Southall on Karp and Masolo

Philosophy is the love of wisdom. The Greek society within which philosophy first emerged was one in which the basic chores were carried out by slaves. Free citizens had the possibility, if they wished, of devoting themselves to reflection about those ultimate questions which have generally come to be accepted as the concerns of philosophy. As none of the indigenous peoples of Africa South of the Sahara lived in either class structured or slave based societies, this seems an adequate explanation of why philosophy never became institutionalized in traditional African society.

The formula of African philosophy “as cultural inquiry” has allowed scholars, Africans and Africanists, to approach the problem by asking what consideration African societies gave to the major concerns of philosophy: explanations of the order of the cosmos; the nature of human personality; the significance of death for the human species; whether humanity is subject to any overarching destiny, and how this is related to moral responsibility; what are the criteria of goodness, for individuals and communities; what is the role of supreme beings, spirits and ancestors, in relation to morality and its enforcement.

Philosphical affinities have been discerned in the linguistic structures and speech of the Eastern and Southern Bantu peoples, and in the accounts of the beginnings of things among many African peoples, especially some of the more elaborate societies of West Africa, such as the Yoruba of Ile-Ife and the Dogon. Nobody seems to have tackled the West African multiple conceptions of the self. It is suggested that there is an almost universal African belief in a “hierarchy of existents”: at the top a supreme being postulated to account for the orderliness of phenomena and to hold humans to account for their moral disorderliness. Below this are various powers and purposes, which may be tapped by humans.

This universality is limited only by rare cases, such as the Luo of Kenya written of by Okot p’Bitek, as having no conception of a supreme being. Fundamental problems of the translation of thought assail us everywhere. How are we to define ‘supreme’ and ‘ being’? Having had long acquaintance with the congeries of Lwo peoples of which the Luo are one, I am deeply intrigued. In the group I have known best over many decades, appears the concept of JOK, cognate with the Luo JOK. As these Nilotic languages do not have grammatical gender, nothing can be stated of the gender of JOK. JOK is not female or male, but does have a plural JOGI. The moral qualities of JOK are ambiguous. Many of JOK’s associations are unquestionably good. All guardian spirits of kingdoms are JOK, qualified by particular names.. More dubious is the fact that with the addition of a personal pronoun, - JAJOK pl. JOJOGI, (cf. P.107, LAJOK) the significance is witch or sorcerer. But the moral qualities of witches and sorcerers and their place in the moral structure of thought, is far less clearcut among the Lwo peoples than it might seem in English. It is indeed a problem for African philosophy. Is JOK a supreme being? It would be a foolhardy assertion, but there is no other candidate. Is JOK a creator deity? The form Jokocwiyo, JOK is creating, does occur, as a personal name, but this phoneme is uncontextualised. Luo philosophers could pursue this.

The hypothesis has been propounded that the “African mind” is puzzled by the order of phenomena more than by their sheer existence, ‘perhaps due to the strongly empirical strain of much African cosmogonic thinking.’ Traditional African cultures did not speculate on the relations of the heavenly bodies, but they did react strongly to eclipses.

One of the most superbly African instances of philosophical expression must be the “drum stanzas” of the Akan of Ghana, versified aphorisms conveyed in the compressed expression of “talking drums”. Some of the most profound metaphysical ideas of the Akan are expressed in these drum “texts”.(Wiredu, 1997: 168)

I do not enjoy the spectacle of highly intelligent African scholars wriggling and squirming to arrive at a satisfactory...