Philosophy Now Forum

For years debate has raged among African philosophers: does Africa have a distinct philosophical tradition, and if so, what is its nature? Rick Lewis asked Emmanuel Eze, who though based in the United States is a leading figure on the African philosophical scene.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/23/African_Philosophy

My favourite philosopher is David Benatar, head of the philosophy department at the University of Cape Town. Does that count?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Benatar

What a daft idea. Africa is a fucking continent including all Arab philosophy, White settlers and a bewildering range of "tribal" wisdom.
How could that have any kind of unity into which it could be called "A" tradition?

Asking the question is inherently tribal/racial/groupist nonsense.
Philosophy has to be universal or it is nothing.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:What a daft idea. Africa is a fucking continent including all Arab philosophy, White settlers and a bewildering range of "tribal" wisdom.
How could that have any kind of unity into which it could be called "A" tradition?

Asking the question is inherently tribal/racial/groupist nonsense.
Philosophy has to be universal or it is nothing.

That's that then,

Harbal wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:What a daft idea. Africa is a fucking continent including all Arab philosophy, White settlers and a bewildering range of "tribal" wisdom.
How could that have any kind of unity into which it could be called "A" tradition?

Asking the question is inherently tribal/racial/groupist nonsense.
Philosophy has to be universal or it is nothing.

That's that then,

Well, in a sense he's right about this. That's why I asked if my white philosopher counted, because the article is politically correct and devisive.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:What a daft idea. Africa is a fucking continent including all Arab philosophy, White settlers and a bewildering range of "tribal" wisdom.
How could that have any kind of unity into which it could be called "A" tradition?

Asking the question is inherently tribal/racial/groupist nonsense.
Philosophy has to be universal or it is nothing.

Very true, if Philosophy is not universal its basically useless.

Jeina Johnson wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:What a daft idea. Africa is a fucking continent including all Arab philosophy, White settlers and a bewildering range of "tribal" wisdom.
How could that have any kind of unity into which it could be called "A" tradition?

Asking the question is inherently tribal/racial/groupist nonsense.
Philosophy has to be universal or it is nothing.

Very true, if Philosophy is not universal its basically useless.

Scientists say that folks naturally organize, worldwide, into groups that numerically and physically max out at about 150 individuals. That could be the absolute universe of philosophical bedrock required by the Hobbesian assertion.

I think a connection can be made between call and response music, chanting, and the philosophy of group mind that can be found in groups of folks facing life and death situations anywhere in the world, while they physically harmonize the call and response with elemental forces to just get along, by relying on mutual cooperation of individuals within the group, where each one exists within a defined role.

PC warning, religious frame of reference.
Call and response.
How Long? Not Long!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAYITODNvlM

Philosophy really shouldn't be considered a thing anyway. It's a rigorous reasoning process (or should be thus).

Dalek Prime wrote:Philosophy really shouldn't be considered a thing anyway. It's a rigorous reasoning process (or should be thus).

"rigorous"? That doesn't sound like much fun.

Didn't see the article, Phil. I only get a few free views of PN articles a month and need to pick and choose.

Walker wrote:Scientists say that folks naturally organize, worldwide, into groups that numerically and physically max out at about 150 individuals.

That's really interesting. The other day I saw a documentary about a huge tribe of chimps who were carrying on a lot like big groups of humans, ie. dominating and slaughtering the competition and maintaining a rigorously defended, and expanding, territory. The chimps treated each other with gentleness but they were vicious with all outsiders.

The group was increasingly outstripping the expected group size of around 100. It grew up to around 200, when the edifice started to break. The first sign was chimps increasingly treating other group members as if they were outsiders. I didn't find out the final upshot (probably extinction) but the feeling was that increasing in-group hostilities and refusal to cooperate would splinter the group, which would then of course forfeit their dominance.

Weird. If we replaced 100 and 200 with 200m and 300m I could just about be describing the US's trajectory.

Greta wrote:Didn't see the article, Phil. I only get a few free views of PN articles a month and need to pick and choose.

Walker wrote:Scientists say that folks naturally organize, worldwide, into groups that numerically and physically max out at about 150 individuals.

That's really interesting. The other day I saw a documentary about a huge tribe of chimps who were carrying on a lot like big groups of humans, ie. dominating and slaughtering the competition and maintaining a rigorously defended, and expanding, territory. The chimps treated each other with gentleness but they were vicious with all outsiders.

The group was increasingly outstripping the expected group size of around 100. It grew up to around 200, when the edifice started to break. The first sign was chimps increasingly treating other group members as if they were outsiders. I didn't find out the final upshot (probably extinction) but the feeling was that increasing in-group hostilities and refusal to cooperate would splinter the group, which would then of course forfeit their dominance.

Weird. If we replaced 100 and 200 with 200m and 300m I could just about be describing the US's trajectory.

I wonder if that was the Gombe chimps. They can't be judged as being typical of all chimps, since they were interfered with by humans, causing them to become competitive and violent.

If philosophy must be universal I'm not sure why people on philosophy forums spend so much time talking about politics and minority sexuality. Personally, I prefer to think about life, consciousness, technology, the power of imagination, the Earth and the cosmos etc to the internal wrangling of people. I don't care if it's philosophy, science or something else - the subject matter is all that matters, not the category IMO.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:I wonder if that was the Gombe chimps. They can't be judged as being typical of all chimps, since they were interfered with by humans, causing them to become competitive and violent.

I think so. They had a long term dominant male the researchers named Bartok who was atypical in that he wasn't especially big and was rarely mean or aggressive - just that he was almost universally popular in the clan with all of the biggest, meanest chips supporting him rather than trying to take over. Seemingly a good leader who treats his other group members well, so they are happy and not inclined to rock the boat. This leadership style seemingly was the reason why the group became so large.

The Holocene is at a point where human interference can be considered a natural pressure like adverse climactic, geological or microbial conditions - an ever-possible threat. We will never know how they may have assembled themselves and developed without having this other ape species utterly dominating them. On the plus side, they at least lasted longer other species in Homo line, being just different enough from Sapiens to survive in temporarily safe niches of the shrinking wild.

Jeina Johnson wrote:[Very true, if Philosophy is not universal its basically useless.

But its not universal. It is a haphazard collation of various paradigms.

Dalek Prime wrote:Philosophy really shouldn't be considered a thing anyway. It's a rigorous reasoning process (or should be thus).

And this is an example of a viewpoint from a particular paradigm.

A_Seagull wrote:

Dalek Prime wrote:Philosophy really shouldn't be considered a thing anyway. It's a rigorous reasoning process (or should be thus).

And this is an example of a viewpoint from a particular paradigm.

Specify the paradigm please. If it's particular, that should be no issue.