On Delimiting African Philosophy and the Equalization Scheme

Abstract

The discourse on the meaningfulness of Africans has taken various dimensions over the decades, especially as it has to do with asserting that Africans had her civilizations, and so were inherently dignified people. One of these dimensions is African Philosophy where lots of African scholars have invested their time and mind on examining the African universe and bringing forth various descriptions of the African life. And in line with this, some schools of thought in African Philosophy have developed. It seems to me that these schools may not be thorough and principle-based; they appear to have been fuelled by sentiments and ego-protection principle. How valid and sound are these schools of thoughts? Do these schools exhaust all there is to African Philosophy in the present? In this paper, the researcher thinks that the various schools of African Philosophy were not well-founded, and that there still exists another school of thought deducible from the various contributions of contemporary scholars in African thought; it also demonstrates that even this school of thought is an exercise in contradiction to the aspirations of these scholars in particular and of Africans in general.