CAN PHILOSOPHY SAVE AFRICA?

Abstract

Africa in contemporary times has become the sick child of the world; the prisoner, victim, and captive of the prevailing world order. Expectedly therefore, African scholarship, particularly in the humanities, has consisted, in the main, in liberation efforts and struggles. The relevance of each discipline and scholar has thereby become measurable by the extent of its correlation with the liberation struggle indices. Philosophy, whose very nature predisposes it to evaluation and selfevaluation, has had more cause than any other discipline to visit and revisit this question of relevance to the liberation struggle mandate. One of the recurring questions of relevance is the contribution of philosophy to the salvation or development of Africa. In this paper, we return to this inquiry with an analytic method and disposition to query the what and the how of the claims of African philosophy and philosophers to proffer viable solutions to the predicament of Africa. The paper concludes that philosophy can save Africa, but such a philosophy must be a transvalued philosophy which combines profound and critical thinking with profound humanity.