AS1 Philosophy of Interpretation and Understanding;

Essay on Tsenay Serequeberhan; ‘African Philosophy’ & liberative hermeneutics.

The focus of this essay will be on Tsenay Serequeberhan and his conception of philosophy as a
force for liberation within African modernity.

First and Foremost, Serequeberhan approaches the question of African Philosophy from a
hermeneutic standpoint - in particular, one of reinterpreting Africa’s post colonial situation.
This act of reinterpretation is essentially situated in the lived realities of African peoples; geared
not only towards their liberation from past and neo-colonialism, but also toward the
reappropriation of this complex area of African history, in a way that can liberate Africans rather
than oppress them.

An important background to Serequeberhan’s work is the context of how so-called African

Philosophy manifests itself in modernity. This takes place most heatedly in the trends of
‘Ethnophilosophy’ and ‘Professional Philosophy’ which emerged post-colonially as schools of
African thought. Many of those who make up either category are scholars in Western traditions–
often the main or only philosophy taught in formerly colonised African, and Western, institutions.

The former focuses on African cultures and their known intellectual tools, such as linguistics,
symbolism, religion and so on, attempting to gather centuries of diverse orality into a
comprehensive worldview. For those known (most often by their detractors) as
Ethnophilosophers, this knowledge constitutes a culturally particular philosophy, in this case one
unique to Africa and therefore incongruent to those from Europe, for example. Some would
claim a degree of ethnic distinction that plays into this, that is, philosophy built upon a distinct
“Negritude” or “Africanité” – which emphasises virtues such as communality in contrast to the
more individualistic thought of the European Enlightenment. .
While this is a category consisting of prominent African thinkers, such as Leopold Senghor (the
former president of Senegal, no less), it has certain origins in the essentially colonial European
“Mission to civilize”( regarding “Le non-civilisé et nous”1); most apparent in writings on the Bantu
peoples by Belgian missionary Placide Tempels(1906-1977).

The latter works towards a universalistic worldview, applicable to all peoples. According to
some, this calls for scientific objectivity, often as opposed to the uniquely African thought
proposed by the former – uniqueness is thus something unfit for its utility, i.e. philosophy,
whether Western or African, should apply across borders. The fact of pre-colonial African
traditions being mostly oral creates a problem here. However one important thinker, Henry
Odera Oruka, insists that while some African thought does not raise itself above simple cultural
peculiarity and/or superstition, other areas “exhibit all the philosophical abilities of a Socrates”2.
In the way that Socrates’s wisdom may be applied outside of Ancient Greece, these
“philosophical sages”3 as he calls them are similarly helpful to a universal cause.

1
“The “non-civilized” and ourselves” (Placide Tempels, 1969: pp.167)
2
(Samuel Oluoch Imbo, 1998: pp.25)
3
(Henry Odera Oruka, 1991)
Now - According to Serequeberhan, the bases of both schools are each to their own fault. He
notes that ethnophilosophy’s focus on ‘folk’ forms of expression buys into a racist dichotomy –
quoting a proponent of the aforementioned ‘Negritude/Africanité’, Ethnophilosopher Leopold
Senghor, in his claim that “reason is hellenic and emotion is negro”. Despite its intended
distinction; perhaps championing, of ‘Africanness’ and Blackness, such ideals are seen as
Ethnophilosophy dooming Africans to remain within their colonial constraints. It must be
mentioned here that such ‘facts’ of inescapable racial characteristics, especially in the
euro-african context, are part and parcel of colonial subjugation.

Not so dissimilarly, Serequeberhan notes that Professional Philosophy assumes the tendency of
western hermeneutics to “prejudice… Africa as primitive”4. This shows itself to the extent that
Serequeberhan sees still-living thinkers to consider themselves “among the earliest pioneers of
African philosophic thought”5. A prominent example here is Paulin Hountondji, who while not
dismissing their value outright, implies that commonly held pre-colonial (particularly oral;
pre-written) African traditions or worldviews are just that, and should not be touted as ‘African
philosophy’. Hountondji’s ilk of modern, written philosophical work is what really constitutes this
category – with ethnophilosophy as a kind of precursor to it – “literacy is presupposed by
philosophy”6 in his case.

While challenging both perspectives, Serequeberhan insists on the situatedness of philosophy –

in this case among real Africans “of flesh and bones”, “who belong to a continent”7, i.e. Africa as
it exists now. In this sense, it is important not to be entrapped by the paradigms of an Africa
which once was – the ‘good old’ pre colonial days, nor enslaved by the unwitting acceptance of
Euro-colonial hermeneutics – the state of a newly ‘civilised’ Africa. Neither (clearly implicating
the aforementioned schools) are properly reflective of the lived reality that liberative efforts must
be geared towards.
This perspective, especially the latter area, comes to light in his critique of African leftists,
including Nkrumah who uses terminology like ‘the means of production’, and characterises the
relationship between Africans and their colonisers as a class dynamic, in a classically Marxist
sense. For Serequeberhan, the economic struggles of Europe (as in Marx’s own case) are
fought within an established European history – one never effectively established in Africa, and
simply not applicable to the wider African social struggle, which manifests in a unique way.
Although it is strictly counter-colonial and revolutionary in nature, this “European-dominated
disclosure of the present”8 is in fact a further erasure of the African situation, which we must not
be distracted from.

In the same way that colonial forces erased so much of African historicity, or relegated it to the
primitive or subhuman, he sees the modern discourse shaped in a way that it seeks to free

4
(Tsenay Serequeberhan, 1994: pp.6)
5
(Tsenay Serequeberhan, 1994: pp.5)
6
(Samuel Oluoch Imbo, 1998: pp.24)
7
(Tsenay Serequeberhan, 1994: pp.8)
8
(Tsenay Serequeberhan, 1994: pp.36)
Africa from oppression, by the very means of that oppression - ideologies originating in the
West. If we are to believe that, having gained nominal independence from their former
colonisers, African Independence is the current trend, Freedom from both the above paradigms
must be granted. Thus it is within the establishment of an internally African, self supporting and
defining politic of liberation, that such a trend could be possible. History, and the rooting of
colonised peoples within it, is a highly important factor in this, with emphasis on the democratic
village dynamics seen in many pre-colonial communities. Active participation in such a
community, with acute awareness of what you are working towards, could reconstitute a practice
of freedom, one taken away from Africans oppressed and forced to work towards Europeans’
goals.

Serequeberhan exemplifies this ideal via its antithesis, some of the first forms that ‘African
independence’ took after the second world war – rule by 1950s-60s African leaders who
promoted the oppressive sentiments of the colonial governments before them. This includes
Leopold Senghor of Senegal, whose theories and practice as a leader he sees as a
““transmission line” between the nation and its former colonisers”9. This set the precedent, in
coming decades, for subservience to the political needs of Europe, the USA, the Soviet Union,
and later China, which has in fact persisted into the 21st century – veritable neo-colonialism
according to the author.

In this vein, I would offer a critique to Serequeberhan, relating to how he defines his own
position – frequently doing so simply via opposition to a myriad of his fellow thinkers. While this
is important alongside his often controversial contemporaries, I find that it leaves his theses in
the realm of the theoretical, sometimes with more defining what it is not than what it is. Given
the subversive, even revolutionary implications of Serequeberhan’s position, this may be to its
fault. This tendency is characterised in his references to Hegel – not unlike the “odyssey of
consciousness”, which progresses “through and by the mediation of the negative”10. The way
that Serequeberhan writes seems to point out the various ‘negatives’ which his position seeks to
mediate.

To its advantage, it is important to credit this mediation when we consider the goal of liberation
in Serequeberhan’s work. The way that African philosophy has been affected by colonialism is
not something that shows itself simply in theory, rather it has played out in the many struggles of
‘independent’ governments and people since. Serequeberhan makes it plain and clear that so
many of these difficulties have, and continue to take root in colonial thought, and shows that
perspectives which vehemently claim opposition to one another actually share this root in
common. In this sense, this is a current going through a wide range of African thought to this
day, the recognition and reinterpretation of which could certainly hold liberative potential.

9
(Tsenay Serequeberhan, 1994: pp.97)
10
(Tsenay Serequeberhan, 1994: pp.90)
Bibliography

Samuel Oluoch Imbo (1998). An introduction to African philosophy. Lanham: Rowman &
Littlefield.

Tsenay Serequeberhan (1994). The Hermeneutics of African Philosophy- Horizon and

Discourse. London: Routledge.

Placide Tempels (1969). Bantu Philosophy. Paris:Présence Africaine.

H Odera Oruka (1991). Sage philosophy : indigenous thinkers and modern debate on
African philosophy. Nairobi, Kenya: Acts Press, African Center For Technology Studies.

Marcien Towa (1971) Essaie sur la problématique philosophique dans l’Afrique actuelle.
Yaounde, Cameroon: Éditions Clé.

Leopold Sedar Senghor. (1971) The Foundations of ‘Africanite’ ‘Negritude’ and ‘Arabite’. Paris:
Présence Africaine.

J.E. Wiredu (1997) How Not to Compare African Traditional Thought with Western Thought.
Transition, no. 75/76. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2935425