Review

Reviewed Work(s): The Struggle for Meaning: Reflections on Philosophy, Culture, and
Democracy in Africa by Paulin J. Hountondji and John Conteh-Morgan
Review by: Osaak A. Olumwullah
Source: The International Journal of African Historical Studies , 2004, Vol. 37, No. 1
(2004), pp. 147-153
Published by: Boston University African Studies Center

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4129086

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 BOOK REVIEWS 147

Another shortcoming is the severely limited scope of musical

Almost all of his case studies are from anglophone West Africa
Ghana. In a monograph, this constricted range would not pose a pr
book aiming to make a major intervention in postcolonial theory, i
limits the depth and undermines the sweep of his generalizations.
would have been advantageous to go outside the academy to find ot
points on music and culture in Africa. African journalists frequent
popular culture in innovative ways and now the internet has becom
for discussion as well. Finally, instead of just focusing on music m
might have looked at music consumers as well, since the comple
between performers, patrons, and audiences has been so crucial in
African musics (in Zimbabwe and the Congo, for example).

These difficulties aside, Agawu's book is lucidly and elegantly w

is stimulating and provocative. It provides an African outlook on c
that have been primarily covered by scholars in Europe and the Un
covers a broad array of topics and is filled with incisive observatio
that Agawu will continue his research into African urban musics an
contribution will explore even more systematically the many contro
raised here.

RICHARD M. SHAIN

Philadelphia University

The Struggle for Meaning: Reflections on Philosophy, Culture,

Democracy in Africa. By Paulin J. Hountondji. Translated by J
Conteh-Morgan, with a foreword by K. Anthony Appiah. Center for I
national Studies at Ohio University Research in International Stu
Africa Series, No. 78. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2002. Pp. xxiv,
$28.00 paper.

How do we, at the level of ideas and their production, begin to understand, let
alone explain, the transformations that took place in Africa in the twentieth
century? What were the dynamics of these transformations? Do African tradi-
tional belief systems have a place in the explanation of these transformations?
These are some of the questions that informed what one African philosopher

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148 BOOK REVIEWS

recently defined as the problematics of universalism and particu

cultures, for the best part of the second half of the twentieth c
tions are, in a word, about African philosophy and the search for
But what is identity all about if not the struggle for meaning, th
Paulin Hountondji's latest work?

Hountondji is both a constant presence and one of the

figures in both the history and definition of African philo
oeuvre is inseparable from the argument that African philosophy
is no different from what the discipline is in other parts of t
Africa as elsewhere the product of individual intellectual labor
hypothetical worldview of collective wisdom derived from the
cultural data with little regard to history and change. First artic
essays in the late 1960s through the early 1970s as a critique o
this argument has come to provide the kind of framework phil
"search for truth in general" without the "geographical confin
hitherto dictated that "only African values, African conceptions
and aesthetics, the African theory of knowledge ... be studied"
nothing short of an "intellectual liberation" that drew the philo
to the fact that it was possible to "assert a claim for universalit
dation of his discipline, by refusing to yield to the temptation
ism ... and by clearly acknowledging his vocation to enunciate
are valid across frontiers, that are true to all, at all times and
xvii-xviii).

Though this critique had "a paralyzing effect" in that it p

philosophers from "exercising on African culture and experien
analysts and philosophers," it had an enduring "liberating effec
assessment of its impact on "intellectual productivity" in g
"history of African philosophical research, and in the broader f
research" (p. xviii).

Though, in setting out to deal with these issues, Hounton

during his student days with research on Husserl's idea of "ph
science" (p. 30), and though his lifelong engagement with ethn
sense reflects this idea," he with time moved from Husserl's s
from classical epistemology, to the exploration of two things.

I Kwasi Wiredu, Cultural Universals and Particulars: An Afric

(Bloomington, 1996).

2 D. A. Masolo, African Philosophy in Search ofl Identity (Bloomington,

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 BOOK REVIEWS 149

from Husserl, especially the latter's presupposition that a new

would eventuate itself into a "theory of theories," thus limitin
history, the uncontrollable plurality of future theories, and
development of knowledge" (p. 71), first moved Hountondji to
"the scientific and technological relations of production on a
as the outline of a sociology of science in the countries of the
Thus, though his critique of ethnophilosophy draws from
Husserl and, indeed, of "the entire tradition of Western philo
nonetheless consciously goes beyond him and the Western tra
ethnoscience, which to him was "a clever way of freezing tra
knowledge by emptying them of their dynamism, of their pow
limitations, their autonomous capacity for enrichment and imp
As The Struggle for Meaning clearly shows, this for Hounton
project that threw the applicability of Husserl's philosophy to
he sought "a critical reappropriation of endogenous knowledg
complement to this vast and methodological appropriation of
technology that is essential to giving Africa complete mastery
xix-xx).

The Struggle for Meaning is thus an intellectual journey

concern about the future of Africa. This is a journey that take
Victor Ballot, the lycecd in Porto-Novo that in the 1950s and 1
est nursery of Dahomey's future elite" (p. 3), where he acquire
for conceptual analysis, and a certain fascination with doc
through the reading of Sartre's philosophy on existentialism, t
IV in Paris in 1960-1961, where he discovered Husserl's p
Descartes' cogito, Hegel's philosophy of history, but also the
Kierkegaard, "and other modern and contemporary philosoph
teacher Andre Bloch (p. 4).

At both Porto-Novo and the Lycde Henry IV, the future

brought up on "a philosophical diet of the cogito." Later on a
Superieure, Jacques Derrida reinforced his interest in Husser
Seminar at the Sorbonne gave him, "in a different style, a cl
great themes and general problematic of Husserl's work
Althusser, the great twentieth-century French philosopher,
decide whether he wanted to pursue a classics or philosop
taught him how "to inject a breath of fresh air into the ideo
Marxism" and to resist "doctrinal regimentation and policing
working class movement from within this movement" as wa
France. From Althusser he also learned about "the limits of a

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150 BOOK REVIEWS

this could be applied to the struggle for independence and "the

imperialism" in Africa, "power relations within African countr
liberties, the question of pluralism and monolithism as forms o
zation, the role of the army," etc. (pp. 9-10). In all this he disco
theoretical indigence, the same conceptual limitations Althusser
the French Communist Party." Finally, he learned from Althusse
to problematize "the nature, object, and true vocation of ph
Hountondji also, from 1966-1970, attended Georges Canguilh
the History of Science and Technology Seminar at Rue du Four,
gave him the "opportunity to share the concerns and preoccupa
researchers from different geographical, ideological, and in
grounds who shared the same high standards for clarity, accurac
7-9).

Thus, if Husserl was central to his early thinking, it was t

like Althusser and Canguilhem that Hountondji owes "his deep a
science,"' which in the French school system talked to and abou
of systematic knowledge" that went beyond what we know as t
social sciences. As Appiah points out in the Foreword, the proje
is appealing to Hountondji not because "it is taken to be of
because of its human meaning; philosophy is ... exactly the s
human meaning" (Appiah, p. xii).

The implications of this conclusion with regard to philosop

pline and to Africa as its locus of study cannot be gainsaid. Ind
lectual autobiography, The Struggle for Meaning is as much abo
education as it is about the meaning and relevance of this educa
From this perspective, it can be said that the book is partly the
to his critics who, in Appiah's words, have identified him
eurocentricism" (Appiah, p. xi). It can indeed be argued that
philosophy, in Africa or elsewhere, is not a "unanimous worldv
set of texts written by individuals" (p. xi), Hountondji is in fac
the impossibility of tearing "himself away from the Europe of
xi). But because Hountondji uses Western philosophy as a model
philosophy, does this make him Eurocentric? This question is le
of Africa for Hountondji as an African philosopher than about t
losophy itself. If at core the critique of ethnophilosophy is the
future" (p. 125), then "the overdetermination of the concept" of
philosophical renderings was "an obstacle to the freedom
Hountondji, freeing up the African future first of all meant th
"semantic overlord" within which this overdetermination was d

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 BOOK REVIEWS 151

discourses, thus "giving back to words their original, simple, and

ing." For this reason, the notion of philosophy had to be reexamine
dogmatic conception of philosophy that tends to reduce the la
definitive truths," the discipline had to be "shown to describe a his
system; a discipline in which results matter less than reasoning, les
ceptual steps that have led to them, and one whose goal is precisel
the results in a search for better ones" (p. 127).

Thus, in response to some of his African critics, Hountondji

ways of 'expecting more from philosophy than it can give.' The f
expecting it to provide answers to metaphysical problems about th
God, human nature, the immortality of the soul, and other qu
nature." The second consists in looking for philosophy's "answ
economic, and social problems: answers that propose recipes for n
tion, the emancipation of exploited classes and nations-in short fo
tion." To Hountondji these are illusions, the first a pre-Kantian ten
a dogmatic and scriptural metaphysics," the second the outcome o
of Marx's famous eleventh thesis on Feuerbach in The German
"should be used to prove the opposite" in that nowhere "in this th
claim that philosophy itself can transform the world; 'he calls, on th
a move away from philosophy to a concentration on the practical
forming the world"' (p. 191).

This does not mean that Hountondji fails to recognize the pr

power: as he notes in the preface of the book, from one end of his
other "hovers, against the background of the dominant problemat
about the future of Africa that in the end becomes quite explicit
concern, political in the strictest sense of the term" (p. xx). But wh
cal concern, if it is not a philosophical concern? The Struggle for
account of not simply the author's intellectual journey but also, in
mental way, of philosophy in action. It is a voyage in and out of Eu
him to the conclusion that his area of research must "in no way e
On the contrary, Africa must constitute its center, its point of d
where applicable, be its primary beneficiary" (p. 74). In its broade
fore, the book is as much about the tracing of the genesis of some
cal anxieties that underpinned the author's critique of ethnophilo
about the search for new ways of placing this critique in the contex
of concerns that inform the current African condition. This come
Chapter 6 where he not only offers an olive branch to his critics o
of culture but also attempts to elaborate on concerns that have re
occupy his mind, e.g., his plea for an internal debate in tradition

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152 BOOK REVIEWS

must, for example, develop new paradigms for critically examin

can overarching "need for self-justification before the tribunal
as well as "the tendency in the social sciences in Africa ... to f
way of living or thinking that appears to express the spec
cultures" (p. 206).3 Social scientists working on Africa, he sugg
longer merely seek to combat ethnophilosophy on its own gro
against its static reading of facts of culture a more historical re
show why and in what sense the ethnographer is correct. It shou
cultural constants, to those continuities that up to then had mo
lectual curiosity, and which had both to be recognized and put
205). How best to do this than the reconstitution of ethnophil
"the common foundation of the ethnosciences, the system
methodological ... presuppositions that makes them possible"? (
tinence of this lies in what both Hountondji and his critics seem
the "great issue at stake in the critique of ethnophilosophy is th
future" (p. 125) of Africa. This is the more so because if it is ag
objective of philosophy is freedom, and political freedom only
freedom, then as a discipline philosophy's goal "is precisely
results in a search for better ones." To Hountondji the whole p
is conceptual freedom and, therefore, philosophers "must h
make a fresh start" (p. 127) whenever changing times call upon
been the driving force behind his critique of ethnophilosophy
contribution to "the improvement of the quality of life in Afr
the basis of this last point that he poses the questions: How ca
strengthened, democracy anchored in everyday life, the state
indeed, can "fear be overcome, and how can it be ensured that i
of the globe ... dictatorship and arbitrary rule become things of
(p. 265).
A vivid portrayal of the author's intellectual development, The Struggle
for Meaning is lucidly written and with great narrative quality. It is thought-
provoking. A tour de force that pushes the right buttons on issues surrounding the
nature of ethnophilosophy, culture, and the problematics of social science
research in Africa, it raises the debate on (African) philosophy and its role in
aggressively addressing the African condition to new levels. And this is how it

3 Paulin J. Hountondji, "Tempting Traditions: Internal Debate Needed in Traditional

Cultures," Campus Magazine (March 2001), 12-13; Brainstorming-Or How to Create
Awareness of Human Rights," http://www.unesco.orglopi2/human-rights/pageslEnglishi
HountondjiE.html.

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 BOOK REVIEWS 153

should be, since debate is the inevitable result of any attempt at con
tions of such a complex discipline as philosophy. It will orient both
students of the social sciences to key issues, raising inevitable ques
the context of philosophical works by such scholars as Valen
Kwame Anthony Appiah, D.A. Masolo, Kwasi Wiredu, etc., and
African condition generally, the book is bound to galvanize discuss
both students and the general readership toward innovative understa

OSAAK A. OLUMWULLAH

Miami University

Representing the Body of the Slave. Edited by Thomas Wiedem

Jane Gardner. London and Portland, Ore.: Frank Cass, 2002. Pp
$24.50 paper.

Weidemann and Gardner's Representing the Body of the Slave cros

boundaries: disciplinary, geographical, historical, and methodological. Th
begin by acknowledging the problematic outcomes of many such com
studies of slavery. By presuming uniformity in the definitions or mean
enslavement, comparative studies run the risk of flattening out the crucia
tions of time, space, and labor that have come to define contemporary sc
on slavery. Weidemann and Gardner suggest that the importance of the e
Representing the Body of the Slave, and that of good comparative work
broadly, is in the questions that emerge from a thoughtful and grounded
sition across the ideological and physical space that separates, for e
ancient Greeks from antebellum North American slave owners. Mobilizi
body as the rubric through which such juxtapositions occur offers both th
and the readers an exploration of the ideological parameters of slavery
ownership; moreover it allows the authors to step away from the exper
the comparative focus and thereby avoid some of the pitfalls of such wor

Having laid the groundwork for the collection, the editors do a gre
ice to the collection of essays. One is immediately struck by the cross-dis
questions these essays raise. Niall McKeown asks whether Hippocrates es
the belief that the body of the slave was physiologically distinct from th
men, while Igomer Weiler's essay explores the problem of "ugline

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