on the Western
260 Part rV: Aesthetics Some Observations about Philosophy, Postmodernism, and Art 261

“establishment” and treat what traditionally has been classi­ 10. See Nooter 1993 for an interesting collection of essays that
fied as technical philosophy as literature). discuss the potential of both verbal and non-verbal media
3. See Anyanwu, “The African World-View and Theory of with reference to expression/representation of the unknown
Knowledge,” in Ruch and Anyanwu, eds., 1981: Sogolo 1993: and/or secret.
Hallen 2002: as well as the writings of the numerous definers
and defenders of Negritude.
4. ‘“Gnosis’ is by definition a kind of secret knowledge. The
changes of motives, the succession of theses about founda­
tion, and the differences of scale in interpretations that I
have tried to bring to light about African gnosis witness to
the vigour of a knowledge which is sometimes African by
virtue of its authors and promoters, but which extends to a
Western epistemological territory. The task accomplished so
far is certainly impressive. On the other hand, one wonders
whether the discourses of African gnosis do not obscure a
fundamental reality, their own chose du texte, the primor­
dial African discourse in its variety and multiplicity. Is not
this reality distorted in the expression of African modalities
in non-African languages? Is it not inverted, modified by
anthropological and philosophical categories used by special­
ists of dominant discourses? Does the question of how to
relate in a more faithful way to la chose du texte necessarily
imply another epistemological shift? Is it possible to consider
this shift outside of the very epistemological field which
makes my question both possible and thinkable” (1988, 186).
5. See Gellner 1992 for a characterization of postmodernism as
“permissive relativism,” and a rather remarkable causal expla­
nation of it as a manifestation by the West of a wish for
atonement from the “sins” of colonialism.
6. The sense of this term (story) in Appiah’s writings seems to be
that, once one queries whether a methodology leading to the
“one” objective truth does exist, one is entitled to regard any
purportedly objective analysis of any given subject matter as
only an interpretation — a “version” (literature, again) — and
hence a “story” about what any individual scholar thinks the
truth should be. (See 1992, 140 for an example.)
7. A prominent theme in both Appiah’s and Mudimbe’s writ­
ings.
8. Quine’s rather technical definition of behavior does not
exclude speech or verbal behavior, of course.
9. See chapter 6 above, and Evans-Pritchard 1937, 8-9, where
this ever-prescient scholar anticipates the problems of the
indeterminacy of translation.
 CHAPTER 15

AFRICAN MEANINGS, WESTERN WORDS

frican Studies is often characterized as interdisciplinary

A in nature. One wonders whether, as time passes and spe­
cific disciplinary studies become distinguished by ever more
specialized methodologies, this will be less true. However,
since the objects of study are entire cultures that are for
the most part alien to the researchers who study them, this
interdisciplinary spirit may well endure.
With regard to the inventory of subdisciplines within
the general field of African studies, two relative latecomers
( are African art history and African philosophy. Previously
the fields of interest that constitute their special concern
were significantly influenced by anthropology. But when
sufficient, relevant, fieldwork studies had accumulated to
initiate the type of specialized intercultural understanding
that is distinctive of these two subdisciplines, there was
1 reason to license them in their own right.
As African art history and African philosophy labored to
accredit themselves these past decades, there are a number
of expressed concerns which become common to the two
disciplines. The aim of this chapter is to reflect upon some
of these, as expressed by African art historians,* from the
standpoint of students of African philosophy in the hope
that their respective insights and problems may overlap,
coalesce, and perhaps prove mutually beneficial.
The worst-case scenario for the cross-cultural futures
of the two disciplines would have been for professionals
to conclude that, in indigenous African cultures, there was
little to compare with “art” or “philosophy” as defined in
Western intellectual terms.^ In fact something like this was
264 Part rV: Aesthetics
suggested initially by those who saw Africa as a place where
aesthetic sensitivities or powers of theoretical reflection
remained comparatively undeveloped.^
As time passed more fruitfully comparative studies did
relate art and philosophy to African cultures, if only on
a collectivized or tribal scale. In African philosophy this
resulted in what came to be labeled ethnopbilosophy. As
was evidenced by previous discussions of the work of the
African philosopher Paulin Hountondji (chapter 4), a corpus
of beliefs is extrapolated from diverse social practices and
literary sources and then presented as the philosophy of an
African “tribe” (Tempels 1959: Mbiti 1969). In African art
history this led to a notion of ‘tribal art’—certain stylistic,
formal criteria that are stipulated as definitive of an ethnic
group and presented as paradigmatic (Fagg 1965: 1968).
Perhaps some kind of parallel, as well, may be drawn
with art historians’ controversial distinction between “art”
and “artifact” and philosophers’ controversial distinction
between “philosophy” and “worldviews.”^ In both cases the
former (art and philosophy) were said to be arrived at via
some kind of Western intellectual transformation of the
latter (artifacts and worldviews). If artifact may be defined
as merely something “made,” bereft of the “fine” in fine
arts, then certainly a comparably ‘rough’ status was assigned
to African proverbs, parables, and divination verses as con­
stitutive of philosophy when they come to be labeled “folk
philosophy.”®
In African philosophy this rather unusual, collectivized
use of the term philosophy as deriving from entire ethnic
groups provoked vigorous protests. It was condemned for
being based upon a derogatory double standard that denied
African cultures an acumen that compared with that of the
West (Hountondji 1983: 2002: chapter 4 above). In African
art history comparable debate seems to have come later or
was more prolonged, or perhaps both. Supposed peculiari­
ties of African cultures, epitomized by characterizing them
as “traditional” were responsible for a de-emphasis upon
history in a discipline that named itself African art history.
‘Tribal’ cultures and art were somehow a-historical.® The
“one tribe, one style?” discussion apparently marked a kind
African Meanings, Western Words 265
of watershed in the direction of future research with a
renewed historical interest. It has effectively concretized
the alternative of approaching African art as products of
distinctive individuals as well as of diverse and changing
interests and ethnic groups (Bravmann 1973: Kasfir 1984).^
Both African art history and philosophy have had to come
to terms with anthropology.^ One positive aspect of those
relationships is the innovation of undertaking fieldwork.
While it is not clear how much of a novelty this option of
doing fieldwork represents in art historical circles gener­
ally, in aeademic philosophy it produced a reaction verging
on astonishment (Bodunrin 1981).
What is remarkable about the role of fieldwork in African
art history is that, while many professionals agree it is
an indispensable part of their professional training, others
complained that the viewpoints of the Africans themselves
on their art went underreported, and were not given the
attention they deserved (Abiodun 1990: Lawal 1995). This
leads one to wonder precisely what it was that the African
art historian was doing during the eourse of fieldwork, if
not also learning about an African point of view?®
It is difficult to identify a consensus aboUt this issue
in current African art history publications. Perhaps this
is where the philosopher’s status as a relative outsider gets
in the way. Or perhaps it is because, as of novv, no such
consensus has been arrived at and a number of alternatives
are being debated. One relevant consideration is the meth­
odological techniques that determine how one connects with
African cultures. Once again it is important to take into
account the initial preponderant influence of anthropology
as a disciplinary agent of the social sciences.
It seems that this African-inspired complaint can only
be explicitly summarized if several adjectival qualifiers are
introduced. It is not just the “African point of view” that
was said to be underestimated (Abiodun 1990, 64). It was the
conscious, articulated points of view of relevant members of
the African culture concerned that were said to be under­
represented. The seminal work in this regard of scholars like
Victor Turner (1967) and his intellectual descendants cannot
be ignored. But it is still the case that the social sciences’
266 Part rV: Aesthetics
concern with modes of thought that transcend any indi­
vidual consciousness does tend to divert attention from the
artistic or philosophical consciousness as individualized.^^
As African philosophy has struggled to establish some
sort of methodological self-identity, it too has been con­
cerned with distinguishing itself from anthropology.
One important tactic in this process has been a progres­
sive disconnection from much of anthropology’s theoretical
superstructure.*^ Philosophers had to embrace a methodo­
logical skepticism that distanced itself from interpretations
of African cognition that regarded traditions as substitutes
for reasons*^: that took cross-cultural symbolization pat­
terns as semantically fundamental*^; that typed modes of
thought according to articulated expressions for thinking
about thinking.*® One consequence of disconnecting from
this theoretical superstructure was the suspension of spe­
cific presumptions about the African intellectual as a quali­
tative “other” (Fabian 1983; Mudimbe 1988, 1994; Bongmba
2001).
The query that immediately comes to mind is, in the
absence of such characterizations of African modes of
thought, what takes their place? One methodological alter­
native may be characterized as a common denominator^^
approach. This means beginning from methodological pre­
sumptions that differences in modes of thought have yet to
be identified; that commonsense may be common; and that
African meanings, beliefs, and social practices may overlap
significantly with those of the West.*^
The reaction of some professionals to this kind of pro­
posal may be= “How naive can you get?” But the justification
for this line of thought is meant to be a bit more subtle
than first impressions might suggest. It is not humanitar­
ian, grounded upon some sort of moral appeal to natural
rights, that all peoples are created equal, etc. It is methodo­
logical, and the underlying justification may be summarized
here as follows. If African art historical fieldworkers wish
to divest themselves of established, sometimes controver­
sial, sometimes restrictive, preconceptions about African
attitudes towards art and artistic creation that are implicit
African Meanings, Western Words
267
in certain methodological approaches, how then are they
initially to approach these cultures?
The philosopher can suggest that, in the conventional
fieldwork scenario, too much attention is directed to the
African half of cultural dia-logue. Western fieldworkers
bring to any situation of artistic interpolation a good deal
of their own cultural intellectual baggage as well. To dis­
connect them from this intellectual baggage some notion
of objectivity is invoked. This means that fieldworkers are
professionally trained to be sensitive to the dangers inher­
ent in confusing their native cultural standards with those
oF Africans, what has come to be labeled ethnocentrism.
In this postmodern age disciplinary standards of objec­
tivity are under attack for privileging certain cultures
and discriminating against others. But this chapter would
prefer to avoid that kind of deconstructive pathway. What
is important is that the point of being objective is to be
careful—to not misrepresent African meanings and atti­
tudes. To understand African cultures African art histori­
ans who come from a Western cultural background have to
begin from something. Their minds cannot be the prover­
bial blank tablet,” sensitive exclusively to distortion-free
recordings” of African meanings. Then why not allow
them to begin from their own cultural background with
reference to the interpretation of the arts and art history
of another culture?
This argument is not advocating that the most careful
way to interpret African meanings with reference to the
arts is to impose Western ones on them. The argument is
suggesting that, if we cannot presume some sort of overlap
between Western and African meanings, it,is difficult to
foresee how we will ever be able to express the one by means
of the other.*® It is suggesting that, in the present predica­
ment in which African art history and African philosophy
find themselves, there is no agreed upon “objective” theo­
retical model of the character of African art and aesthetic
meanings. In the absence of such a model, and in the absence
of an articulated, precise methodology that would reliably
lead to such a model, why not embrace experimenting with
the cross-cultural relevance of perspectives and problems
268 Part rV: Aesthetics
endemic to art historical and artisanal research and analysis
from one’s own culture?
This does not imply accepting these things carte blanche
as culturally universal. In many cases the point of a com­
parison may be to demonstrate that a perspective should
not apply. But as the relevance and irrelevance, the simi­
larities and differences, of various perspectives are detailed,
African points of view may become better understood and
appreciated.*®
Perhaps it is possible to see increasing evidence of the
influence of a “common denominator” attitude in the work
of some contemporary African art historians. Those who
advocate a stronger interdisciplinary emphasis in African
art historical work—and now make specific reference to
the fundamental relevance of disciplines like philosophy,
psychology, and literary criticism for better understanding
African cultures^—are thereby proposing revised perspec­
tives upon the constitution of African meanings and beliefs
that move them closer to their Western counterparts. There
are those who are now emphasizing research themes that
involve: individual creativity, innovation/invention, change,
the names of artists and workshops, the dating of works,
informants as collaborators, certain aspects of performance
studies***; one important ramification of all of these is the
shifting of perspectives upon African art towards (not to!)
a common denominator perspective.
Another dimension of research in African art history
that is currently being emphasized, and which at first
impression might seem to clash with the cross-cultural pre­
tensions of a ‘common denominator’ approach, is epitomized
in phrases and cliches such as “like-they-see-it” or “the
insiders view” (H. Drewal 1990, 35). From its inception this
has been an obsession of African philosophy, but profession­
als have come to appreciate the limits as well as the benefits
to be derived from this as a methodological priority.
It is relevant to again stress the importance of the meth­
odological because what both unites and distinguishes aca­
demic professionals in African studies is the scholarship for­
malized by their disciplinary methodologies. This means that
letting African cultures “speak for themselves” about things
African Meanings, Western Words
269
artistic or philosophical is a matter of relative emphasis,
an ideal, that can only happen subject to the application of
a disciplinary methodology. To introduce an African view­
point into philosophy, one must arrive at it on the basis of
the application of techniques derived from a specific philo­
sophical tradition. One approach in this regard, that African
art history and African philosophy have come to share, is
known to philosophers as conceptual analysis (Hallen 2002).^^
This involves identifying concepts internal to an African
language that are of aesthetic prepossession and then, on
the basis of textual analysis, specifying their meanings and
the criteria which govern their usage (Abiodun 1990: Fern­
andez 1973; Hallen 2000: Lawal 1974, 1996: McNaughton 1988:
Nzegwu 1985; Thompson 1973: Vogel 1997). .
While there is no need to tout any one discipline’s patri­
mony in this regard, conceptual analysis is something that
philosophers have been involved with for several millennia.^®
However in African philosophy this kind of approach has
run into one of the same problems it has engendered in the
classical philosophical corpus, namely, that conflicting inter­
pretations of the same concept are produced by different
scholars. To understand the meaning of a particular concept
in an African language it is rarely sufficient to quote pas­
sages from the oral literature in which it occurs. Those
passages must themselves be analyzed, and more specific
meanings thereby attached to the concept. Again, all of this
involves interpretation via the application of a disciplinary
methodology. And when different scholars who analyze
the same concept arrive at interpretations of its meaning
that differ in important respects, how is the matter to be
resolved?
How sweet it would be to finally settle this question! The
more realistic alternative is to face up to the fact that it
would be possible virtually to fill an encyclopedia with the
cumulative ruminations of academic philosophy about the
meaning of a single concept like, for example, “beauty.” One
remedial measure that professionals in African philosophy
have adopted is to study relevant African discourse more
carefully.^* By discourse is meant talk, conversation, lan­
guage usage. For exclusive reliance upon conceptual analysis
270 Part rV: Aesthetics
tends to treat individual concepts in relative isolation from
other terms. At best one ends up with a kind of list or
inventory of criteria.^® With greater emphasis on discourse
it is easier to discern relationships between eoncepts or cri­
teria, so that a kind of vital semantic network begins to
emerge.
Like “semantic network,” “field of discourse” is another
figure of speech from the philosophy of language that
expresses a related point, as does also Wittgenstein’s notion
of “language game(s).” The underlying idea is that the
vocabulary of a language may be subdivided according to
the functions it performs: For example, in English-language
culture one might specify the aesthetic (“field of discourse”
or language game’), the culinary, epistemic, psychological,
scientific, etc.
Art historians who study African aesthetic vocabu­
laries could probably agree with this. However problems
arise when the divisions between the fields of discourse
or language games of one language culture (Western) are
not replicated by those of another (African). (Here we are
back with the perils and pluses of a common denominator
approach.) The priorities imposed by a scholar whose only
interest is in the aesthetic should not be allowed to uproot
individual concepts so that they are treated in artificial
isolation from the contexts in which they normally occur
in their language of origin.
As we have seen before, in English-language culture
“belief” begins where “knowledge” leaves off. In Yoruba
gbagbg (putative belief”) begins where imp (putative
knowledge ) leaves off. The extent of one can only be
understood by interrelating it with the other. But what is
more interesting is that the criteria in these two languages
that determine or define where one leaves off and the other
begins (and therefore how the two interrelate) themselves
differ substantially.^®
To reconsider that potential methodological antipathy
between the cross-cultural pretensions of a common denomi­
nator approach and the more culturally specific insiders view
as alternative forms of interpretation: The history of the
dialogue between African and Western cultures sometimes
African Meanings, Western Words 111
suggests the analog of a conversation between two total
strangers from the same language-culture meeting for the
first time. Both are likely to misinterpret certain aspects of
the other’s behavior. Both are likely to find that the other
sometimes speaks in an unusual or even bizarre manner. But
as the conversation evolves, both come to understand better
the reasons and similarities underlying one another’s pecu­
liarities, and discover in the end that they share a good deal
more in common than at first seemed to be the case.
Analogously, the arguments of this chapter are meant
to suggest that professionals reconsider the notion of
overlapping meanings between languages as a basis from
which to work. We cannot erase the linguistic and cultural
backgrounds that are so fundamentally formative of our
intellects. Harking back again to Evans-Pritchard’s musings
about anthropology as more art than seience,^^ rather than
trying to transcend cultural origins via a methodology
that purports to introduce the intellect to a new level of
understanding, it is dialogue based upon language fluency
that will best enable researchers to see where attitudes and
beliefs overlap and where they diverge.
NOTES
1. The studies most frequently cited are Adams 1989: Ben-Amos
1989i Visona, Poynor, et al. 2001. Footnote references in this
chapter are meant to be representative rather than defini­
tive.
2. “Although the term primitive art was eradicated from
thoughtful anthropological enquiry forty years ago, it is still
very much a part of contemporary art historical writing and
thinking (Blier 1990, 95). With respect to art history see,
for example, Tanson 1986, a text that has now happily been
supplanted by Visona, Poynor, et al. 2001. The anthropological
typing of African cultures as “primitive” effectively classi­
fied them below the reflective minimum required for philo­
sophical thought. Ironically the Western intellectual figure
most frequently damned for this unfortunate evaluation,
Lucien Levy-Bruhl was, in fact, a philosopher.
3. Anthony Appiah’s critique (1995) of the Western terms
Africa(n)” and “art” as irrelevant to many African ‘art’
 272 Part rV: Aesthetics
objects when appreciated in their indigenous cultural contexts
also is relevant.
4. The acceptance of African art within the discipline of art
history that is, the acceptance of African works as art
rather than as artifact — is rare (Blier 1990, 94).” Susan Vogel’s
archetypal discussion (1990) of the terms art and artifact, as
representing, respectively, the favored (methodological) per­
spectives of the art historian and the anthropologist towards
the same objects, also is relevant.
5. The intellectual merit of proverbs, etc. is again being defended
by those interpreters of oral literature who argue that the
triviality associated with the proverb as a form of expression
in contemporary Western culture has been unceremoniously
and unjustifiably transferred to the African context without
due consideration of their alternative theoretical content and
function. Form has been allowed to humble content (Gyekye
1987, 1997a: Yai 1989, 1994a).
6. “Our field lacks concerted or systematic studies of the history
of Art in Africa. . . . our aversion to historical thinking, I
believe, derives . . . from our affinity and alignment with
anthropological thinking” (H. Drewal 1990, 38). Also “we
[African art historians] have often been too quick to fall into
the myth that the arts have changed little over time” (Blier
1990, 96). The jssue of the traditional” is both reviewed and
raised anew in Denis Dutton 1995.
7. We have moved decisively beyond the initial efforts to iden­
tify African art with ethnicity” (H. Drewal 1990, 33).
8. As we think more about the future of African art, we also
need to think more about methodology. In the past our meth­
odology has been drawn from anthropology, but I think this
practice needs to be reexamined” (Blier 1990, 103): and “art
historians now far outnumber anthropologists among the
younger generation of African art scholars” (Blier 1990 91-
92).
9. It was precisely this that made Robert Farris Thompson’s
initial work on Yoruba indigenous aesthetic criteria so note­
worthy (chapter 12). See also the (implicitly) revisionist cri­
tiques of his Yoruba aesthetic criteria by Abiodun (1987, 1990,
1994) and Lawal (1974, 1995, 1996).
10. Even if the original edition is now more than thirty years
old, the Victor Turner tradition ’ and other subsequent alter­
natives are nicely detailed and evaluated in d’Azevedo 1973.
African Meaning, Western Words
273
11. In its search for the norm and for structure, anthropology
has tended to ignore the impact and importance of individuals
in creating art and culture” (H. Drewal 1990, 36).
12. “The stereotype of the uncritical, unreflective, ‘closed’ nature
of j^fi'ican systems of thought has proved extraordinarily
resilient and resistant to criticism. One obvious reason for
this is that most of the evidence supports it. To a limited
extent we would agree. However, on the basis of the evi­
dence we have collected, we are arguing that (at least) not
all of Yoruba society fits the stereotype. And that we have
discovered this, leads us to suspect that our methodological
approach differs in some important respects from those of
other academic and professional disciplines that have a similar
interest. We also believe that further applications of our
methodological approach, by philosophers, may lead to other
interesting discoveries, not only about the Yoruba thought
system but about those of other African ethnic groups as
well” (Hallen and Sodipo 1997, 121).
13. Traditions were said to resemble rules that were enforced in
a relatively uncritical manner (Geller 1974 for philosophy:
Goody 1971 for anthropology).
14. This would apply to L^vy-Bruhl (1926) and to structuralism
generally.
15. This also would apply to Levy-Bruhl (1926) and to structural­
ism generally.
16. Though it won’t win any awards for euphonious terminol­
ogy, common denominator is extrapolated from its grammar
school antecedents and preferred here because it is less likely
to be associated with other conventional methodological
approaches. This does not imply that it marks the intro­
duction of something entirely new, either. The point is to
suggest a notion rather than a refined concept. The notion is
that common human somethings” (deliberately left unspeci­
fied) may create rough correspondences, overlapping mean-
ings, between cultures that can be explored and exploited for
purposes of theoretical translations. A comparable, deliberate
fuzziness of meaning is essential to Wittgenstein’s celebrated
notion of “family resemblance.”
17. This line of thought is extrapolated from Donald Davidson.
See, for example, his Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation.
Evans—Pritchard used the same hey word and posed a similar
thesis years before' “We may go further and say that if there
were not a broad overlap between our present culture and
all cultures, and also a basic psychology which is common to
274 Part rV: Aesthetics
all peoples, neither the historians of peoples of distant times
and places nor the anthropologists living among primitive
peoples would be able to understand them at all” (1962, 61i
my italics). Also W. V. 0. Quine= "l have suggested that our
lexicographer’s obvious first moves in picking up some initial
Kabala vocabulary are at bottom a matter of exploiting the
overlap of our cultures” (1953, 62s my italics). Duerr 1985
argues that Davidson’s principle of charity is ethnocentrism
in disguise because forms of experience and understanding
that are discounted or ignored by the language-culture of
translation fail to convert.
18. Duerr’s protests notwithstanding, such a presumed semantic
overlap is therefore a necessary prerequisite to any technical
19.
translation exercise between African and Western languages.
An example of this kind of translation exercise may be found
in Hallen and Sodipo 1997, chapter 2 (The Knowledge-Belief
Distinction and Yoruba Discourse). For the methodology
involved see Hallen 2000, and chapter 6 above.
20. We also need to become familiar with other disciplines,
such as history, philosophy, literary criticism, perform­
ance studies, religion, psychology, music, linguistics, politi­
cal science, feminist studies, and African-American studies”
(Blier 1990, 103).
21. The West is moving towards a greater equality between
the researcher and the researched— a dialogue of equals in
its fieldwork” (Ottenberg 1990, 126). Kasfir 1992: M. Drewal
1992: Nzegwu 1998b: and Strother 1997 are representative.
22. See chapter 12.
23. In anthropology Victor Turner’s work with Ndembu discourse
(1970) is also relevant.
24. See chapter 6.
25. This is now characteristic of an entire genre of comparatively
recent African art historical (a-historical, actually) writings,
stretching from Robert Farris Thompson’s earliest work on
the Yoruba in the 70s through Rowland Abiodun’s later explo­
rations of the relations between the verbal and the visual
(1987), and Hallen’s explorations of the relations between the
epistemological and the aesthetic (2000).
26. See chapters 8 and 9 above. For an interpretation that draws
upon these kinds of differences to argue for the relativity of
cognitive (and, by implication, aesthetic) systems generally,
see Stich 1990, 92: 166 fn. 28.
27. See the passage quoted on p. 76 above.
CHAPTER 16
“MY MERCEDES HAS FOUR LEGS!"
"TRADITIONAL" AS AN ATTRIBUTE
OF AFRICAN EQUESTRIAN CULTURE
ver the past twenty-five years the meaning of the
O term traditional—as one of those essential attributes
used to type sub-Saharan cultures—has come under increas­
ing scrutiny (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983: Kuper 1988, 1999:
Mudimbe 1988).’ The debate has also been a topic of discussion
in African studies generally and in African art history in
particular (Blier 1993; Kasfir 1984; Nzegwu 1998b: chapter 12
above). The relevant professionals and their responses may
be subdivided under three headings; First, those who have
chosen to “hold fast” and who continue to insist that the
word does refer to something about the mentality and/or
social practices of these societies that is unique;
The most fruitful approach to the problem of
social evolution is to begin at the beginning and
investigate the early forms of organization and
belief. A very little reflection will tell us that the
early forms of anything are likely to be those that
are the easiest to produce and, by the same token,
those early forms are likely to be relatively crude
and inefficient. They survive because in the cir­
cumstances of primitive society, small in scale and
rudimentary in technology, where the demands on
efficiency are low, where there are few, if any,
variant forms to choose from, and where the level
of competition is weak, even crude and Inefficient
forms will work, or seem to after a fashion, and
will to some degree satisfy the desires of those
who introduce or maintain them. (Hallpike 1986,
372)
276 Part IV: Aesthetics

Second, those who view it as a relic of Western ethnocentrism^

that should be eliminated from the technical vocabulary of
African studies:
We think it best to discontinue use of the word
“traditional” with reference to African systems
of thought. Its use predisposes scholars to make
certain assumptions that encourage misrepresenta­
tions of African meanings and attitudes. (Hallen
and Sodipo 1997, 125)

And third, those who feel it can still be of use and value if
its terms of reference are clarified and stripped of pejora­
tive elements:
The early modern natural scientists, the natural
philosophers of the Renaissance, stressed often the
unreasonableness of appeals to authority. And if
modern scholarship suggests that they overstressed
the extent to which their predecessors were bound
by a hidebound traditionalism, it is still true that
there is a difference—if only in degree—in the
extent to which modernity celebrates distance
from our predecessors, while the traditional world
celebrates cognitive continuity. (Appiah 1992, 125)

This chapter will examine some ramifications of each

of these alternatives for understanding the meaning of
contemporary ceremonies and practices, admittedly carryo­
vers from the past, in the predominantly Muslim emirates
of northern Nigeria. Because the principal motif of these
ceremonies is equine, the aspects of them that will receive
detailed consideration are those related to the horse: its his­
torical (and perhaps historic) ancestry and its role in West
Africa generally: the performative role assigned to horses
in these ceremonies: the role of decoration: how all of this
may be received and interpreted by the general public in
attendance at these ceremonies.
The precise meaning attributed to traditional, and the
criteria said to justify its relevance to an African equestrian
ceremony, are intimately related to the specific methodo­
logical framework applied: whether functionalism, struc­
turalism, symbolism, or, with increasing frequency these
days, the various forms of deconstructive (in effect, alter-
278 Part IV: Aesthetics “My Mercedes hasfour le^!” 279

native) analysis of intellectual perspectives associated with

the former three that are loosely grouped under the heading
postmodern. Indeed in some nontrivial sense each of these
former three became a distinctive methodological approach
because of certain formative insights about the nature of
traditional thought, culture, and/or society. Topical, tempo­
ral, and spatial constraints make it impossible to undertake
a detailed recapitulation of these methodologies here, but it
may be possible to isolate aspects of their formative notions
of the “traditional” that became a source of controversy.
The equestrian ceremonies with which this chapter is
concerned commemorate the two principal religious holi­
days of the Muslim calendar: the Id al Kabir (the “Great
Festival,” celebrating the end of the pilgrimage to Mecca
and also Abraham’s sacrifice of Ishmael) and the Id al Fitr
(the “Festival of the Breaking of the Fast,” celebrating the
end of the month of Ramadan). The geographical region
where these festivals have been observed over a period of
years is what in contemporary Nigeria is loosely referred to
as the “North.” Roughly this corresponds to the territories
of the former Hausa-Fulani Sokoto Caliphate in the west and
central regions, and the territory of Borno or the former
Borno Empire in the east. The principal towns where the
festivals have been observed include Kano, Katsina, Maid-
uguri, Yola, and Zaria.
In each of these places the basic structures of the eques­
trian portions of the ceremonies are similar: an equestrian
parade that begins and ends at the palace of the ruler, and
that culminates with a durbar or competition between the
assembled horsemen “beneath” or adjoining the palace walls.
The nucleus of the parade is a horsed palace company led by
the ruler, king, or Emir^ (to use the appropriate Muslim-
Arabic title). Other, smaller horsed companies are led by
various regional, rural sheiks or sarki who travel with their
horsed retinues into the towns where the Emirs’ palaces are
located to salute, affirm their allegiance, and to parade with
their Emir. At a recent parade commemorating the Id al Fitr
top, Gezawa; bottom, Kano. Remnants of the imported stock that was
in Kano, it is estimated that approximately 300 horses^ par­ never quite able to overcome adverse climatic and health conditions.
ticipated: 100 in the palace company (30 horsed royal guards; Alternative caption^ Examples of the new generation of indigenous
10 princes of the royal family; 6 alternative ceremonial breeds that are fueling a contemporary equestrian renaissance.
280 Part IV: Aesthetics “My Mercedes hasfour le^!” 281

mounts for the Emir; 50 horsed retainers and palace chiefs)

and 200 in the various contingents from outlying areas.
Admittedly this account provides only the briefest
sketch of these occasions. That is deliberate. For when topics
like equestrian history and technology are discussed with
reference to a society that is categorized as traditional,
certain purportedly objective, specially crafted, methodo­
logical techniques for understanding and interpreting their
meaning come into play. Taking a closer look at these proc­
esses of assigning meaning and their implications for the
status of the cultures concerned is one of the aims of this
chapter.
“Outside” observers who undertake analyses of alien cul­
tures have first and fundamentally to take a tactical epis­
temological position, reflected by their methodology, about
the degree to which that culture can explain itself to them
directly and objectively—most obviously via discourse (for Kano. Polo “ponies” are still imported from across the Sahara, but by
example, through its literature and art, or through expert airplane.
indigenous informants on these subjects), and the degree
outfitted and decorated in certain ways, or why historically
to which this approach must be supplemented—usually for
an equestrian ceremony is associated with a certain occasion,
want of sources of objective discourse—by a methodology ultimately the articulated response amounts to nothing more
that indirectly interpolates select data or information about than because we’ve always done it this way” or “because
that culture using analytic techniques that are meant to this is what our forefathers said (to do).” In other words,
educe objectivity. Examples of the latter methodologies are
the most common form of explanation for a social practice
those provided by ethnology (functionalism, structuralism,
or belief in a traditional culture is itself an appeal to tradi­
etc.) or the techniques for the analysis of oral literature
tion, and to the past.
provided by ethnography.
As is to be expected, therefore, existent analyses of the
What has always distinguished the area of research con­ equestrian culture(s) of northern Nigeria place a comparative
cerned with traditional (formerly “primitive”) cultures is
de-emphasis upon contemporary local expertise and a much
the disproportionate or relatively greater emphasis placed
heavier and more substantial emphasis upon indirect, second­
upon the latter of these two approaches—upon interpola­
ary sources: the accounts of Arab geographers (because they
tion. Various reasons have been given for this-' the absence
are written and date back to the eleventh century), early
of written literature; the relative underdevelopment of spe­
West African manuscripts written in Arabic, the accounts
cialized labor and hence the absence of indigenous cultural
of European explorers, diffusionist hypotheses,^ stylistic
savants; the relative indigenous underdevelopment of the
reconstructions,® and the exegesis of oral traditions.^
rigorously analytic, discursive, experimental, empirical, and
It is principally by means of this indirect approach
didactic perspectives fostered by science.
that the instrumental or practical reasons for a substantial
When combined, all of these attributes are sufficient to
equestrian population have been identified (Law 1980). The
justify the stereotype of the traditional mentality that, in
horse passed from being a status symbol for royalty® to
response to a question, for example, about why horses are a weapon—an assault and pursuit vehicle—for the cavalry
 282 Part rV: Aesthetics
top, Kano: bottom, Kano. Cavalrymen armored in the traditional manner
on parade. Alternative Caption- Members of a cultural association explicitly
dedicated to preserving the heritage of the Hausa-Fulani cavalry forces.
"My Mercedes hasfour legs!” 283
forces that were to distinguish state creation in the West
African sahel and savannah regions during the thirteenth to
nineteenth centuries (Goody 1971, 34-50).
Adverse climatic, health,® and consequently breeding
conditions made the region’s high equine mortality rate and
the resultant high horse importation rate (principally from
North Africa) affordable for military purposes. The advent
of European colonialism meant the demise of independent
African armed forces. The mechanical transportation inva­
sions propelled by the bicycle and the internal combustion
engine made comparatively expensive and delicate equestrian
transport redundant, and the horse reverted to a symbolic,
royal role. The equine population that lingers on in the area
today is therefore treated as an example of vestigial cultural
remains, the relic of a former era.
All of this is exemplary scholarship, and this exercise is
not out to challenge so compelling a historical tableau. The
point is to decry the relative lack of attention paid to the
meaning(s) these ceremonies have in the present day. For
these ceremony-festivals certainly do have more signifi­
cance to the organizers and participants (spectators included)
than merely what we inherited from the forefathers}
There is a tendency to interpret a “traditional” parade
of horses, in part composed of people wearing dress that
was also in fashion centuries before, carrying spears and
shields that were made redundant—in actual fact on various
local battlefields—100 years before by the machine gun, as
increasingly feeble remnants of a once splendid past that
potters on a sort of last gasp. Modern elements of dress
that are creeping in—Western brogues, T-shirts, sunglasses,
cigarettes, even wristwatches—tend to be regarded as less-
than-aesthetic corruptions of a past which, in this “modern”
age of the nation-state, is being subverted by processes of
social change that make such events increasingly less rel­
evant to contemporary reality, pale imitations of what they
once were.
Maintaining this attitude toward these ceremonies
depends upon the continued promotion of a stereotype of
Africa as traditional—as temporally oriented toward a past‘°
284 Part rV: Aesthetics “My Mercedes hasfour legs!”
285

Each Emir has his own wardrobe of distinctive formal equestrian fash-
lons; opposite top, His Royal Highness, Alhaji Ado Bayero, Emir of Kanoi
opposite bottom, HRH Alhaji Shehu Idris, Emir of Zaria: above, HRH
Alhaji Usman Kabir, Emir of Katsina.

that is itself legendary obscured by a plethora of myths,

fables, and superstitions.
The equestrian culture survives largely through
the inertia of conservatism, and its future prob­
ably depends principally upon an increasingly self-
conscious traditionalism. In an environment highly
uncongenial to horses, the horse culture could not
long survive the demise of the particular pre-colo­
nial social and economic structures with which it
was associated, which linked horses closely with
the dominance of a warrior aristocracy 'and with
an economy based upon warfare and slavery (Law
1980, 206)
There is an element to this line of thought that comple­
ments what All Mazrui says in the following:
Another obstacle to cultural liberation has been
the confusion of the concept of modernization
with Westernization. In fact, retraditionalization
of African culture can take modernizing forms,
especially if it becomes an aspect of decolonize-
286 Part rV: Aesthetics “My Mercedes hasfour le^!“
287

tion. Retraditionalization does not mean returning

Africa to what it was before the Europeans came .
. . . But a move towards renewed respect for indig­
enous ways and the conquest of cultural self-con­
tempt may be the minimal conditions for cultural
decolonization. ‘'
Linking the retention and preservation of ceremonies
like the equestrian parade and competition to something like
“retraditionalization” could be a dubious rhetorical move,
since it is tied by connotation to a form of discourse about
the African mentality that denies it articulate, self-con­
scious direction. Why should it not be possible to discard
this relic of colonial nomenclature altogether?
This second alternative—discarding the notion of tradi­
tional would imply treating the meaning of these ceremo­
nies in a manner comparable to what is done with overtly
similar phenomena in Western society. In effect, traditional
man would be reconstituted and become, if not “just like
us,” significantly more just like us. This would serve to
highlight contemporary dimensions of these ceremonies
that are evidenced and acknowledged by their organizers
and participants (spectators included), and that may warrant
more attention than they generally receive:
1. They serve as a form for the celebration of a national
public holiday that manifests elements of a spectacle,
pageant, or show for entertainment. There is an undeni­
ably festive atmosphere. The streets where the parade
and competition take place overflow with ordinary citi­
zens in their best dress. There are numerous vendors of
snacks and soft drinks (and also pickpockets). Both parade
and competition are broadcast on radio and television,
and in rural areas every set is tuned in.
2. They serve as an occasion for the ruler to salute, and to
be saluted by (it definitely is symmetrical) the populace.
There is a clear element of public relations here. The
top, Kano: bottom, Yola. A local cynic commented that the homely public equestrian parade and competition provides one of
alternative of a bare Borno head with its prominent ‘Roman nose’ was those rare occasions on which both social extremes—rich
good enough reason for extravagant equestrian decoration.” and pool can celebrate'^ together.
288 Part IV: Aesthetics "My Mercedes hasfour legs!” 289

Yola. The hand embroidered, gold-threaded saddles for the Emir of Yola
are specially ordered from a workshop in Alexandria, Egypt.

3. They serve as a rather elegant fashion show. It is mis-

representative to regard these ceremonies as only a form
of masquerade, in which the participants are attempting
to “dress up” in costumes that imitate their ancestors.'^
A more fruitful analogy would be to suggest that the
people wearing these magnificent robes regard them as
something akin to Western formal wear. In contempo­
rary Nigerian society this is reflected by the nomen­
clature of formal invitations, where it is referred to
as “national dress” and listed as the only alternative to
black tie.
4. They serve as homage to the past. The chain mail shirts,
the helmets, the spears, the shields, and the horses, as
elements that also commemorate a deservedly famous
cavalry heritage, are still important in these ceremony-
festivals. But it would be simplistic to say that today this
is their raison d’etre. This would also obscure apprecia­ Kano. From the moment horsemen issue from the palace gate they are per­
tion of the possibility that the equestrian culture of this forming for an audience. Alternative Caption^ Youthful participants ‘horsing
about in a manner not entirely appropriate to a formal ceremony.
290 Part rV: Aesthetics
top, Maiduguri! bottom, Kano. Painted decoration on the wall of an offi­
cial room in the Kano palace (SqrQn Inglia) contrasted with the Veal thing’
in Borno (Maiduguri). The reins that a rider uses to guide his horse are
said to be an appropriate visual metaphor for the relationship an Emir
bears toward his people. The saber is now interpreted as symbolic of the
protective role an Emir bears toward the community.
“My Mercedes hasfour legs!'
291
region is enjoying a modest rebirth because it has begun
to cope successfully with a changed social context.
5. They serve as equestrian shows and games that encourage
spectator participation. The durbars'* or “horsed com­
petitions” are unquestionably the high points of these
occasions. This is a key factoi—these equestrian com­
petitions, with their splendidly robed principals, have
become popular spectator shows and attract as large an
audience as major football (soccer) matches.’® Audiences
are anything but passive. They clearly are both thrilled
and terrified to be in close proximity to the snort­
ing, thundering companies of horsemen. They actively
applaud and censure good and bad displays of horseman­
ship.
A defender of the orthodox view of the “traditional”
might protest that, while these additional perspectives on
the equestrian parade-and-competition as a contemporary
social phenomenon may be true, they are only trivially so.
And, as superficially true, they distract attention from what
is unique and important about these events as cultural state­
ments in and of a traditional society.
Postponing for the moment coming to terms with the
nagging problem of just what this unique “traditional”
element may be, an obvious riposte is to enquire if the
orthodox defender would be willing to admit that these
additional, superficial reasons for or meanings of these cer­
emonies may have always been true,” even centuries ago, in
distant and legendary times? If so, does this not make the
parades much more conventional, as cultural statements, in
their own right?
The orthodox defender might respond' by suggesting
that this account of these ceremonies is not representa­
tive because to detail just one of its shortcomings—it pays
insufficient attention to the significance and meaning of the
Emir s participation. By convention, in the relevant litera­
ture, the Emir is also referred to as a “traditional” ruler.'® In
the English-language contemporary Nigerian press, rhetoric
such as the following is commonplace'
292 Part rV: Aesthetics
Yola, a composite image of a pedestrian, a bicyclist, a motorcyclist, and
a horseman. Today the latter three are becoming equally practical and
economical alternatives.
Alhaji Ado Bayero, the thirteenth Emir of Kano and
the fifty-sixth in the line of rulers that ruled Kano
from 999 A.D. to date is undoubtedly one of the
most successful traditional leaders [in the history]
of the Emirate (my italics).'^
It is the Emir, as traditional ruler, who authorizes the
ceremony “to be” and to take place. It is the Emir’s staff
(both in the palace and on the local council) who organize
the events, determine who will participate, and print the
official program. It is the horsed company, led by the Emir,
that forms the nucleus of the parade. It is the regional
chiefs, accustomed to saluting the Emir on such occasions,
who provide the balance of horsemen.
In more technical language, it would not be an exaggera­
tion to say that the “presence” of the Emir, as an institu­
tionalized traditional authority, is a sufficient cause for the
entire proceedings. With his permission and participation
they can take place. Without them they could not. The entire
ceremony must therefore be viewed, foremost, as an expres-
"My Mercedes hasfour legs!” 293
Sion or manifestation of the power of this institutionalized
traditional authority that transcends any individual.’® This
is the way it has been for centuries, and this is the way it
still is today. This is therefore one obvious example of what
the word traditional can mean.
The force of this argument is undeniable. Yet so is the
impact of the other aspects of these occasions that have been
loosely described under the headings of show or spectacle.
It is this two-sidedness or ambivalence of these occasions
that inclines one to refer to them also as entertainment,'®
and why perhaps it is more representative to settle on—as
our third alternative—further discussion of the meaning
of traditional, to see whether it can be somehow refined so
that these diverse elements may be reconciled.
It is at this point that one can appreciate the relevance of
a postmodern approach. Someone like Mudimbe (1988, 188-92)
would lament any “fix-it” attitude towards this process of
redefinition. He would encourage us to see further than the
typical craftsman of objective knowledge. The craftsman
would treat this as essentially a technical problem: When
the meaning of a term is shown to be at variance with its
referent, when it no longer accurately describes what it
is meant to, modify it so that it does. Then one can carry
on with the scientific process and progress towards under­
standing alien cultures better than before.
An alternative form of analysis would be to try and
understand better the mentality that originally assigned
the meaning of traditional that it is now found appropriate
to discard, to revise. For the characteristics of alien societies
that strike the observer as definitive also may tell us a good
deal about that observer and his own cultural priorities.
What we say distinguishes “them” from “us” (scientifically,
aesthetically, ethnically, and so forth) can be of perhaps
even greater value for understanding what we want to dis-
tinguish us from “them,” for better understanding what
we think is important about our cultural selves.
Something else that makes the old meaning of a concept
like traditional difficult to negotiate is that it has been dif­
ferently defined for different contexts. There are, however,
three fairly dependable characteristics shared in common^®
 294 Part rV: Aesthetics
when referring to social institutions, social practices, beliefs
or attitudes towards beliefs (these latter two always also
somehow social in scale). One is that they are significantly
connected with the past. The second is that there has been
a notable lack of innovation or change in such practices or
beliefs since originally introduced. The third is that they
are more clearly and more easily identified and understood
by the observation and analysis of behavior rather than
information provided by informants or direct discourse.
Converting each of these characteristics, so that it
reflects back upon the ‘us” who originally imputed it to
them, can be used to tell us that the (Western) epistemo­
logical ideology of the age^‘ that gave rise to this meaning
of traditional places a high value upon being independent
from (but aware of) the past, upon invention and change as
elements of “progress,” and upon being articulate, rational,
even commonsensicaP^ according to clearly defined meth­
odological standards. It would be controversial to insist that,
because the West did place a high ideological value upon such
attitudes and because these alien cultures were supposed
to be/appeared to be so different from our own, we were
(pre)disposed to attribute, to prove” contrary notions to
and of them.^^
So as to be equally unfair to all parties concerned, this
very pale imitation of Foucaultian (Foucault 1974) analysis
can also be applied to the alternative perspectives on these
ceremony-festivals that have been suggested in this chapter.
In an ideological era of multiculturalism, the (no-longer-
so) alien is assigned separate, different, but equal status. It
therefore follows that we would begin to interpret his cul­
tural activities by (new) more conventional, more pedestrian
comparisons rather than the (old) exotic and bizarre ones^'*=
fashion shows, public” holidays, games, and sports. “Tust
like us status (i.e., ‘ Your culture has integrity!”) has become
a (universal) “natural” right.
What the above also demonstrates is that we cannot get
away from, cannot avoid, the concepts and categories of our
primary natural language when it comes to translating an
alien culture into our own terms. The processes of descrip­
tion and explanation—admittedly approximate—must make
“My Mercedes hasfour le^!”
295
sense to us in the terms of our language or they have no
meaning at all. The alien culture must be made to conform
semantically, or it does not translate.
To conclude with an anecdote or, rather, an anecdote
within an anecdote, about continuity and change: Alhaji
Magajin Busa is a substantial man of affairs in Zaria, an
emirate in the north of Nigeria that in earlier times was
known as the kingdom of Zazzau. In this region today the
Mercedes car has become synonymous with royalty and
wealthy businessmen.
One of Alhaji Busa’s sidelines is to rent out the beautiful
robes that horsemen wear on the occasions of the Muslim
holidays. He does this in a very discreet manner, because
such people would prefer it never be known that the gown
is not their own. Still, the service the Alhaji provides is very
much comparable to the businesses that rent out formal
wear in Western society. One afternoon while relaxing in
his garden the Alhaji told an anecdote that dates from when
the Emir of Bida^® bought his town’s first motor car, a
Mercedes. The population was very impressed by this mag­
nificent limousine when they saw it being delivered to the
palace. Now their Emir would be able to travel in modern
comfort to places like Ghana, Cairo, even Mecca!
Then it was announced that all the people of the town
should begin to report to the palace every morning to assist
with the construction of roads. Because unlike the horse,
which could travel over open country, this new “iron horse”
required roads to travel on. If this was what was called
progress, the Alhaji told us, the people did not know
whether to laugh or to cry. Because now they understood
that before the iron horse could carry their Emir to Mecca
they would first have to build a road that reached Mecca!
When we asked the Alhaji where he kept his Mercedes,
he pointed to the stables at the far end of the garden and
said: Many of my customers live in rural areas. My Mer­
cedes has four legs!”^®
The process of refining the meaning of traditional is
ongoing. Any number of contemporary movements and
sources are contributing to it, up to and including, as has
been suggested at points in this book, abolishing its use
296 Part IV: Aesthetics
altogether. In this kind of pluralistic intellectual atmos­
phere, attempting independently to stipulate, to “fix” a new
definition could be counterproductive. The move towards
redefinition is already well underway. It is motivated by an
increased sensitivity to the meanings of alien and of culture,
and by an increased awareness of the influence of subjectiv­
ity upon objectivity. All of this underscores, once again, the
primacy of self-awareness to understanding generally.
NOTES
1. The basis for a bias against “tradition” has always been epis­
temological — its questionable reliability as a source of and
justification for knowledge.
2. Richard Rorty’s admonitions regarding hasty generalizations
about hypothesized, abstract, theoretical constructs (actu­
ally, characteristics) said to distinguish “traditional” societies,
which he refers to as tertia, are relevant. See his “Heidegger,
Kundera, and Dickens,” in Essays on Heidegger and Others
(1991b, 66-82), and the discussion in chapter 3 above under the
subheading The Status of Anthropological Dialogue.
3. Borno (Maiduguri) is different, of course, because there the
ruler is the Shehu of Borno.
4. This compares with an estimate of 200 at the same ceremony
in 1981, and is further evidence of the increasing vitality of
the equestrian culture. (See Perani and Wolff 1992, 103 fn.
28.)
5. The remarkable journey of the toe-stirrup, from India to
Ethiopia to West Africa, is illustrative (Goody 1971, 35: Law
1980, 89).
6. “In the seventeenth century, when imported horses and trap­
pings had become an essential component in Hausa military
strategy, Hausa metalworkers probably began to make their
own horse trappings, imitating Arab prototypes” (Perani and
Wolff 1992, 78).
7. There is a legend about a rebel immigrant prince from
Baghdad who, according to some versions, arrived in the area
riding an animal that the local people had never before seen.
Some scholars suggest this must have been a mule, but given
cosmopolitan standards and tastes of the time (A. Smith dates
the story’s currency to the seventeenth century) it may have
been a pure-bred Arabian horse. (See Smith 1987, 65.)
"My Mercedes hasfour legs!” 297
8. This is how one of the earliest references to horses in West
Africa in Arabic sources, al-Bakri’s eleventh-century descrip­
tion of the ten splendidly outfitted horses at the court of the
king of Ghana, is generally interpreted (Levtzion and Hopkins
1981, 80).
9. Most accounts emphasize the tsetse-fly problem and under­
rate the equally lethal consequences of midge-transmitted
African Horse Sickness (AHS), which has only recently been
successfully contained by vaccination.
10. With reference to the Appiah quotation on p. 276 above, there
is a significant difference between being oriented toward
one’s past and being connected with one’s past.
11. Mazrui and Tidy 1984, 169, as quoted in Mudimbe 1988, 169.
12. Different from the Friday prayer, when they can worship
together in the Central Mosque.
13. The decorated horse being an extension of the rider’s fashion­
able tastes.
14. The events constitutive of the durbar are also undergoing
modification, and therefore so is the meaning of this “tradi­
tional” term.
15. Polo, played in private clubs, is not a popular sport with the
general public.
16. For those who may not be familiar with recent Nigerian
history, it is partly as a consequence of colonialism and partly
as a consequence of policy decisions taken by the national
body-politic since independence that the precolonial politi­
cal structure (“traditional” rulers) continues to exist parallel
to and, in principle, subordinate to the civilian or military
political structure of the nation-state.
17. The Democrat [a Nigerian newspaper], 12 November 1988, p. 6.
18. It is noteworthy that, by way of introducing the current
Emir, this heritage is immediately invoked in the above quo­
tation from the Nigerian newspaper.
19. Robin Horton notes an intriguingly analogical ambivalence,
followed by a transition in his thinking, about the role of the
Kalahari Ekine society. (See Horton 1993, 446, fn. 90: and the
earlier 1963 article.)
20. Evans-Pritchard affirmed three well-known characteristics
of the primitive’ society: small-scale, preindustrial, and
preliterate. (See Evans-Pritchard 1965, 18.)
21. Which would be described as “modern” rather than postmod­
ern.
298 Part IV: Aesthetics
22. Any number of specialized studies of the (Western) notion of
‘commonsense” have been carried out. (See Lehrer 1989.)
23. Even if this is an argument advanced by Kuper 1988, 5.
24. Or, at the other interpretative extreme, that all Western
notions, categories, and methods are (culturally) completely
alien and therefore inherently distortive when used to analyze
non-Western cultures.
25. Many of the people who deal in national dress have links with
Bida because of that town’s formidable reputation for the
quality of its garments.
26. Substantial trans-Saharan horse importation ceased 100+ years
ago. A tour of local private stables to view the foals now
being bred each year is the happiest evidence of the burgeon­
ing equestrian renaissance in this region. The rugged hardi­
ness of the domestic strains that have been bred over the
centuries, easier access to veterinary medicine, and occasional
economic Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP) that make
automobiles and motorcycles exorbitantly expensive, may
combine to make equestrian transport economically feasible
after all.
CONCLUSION
THE FABLE OF "AUTHENTICITY"
INTRODUCTION
he term authenticity has generated some of the more
T passionate and acrimonious debates that have occurred
in the history of African studies. Although this concluding
chapter will illustrate certain variations in the meaning of
this term as it has related to the three more specific subdis­
ciplines of culture, art, and literature, at least one attribute
all share in common is that authenticity is used to designate
things about Africa said to be truly indigenous. The contro­
versy and acrimony have stemmed from the fact that the
task of delimiting the “authentic” with regards to Africa
initially was appropriated primarily by non-African schol­
ars. In numerous instances the differences they identified
between Africa and the West, and the comparatively unflat­
tering accounts of the “true” nature of African cultures
they thereby produced, have come to be deeply resented by
the subcontinent’s indigenous scholars.
Subsequent generations of African and Western scholars
have repudiated the transparent ethnocentrism structuring
such accounts. In numerous instances it is now recognized
that the paradigms involved were derived frdm the ideals of
Western culture and were clearly Irrelevant to and therefore
inappropriate as a basis for determining whether African
cultures were “civilized,” whether African art was “fine,”
and whether African literature was classical.” These more
recent developments do not mean that the authenticity
debate has become a thing of the past. If anything they
are inspiring a much wider variety of interdisciplinary and
intercultural studies—including philosophy in the African
context concerning the problems with which human beings
 300 African Philosophy: The Analytic Approach
must contend when trying to understand alien cultures, and
with better appreciation of what was and is distinctive of
Africa’s indigenous cultural heritage.
CULTURE
Culture is being used here in the sense of nothing
more or less than a people’s way of life. Relatively detailed
accounts of African cultures first began to reach the West
via the experiences of early explorers, traders, missionaries,
and colonial administrators. But it was not until anthropol-
°Sy Lecame established as a scholarly discipline specializing
in alien or non-Western cultures that such accounts claimed
scientific status.
The attributes that were then said to define African
culture generally were very different from those associ­
ated with Western culture, and were too often unflatter­
ing. Although a certain nostalgia was expressed for black
Africa as representing an earlier stage of human develop­
ment, when life was not so complicated or difficult, this
was also when African culture came to be characterized as
primitive,” “barbaric,” and “savage” (Levy-Bruhl 1928).
One meaning common to these three terms was that such
peoples were not capable of establishing a culture that could
be described as civilized.
Supposedly objective anthropological studies were meant
to demonstrate that African culture generally was animis­
tic, communal (also a negative attribute when understood as
meaning intolerant of criticism of or dissent from established
beliefs and practices), emotive, uninhibitedly erotic, instinc­
tual, and protorational. Africans were said to be incapable of
distinguishing myth from fact, magic from science. They
lived in isolated tribal units whose circumstances revealed
much about early human prehistory. Because they had yet
to develop writing, they were preliterate peoples who were
incapable of expressing themselves in a logical or systematic
manner. They relied upon rituals and symbols to help them
deal (emotionally) with problems whose causes they could
not comprehend. Beliefs and social practices were learned
as hallowed traditions inherited from ancestors, to be prac­
ticed and preserved in the present, and passed on unchanged
Conclusion: The Fable of‘Authenticity”
301
to the next generation. As such African culture could not
evolve or develop with the passage of time.
It would be unfair to say that the whole of anthro­
pology subscribed to this portrayal of traditional African
culture. Nevertheless its profound and pervasive influence
is evidenced by how many of these attributes are still asso­
ciated with Africa in the (Western) popular imagination
today. There were other, dissenting anthropologists who
argued that this comparatively negative portrait of African
culture was more a product of ethnocentrism, imagination,
ignorance, and racism (on a pseudoscientific evolutionary
basis) than it was of empirical data (Boas 1927). They insisted
that gross generalizations about the whole of Africa were
unwarranted. They argued that the only reliable way to
study African culture was to live in the midst of a particu­
lar ethnic group for an extended period of time and to learn
the language so that one could understand how Africans
expressed themselves in their own terms. Only on the basis
of such fieldwork,” as it came to be known, would anthro­
pologists be in a position to make realistic assessments of
African culture.
Fieldwork did become a staple of anthropological
methodology, and there is no doubt that such firsthand
experience of African ways of life eventually resulted in
very different conclusions about the character of African
culture. Becoming fluent in an African language, in particu­
lar, resulted in revised portraits of the African intellect,
and these resulted in a revaluation of the beliefs, values,
and social practices that were attributed to that intellect.
Inanimate objects were now understood not to be worshi­
ped in their own right. They were revere4 because of the
spiritual force(s) they represented. Individual cultures did
allow for a degree of individual autonomy, criticism, and
dissent. Different African cultures had always interacted
and changed as a result. Africans were found to be capable
of sustained reasoning that was of philosophical importance,
but the semantic networks on the basis of which they did
so contained concepts governed by empirical criteria that
differed from their Western equivalents (Hallen 2000). In
short, the differences between Africa and the West were
 African Philosophy: The Analytic Approach
revealed not to be as fundamental or exotic or bizarre as had
been imagined.
Johannes Fabian (1983) is a contemporary anthropologist
whose revisionist critiques of the discipline have become
particularly influential. He concentrates on the use of Time
(with a capital T ) in anthropology to illustrate the ille­
gitimate and unwarranted basis upon which comparisons
between African and Western cultures continue to be made.
When anthropologists are engaged in fieldwork in Africa,
on the basis of lived experience, they walk and talk, think
and feel, in a unified temporal world that must be as much
that of the Africans as it is their own. It must be because
the anthropologist must be there as an essential (indeed
indispensable, if anthropological fieldwork is to be done)
party to the experiencing.
Yet when these same anthropologists sit down to write up
a supposedly definitive account of whatever African culture
happens to be involved, they invariably abstract or eliminate
their personal selves and experiences from the narrative
and begin to write about Africa as if existing in another
sort of Time, in a world that therefore becomes bizarre by
comparison with that of the West. The (con)joint temporal
world the anthropologist lived in while doing fieldwork is
rhetorically transformed into a timeless place governed by
things like ritual, myth, and symbol; reenacted, retold, and
reused in endless repetitive cycles.
The effect of this temporal double standard is to create
a fictitious intellectual chasm (Fabian prefers the term dis­
tance) between Africa and the West. Africans and their cul­
tures are now treated as exotic objects, as things to write
about, as—in Fabian’s preferred and now well-known ter­
minology—the Other. But the point is that what is pre­
sented as an objective technique—that supposedly provides a
reliable methodological format for describing African cul­
tures—becomes a demeaning ideological weapon. Tradition
and modernity are not ''opposed” (except semiotically), nor
are they in conflict.” All this is (bad) metaphorical talk.
What are opposed, in conflict, in fact locked in antagonistic
struggle, are not the same societies at different stages of
Conclusion: The Fable of “Authenticity” 303
development, but different societies facing each other at
the same time (1983, 155; 2001).
Generalizations about the “nature” of African culture
become relevant to authenticity because both scholars and
laymen want to know what distinguishes one culture from
another. Today there is also widespread interest in what it
means to be African in terms of one’s fundamental beliefs
and values, as well as what black Africa was like prior to the
intervention of outside forces, whether spiritual (Christian­
ity and Islam) or imperial (European colonization). But also
today warnings are being issued about hasty or oversimpli­
fied generalizations that may be said to apply to all African
cultures (Kuper 1988, 1999). A more prudent strategy would
be to break the subcontinent down into its constituent ethnic
groups and language cultures (Zulu, Yoruba, Baule, etc.) and
then to understand what may be distinctive of each before
attempting to generalize about all (Wiredu 1996).
The negative portrayals of African cultures on the basis
of implied comparisons with the West, and the controver­
sies among anthropologists themselves about what forms
of depiction do justice to the cultures concerned, eventually
fueled the debate surrounding the contemporary intellec­
tual movements that have come to be identified as postcolo­
nialism, multiculturalism, and postmodernism (Appiah 1992;
Bhabha 1994; Mudimbe 1988; Spivak 1987). One idea these
movements share in common is the rejection of Western
culture as any sort of cross-cultural paradigm.
Postcolonialism is meant to succeed colonialism and neo­
colonialism, and to engender a new era in which African
societies will finally rid themselves of lingering political,
economic, and ideological trappings that have been imposed
by and are in the interests of Western imperialism. Mul­
ticulturalism encourages an international atmosphere of
cultural relativism and pluralism, whereby the beliefs and
values of any non-Western culture are granted equal prima
facie credibility and integrity to those of Western culture.
Indeed the West becomes just one other culture in the world
rather than a paradigm that others are expected to emulate.
Postmodernism challenges the claim that there can be any
form of understanding generated by a particular culture
304 A&ican Philosophy: The Analytic Approach
that should be accepted as absolute and true in cross-cultural
terms, a la Rorty in chapters 2 and 3.
Much postmodern criticism of anthropological studies
relates to the notion of the “text,” of the written treatise
the anthropologist composes that is meant to constitute a
definitive representation of whatever culture is the object
of the study. “The fieldworker presides over, and controls
in some degree, the making of a text out of life. His or her
descriptions and interpretations become part of the ‘con­
sumable record of what man has said’” (Clifford 1988, 116:
the quote within the quote is from Geertz 1973, 30). Post­
modernism argues that anthropological monographs are not
translations of preexisting “native” texts to which others
can refer in order to verify their accuracy. To the contrary,
they are original creations, a genre of “stories” composed by
fieldworkers on the basis of their interactions with alien
peoples.
What serves to guarantee that such stories provide a true
and objective representation of African cultures as they
really are? Usually this is the point at which fieldworkers
invoke their methodologies—as supposedly somehow scien­
tific in nature—to guarantee the accuracy of their findings
and whatever conclusions are drawn from them. Yet when
it comes to the study of human cultures it is questionable
whether it is possible to formulate any methodology that
will tell the story of a people’s way of life as they really
are.
The word culture is itself a highly abstract and theoreti­
cal term. There is no simple object labeled “culture” that
fieldworkers can refer to directly as the evidential basis
for their generalizations. What there is, in elementarily
empirical terms, are individual human beings behaving in
certain ways. Out of all of this the fieldworker isolates
certain forms of (verbal and non-verbal) behavior as more
definitive of a people than others. But those choices may tell
us as much or more about the fieldworker’s own cultural
background (which, by the way, is also a product of abstrac­
tion) as they do about whatever African people happen to be
the object of the study. For example, that Western culture
attached the highest priorities (verging on the ideological)
Conclusion: The Fable of “Authenticity”
305
to being rational, to suppressing the emotions, to change,
progress and development, and to controlled if not repressed
sexuality, likely influenced Western perceptions of African
peoples who physically appeared to be quite different, so
that they became more easily associated with the opposites
of or alternatives to these culturally privileged Western
priorities.’
The postmodern resolution to these problems of inter-
cultural understanding is that scholars (and lay persons)
become reconciled to and more candid about our cognitive
limitations. When it comes to describing or understand­
ing a culture there is no one, single, correct pathway to
something called the “true” picture. “There is no master
narrative” (Clifford 1988, 15). Every text will tell a dif­
ferent “story,” that may tell us as much about its author’s
cultural background as it does about an African people. As
such it may still be educational and entertaining, but never
truly, comprehensively representative of a way of life as it
really is.
In the literature the notion of “authentic African
culture” is conventionally linked to that of “traditional
African culture, as what these societies really were like
prior to European conquest and colonization. The Yoruba of
southwestern Nigeria, who have been featured in this book,
have for some time been one of the most widely studied
ethnic and linguistic groups in sub-Saharan Africa. Published
bilingual (Yoruba-English) dictionaries (Abraham 1958; CMS
1950; Yai 1994) suggest a number of equivalences for the
English-language “traditional.” To grasp the meanings of
these terms it is important to appreciate how they are used
in ordinary everyday discourse (Austin 1961, 1962a).
As has repeatedly been pointed out, “traditional” is one
of the more controversial terms still associated with indig­
enous African cultures. To restate briefly the reasons why,
when the expression “African traditional culture” was coined
by scholars, it was meant to suggest that the beliefs, values,
and social practices that constitute such cultures are prima­
rily things inherited from a previous generation, practiced
and preserved by the present, and passed on unaltered to the
future. Such cultures were therefore said to be character-

306 African Philosophy: The Analytic Approach
ized by a relative absence of critical or reflective thought,
since either might pose a threat to the traditional way of
life. Consequently such cultures were said to change insig­
nificantly over time, thereby qualifying for the timeless
notion (of Time) that Johannes Fabian repudiates.
With regard to the expression “African traditional
thought” the stereotype carried over. How Africans think
and what they think about were also said to be things inher­
ited primarily from the past. “Knowledge” and “wisdom”
were therefore most importantly identified with inher­
ited oral traditions. Yet because these societies supposedly
discouraged or even punished those who criticized or chal­
lenged such inherited knowledge, there was little chance
for further refinements in distinguishing the true from
the false—for knowledge to progress. Therefore in rela­
tive or cross-cultural terms invoking tradition (we believe
this because the forefathers said it) as a justification for
something s being 'knowledge” or “true” became epistemo­
logically suspect, and relegated such cultures to the most
remote of philosophical backwaters.
Another problem with this portrait, this model, this
supposed paradigm of “African thought” is that it is not
representative of the epistemological status of oral tradition
in Yoruba culture. The Yoruba certainly do acknowledge that
their culture assigns an important role to oral traditions as
sources of information inherited from the past. But the
terminology in the Yoruba language that is used to refer to
oral tradition does not grant it the status of “knowledge,” of
information that is by definition “true.” “Knowledge” and
truth should only be attributed to things one personally
has seen happen firsthand, or seen tested or tried firsthand
and thereby proven true.^ The epistemological status of an
oral tradition that provides a recipe for a medication that
is supposed to cure headaches, for example, must remain
hypothetical, as only possibly true (or false) and therefore
indeterminate, until it has been prepared, tested on indi­
viduals suffering from headaches and thereby proven to be
effective.
The consequences of all this for the previously outlined
stereotypes of African traditional culture and thought
mm
Conclusion: The Fable of "Authenticity" 307
should be substantial. For one thing the Yoruba cognitive
system becomes an exception to what is supposed to be the
rule—the model or paradigm of African cultures. This puts
the truth status of the paradigm itself into question. For
another it challenges the notion that Africans are insuf­
ficiently critically and empirically minded about beliefs |
inherited from the past. |
The present-day opinions of Africans about the authen- i
ticity of their cultures have not received nearly as much £
attention in the literature. This is in part because of the |
influence of those who continue to argue that the absence n
of written history provides an inadequate basis for a reli-
able record of what was and was not true of the past (Price
1989, 64). Nevertheless recorded instances of contemporary 1
popular opinion in Africa indicate that the vast majority j|
of Africans continue to see themselves as the products of
cultures that are indigenous and authentically African. For i
such individuals that non-African technology, beliefs, and
in some cases values have been and are being assimilated is \
not so much a sign of inauthenticity as it is of their indig-
enous cultures’ original and continuing abilities to change
and to evolve.
ART
‘Authenticity” has also become a prominent and contro­
versial topic in the domain of African art. For when it comes '
to the question of who establishes and controls the criteria
that determine the authenticity of African art objects, the
disparity between Africa and the West with regards to who
is entitled to define African culture is further highlighted.
In international or intercultural terms, wjiich also eventu­
ally affected artistic production in African societies them­
selves, it has been Western anthropologists, art historians,
collectors, connoisseurs, curators, dealers, and private collec­
tors who have controlled the canonical study and marketing
of African art.
Initially Western scholars argued that African peoples
were intellectually incapable of conceiving of “art,” much
less of “fine art,” as a separate category to human experi- |
ence. What you had were primitive craftsmen (rather than
!
308 African Philosophy: The Analytic Approach
artists), fashioning a wide variety of artifacts (rather than
works of art) that served a variety of sacred and profane
instrumental (rather than decorative) ends in their cultures.
Whether the objects involved were royal regalia, masquerade
costumes, figurative carvings in a shrine, textiles, pots, or
even baskets, the motives for their creation were not deco­
rative. The forms or styles of such pieces and the decora­
tions, with which they appeared to be embellished, were in
fact the products of traditional tribal heritages that made
them fundamentally emotive, symbolic, and ritualistic in
character. The meanings of these preliterate forms and
design motifs, if they could be decoded and expressed in
discursive writing, would ”say” something about such peo­
ple’s feelings for and beliefs about the world. As such all of
primitive African “art” was swept under the umbrella of
primitive African culture (Dutton 1995).
It was the collection of such objects by individuals and
institutions in Western culture that first generated the
debate about authenticity. “Responsibility for identifying
those rare, lurking pieces of Primitive manufacture that
embody Aesthetic Quality is accepted fully by Westerners”
(Price 1989, 87). The objects that today constitute “African
primitive art in Western collections have evolved over time
from being exotic curiosities, to anthropological artifacts,
and finally into works of art that are sometimes accorded
masterpiece status. This last stage has been achieved by sev­
ering or isolating them from their indigenous cultural con­
texts and putting them on exhibit, floodlit and elaborately
mounted, in museums and galleries as if purely works of
art (Clifford 1988).
How do Western connoisseurs claim to distinguish
African art works of average quality from masterpieces?
Here is where one must distinguish between quality and
authenticity, at least as far as the Western taste for African
art is concerned. Obviously there must most essentially be
something purely sensory—visual, tactile—about any work
of art that is responsible for its quality. Specialists argue
that it is only by being exposed to numerous examples of
such objects that one can “learn” to recognize artistic quality.
But for the highly competitive Western market in African
Conclusion: The Fable ofAuthenticiiy” 309
art quality alone was not enough as a criterion of value. If
it were only that the market could become flooded with
numerous, numberless reproductions of pieces deemed to be
of high artistic quality. Hence the need for a supplementary
criterion of authenticity (Allison 1976).
Three attributes are generally associated by Western col­
lectors with African art objects that are judged “authentic.”
First, they are preferably one of a kind, as befits “mas­
terpiece” status in the Western canon. This rules out the
possibility of replicas or reproductions becoming of equal
value, because it is the original that matters. Second, they
must have actually been used for whatever purpose they
were originally intended in their African culture of origin.
If royal regalia it must have been used by the appropriate
royalty, if a masquerade costume it must have been used
in performances, if a shrine figure it must have been in a
shrine. Finally, objects are generally judged more authen­
tic if crafted prior to the period of European colonization.
There appear to be two main reasons for this. Indigenous
African cultures are then said to have been more indigenous
(“traditional,” again), more “pure,” and less likely to have
been affected by outside influence. Consequently there was
also less opportunity for a European to commission native
craftsmen to make a piece in return for monetary payment
as some kind of special order.
Of course this Western(ized) view of authenticity intro­
duces another form of cultural stereotyping, and it would
be grossly unfair to attribute it today to all professionals
who deal in some way with African art. In the Western
context scholars such as James Clifford, Sidney Kasfir,
Nkiru Nzegwu, Sally Price, Susan Vogel, Enid Schildkrout,
and Monica Visona, Robin Poynor, et al. have challenged the
Western cultural establishment for imposing ethnocentric
standards on African objects, and for failing to appreciate
the ever-changing role of artistic creation and production
in past and contemporary African cultures. One consequence
of these critiques is a more frank admission by all parties
concerned that what African art “is” for Western culture
is certainly not what African art “is” in African cultures
(Appiah 1995).
 310 African Philosophy: The Analytic Approach
This latter point has also been taken up by a number of
indigenous African scholars. One of the earliest was the poet
and one-time president of Senegal, Leopold Sedar Senghor
(1971). Irritated by the patronizing terms with which the
African intellect was characterized by early Western anthro­
pologists, Senghor set out to defend the continent’s integrity
by proposing an alternative view of African culture, which
he termed Negritude, which was fundamentally aesthetic in
character. Senghor adapted rather than adopted several of
the unflattering characteristics that had been attributed to
the African mentality and incorporated them into a lyrical,
positive, and what he claimed to be—authentic theory of
an alternative form of cognition. Africans did view and
interpret their experience in an emotive manner. But this
was no different from the artist whose views of reality are
mediated and formed on the basis of intuition, imagination,
and the act of creation. For Africans feelings rather than
abstraction and analysis were the keys to understanding,
and this is why the aesthetic (arts and crafts, rhythm,
song) was assigned so prominent a role in their cultures.
There have been many critiques of Negritude over the
years, but in this concluding essay discussion of them will
be deferred to the succeeding subheading devoted specifi­
cally to literature. What it is relevant to say at this point is
that Negritude is only one manifestation of a movement on
the part of African intellectuals to resist characterizations
of the artistic and the aesthetic in their cultures that they
recognized as both false and demeaning.
The role of authenticity in indigenous Yoruba art and
aesthetic discourse more closely approximates the Western
notion of quality. Yet here too the similarities become in
the end comparatively superficial. This is because aesthetic
discourse in Yoruba culture, as might be expected, most
frequently and most importantly concerns human beings.
Natural and (hu)man-made objects are of relatively secondary
aesthetic significance. All of this arises from the criteria
that determine usage of the word conventionally translated
into English as “beauty”—pwa (Abiodun 1994, Hallen 2000,
Lawal 1996).
Conclusion: The Fable of “Authenticity”
311
When human beings are concerned aesthetic discourse
has essential epistemological and moral components. As
stated earlier, the truly or authentically beautiful person is
the one who manifests good moral character. A person of
exceptional physical beauty may therefore be judged fun­
damentally immoral and unattractive. Essential to earning a
reputation for good moral character is being of a calm and
composed state of mind, which then enables one to think
clearly and to be a careful observer of one’s surroundings.
With this kind of cognitive basis individuals should be in an
optimal state to be candid with others about the subjects on
which they are in a position to give knowledgeable infor­
mation or advice. This is true beauty.
When figurative carvings of human beings are concerned,
obviously they can have no substantive moral character
because they are not alive. Yet certain figurative proper­
ties have come to be associated with such a character—for
example, a figure that assumes a dignified and respectable
posture, that appears to be mentally composed yet alert, in
good health and properly attired. Of course an artist’s skill
in rendering these qualities is also taken into account.
LITERATURE
The term authentic with reference to African literature
is still most frequently associated with that portion of oral
tradition that may easily be compared with literature as
defined by the West—myths, stories, poems, songs, prov­
erbs, and parables. According to the old stereotype of “tra­
ditional” African culture, these are archaic fragments inher­
ited from the past, rote-memorized and repeated-recited on
ritual occasions in the present. More recent studies have
concentrated upon the individual performance of a piece of
oral literature. They attach less importance to the role of
rote-memorization and more to the creative flexibility with
which story tellers are entrusted so that they may more
effectively display their narrative talents and also better
suit a text to the occasion.
As has been the case with the preceding topics of
culture and “art,” a critical and increasingly influen­
tial group of Africanists are now insisting that using the
 312 African Philosophy: The Analytic Approach
Western literary canon (and criticism) as a paradigm against
which to understand and analyze African oral literature is
a fundamental error. These scholars insist that it will only
be by identifying the indigenous criteria used to define,
create, and critique African oral literature that one will be
in a position to appreciate its true character. **We must now
consider more seriously the possibility of an oral criticism
of oral poetry” (Yai 1989, 62).
This move towards an alternative theory of an oral liter­
ary canon and its criticism is being facilitated by an intel­
lectual environment in which postcolonialism, multicultur-
alism, and postmodernism are exercising significant influ­
ence. The notions of “text” and “story” make it possible for
non-Western scholars to turn the tables on the Western
establishment and argue that its purportedly cross-cultural
models of preliterate orality represent only imaginative,
ethnocentric, and fatally literate points of view on the
subject.
It is impossible to generalize about all of oral literature in
a relatively brief essay such as this. However it is possible to
venture several generalizations about the problems of under­
standing and appreciating the literature of a culture that
is intrinsically oral with techniques derived from a culture
where literature must by definition be written down. The
process of writing something down itself informs litera­
ture with certain attributes. Texts become spatially bounded,
definitive things with relatively fixed beginnings and ends
(Derrida 1976). The readings or “performances” of written
texts also become spatially defined in an important manner,
as events that take place at a certain fixed point in time.
Although these generalizations may in fact be true of
written literature, they create fundamental distortions if
carried over as implicit assumptions underlying theories for
the appreciation of oral literature: for the conventional, lit­
erate Western notions of what a “text” is, a “performance”
is, or “criticism” is are themselves culturally relative. Olabiyi
Yai, for example, characterizes “the oral ‘text’ as a result of
uninterrupted production” (1989, 63). In other words it need
never be definitive, but is the product of an ongoing process
of creation (rather than recreation). Oral literature never
Conclusion: The Fable of “Authenticity”
313
was frozen in time. It has been continuously reworked
and reinterpreted over time. These are characteristics that
in fact distinguish it as “authentic.”
The performance of an oral text is not a clearly defined
spatial and temporal event, because elements of and aspects
to oral literature may be performed by any number of
potential contributor-critics before and after as much as
during that favored Western image of the elder sitting
beneath the banyan/baobab tree entertaining a cluster of
happy villagers. Because of the fluidity of these texts and
because of the diversity of potential contributor-critics to
them, the conventional Western dualism between author
and critic is negated. “The African peasantry produces and
listens to oral literature: educated and Western, or Western­
ized, academics, who are incapable of poetic production or
participation, write about it. There is thus no possibility of
a productive relationship between ‘literature’ and ‘criticism’
[in Western culture], a situation which is detrimental to
both” (Barber and Moraes Farias 1989, 5).
The experiences and the consequences of European colo­
nialism are things with which Africans are still coming to
terms. “Modern” African literature is probably the most
vital forum where this subject is being discussed/ With spe­
cific reference to authenticity, to African cultural authen­
ticity, a continuing point of concern has been that the bulk
of this literature is written in European languages—the
languages of the colonizers. That this may be a problem has
been explicitly recognized by a wide variety of indigenous
African authors and critics. “We cannot feel that we are in
full possession of this literature so long as it is elaborated
in a language that does not belong to us in, an immediate
and original way” (Irele 1981, 45). The vast majority of the
African public is not sufficiently fluent in a European lan­
guage and so is denied access to this literature. What then
becomes its role with regards to the indigenous cultures if it
is cut-off from them? The same can be said for the African
philosophy that is predominantly written in non-African
languages (e.g., English and French).
Even if among Africans this debate has been ongoing for
decades, it gained international prominence following the
^ African Philosophy: The Analytic Approach
publication of Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s polemic,
“What Is African Literature?” (1985). Ngugi suggests that
every African culture produces its own unique beliefs and
values, enshrined as meanings, as concepts, in the indigenous
language created by its people. If that language begins to
be supplanted by the language of an alien culture, alienation
and inauthenticity must follow. The alien language, as the
product of an alien culture, is in part composed of seman­
tic networks that reflect non-African beliefs and values.
The remedy, according to Ngugi, is for “modern” African
literature (and, by extension, philosophy) to be written in
the vernacular of Africa’s indigenous languages. Only then
will African writers be able to reconnect with their native
cultures and contribute to their “modern” development in a
positive manner. This is a course of action Ngugi has sought
to practice as well as to preach, as evidenced by the novels
he has since published in Swahili (1982, 1989).
Negritude too arose partly from a concern to re-indi-
genize the arts in “modern” or postcolonial Africa. And
indeed in Francophone Africa, in the Caribbean, and even in
the United States (the Harlem Renaissance”) it did inspire
a sense of renewal and resurgence in black artistic produc­
tion. But it also attracted its share of censure for its own
elements of cultural alienation (Soyinka 1997). The fact that
some of its most talented and therefore prominent expo­
nents wrote in the French language was also said to be of
no help to Africa’s embattled indigenous vernaculars. Others
protested at its gross generalizations about an amorphous
“African consciousness.” And still others protested that by
acquiescing to the qualitatively distinctive emotive charac­
ter of the African intellect, Negritude became implicitly
collaborative with racist theories that sought to portray
that intellect as irrational.
Perhaps the most sensible resolution to this literary
dimension to the authenticity debate is to acknowledge
that the reason why some of Africa’s most talented writers
are using European languages is because those languages are
becoming indigenous to Africa. Rather than a symptom of
cultural alienation or oppression, this is a further indication
of Africa’s enduring multicultural, multilingual flexibility.
Conclusion: The Fable ofAuthenticity” 315
African writers are not passively submitting to the tenets
of Oxbridge English or Parisian French. They are working
on as well as working in these languages, to make them more
culturally relevant vehicles for the expression of African
meanings. Whether in T.P. Clark-Bekederemo’s monumen­
tal poetic rendering of a traditional “text” (1977/1991), or
in Chinua Achebe’s recreation of Igbo vernacular (1958), or
in Wole Soyinka’s eloquent portrait of the African mythi­
cal consciousness (1976), contemporary African writers are
aggressively refashioning the semantics of these languages,
using them for their own purposes to spurn what has clearly
come to be the artificial division between the “traditional”
and the “modern.”
CONCLUSION
African peoples are today in a more advantageous and
stronger position to define themselves and their cultures
than at any time during the past century. The combined
onslaughts of the postcolonial, the multicultural, and the
postmodern have succeeded in putting Western scholarship
decidedly upon the defensive. Disciplines whose aims and
methods were said to be culturally transcendent and uni­
versal in principle are being reevaluated as ideological tools
meant to disseminate—in some cases unwittingly—Western
beliefs and values. It therefore becomes debatable whether
the purportedly “objective” accounts presented of African
cultures by such disciplines can in fact be what they claim
to be. And if this is the case, the criteria they employ in
order to distinguish the “authentic” from the “inauthentic”
also certainly become suspect.
If the Western cultural preferences that may have
become enshrined in academia generally (and certainly in
intercultural studies) themselves become even more explicit
objects of study by both Western and non-Western scholars,
a basis can be established for a more clear and more fair
understanding of the arts, literature, and philosophy as ele­
ments of African cultures. In this regard greater attention
deserves to be paid to revisionist statements being made by
contemporary African scholars, artists, writers, and phi­
losophers about the nature and state of their—let us finally
use the word—civilizations.
316 African Philosophy; The Analytic Approach
NOTES
1. See chapter 14.
2. See chapters 8, 9, and 13.

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INDEX
aasan 158
Abimbola, Wande 45, 156, 157,
159, 161, 190
Abiodun, Rowland 256, 257,
265, 269, 310
aborigines 7^2
Achebe, Chinua 315
aesthetics 6-8, 215, 218-220,
222, 224, 226, 228, 230, 232,
234, 235, 237, 238, 240-242,
244, 246, 250, 252, 254, 256,
258, 264, 266, 268, 270, 276,
278, 280, 282, 284, 286, 288,
290, 292, 294, 296
African art 6-8, 77, 217, 219,
221, 223, 225, 227, 229, 231,
233, 235, 240, 244, 245, 255-
259, 263-268, 275, 299, 307,
309
African art history 6, 7, 256,
263-265, 267, 268, 275
African philosophy 1, 7, 9, 64,
86, 87, 96, 97, 107, 108, 111,
113, 133, 138-140, 143, 144,
147, 173, 175, 177, 179, 181,
183, 185, 202, 205, 249-252,
259, 263, 264, 266-269
agbara 193
aj4 159, 192, 198, 205-212
aliij'anun 192, 193, 195-199
(
analytic philosophy 3, 5, 13,
15, 17, 19, 21-23, 25, 30, 31,
86, 94, 109, 112, 114, 115,
133, 135, 137, 139-141, 143,
145, 147, 174, 175
anthropology 13, 14, 16, 21,
65, 67-69, 76, 81, 88, 99, 107,
120, 136, 139, 140, 144, 174,
188, 202, 250, 263, 265, 266,
271, 300-302
anti-anti-ethnocentrism 34,
54, 83
antiessentialism 34
antifoundationalism 34
antirealism 34
antirepresentationalism 34
Appiah, Kwame Anthony 2,
27, 49, 64, 81, 141, 150, 253,
254, 259, 271, 276, 303, 309
a priori 29, 30
ariyan Jiyan 92
Armstrong, Rdbert Plant 257
Austin, J. L. 88, 115, 116, 131,
140-142, 189, 305
Authenticity 7, 240, 299, 303,
307-310, 313, 314
a wo 156-160
babaldwo 20, 157-159, 189, 191,
192, 196, 198, 199, 234, 235
 356
Barber, Karin 103, 313
Bascom, William 45, 156-158,
187, 190, 227
Beattie, John 75
beauty 120, 135, 242-245, 311
Bedo-Addo, J. T. 151
behavior 18, 24, 36, 37, 40, 43,
66-69, 74, 75, 180, 181, 187,
191, 194, 197, 202, 210, 212,
223. 230, 271, 294, 304
belief 5, 6, 14-16, 21. 33, 35,
37. 41, 42. 44-47, 71, 79, 87,
91. no, 114, 125, 128-130,
134, 153, 156, 170, 176-181,
184, 195, 201, 202, 205, 209,
211, 217, 233, 275, 281
bilingual 36, 45, 135, 136, 167,
305
Blier, Suzanne 77, 245, 257,
258, 272, 274, 275
Boas, Franz 240, 241, 301
Bodunrin, Peter 150, 188, 250,
265
Boyle, Robert 155
Cavell, Stanley 49
character 4-7, 13, 28, 63, 65,
66, 70, 71, 77, 79-81, 85, 86.
89, 91, 95, 106, no, 129. 133,
136, 145, 165, 166, 180-182,
187, 190, 198, 207, 212, 217,
227, 230, 232, 235, 240, 242-
244, 246, 247, 267, 301, 305,
308, 310-312, 314
civilized society 74
Clark-Bekederemo, J. P. 315
Clifford, James 27, 239, 304,
305, 308, 309
coherence 37, 38, 40, 176
conceptual analysis 23, 89, 251,
269
African Philosophy: Ihe Analytic Approach
connoisseur 237-239
cool 218, 224-227, 229-232, 242
critical 1, 3, 5, 8, 14-16, 21, 23,
38, 74, 84, 85, 89, 114, 120,
133, 139, 141, 143, 145, 175,
217-219. 222, 233, 234, 249,
306, 311
culture 1-7, 13-15, 22, 27, 28,
31, 33, 37, 38, 40, 41. 43-45,
47-54, 63, 65, 68. 72, 74.
76-80, 82-84, 91, 96. 97, 110,
119, 121, 123. 125, 127-129,
131, 134, 138, 139, 141, 148,
157. 165, 169, 173, 175, 176,
178, 180, 182, 188-191, 194,
195, 198, 202-204, 212, 231,
235. 237, 239-243. 246, 252,
256-259, 265, 267, 268, 270,
271, 275, 278, 280, 281, 285,
288, 294-296, 299-314
Davidson, Donald 35-37, 40, 43,
46, 47, 58, 59, 65. 150, 273
Derrida, J. 57, 312
destiny 125-129, 157, 191, 192,
194, 195, 199, 209, 210
dialogue 43, 65, 68-70, 74, 75,
79, 80, 92-94, 134, 145, 247,
250. 270. 271
Dieterlen, Germaine 138
divination 3, 6, 24, 111, 127,
153-157, 159, 161, 187-191,
199, 227, 234, 249, 264
Duerr, Hans Peter 120, 274
Devitt, Michael 56
durbar 278, 289
Ellis, A. B. 45
pm/ 125, 126, 191-195, 197,
207-209, 230
Index
Emmet, Dorothy 102, 131
emotional 3, 28, 127, 174, 175,
220, 221
eniy'an 125, 159, 194, 197, 206,
207, 209, 210, 212, 222, 223
epistemology 4, 5, 7, 14, 22,
24, 27, 29, 35, 49, 84, 94, 143,
145, 163, 166, 168, 170, 174,
176, 178, 180, 182, 184, 188,
190, 192, 194, 196, 198, 202,
204, 206, 208, 210, 212, 254
pri okan 92
ethnocentrism 27, 34, 46, 48,
53, 54. 78, 83, 84, 121, 135,
267, 299, 301
ethnophilosophy 27, 107-110,
112, 138, 139, 141, 143, 144,
147, 245, 264
ethnos 48, 83
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 76, 154,
260, 297
227-231
242, 243, 310
Fabian, Johannes 81, 122, 266,
302, 306
Fagg, William 218, 264
Feyerabend, Paul 119
field of discourse 141, 142
figurative speech 33
firsthand information 114
folk philosophy 143, 175, 201,
264
Foucault, Michel 294
Franklin, Benjamin 54
Fuller, Steve 119, 223
functionalism 276, 280
357
Gates, Henry Lous, Jr. 8, 9
Gbadegesin, Segun
gbagbQ 167, 177, 186, 270
Gellner, Ernest 81, 155, 260
genius 6, 24, 25, 32, 34, 115,
134, 190, 197, 235
genres 33, 59
Gettier, Edmund 184
Griaule, Marcel 138
Gyekye, Kwame 81, 95
Hallpike, C. R. 26, 90-94, 99,
275
Heidegger, Martin 31-33, 57
hermeneutics 102
Hesse, Mary 40
holism 39
Horton, Robin 3, 13, 14, 22. 24,
64, 74. 76, 131, 148, 149, 154,
170, 297
Hountondji, Paulin 2, 3, 5, 64,
81, 105-115, 138-140, 245,
264
Husserl, Edmund 58
ibeji 222
idl 197
Idowu, E. Bolaji 45
Ifa 3. 6, 154-161, 189-191, 196,
198, 199
igbagbg 167, 169, 177-179, 181,
182, 184
imp 92, 167-170, 178-183, 197,
270
indeterminacy thesis 5, 76.
112, 133, 149, 173, 254
Intellectualism 100
intracultural 43, 44, 68, 70
inti 192-194, 197, 198, 208-210
 358
Irele, Abiola 115, 313
IrirQTi 92
iwa 180-182, 192, 207, 212, 243
Jefferson, Thomas 54
Johnson, S. 45
justified, true, belief 182, 184,
185
Kagame, Alexis 64, 102
Kasfir, Sidney L. 265, 275, 309
Katz, J. J. 149, 150
knowledge 1, 5, 6, 18, 20, 24,
29-31, 33, 37, 39, 41, 44, 48,
70, 74, 87, 91, 92, 109, 110,
114, 121, 130, 143, 144, 153-
158, 160, 161, 166-170, 176-
181, 183-185, 197, 198, 205,
209, 211, 249, 250, 293, 306
ko $e e $e 178
Kuhn, T. S. 99, 119
Kuper, Adam 121, 122, 275, 303
language 1, 3-5, 14, 21, 23,
29-37, 41, 42, 44-47, 49, 66,
79, 86-91, 94, 95, 105, 107-
109, 111-113, 115, 119, 120,
125, 130, 134-136, 138-142,
145-148, 167, 168, 170, 173-
178, 180, 183-185, 188-190.
194-196, 202, 205, 218-220,
224. 235, 241, 245-247. 252,
254-257, 269-271, 291, 292,
294, 295, 301, 303, 305, 306,
313. 314
language games 109, 270
Lawal, Babatunde 257, 265, 269,
310
Levi-Strauss, Claude 60, 80, 240
African Philosophy; The Analytic Approach
Levy-Bruhl, Lucien 240, 271,
273, 300
Lewis, loan 122
linguistic analysis 86, 94
linguistic philosophy 140, 147
literature 7, 41, 50, 76, 77, 85,
97, 112, 123, 133, 134, 139,
141, 148, 153, 155, 157, 159,
161, 205, 232, 234, 235, 238,
249, 269, 280, 291, 299, 305,
307, 310-315
Locke, John 54
Lucas, J. Olumide 45
Luria, A. R. 103
magic 24, 240, 300
Marxism 57, 87, 253
Masolo, D. 81
Mazrui, Ali 285
Mbiti, John 64, 102, 264
meaning 24, 40, 77, 86, 95, 108,
114, 115, 134, 135, 137, 141,
144, 157, 177, 180, 192, 195,
219, 220, 222, 224, 225, 227,
228. 231, 254-258, 269, 275,
276, 280, 283, 287, 291, 293-
295, 299, 300
methodology 1, 3, 4; 75, 76,
111, 117, 120, 122, 124, 126,
128, 130, 133, 134, 136, 138,
140, 142, 144, 146, 148, 153-
161, 174, 251, 252. 267, 269,
271, 280, 301, 304
mp 167, 193, 196, 197, 206
moral epistemology 4, 163,
166, 168, 170, 174, 176, 178,
180, 182, 184, 188, 190, 192,
194, 196, 198, 202, 204, 206,
208, 210, 212
morality 7, 70, 232
Index
Mudimbe, V. Y. 49, 81, 250,
254, 259, 260, 266, 275, 293,
303
multiculturalism 27-29, 31,
33-35, 37, 39, 41, 43, 45, 47.
49. 51, 53, 55, 103, 113, 294,
303, 312
myth 23, 97, 224, 225, 231,
234, 235, 240, 300, 302
Nagel, Thomas 88
Native Americans 68
natural languages 5, 36, 39,
109, 146
Needham, R. 150
Negritude 245, 310, 314
Ngugi wa Thiong’o 314
Nigeria 1, 3, 15, 20, 89, 124,
156, 165, 175, 202, 205, 218,
241, 276, 278, 281, 295, 305
Nkrumah, Kwame 138
noncritical 14, 15, 21, 89, 143,
233, 250
nonreflective 14, 233
non-Western 2, 24, 25, 28, 29,
47, 48, 50, 63, 64, 71, 73, 78,
81, 96, 97, 101, 109, 119-121,
129-131, 145, 153, 154, 175,
300, 303, 312, 315
nwadi 180, 186
Nzegwu, Nkiru 257, 269, 275,
309
d $e e $e 178
Odii 156, 157, 159
Qgbgn 194
ojiiinu 198, 199, 208, 209, 213
gk'an 193, 197, 208, 221, 230,
236
359
Qlgrun 17, 126, 127, 191, 206,
209
Oluwo 157
om'$egun 4, 17-20, 25, 124, 125,
127-129, 165-167, 169-171,
189-192, 194-199, 205, 206,
209-212, 223, 230, 231
bbgun 196, 197
odtp 92. 177, 179-181, 184, 186,
207
oral culture 5, 110, 182
oral literature 85, 112, 123,
148, 157, 234, 235, 249, 269,
280, 311-313
ordinary language philosophy
1, 4, 108, 111, 141, 189
or/42-45, 126, 127, 157, 191,
192, 194, 209
briga 17-19, 26, 157, 227, 230
Oruka, H. Odera 4, 5, 46, 64,
122
Osatuyi, O. 131
bt/tg 177, 184
ogd 192
papg 178
Parrinder, Geoffrey 154, 213
Pearce, Carol 89, 115
performance 7, 123, 158, 187-
191, 193, 195, 197, 199, 245,
268, 311, 313
phenomenology'31, 87, 149,
253
philosophy 1-9, 13-15, 17,
19, 21-23, 25, 27-31, 34, 35,
47-54, 63-65, 76. 84-88, 92,
94-97, 106-115, 119, 121, 124,
125, 130, 133, 135, 137-147,
168, 170, 173-177, 179, 181,
183, 185, 188, 189, 202-205,
219, 224-226, 231, 233-235,
 360
245, 249-253, 255, 257, 259,
263-270, 299, 300, 302, 304,
306, 308, 310, 312-315
Piaget, Jean 89, 103
poetic-symbolism 26, 67, 71,
77, 91
Popper, Karl 15, 23, 73, 155
postcolonialism 113, 303, 312
postmodernism 103, 113, 249,
251-253, 255, 257, 259, 303,
304, 312
Poynor, Robin 258, 309
pragmatism 33, 34, 53, 100
preliterate 74, 84, 85, 89-91,
95, 240, 300, 308, 312
pre-operatory thought 90
Price, Sally 309
primitive 6, 72, 89-92, 94, 195,
237-241, 246, 275, 307, 308
principle of charity 43, 58
propositional attitudes 185
propositional kno\vledge 176,
178
propositions 92, 134, 135, 177
180
proverbs 85, 90, 111, 112, 139,
143, 174, 217, 235, 249, 264
311
Putnam, Hilary 71
Quine, W. V. O. 23, 37, 40, 58,
60, 63, 71, 87, 88, 100, 133,
134, 136-138, 141, 142, 148,
247, 254, 255
radical interpretation 34, 38
rational 3, 29, 49, 75, 110, 113,
120, 138, 139, 174, 175, 191,’
294, 305
Rigby, Peter 121
African Philosophy; The Analytic Approach
ritual 157, 187-189, 191, 193,
195, 197, 199, 233, 302, 311
Rorty, Richard 2. 11, 27-43,
45-51, 53-55, 63-71, 73, 75-
87, 89, 91, 93, 95-97, 121,
239, 241, 276, 304
Rousseau, J. J. 54
Rules 36, 49, 72, 75, 95, 309
Ryle, Gilbert 140
Schildkrout, Enid 309
science 22, 27, 29, 40, 41, 43,
48, 65, 70, 71, 76, 77, 84, 119,
130, 143, 146, 153-155, 160,
161, 170, 174, 240, 271, 280,
300
second order 14, 23, 88, 106,
112, 173
secondhand information 4, 6,
177-180, 182, 184, 243
secrecy 3, 8, 153-157, 159-161
self 7, 20, 40, 48, 52, 67, 122,
126, 134, 175, 182, 183, 193,
208, 242, 243, 249, 266, 287,
296
Senghor, Leopold Sedar 138, 310
Serequeberhan, Tsenay 8, 27, 81
skepticism 49, 70, 71, 136, 138,
253, 266
Sodipo, J. Olubi 4, 5, 46, 64,
89, 91, 137, 143, 144, 158,
175, 189, 204, 255, 276
Soyinka, Wole 245, 314
Stich, Stephen 113, 120
Strawson, Peter 140
Structuralism 71, 276, 280
superstition 201-203, 205, 207,
209, 211
symbolic 66, 77. 85, 144, 161,
217, 230, 235, 240, 258, 283,
290, 308
Index
Taiwo, O. 81
Talbot, P. Amaury 45
Taylor, Charles 41
Tempels, Placide 64, 102, 138,
264
Tertia 66, 67, 69. 70, 75, 77, 81,
96, 99, 122
text 1, 2, 9, 84. 130, 159, 205,
304, 305, 311, 313
Thompson, Robert Farris 6,
218-235, 238, 242, 269, 272
tradition 4, 13, 16, 19, 20, 22,
23, 27, 29-32, 39, 50, 51, 55,
64, 74, 76, 85-87, 89, 108,
113, 123, 139, 143, 155, 160,
165-170, 173, 175, 187, 188,
269, 281, 302, 306, 311
traditional 13-16, 20-24, 28, 31,
53, 66, 67, 70, 71, 73, 74, 77-
80, 91, 99. 100, 111, 114, 121,
123, 131, 133, 139, 143, 145,
147, 156, 157, 165, 169, 198,
218, 228, 232, 233, 235, 239,
249-252, 276-278, 280-282,
287, 291-296, 301, 305, 306,
308, 315
transcendence 30-35, 38, 52,
70, 76. 78, 82
translation 4, 5, 22, 29, 36-41,
43-46, 75, 76, 87, 88, 111,
112, 134-138, 140, 142, 144,
145, 147, 166, 170, 173, 190,
195, 224, 255, 256, 258
Turnbull, Colin 68
Turner, Victor 265, 274
Verran, Helen 81, 258
virtue 195, 242
Visona, Monica 309
Vogel, Susan M. 269, 309
361
webs of beliefs 38, 39, 41, 44,
45
Wescott, Joan 228-230
West, Cornel 49, 97
Western culture 2, 49-52, 78,
97, 129, 169, 195, 237, 239,
299, 300, 303, 304, 308, 309,
313
Western philosophical tradition
27, 61
wet liberals 53, 61
Whorf, Benjamin 120
Willett, Frank 218
Wiredu, Kwasi 27, 46, 64, 95,
120, 175, 201, 251, 252, 254,
255, 303
witchcraft 6, 8, 24, 122, 201-
205, 209, 211, 212
Wittgenstein, Ludwig 30, 31,
34. 140
worldview 3, 4, 13, 14, 21, 22,
33, 45, 47, 74, 96, 107, 139,
224, 225
Yai, Olabiyi 103, 305, 312
Yoruba 2-7, 15, 17-21, 29, 42,
44, 45, 70, 89. 91-95, 124-127,
129, 134, 139, 143-146, 154,
156-159, 165, 167-170, 175-
178, 180, 182-185, 188-192,
194-196, 198, 202-205, 208,
210-212, 218-235, 241-244,
246, 247, 257, 270, 303, 305-
307, 310