AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY AND INNOVATIVE TRENDS AND ADVANCES: A CRITICAL INQUIRY

Abstract

African philosophy has now joined in the innovative trends and advances in global philosophical thought. But there has been question on whether African philosophical trends and advances are in consonance with general philosophical principles. This paper, using the method of critical analysis, examines African philosophy, its innovative trends and advances in order to determine their congruence with the form and structure of philosophy. The study acknowledges some positive innovative trends and advances in African philosophy. But the study exposes the ambiguity and irrationality surrounding some African philosophical innovative trends and advances. Consequently, this paper determines how these innovative trends and advances in African philosophy can remain consistent with and fit into global philosophical principles. Along this lane, it analytically contends that African philosophical innovative trends and advances still lack originality and essential philosophical qualities. This is as there are abstractions largely borrowed from Western philosophical current and elsewhere that are brought to bear in these trends and advances. This is, too, as African philosophy is not objectively a fierce critique and protector of the African world. The paper, therefore, concludes that African philosophy will be truly African and philosophical when its nature, structure, form, meaning and methods are genuinely African and objectively critical.